Once and Always Read online

  Victoria’s hand flew self-consciously to her bare throat. She did not have any emeralds. “I think you look very nice, too,” she said, admiring the way his expensively tailored dark blue jacket clung to his splendid shoulders. His face was so tanned, his hair so dark, that his white shirt and neckcloth stood out in dazzling contrast. “You’re very handsome,” she said wistfully.

  A glimmer of a startled smile appeared at his lips. “Thank you,” he said, visibly taken aback.

  “You’re welcome,” Victoria replied and, because she thought he seemed pleased by her compliment to his looks, she seized on that as an acceptable topic of conversation. “When I first saw you, I thought you were frightening-looking, did you know that? Of course, it was nearly dark and I was nervous, but—well—you’re so huge that it was frightening.”

  Jason choked on his wine. “To what are you referring?”

  “To our first meeting,” Victoria clarified innocently. “Remember—I was outside in the sunlight, holding that piglet, which I gave to the farmer, and then you dragged me inside the house and it was dark compared to outdoors—”

  Jason stood up abruptly. “I’m sorry I treated you uncivilly. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll spend the evening doing some work.”

  “No,” Victoria said hastily, also standing up, “please don’t work. Let’s do something else—something we can do together. Something you’d like.”

  Jason’s heart slammed into his ribs. He gazed down at her flushed cheeks and saw the invitation in her imploring blue eyes. Hope and disbelief collided in his chest, exploding, as he laid his hand tenderly against her flushed cheek, slowly running it back, smoothing her heavy silken hair.

  Victoria trembled with pleasure because he was finally treating her with warmth. She should have tried to draw him out days ago, rather than suffering in silence. “We could play chess if you like,” she said happily. “I’m not very good at it, but if you have cards—”

  His hand jerked away from her, and his face became a closed mask. “Excuse me, Victoria. I have work to do.” He moved around her and disappeared into his study, where he remained for the rest of the evening.

  Victoria’s heart sank with bewildered disappointment, and she spent the evening trying to read. By bedtime, she was absolutely resolved not to let him fall back into their former pattern of being polite strangers, no matter what it took to change things. She remembered the way he had looked at her just before she suggested playing chess—it was the same way he looked at her before he kissed her. Her body had recognized it instantly, turning warm and shaky in that unexplainable way it always did when Jason touched her. He may have wanted to kiss her, rather than play chess. Dear God, he may have wanted to do that awful thing to her again—

  Victoria shuddered at the thought, but she was willing to do even that if harmony could be restored. Her stomach turned over at the thought of Jason fondling her when she was naked, studying her body in that awful, detached way as he’d done on their wedding night. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so terrible if he’d been nice to her while he did it—nice in the way he was when he kissed her.

  She waited in her room until she heard Jason moving about in his, then put on a turquoise satin dressing robe trimmed with wide strips of beige lace at the hem and full sleeves. She opened the connecting door to Jason’s suite, which had been rehung—minus its lock—and walked in. “My lor—Jason,” she said abruptly.

  He was shrugging out of his shirt, his chest almost completely exposed, and his head snapped up.

  “I’d like to talk to you,” she began firmly.

  “Get out of here, Victoria,” he said with icy annoyance.

  “But—”

  “I do not want to talk,” he bit out sarcastically. “I do not want to play chess. I do not want to play cards.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “I want you out of here. Is that clear enough?”

  “I’d say it’s very clear,” she replied with unbending dignity. “I won’t bother you again.” She walked back into her room and closed the door, but she was still angrily determined to make her marriage happy and solid. She didn’t understand what he expected from her. Most particularly she did not understand him. But she knew someone who did. Jason was thirty, much older and more worldly than she, but Captain Farrell was older than Jason, and he would be able to advise her about what to do next.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  VICTORIA WALKED DETERMINEDLY DOWN TO the stables the next morning and waited while a horse was saddled for her. Her new black riding habit was beautifully cut, with a tight, fitted jacket that accentuated her full breasts and tiny waist. The snowy white stock of her shirt set off her vivid coloring and high cheekbones, and her titian hair was caught up at the nape in an elegant chignon. The chignon made her feel older and more sophisticated; it bolstered her flagging confidence.

  She waited at the stables, idly tapping her riding crop against her leg; then she smiled brightly at the groom who led out a prancing gelding, its ebony coat shimmering like satin.

  Victoria gazed in admiring wonder at the magnificent horse. “He’s beautiful, John. What’s his name?”

  “This here’s Matador,” the groom said. “He’s from Spain. His lordship picked him for you to ride until your new horse gets here in a few weeks.”

  Jason had bought her a horse, Victoria realized as the groom gave her a leg up into the saddle. She couldn’t imagine why Jason had felt the need to buy another horse for her when his stable reportedly housed the finest horseflesh in England; still, it was a generous thing for him to do, and perfectly typical of the man not to bother mentioning it.

  She slowed Matador to a walk as they turned up the steep, winding lane that led to Captain Farrell’s house and breathed a sigh of relief when the Captain stepped out onto the porch to help her down from the sidesaddle. “Thank you,” she said when her feet were safely on the ground. “I was hoping you’d be here.”

  Captain Farrell grinned at her. “I intended to ride over to Wakefield today, to see for myself how you and Jason were coming along.”

  “In that case,” Victoria said with a sad smile, “it’s just as well you didn’t put yourself to the trouble.”

  “No improvement?” he said in surprise, ushering her into his house. He filled a kettle with water for tea and put it over the fire.

  Victoria sat down and morosely shook her head. “If anything, things are worse. Well, not worse, exactly. At least Jason stayed home last night instead of going to London and visiting his, er . . . well, you know what I mean,” she said. She hadn’t planned on such an intimate topic. She only wanted to discuss Jason’s mood, not their most personal relationship.

  Captain Farrell took two cups from a shelf and glanced over his shoulder, his expression perplexed. “No, I don’t. What do you mean?”

  Victoria gave him an acutely uneasy look.

  “Out with it, child. I confided in you. You must know you can confide in me. Who else can you talk to?”

  “No one,” Victoria said miserably.

  “If what you’re trying to say is as difficult as that, suppose you think of me as your father—or Jason’s father.”

  “You aren’t either one. And I’m not certain I could tell my own father what you’re asking.”

  Captain Farrell put the teacups down and turned slowly, watching her across the room. “Do you know the only thing I dislike about the sea?” When she shook her head, he said, “The solitude of my cabin. Sometimes I enjoy it. But when I’m worried about something—like a bad storm I can feel brewing—there’s no one I can confide my fears to. I can’t let my men know I’m afraid or they’ll panic. And so I have to keep it bottled up inside of me, where the fear grows all out of proportion. Sometimes I’d be out there and I’d get a feeling my wife was ill or in peril, and the feeling would haunt me because there was no one there to reassure me that I was being foolish. If you can’t talk to Jason and you won’t talk to me, then you’ll never