Once and Always Read online

  “And if I—I do what you say, then will he be happy with me?”

  “Yes,” Captain Farrell said gently, smiling. “And he’ll make you happy in return.”

  Victoria put down her untouched glass of whiskey. “I know little about marriage, less about being a wife, and absolutely nothing about seduction.”

  Captain Farrell looked at the exotic young beauty standing before him, and his shoulders shook with silent laughter. “I don’t think you’ll have to try very hard to seduce Jason, my dear. As soon as he realizes you want him in your bed, I feel certain he’ll be more than happy to oblige.”

  Victoria turned pink as roses, smiled weakly, and headed for the door.

  She rode home on Matador, so lost in thought that she was scarcely aware of the magnificent gelding’s progress. By the time she galloped to a stop in front of Wakefield Park, she was certain of at least one thing: she did not want Jason to have a marriage that left him as lonely as her father had been.

  Submitting to Jason in bed would not be such a terrible thing, especially if—at other times—he might kiss her again in that bold, intimate way of his, pressing his mouth to hers and doing those shocking things with his tongue that made her senses swim and her body hot and weak. Instead of thinking of new gowns, as Miss Flossie had suggested, when Jason was in her bed, she would think of the way he used to kiss her. Having come that far, she even admitted to herself that she had loved his kisses. A pity men didn’t do that sort of thing when they were in bed, she thought. It would have made the whole thing so much nicer. Evidently, kissing was done when one was out of bed, but in bed, men did what they’d had in mind all along.

  “I don’t care!” Victoria said with great determination as a groom ran out and helped her alight. She was resolved to endure anything to make Jason happy and restore their former closeness. According to Captain Farrell, all she had to do now was hint to Jason that she wanted to share her bed with him.

  She went into the house. “Is Lord Fielding at home?” she asked Northrup.

  “Yes, my lady,” he said, bowing. “He is in his study.”

  “Is he alone?”

  “Yes, my lady.” Northrup bowed again.

  Victoria thanked him and went down the hall. She opened the door to the study and quietly slipped inside. Jason was seated at his desk at the opposite end of the long room, his profile turned to her, a sheaf of papers at his elbow, another in his hand. Victoria looked at him, at the little boy who had risen from his squalid childhood and grown into a handsome, wealthy, powerful man. He had amassed a fortune and bought estates, forgiven his father, and housed an orphan from America. And he was still alone. Still working, still trying.

  “I love you,” she thought, and the unbidden thought nearly sent her to her knees. She had loved Andrew forever. But if that was true, why hadn’t she ever felt this driving desperation to make Andrew happy? She loved Jason, despite her father’s warning, despite Jason’s own warning that he didn’t want her love, only her body. How odd that Jason should have the very thing he didn’t want, and not what he did. How determined she was to make him want both.

  She crossed the room, her footsteps silenced by the thick Aubusson carpet, and went to stand behind his chair. “Why do you work so hard?” she asked softly.

  He jumped at the sound of her voice but did not turn around. “I enjoy working,” he said shortly. “Is there something you want? I’m very busy.”

  It was not an encouraging beginning, and for a split second Victoria actually considered saying, very bluntly, that she wanted him to take her to bed. But the truth was that she was not that bold, and not that eager to actually go upstairs either—particularly when he was in a mood that was even colder than the mood he’d been in on their wedding day. Hoping to improve his spirits, she said softly, “You must get horrid backaches, sitting all day like this.” She summoned all her courage and put her hands on his wide shoulders, intending to knead them with her fingers.

  Jason’s whole body stiffened the instant she touched him. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “I thought I would rub your shoulders.”

  “My shoulders are not in need of your tender ministrations, Victoria.”

  “Why are you snapping at me?” she asked, and went around to the front of his desk, watching his hand as it moved swiftly across the page, his handwriting bold and firm. When he ignored her, she perched on the side of his desk.

  Jason threw down his quill in disgust and leaned back in his chair, studying her. Her leg was beside his hand, swinging slightly as she read what he had been writing. Against his volition, his eyes moved upward over her breasts, riveting on the inviting curve of her lips. She had a mouth that begged to be kissed, and her eyelashes were so long they cast shadows on her cheeks. “Get off my desk and get out of here,” he snapped.

  “As you wish,” his wife said cheerfully, and stood up. “I just came in to say good-day. What would you like for dinner?”

  You, he thought. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

  “In that case, is there anything special you’d like for dessert?”

  The same thing I’d like for dinner, he thought. “No,” he said, fighting down the instantaneous, clamoring demands of his body.

  “You’re awfully easy to please,” she said teasingly, and reached out to trace the line of his straight eyebrows.

  Jason seized her hand in midair and held it away, his grip like iron. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he bit out.

  Victoria quailed inwardly, but she managed a light shrug. “There are always doors between us. I thought I’d open your study door and see what you were doing.”

  “There is more separating us than doors,” he retorted, dropping her hand.

  “I know,” she agreed sadly, looking down at him with melting blue eyes.

  Jason jerked his gaze from hers. “I am very busy,” he said curtly, and picked up his papers.

  “I can see that,” she said with an odd softness in her voice. “Much too busy for me right now.” She left quietly.

  At suppertime she walked into the drawing room wearing a peach chiffon gown that clung to every curve and hollow of her voluptuous body and was nearly transparent. Jason’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Did I pay for that?”

  Victoria saw his gaze rivet on the daringly low vee of the chiffon bodice, and smiled. “Of course you did. I don’t have any money.”

  “Don’t wear it out of the house. It’s indecent.”

  “I knew you’d like it!” she said with a chuckle, sensing instinctively that he liked it very much or his eyes wouldn’t have flared like that.

  Jason looked at her as if he couldn’t believe his ears, then turned to the crystal decanters on the table. “Would you like some sherry?”

  “Lord, no!” she said and laughed. “As you must already have guessed, wine does not agree with me. It makes me ill. It always has. Look what happened when I drank it on our wedding day.” Unaware of the importance of what she had just said, Victoria turned to examine a priceless Ming Dynasty vase reposing on a gilt table inlaid with marble, her mind turning over an idea. She decided to do it. “I’d like to go to London tomorrow,” she said, walking toward him.

  “Why?”

  She perched on the arm of the chair he had just sat in. “To spend your money, of course.”

  “I wasn’t aware I’d given you any,” he murmured, distracted by the sight of her thigh beside his chest. In the romantic candlelight, the sheer chiffon appeared to be translucent and flesh-colored.

  “I still have most of the money you’ve been giving me as an allowance all these weeks. Will you go to London with me? After I shop, we could see a play and stay at the townhouse.”

  “I have a meeting here, the morning after next.”

  “That’s even better,” she said without thinking. Alone for several hours in the coach, there would be ample time for lazy conversation. “We’ll come home together tomorrow night.”