Once and Always (33 page)

Tears of mirth and anxiety gathered in Victoria’s eyes and her shoulders shook with helpless laughter. “Thank you, Miss Flossie,” she giggled. “You’ve been very reassuring.” Until now, Victoria hadn’t let herself worry about the intimacies of marriage to which Jason would be entitled and of which he would undoubtedly avail himself, since he wanted a son from her. Although she was the daughter of a physician, her father had meticulously ensured that her eyes were never exposed to the sight of a male patient’s anatomy below the waist. Still, Victoria was not completely ignorant of the mating process. Her family had kept a few chickens and she had witnessed the flapping of wings and squawking that accompanied the act, although exactly what was happening was impossible to tell. Moreover, she had always averted her eyes out of some peculiar need to allow them their privacy while they went about creating new chicks.

Once when she was fourteen, her father had been summoned to a farmer’s house to look after the farmer’s wife who was in labor. While Victoria was waiting for the baby to be born, she had wandered out to the small pasture where the horses were kept. There she had witnessed the frightening spectacle of a stallion mounting a mare. He had clamped his huge teeth viciously into the mare’s neck, holding her helpless while he did his worst to her, and the poor mare screamed in pain.

Visions of flapping wings, squawking hens, and terrified mares paraded across her mind, and Victoria shuddered.

“My dear girl, you look quite pale, and I don’t blame you,” Miss Flossie put in not at all helpfully. “However, I have been given to understand that once a wife has done her duty and produced an heir, a thoughtful husband may be depended upon to get himself a paramour and do
you-know
to her, leaving his wife in peace to enjoy the rest of her life.”

Victoria’s gaze skittered nervously to the window. “A paramour,” she breathed, knowing Jason already had one, and that he’d had a great many others in the past—all beautiful, according to what gossip she’d heard. As Victoria sat there, she began to rethink her earlier feelings toward the gentlemen of the
ton
and their mistresses. She had thought it perfidious of them to be married and still keep paramours, but perhaps it wasn’t that at all. It seemed more likely that, as Miss Flossie suggested, the gentlemen of the
ton
were more civilized, refined, and considerate of their wives.

Rather than using their wives to fulfill their baser desires, they simply found another woman to do so, set her up in a nice house with servants and beautiful gowns, and left their poor wives in peace. Yes, she decided sensibly, this was probably an ideal way of handling the matter. Certainly the ladies of the
ton
seemed to think so, and they would know far better than she herself.

“Thank you, Miss Flossie,” she said sincerely. “You’ve been very helpful and very kind.”

Miss Flossie beamed, her yellow curls bouncing beneath her little white lace cap. “Thank
you,
my dear girl. You’ve made Charles happier than I’ve ever seen him. And Jason, too, of course,” she added politely.

Victoria smiled, but she couldn’t quite accept the notion that she had made Jason truly happy.

Wandering back to her room, she sat down before the empty fireplace and forced herself to try to untangle her emotions and stop hiding from the facts. Tomorrow morning she was going to marry Jason. She wanted to make him happy—she wanted it so much she hardly knew how to deal with her own feelings. The fact that he had been married to a faithless woman evoked sympathy and compassion in her heart, not resentment—and an even greater desire to make up for all the unhappiness in his life.

Restlessly, Victoria got up and walked about the room, picking up the porcelain music box on her dressing table, then laying it down and walking over to the bed. She tried to tell herself she was marrying Jason because she had no choice, but as she sat down upon the bed, she admitted that wasn’t entirely true. Part of her
wanted
to marry him. She loved his looks and his smile and his dry sense of humor. She loved the brisk authority in his deep voice and the confidence in his long, athletic strides. She loved the way his eyes gleamed when he laughed at her and the way they smoldered when he kissed her. She loved the lazy elegance with which he wore his clothes and the way his lips felt—

Victoria tore her thoughts from Jason’s lips and stared bleakly at the gold silk bed hangings. She loved many things about him—too many things. She was not a good judge of men; her experience with Andrew was proof of that. She had deceived herself into believing Andrew loved her, but she had no illusions about what Jason felt for her. He was attracted to her and he wanted a son from her. He liked her, too, Victoria knew, but beyond that, he felt nothing for her. She, on the other hand, was already in serious danger of falling in love with him. But he didn’t want her love. He’d told her that in the plainest possible terms.

