He left before she could answer. She didn't chase him. She was learning, slowly, which battles could be won by patience and which only deepened by pushing.
The relatives came next, circling like they'd smelled something. Vincent's cousin, Mr. Reginald Ashby, arrived under the pretense of a social call and stayed long enough to corner Victoria in the library.
"You understand, of course, that the children's inheritances are entailed quite specifically," he said, turning a glass of Vincent's brandy in his hand he hadn't been offered. "Should anything happen to Vincent before the boys come of age, the estate's management would fall to a trustee. Myself, as it happens."
"Why are you telling me this, Mr. Ashby?"
"Merely so you understand your position clearly. You're not their mother. Not by blood, not by law beyond a signature. If you're hoping to secure yourself a comfortable widow's portion—"
"I'm not hoping for anything but their well-being."
He smiled like he didn't believe a word of it.
"How fortunate, then, that it costs you nothing to say so."
She told Vincent that night. His jaw tightened in a way she was beginning to recognize.
"Ashby's wanted control of this estate since before my first wife died. Ignore him."
"He's not wrong that I have no real claim here, Vincent."
"You have my name." He said it simply, like it settled something.
It didn't. Not entirely. But it was the first time he'd said anything that sounded like he meant to keep her.
The rumors arrived through Charlotte and Beatrice's governess, who heard them at a tea and repeated them at supper without thinking, the way servants and children sometimes did.
"They're saying in town," the governess offered, oblivious to the room going quiet, "that Her Grace trapped His Grace into marriage. That she claimed to be with child to secure the match, then lost it conveniently once the ring was on."
Victoria set down her fork.
"Oh, that's not true. Of course not, Your Grace," the governess said too quickly, already realizing her mistake.
But the twins were staring now, something calculating behind their matching faces. And Victoria understood the rumor had already done its damage, not because anyone truly believed it, but because it gave the children one more reason to keep their distance.
Then Edmund came back. He arrived at Lockwood House on a Sunday, uninvited, his new wife absent, his expression carrying the particular confidence of a man who believed himself owed an audience.
"Victoria. You look well. Surprising, given the circumstances."
"What do you want, Edmund?"
"To extend my congratulations. A duke, no less. Quite the improvement from being cast off." His eyes swept the hall with open envy. "Though I imagine it's lonely, being married for your usefulness rather than your heart."
"I know that particular arrangement rather well. You proposed that arrangement first."
"And you're living in a bigger house because of it." He smiled, thin and humorless. "I only came to say, should this collapse, as I suspect it will, you needn't think there's anywhere left to fall but further."
Vincent's voice came from the stairwell, cold and final.
"I think you've said quite enough, Mr. Hale."
Edmund startled, hadn't realized he was being watched. He left without another word, but the visit lingered in the house like smoke that wouldn't clear.
That night, Victoria stood in the nursery doorway and watched Thomas sleep, his small hand still curled around the wooden horse she'd mended for him. One ally. One small, fragile foothold in a house full of people who wanted her gone. Edward's resentment, Ashby's greed, the rumors, Edmund's cruelty, all of it pressing in at once.
She thought of leaving. The thought arrived and left quickly, unwelcome. She had been pushed out of one family already. She would not be pushed out of this one without a fight, even if for now the only soldier on her side was six years old and didn't yet know what a war looked like.
The letter from her parents arrived first, and it should have surprised her less than it did.
Victoria,
We have heard of your marriage and wish to reconcile. A duchess in the family changes things. Your father has business interests that would benefit from connection to Lockwood. We trust you will not hold the past against us.
Mother.
No apology. Not one word of it. Just an invitation back into a family that had only ever wanted her when she was useful. Victoria read it twice, then set it down with hands that didn't shake nearly as much as she expected.
The second visitor was harder to dismiss. Lord Camden was a widower, kind-eyed, nearer fifty than forty, with three grown daughters, and a reputation for decency that even London's gossips couldn't dent. He called on Lockwood House under the guise of business with Vincent, but found a moment alone with Victoria in the garden, and didn't waste it.
"Forgive my directness, Your Grace. I know your marriage was arranged, practical. I've heard enough whispers to understand it isn't a love match." He paused, choosing his words with care. "I have admired you since before your scandal. I admire you more since. If circumstances were ever different, though an annulment is not unheard of in a marriage so new and so plainly one of convenience, I could offer you a home built on rather more than usefulness."
Victoria looked at him for a long moment. Three months ago, this offer would have been salvation.
"You're a good man, Lord Camden."
"That sounds like the beginning of a refusal."
"It is." She said it gently, but without hesitation. "I have five children in that house who are only just beginning to let me stay. I won't undo that for comfort."
"Even children who aren't yours by blood?"
"They're mine by every measure that matters to me now."
He studied her, something like respect settling over the disappointment in his face.