Once and Always

by Judith McNaught

  “You must have a superior understanding of people,” Caroline said quietly.

  “No, I don’t,” Victoria contradicted ruefully. “I lose my temper and am hurt just as easily as anyone else. Not until afterward do I remember to try to understand why the person might have treated me in such a way.”

  “And you aren’t afraid of Lord Fielding, not even when he’s angry?”

  “Only a little,” Victoria admitted ruefully. “But then, I haven’t seen him since we came to London, so perhaps I’m only feeling brave because there’s a distance between us.”

  “Not anymore,” Caroline remarked, nodding meaningfully toward the elegant black-lacquered coach with a gold seal emblazoned on the door that was waiting in front of #6 Upper Brook Street. “That is Lord Fielding’s crest on the black coach,” she explained when Victoria looked blank. “And the coach drawn up behind that one is ours—which means my husband must have finished his business early and decided to fetch me himself.”

  Victoria felt a funny little leap of her heart at the knowledge that Jason was here—a reaction she immediately put down to nervous guilt for having discussed him with Caroline.

  Both gentlemen were in the drawing room, listening politely as Miss Flossie tortured them with a lengthy, disjointed monologue on Victoria’s progress during the last two weeks, liberally interspersed with rapturous comments about her own debut almost fifty years ago. Victoria took one glance at Jason’s strained features and concluded he was mentally strangling the lady.

  “Victoria!” Miss Flossie said, gleefully clapping her little hands. “At last you are back! I’ve been telling these gentlemen of your talent at the piano, and they are anxious beyond anything to hear you play.” Cheerfully oblivious to Jason’s sardonic expression when he heard himself described as “anxious beyond anything,” Miss Flossie marched Victoria over to the piano and insisted that she play something at once.

  Helplessly, Victoria sat down on the bench and glanced at Jason, who was concentrating on picking a piece of lint from the leg of his beautifully tailored dark blue trousers. He could not have looked more bored unless he yawned. He also looked incredibly handsome, Victoria realized, and she felt another tremor of nervousness, which was amplified a dozen times by his lazy, mocking smile when he looked up at her. “I’ve never known a female who could swim, shoot, tame wild animals, and," he concluded, “play the piano. Let’s hear you do it.”

  Victoria could tell from his tone that he expected her to play poorly, and she longed to avoid giving a recital now, when she was so inexplicably nervous. “Mr. Wilheim gave Dorothy and me lessons as a way of repaying my father for treating his ailment of the lungs, but Dorothy is a much better musician than I. Until two weeks ago, I hadn’t played in months, and I’m still out of practice,” she said, hastily trying to excuse herself. “My Beethoven is barely mediocre and—”

  Her lame hope for a reprieve was dashed when Jason lifted a challenging eyebrow and nodded meaningfully at the keyboard.

  Victoria sighed and capitulated. “Is there anything in particular you would like to hear?”

  “Beethoven,” he said dryly.

  Victoria sent him an exasperated look, which only made his grin widen, but she bent her head and prepared to do as he asked. Tentatively, she ran her fingers over the keyboard, then stopped, her hands poised over the keys. When she brought them down again, the room resounded with the vibrant, sweeping melody and triumphant crescendos of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in F Minor, exploding with all the power and might and lilting sweetness of the passage.

  In the hall beyond the drawing room, Northrup stopped polishing a silver bowl and blissfully closed his eyes, listening enraptured. In the foyer, O’Malley stopped scolding a subordinate and tilted his head toward the drawing room, smiling at the uplifting sound of music being played in Lord Fielding’s house.

  When Victoria finished, everyone in the drawing room burst into spontaneous applause—except Jason, who leaned back in his chair, a wry smile on his lips. “Do you possess any other ‘mediocre’ skills?” he teased, but there was a sincere compliment in his eyes, and when Victoria saw it, it filled her with an absurd amount of pleasure.