For weeks she’d been trying to convince herself that what she felt for Jason was gratitude and friendship, but she knew now it had already gone much deeper than that. Why else would she feel this burning need to make him happy and make him love her? Why else would she have experienced such rage when Miss Flossie spoke of his wife’s public infidelities?

Fear raced through Victoria and she rubbed her damp palms against her lime-colored muslin gown. Tomorrow morning she was going to commit her entire life into the keeping of a man who didn’t want her love, a man who could use the tenderness she felt for him as a weapon to hurt her. Every instinct for self-preservation that Victoria possessed warned her not to marry him. Her father’s own words tolled through her mind, as they had been doing for days, warning her not to walk down that aisle tomorrow:
“Loving someone who doesn’t love you is hell!
. . .
Don’t ever let anyone convince you that you can be happy with someone who doesn’t love you. . . . Don’t ever love anyone more than they love you, Tory.
...”

Victoria bent her head, her hair falling forward in a curtain around her tense face, her hands clenched into fists. Her mind warned her not to marry him, that he would make her miserable—but her heart begged her to gamble everything on him, to reach for the happiness just beyond her grasp.

Her mind told her to run, but her heart begged her not to be a coward.

Northrup tapped upon her door, his voice vibrating with disapproval. “Excuse me, Lady Victoria,” he said from the other side of her closed door. “There is a distraught, disheveled young lady downstairs, without escort or bonnet, who arrived in a hired carriage, but who claims to be ... ahem . . . your sister? I am not aware of any young female relations of yours here in London, so naturally I suggested she leave, however—”

“Dorothy?” Victoria burst out, pulling open the door and raking her hair off her forehead. “Where is she?” Victoria said, her face radiant.

“I put her in the small salon at the front,” Northrup said with visible dismay. “But if she is your sister, of course, I shall show her into the more comfortable yellow salon and . . .”

His voice trailed off as Victoria raced around the corner and down the stairs.

“Tory!” Dorothy burst out, wrapping Victoria in a fierce, protective hug, her words tumbling over themselves, her voice shaking with laughter and tears. “You should have
seen
the look your butler gave my hired carriage—it was nearly as bad as the look he gave
me.”

“Why didn’t you answer my last letter?” Victoria said, hugging her tightly.

“Because I only returned from Bath today. Tomorrow I’m being sent to France for two months to acquire what Grand-mama calls ‘polish.’ She’ll be mad as fire if she discovers I’ve been here, but I can’t just stand by and let you marry that man. Tory, what have they done to make you agree? Have they beaten you or starved you or—”

“Nothing of the sort,” Victoria said, smiling and smoothing her sister’s golden hair. “I want to marry him.”

“I don’t believe you. You’re only trying to fool me so I won’t worry. . . .”

Jason leaned back in his carriage, idly slapping his gloves upon his knee as he gazed out the window, watching the mansions parading past along the route to his house in Upper Brook Street. His wedding was tomorrow. . . .

Now that he had admitted to himself his desire for Victoria and made the decision to marry her, he wanted her with an urgency that was almost irrational. His growing need for her made him feel vulnerable and uneasy, for he knew from past experience how vicious, how treacherous, the “gentle sex” could be. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from wanting her any more than he could stifle his naive, boyish hope that they were going to make each other happy.

Life with her would never be placid, he thought with a wry smile. Victoria would amuse, frustrate, and defy him at every turn—he knew that as surely as he knew that she was marrying him only because she had no other choice. He knew it as surely as he knew that her virginity had already been given to Andrew.

The smile abruptly faded from his lips. He had hoped she would deny it the other afternoon; instead she had looked away and said, “I’m sorry.”

He had hated hearing the truth, but he had admired her for telling it to him. In his heart, he couldn’t blame Victoria for giving herself to Andrew, not when he could so easily understand how it had happened. He could well imagine how an innocent young girl, raised in the country, could have been convinced by the wealthiest man in the district that she was going to be his wife. Once Bainbridge convinced her of that, it probably hadn’t been too difficult to steal her virginity. Victoria was a warm, generous girl who would probably give herself to the man she truly loved as naturally as she gave her attention to the servants or her affection to Wolf.

