Once and Always Read online

  Victoria abruptly decided ice blue was a lovely color to be married in.

  “Lord Fielding has excellent taste,” Madame continued, her thin brows raised over her bright, alert eyes. “Don’t you agree?”

  “Decidedly,” Victoria said, laughing, and she surrendered herself to the skilled ministrations of the dressmaker.

  Four hours later, when Madame finally released her and whisked her seamstresses off to the shop, Victoria was informed that Lady Caroline Collingwood was waiting for her in the gold salon.

  “Victoria,” her friend exclaimed, her pretty face anxious as she held out her hands, clasping Victoria’s. “Lord Fielding came to our house this morning to tell us about the wedding. I’m honored to be your matron of honor, which Lord Fielding said you wished me to be, but this is all so sudden—your marriage, I mean.”

  Victoria suppressed her surprised pleasure at the news that Jason had thoughtfully remembered she’d need an attendant and had stopped to see the Collingwoods.

  “I never suspected you were developing a lasting attachment to Lord Fielding,” Caroline continued, “and I can’t help wondering. You do wish to marry him, don’t you? You aren’t being, well, forced into it in any way?”

  “Only by fate,” Victoria said with a smile, sinking exhaustedly into a chair. She saw Caroline’s frown and hastily added, “I’m not being forced. It’s what I wish to do.”

  Caroline’s entire countenance brightened with relief and happiness. “I’m so glad—I’ve been hoping this would happen.” At Victoria’s dubious look, she explained, “In the past few weeks, I’ve come to know him better, and I quite agree with Robert, who told me that the things people think about Lord Fielding are the result of gossip started solely by one particularly spiteful, malicious woman. I doubt anyone would have believed all the rumors if Lord Fielding himself hadn’t been so aloof and uncommunicative. Of course, one doesn’t particularly like people who believe terrible things about one, does one? So he probably didn’t feel the slightest obligation to disabuse us. And as Robert said, Lord Fielding is a proud man, which would make it impossible for him to grovel in the face of adverse public opinion, particularly when it was so unfair!”

  Victoria stifled a giggle at her friend’s wholehearted endorsement of the man she had once feared and condemned, but it was typical of Caroline. Caroline refused to see any faults whatever in the people she liked, and she was conversely unwilling to admit there were any redeeming qualities in the people she didn’t. That quirk in her lively personality made her the most loyal of friends, however, and Victoria was deeply grateful to her for her unswerving friendship. “Thank you, Northrup,” she said as the butler came in carrying the tea tray.

  “I can’t think why I ever found him frightening,” Caroline said while Victoria poured the tea. Breathlessly eager to absolve Jason of any blame she might have put on him in the past, she continued, “I was wrong to let my imagination run away with my sense that way. I believe the reason I thought him frightening stemmed from the fact that he is so very tall and his hair is so black, which is perfectly absurd of me. Why, do you know what he said when he left us this morning?” she asked in a voice of intense gratification.

  “No,” Victoria said, smothering another smile at Caroline’s determination to elevate Jason from devil to saint. “What did he say?”

  “He said I have always reminded him of a pretty butterfly.”

  “How lovely,” Victoria declared sincerely.

  “Yes, it was, but not nearly as lovely as the way he described you.”

  “Me? How on earth did all this come up?”

  “The compliments, you mean?” When Victoria nodded, Caroline said, “I had just finished remarking on how happy I am that you are marrying an Englishman and staying here, so we can remain close friends. Lord Fielding laughed and said we complement each other perfectly, you and I, because I have always reminded him of a pretty butterfly, and you are like a wild flower that flourishes even in adversity and brightens up everyone’s lives. Wasn’t that utterly charming of him?”

  “Utterly,” Victoria agreed, feeling absurdly pleased.

  “I think he is far more in love with you than he lets on,” Caroline confided. “After all, he fought a duel for you.”

  By the time Caroline left, Victoria was half-convinced Jason actually cared for her, a belief that enabled her to be quite gay and positive the following morning, when a staggering procession of callers began arriving to wish her happy after learning of her impending marriage.

  Victoria was entertaining a group of young ladies who’d come to call on her for exactly that reason when the object of their romantic discussion strolled into the blue salon. The laughter trailed off into nervous, uncertain murmurs as the young ladies beheld the dangerously impressive figure of the unpredictable Marquess of Wakefield, garbed in a coal black riding jacket and snug black breeches that made him look overwhelmingly male. Unaware of his impact on these impressionable females, many of whom had cherished secret dreams of captivating him themselves, Jason favored them with a glinting smile. “Good morning, ladies,” he said; then he turned to Victoria and his smile became far more intimate. “Could you spare me a moment?”

  Excusing herself at once, Victoria followed him into his study.

  “I won’t keep you away from your friends long,” he promised, reaching into the pocket of his jacket. Without another word, he took her hand in his and slid a heavy ring onto her finger. Victoria gazed at the ring, which covered her finger all the way to her knuckle. A row of large sapphires was flanked by two rows of dazzling diamonds on both sides. “Jason, it’s beautiful,” she breathed. “Breathtakingly, incredibly, beautiful. Thank—”

  “Thank me with a kiss,” he reminded her softly, and when Victoria tipped her face up to his, his lips captured hers in a long, hungry, thorough kiss that drained her mind of thought and her body of all resistance. Shaken by his ardor and her body’s helpless response to it, Victoria stared into his smoky jade eyes, trying to understand why Jason’s kisses always had this shattering effect on her.

  His gaze dropped to her lips. “Next time, do you think you could find it in your heart to kiss me without being asked?” It was the thread of disappointed yearning Victoria thought she heard in his voice that melted her heart. He had offered himself as her husband; in return he asked for very little—only this. Leaning up on her toes, she slid her hands up along his hard chest and twined them around his neck, and then she covered his lips with hers. She felt a tremor run through his tall frame as she innocently brushed her lips back and forth over his, slowly exploring the warm curves of his mouth, learning the taste of him, while his parted lips began to move against hers in a wildly arousing kiss.

  Lost in the mounting turmoil of their kiss and unaware of the hardening pressure against her stomach, Victoria let her fingers slide into the soft hair at his nape while her body automatically fitted itself to his—and suddenly everything changed. Jason’s arms closed around her with stunning force, his mouth opening on hers with fierce hunger. He parted her lips, teasing her with his tongue until he coaxed her to touch her own tongue to his lips, and when she did, he gasped, pulling her even closer, his body taut with fiery need.

  When he finally lifted his head, he stared down at her with an odd expression of bemused self-mockery on his ruggedly chiseled features. “I should have given you diamonds and sapphires the other night, instead of pearls,” he commented. “But don’t kiss me like this again until after we’re married.”

  Victoria had been warned by her mother and by Miss Flossie that a gentleman could be carried away by his ardor, which would lead him to behave in an unspecified—but very unsuitable—way to the young lady who wrongly permitted him to lose his head. She realized instinctively that Jason was telling her he had been very close to losing his head. And she was feminine enough to feel a tiny twinge of satisfaction because her inexperienced kiss could so affect this very experienced man—especially since Andrew had neve