Lifting her head, Victoria stared dubiously at him. Then she nodded.

“Thank you,” he said with a ghost of a smile.

Chapter Seventeen

In the weeks that followed, Victoria experienced the full impact of Andrew’s defection. At first she was hurt, then she was angry, and finally she felt a dull, aching sense of loss. But with strength and determination, she made herself come to grips with his betrayal and face the painful knowledge that her former life was permanently over. She learned how to cry lonely, private tears for all she had left behind—and then put on her best gown and her brightest smile for her friends and acquaintances.

She managed to keep her emotions well hidden from all but Jason and Caroline Collingwood, who both came to her aid in different ways—Caroline by keeping Victoria busy with a ceaseless round of social activities, and Jason by escorting her to almost all of them.

For the most part, he treated her like a patronizing older brother, escorting her to parties, the theater, the opera, and then, once there, leaving her to enjoy her own friends while he spent the evening with his. He was watchful, though, and protective—ready to swoop down and run off any beau he disapproved of. And he disapproved of several. To Victoria, who was now aware of his reputation as a shocking libertine, it was rather funny to watch Jason turn the icy blast of his gaze on some overly avid admirer and stare the unfortunate gentleman into mumbled apologies and a hasty retreat.

To the rest of the ton, the Marquess of Wakefield’s behavior was not only amusing, it was odd, and even a trifle suspect. No one believed that the couple intended to marry—not when Jason Fielding continued to welcome Lady Victoria’s beaux into his home and to state repeatedly that their betrothal wasn’t actually finalized. Because of those things, and because their betrothal had been announced before the countess ever set foot in England, it was generally believed the betrothal had been arranged prematurely by the ailing duke (who was openly fond of both of them) and that the couple was merely keeping up the pretense of being betrothed for his sake.

Now, however, that theory was beginning to be supplanted by a less kind one. From the very beginning, there had been a few sticklers who had voiced objections to Victoria’s living arrangement, but because she had seemed such a sweet girl and because Lord Fielding had shown her no real partiality, no one else had listened to their objections. However, as the number of Jason’s public appearances with Victoria increased, so did the gossip that the notorious Lord Fielding had decided to make a conquest of her—if he hadn’t already.

Some of the most vicious gossips even went so far as to intimate that the betrothal was nothing but a convenient disguise for a licentious liaison being carried on right beneath poor Miss Flossie Wilson’s nose. This piece of slander was repeated, but very little credited, for the simple reason that, although Lord Fielding frequently acted as her escort, he did not behave in a proprietary, loverlike way. Moreover, Lady Victoria had acquired a great many staunch defenders, including Countess Collingwood and her influential husband, both of whom took extreme personal offense whenever anyone dared breathe a word of criticism about Countess Langston.

Victoria was not unaware of the curiosity her relationship with Jason was generating, nor was she blind to the fact that many among the ton seemed to mistrust him. As the strangeness of her elegant new acquaintances wore off, she became much more alert to the subtle nuances of expression that crossed people’s faces whenever Jason was nearby. They were suspicious of him, wary, alert. At first she thought she was only imagining the way people stiffened in his presence and became more formal, but it was not her imagination. Sometimes she heard things—snatches of whispered gossip, a word here and there—that had an undertone of malice or at least of disapproval.

Caroline had warned her that people were fearful and mistrustful of him. One night Dorothy tried to warn her too.

“Tory, Tory, it is you!” Dorothy said, bursting through a crowd of people surrounding Victoria outside Lord and Lady Potham’s house, where there was a ball under way.

Victoria, who hadn’t seen Dorothy since they left the ship, gazed at her with misty fondness as Dorothy enfolded her in a tight, protective hug. “Where have you been!” Victoria chided fondly. “You write so seldom, I thought you were still ‘rusticating’ in the country.”

“Grandmama and I returned to London three days past,” she explained quickly. “I would have come to see you straightaway, but Grandmama doesn’t want me to have more than the slightest contact with you. I’ve been watching for you everywhere I go. But never mind about that. I haven’t much time. My chaperone will be looking for me any moment. I told her I thought I saw a friend of Grandmama’s and wished to convey a message to her.” She threw an apprehensive look over her shoulder, too worried about her chaperone to notice the way Victoria’s young admirers were curiously studying her. “Oh, Tory, I’ve been beside myself with worry! I know Andrew did a wretched thing to you, but you mustn’t let yourself think of marrying Wakefield! You can’t marry that man. You can’t! No one likes him, you must know it. I heard Lady Faulklyn—Grandmama’s companion—talking to Grandmama about him, and do you know what Lady F said?”

Victoria turned her shoulder to their avidly interested audience. “Dorothy, Lord Fielding has been very kind to me. Don’t ask me to listen to unpleasant gossip, because I won’t. Instead, let me introduce you to—”

“Not now!” Dorothy said desperately, too distraught to care about anything else. She tried to whisper, but it was impossible to do so and still be heard above the din, so she was forced to speak more loudly. “Do you know the kinds of things people say about Wakefield? Lady Faulklyn said he wouldn’t even be received if it weren’t for his being a Fielding. His reputation is beneath reproach. He uses women for his own nefarious ends and then turns his back on them! People are afraid of him and you should be too! They say—” She broke off as an aging lady climbed down from a carriage that was waiting in the street and wended her way through the crowd, obviously in search of someone. “I have to leave. That’s Lady F.”

Dorothy rushed away to head off the old woman and Victoria watched them climb back into the carriage.

Beside her, Mr. Warren helped himself to a pinch of snuff. “The young lady is quite right, you know,” he drawled.

Torn from her lonely thoughts of Dorothy, Victoria glanced with distaste at the foppish young man, who looked as if he would jump in fright at his own shadow, then at the apprehensive faces of her other beaux, who had obviously overheard much of what Dorothy said.