Once and Always Read online

  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.

  Angry contempt burst in her breast for the lot of them. Not one of them ever did an honest day’s work as Jason did. They were silly, shallow, overdressed manikins who relished hearing Jason criticized for the obvious reason that he was far wealthier than they, and far more desired by the ladies, despite his reputation.

  Her bright, flirtatious smile was belied by the dangerous sparkle in Victoria’s eyes as she said, “Why, Mr. Warren, are you afraid for my well-being?”

  “Yes, my lady, and I am not the only one.”

  “How utterly absurd!” Victoria scoffed. “If you’re interested in truth, rather than foolish gossip, I shall tell it to you. The truth is I came here, alone in the world, without close family or any fortune, a virtual dependent upon his grace and Lord Fielding. Now,” she continued with a fixed smile, “I want you to look at me very closely.”

  Genuine mirth bubbled in her as the foolish young man put his quizzing glass to his eye, following her instructions to the letter. “Do I look misused?” Victoria demanded impatiently. “Have I been murdered in my bed? No, sir, I have not! Instead, Lord Fielding has given me the comfort of his beautiful home and offered me the protection of his name. In all honesty, Mr. Warren, I believe many women in London secretly long to be ‘misused’ in just such a way and, from what I have observed, by exactly that man. Furthermore, I believe it is jealousy of him that gives birth to all this ridiculous gossip.”

  Mr. Warren flushed, and Victoria turned to the others and added flamboyantly, “If you knew Lord Fielding as I know him, you would discover that he is the very soul of kindness, consideration, refinement, and—and amiability!” she finished.

  Behind her, Jason’s laughter-tinged voice said, “My lady, in your attempt to whitewash my black reputation, you are making me sound like a dead bore, instead.”

  Victoria whirled around, her embarrassed gaze flying to his. “However,” he continued with a brief smile, “I will forgive you for it, if you will honor me with a dance?” Victoria placed her hand upon his proffered arm and walked into the crowded house beside him.

  The sense of proud, triumphant elation she felt for having got up the courage to speak out on Jason’s behalf began to fade when he silently took her in his arms on the crowded dance floor. She still knew very little about him, but she had learned from her own experience whenever she vainly tried to coax him into talking about himself that Jason valued his privacy. Uneasily, she wondered if he was annoyed with her for discussing him with others. When he continued to dance with her in silence, she glanced uncertainly into his thoughtful, heavy-lidded eyes. “Are you angry with me?” she asked. “For discussing you in public, I mean?”

  “Was it me you were discussing?” he countered with lifted brows. “I couldn’t tell from the description you were giving. Since when am I kind, considerate, refined, and amiable?”

  “You’re angry,” Victoria concluded on a sigh.

  A low chuckle rumbled in his chest and his arms tightened, drawing her close to his lean, muscular body. “I’m not angry,” he said in a husky, gentle voice. “I’m embarrassed.”

  “Embarrassed?” she echoed in surprise, studying the melting warmth in his jade eyes. “Why?”

  “For a man of my age, height, and wicked reputation, it’s a little embarrassing to have a tiny young woman trying to defend me against the world.”

  Mesmerized by the tenderness in his eyes, Victoria fought the absurd impulse to lay her cheek against his claret velvet jacket.

  * * *

  Word spread of Victoria’s public defense of Lord Fielding, whom she apparently admired but did not quite wish to wed, and the ton concluded that a marriage date might be imminent after all—a possibility that so distressed Victoria’s other suitors that they redoubled their efforts to please her. They vied with each other for her attention, they argued amongst themselves over her, and, in the end, Lord Crowley and Lord Wiltshire dueled over her.

  “She don’t want either of us,” young Lord Crowley angrily informed Lord Wiltshire late one afternoon as they rode away from the mansion on Upper Brook Street after a brief, unsatisfactory visit with Victoria.

  “Yes, she does,” Lord Wiltshire argued heatedly. “She’s shown me a particular partiality!”

  “You jackanapes! She thinks we’re dandified Englishmen, and she don’t like Englishmen,” he said sulkily. “She prefers colonial bumpkins! She ain’t as sweet as you think, she’s laughing at us behind her hand—”

  “That’s a lie!” his hot-blooded friend retorted.

  “Are you calling me a liar, Wiltshire?” Crow