After the dissolute life he himself had led, for him to condemn Victoria for surrendering her virginity to the man she loved would be the height of hypocrisy, and Jason despised hypocrites. Unfortunately, he also despised the thought of Victoria lying naked in another man’s arms. Andrew had taught her well, he thought tightly as the carriage drew up before #6 Upper Brook Street. He had taught her how to kiss a man and how to increase his ardor by pressing herself against him. . . .

Tearing his mind away from those painful thoughts, he alighted from the coach and strode up the steps. Victoria was over Andrew now, he told himself fiercely. She had forgotten about him in the past weeks.

He knocked on the door, feeling a little foolish for appearing on her doorstep on the night before their wedding. He had no reason for coming except to pleasure himself with the sight of her and, he hoped, to please her by telling her about the Indian pony he had arranged to have put on one of his ships from America. It was to be one of her wedding presents, but in truth he was absurdly eager to see her demonstrate her skill on it. He knew how beautiful she would look with her graceful body bent low over the horse’s neck, and her wondrous hair glinting in the sunlight. . . . “Good evening, Northrup. Where is Lady Victoria?”

“In the yellow salon, my lord,” Northrup replied. “With her sister.”

“Her sister?” Jason said, smiling with surprise and pleasure when Northrup nodded. “Evidently the old witch has lifted the restriction against Dorothy coming here,” he added, already starting down the hall. Glad to have this opportunity to meet the young sister Victoria had told him about, Jason opened the door to the yellow salon.

“I can’t bear it,” a young girl was weeping into her handkerchief. “I’m
glad
Grandmama won’t let me attend your wedding. I couldn’t stand to be there, watching you walk down the aisle, knowing you’re pretending he’s Andrew—”

“Evidently, I’ve arrived at an inconvenient time,” Jason drawled. The hope he had secretly cherished that Victoria actually wanted to marry him died a swift, painful death at the discovery that she needed to pretend he was Andrew before she could force herself to walk down the aisle.

“Jason!” Victoria said, whirling around in dismay as she realized he had overheard Dorothy’s foolish ramblings. Recovering her composure, she held out her hands to him and said with a gentle smile, “I’m so glad you’re here. Please come and show yourself to my sister.” Knowing there was no possible way to smooth things over with a compassionate lie, she tried to make him understand by telling him the truth. “Dorothy has overheard some condemning remarks made by my great-grandmother’s companion, Lady Faulklyn, and because of what she overheard, Dorothy has formed the most absurd impression that you are a cruel monster.” She bit her lip when Jason lifted a sardonic eyebrow at Dorothy and said absolutely nothing; then she bent over Dorothy. “Dorothy, will you please be reasonable and at least let me introduce Lord Fielding to you, so you can see for yourself that he is very nice?”

Unconvinced, Dorothy raised her gaze to the cold, implacable features of the man who loomed before her like a dark, angry giant, his arms crossed over his wide chest. Her eyes rounded and, without a word, she slowly stood up, but instead of curtsying, she glared at him. “Lord Fielding,” she said defiantly, “I don’t know whether you are ‘very nice’ or not. However, I warn you that if you ever dare to harm a hair on my sister’s head I shan’t scruple to—to shoot you! Do I make myself perfectly clear?” Her voice shook with angry fear, but she bravely held his cold green eyes with her own.

“Perfectly.”

“Then, since I can’t convince my sister to run away from you,” she finished, “I shall return to my great-grandmother’s house. Good evening.”

She walked out with Victoria at her heels. “Dorothy, how
could
you,” Victoria demanded miserably. “How could you be so rude?”

“Better he think I am rude than that he can abuse you without anyone exacting retribution.”

Victoria rolled her eyes and hugged her sister good-bye, then hastened back to the salon.

“I’m sorry,” she said abjectly to Jason, who was standing at the windows watching Dorothy’s carriage pull away.

Glancing over his shoulder at her, Jason raised his eyebrows. “Can she shoot?”