Once and Always Read online

  Northrup’s face was a frozen mask, his voice a raw whisper. “Captain Farrell is waiting for you in the salon, my lord.”

  “What’s wrong with your voice?” Jason asked good-naturedly. “If your throat’s bothering you, mention it to Lady Victoria. She’s wonderful with things like that.”

  Northrup swallowed convulsively and said nothing.

  Tossing him a mildly curious look, Jason turned and strode briskly down the hall toward the salon. He threw open the doors, an eager smile on his face. “Hello, Mike, where is my wife?” He glanced around at the cheerful room with the little fire burning in the grate to ward off the chill, expecting her to materialize from a shadowy corner, but all he saw was Victoria’s cloak lying limply across the back of a chair, water dripping from its hem. “Forgive my poor manners, my friend,” he said to Mike Farrell, “but I haven’t seen Victoria in days. Let me go and find her, then we’ll all sit down and have a nice talk. She must be up—”

  “Jason,” Mike Farrell said tightly. “There’s been an accident—”

  The memory of another night like this one ripped agonizingly across Jason’s brain—a night when he had come home expecting to find his son, and Northrup had acted oddly; a night when Mike Farrell had been waiting for him in this very room. As if to banish the terror and pain already screaming through his body, he shook his head, backing away. “No!” he whispered, and then his voice rose to a tormented shout. “No, damn you! Don’t tell me that—!”

  “Jason—”

  “Don’t you dare tell me that!” he shouted in agony.

  Mike Farrell spoke, but he turned his head away from the unbearable torment on the other man’s ravaged face. “Her horse threw her off the ridge into the river, about four miles from here. O’Malley went in after her, but he couldn’t find her. He—”

  “Get out,” Jason whispered.

  “I’m sorry, Jason. Sorrier than I can say.”

  “Get out!”

  When Mike Farrell left, Jason stretched his hand toward Victoria’s cloak, his fingers slowly closing on the wet wool, pulling it toward him. The muscles at the base of his throat worked convulsively as he brought the sodden cloak to his chest, stroking it lovingly with his hand, and then he buried his face in it, rubbing it against his cheek. Waves of agonizing pain exploded through his entire being, and the tears he had thought he was incapable of shedding fell from his eyes. “No,” he sobbed in demented anguish. And then he screamed it.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  “HERE, NOW, MY DEAR,” THE Duchess of Claremont said, patting her great-granddaughter’s shoulder. “It breaks my heart to see you looking so wretched.”

  Victoria bit her lip, staring out of the window at the manicured lawns stretching out before her, and said nothing.

  “I can scarcely believe your husband hasn’t come here yet to apologize for the outrageous deceit he and Atherton practiced on you,” the duchess declared irritably. “Perhaps he didn’t arrive home the night before last, after all.” Restlessly, she walked about the room, leaning on her cane, her lively eyes darting toward the windows as if she, too, expected to see Jason Fielding arriving at any moment. “When he does put in an appearance, it will afford me great satisfaction if you force him to get down on his knees!”

  A wry, mirthless smile touched Victoria’s soft lips. “Then you are bound to be disappointed, Grandmama, for I can assure you beyond any doubt that Jason will not do that. He’s more likely to walk in here and try to kiss me and, and—”

  “—and seduce you into coming home?” the duchess finished bluntly.

  “Exactly.”

  “And could he accomplish that?” she asked, tipping her white head to the side, her eyes momentarily amused despite her frown.

  Victoria sighed and turned around, leaning her head against the windowframe and folding her arms across her midriff. “Probably.”

  “Well, he’s certainly taking his time about it. Do you truly believe he knew about Mr. Bainbridge’s letters? I mean, if he did know about them, it was utterly unprincipled of him not to tell you.”

  “Jason has no principles,” Victoria said with weary anger. “He doesn’t believe in them.”

  The duchess resumed her thoughtful pacing but she stopped short when she came to Wolf, who was lying in front of the fireplace. She shuddered and changed direction. “What sin I’ve committed to deserve having this ferocious beast as a houseguest, I don’t know.”

  A sad giggle emitted from Victoria. “Shall I chain him outside?”

  “Good God, no! He tore the seat of Michaelson’s breeches when he tried to feed him this morning.”

  “He doesn’t trust men.”

  “A wise animal. Ugly though.”

  “I think he’s beautiful in a wild, predatory way—” Like Jason, she thought, and hastily cast the debilitating recollection aside.

  “Before I sent Dorothy off to France, she had already adopted two cats and a sparrow with a broken wing. I didn’t like them either, but at least they didn’t watch me like this animal does. I tell you, he has every happy expectation of eating me. Even now, he’s wondering how I’ll taste.”

  “He’s watching you because he thinks he’s guarding you,” Victoria explained, smiling.

  “He thinks he’s guarding his next meal! No, no,” she said, raising her hand when Victoria started toward Wolf, intending to put him outside. “Don’t, I beg you, endanger any more of my servants. Besides,” she relented enough to admit, “I haven’t felt this safe in my house since your great-grandfather was alive.”

  “You don’t have to worry about prowlers sneaking in,” Victoria agreed, returning to her vigil at the window.

  “Sneaking in? My dear, you couldn’t bribe a prowler to enter this room.”

  Victoria remained at the window for another minute, then turned and wandered aimlessly toward a discarded book lying upon a glossy, satinwood table.

  “Do sit down, Victoria, and let me pace for a while. There’s no sense in us banging into one another as we traverse the carpet. What could be keeping that handsome devil of yours from our lair?”

  “It’s just as well Jason hasn’t come before now,” Victoria said, sinking into a chair and staring at her hands. “It’s taken me this long to calm down.”

  The duchess stomped over to the windows and peered out at the drive. “Do you think he loves you?”

  “I thought so.”

  “Of course he does!” her grace asserted forcefully. “All London is talking about it. The man is besotted with you. Which is undoubtedly why he went along with Atherton’s scheme and kept Andrew’s letter a secret from you. I shall give Atherton the edge of my tongue for that shoddy piece of business. Although,” she added audaciously, still peering out the window, “I probably would have done the same thing in the same circumstances.”

  “I can’t believe that.”

  “Of course I would. Given a choice between letting you marry some colonial I didn’t know and didn’t have any faith in, versus my own wish to see you married to the premier parti in England—a man of wealth, title, and looks—I might well have done as Atherton did.”

  Victoria forebore to point out that it was exactly that sort of thinking that had caused her mother and Charles Fielding a great deal of misery.

  The duchess stiffened imperceptibly. “You’re quite certain you wish to return to Wakefield?”

  “I never meant to leave permanently. I suppose I wanted to punish Jason for the way Andrew was forced to learn I was married—Grandmama, if you had seen the look on Andrew’s face you would understand. We were the greatest of friends from the time we were children; Andrew taught me to swim and shoot and play chess. Besides, I was furious with Jason and Charles for using me like a toy—a pawn—an object without feelings of any importance. You can’t believe how utterly alone and miserable I felt for a long time after I thought Andrew had coldly tossed me aside.”

  “Well, my dear,” the duchess said thoughtfully, “you are not goi