  Caroline and her husband left soon thereafter, promising to see Victoria at her ball tomorrow night, and Miss Flossie escorted them to the door. Left alone with Jason, Victoria felt unaccountably self-conscious, and she promptly burst into speech to hide it. “I—I’m surprised to see you here.”

  “Surely you didn’t think I’d stay away from your debut?” he teased, with a dazzling smile. “I’m not entirely lost to the proprieties, you know. We’re supposed to be betrothed. How would it look if I didn’t appear here?”

  “My lord—” she began.

  “That has a nice ring to it,” he remarked, chuckling. “Very respectful. You’ve never called me that before.”

  Victoria gave him a look of laughing severity. “And I wouldn’t have done so now, except that Miss Flossie has been drilling titles and forms of address into my head for days on end. However, what I started to say was that I’m not very good at deceit, and the idea of telling people we’re betrothed makes me monstrously uneasy. Uncle Charles won’t listen to my objections, but I don’t think this pretense is a good idea at all.”

  “It isn’t,” Jason agreed flatly. “The reason for giving you this season is to introduce you to prospective husbands—”

  Victoria opened her mouth to insist that Andrew was going to be her husband, but Jason held up a hand and amended his last statement. “The purpose is to introduce you to prospective husbands, in the event Ambrose doesn’t rush to your rescue.”

  “Andrew,” Victoria corrected him. “Andrew Bainbridge.”

  Jason dismissed him with a shrug. “When the subject of our betrothal comes up, I want you to say what I’ve been saying.”

  “What is that?”

  “I say that everything is not quite settled, or that you don’t know me well enough to be certain your affections are fixed on me. That will leave the door open for your other suitors, and even Charles can’t object.”

  “I’d much rather tell the truth and say we aren’t betrothed.”

  Jason ran his hand across the back of his neck, irritably massaging the tense muscles. “You can’t. If either of us cries off now—so soon after your arrival in England—there will be a great deal of unpleasant speculation about which of us cried off, and why.”

  Victoria remembered Caroline’s description of the ton's attitude toward Jason and she immediately guessed what people would think if she cried off. When she viewed it in that way, she was willing to continue the pretense of their betrothal. Not for the world would she repay Jason’s kindness and generosity to her by letting anyone think she found him repugnant or frightening as a prospective husband. “Very well,” she said. “I’ll say things aren’t quite settled between us yet.”

  “Good girl,” he said. “Charles has already had one nearfatal attack and his heart is weak. I don’t want to worry him needlessly, and he is utterly determined to see you well married.”

  “But what will happen to him when Andrew comes to take me home?” Her eyes widened as a new problem occurred to her. “And what will people here think when I—I toss you over to marry Andrew?”

  Amusement gleamed in Jason’s eyes at her choice of expressions. “If that happens, we’ll say you’re honoring a former betrothal arranged by your father. In England, it is a daughter’s duty to marry to suit her family, and everyone will understand. Charles will miss you, but if he believes you’re happy, it will soften the blow. However,” he added, “I don’t think that’s going to happen. Charles has told me about Bainbridge, and I agree that he is probably a weak man who is under his widowed mother’s thumb. Without your presence in America to reinforce his courage and determination, he’s not likely to get up the gumption to defy his mother and come after you.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s—” Victoria burst out, exasperated at his misconception of An
drew.

  “I’m not finished,” Jason interrupted authoritatively. “It’s also apparent to me that your father wasn’t particularly eager for the two of you to wed—not if he insisted on a trial separation to test your feelings for each other, when you’ve already known each other all your lives. You were not betrothed to Bainbridge at the time of your father’s death, Victoria,” Jason finished implacably. “Therefore, if he does arrive on our doorstep, he will have to gain my approval before I will permit you to marry him and return to America.”

  Victoria was torn between anger and laughter at his gall. “Of all the nerve!” she sputtered, her thoughts tumbling over themselves. “You’ve never met him and you’ve already decided what sort of man he is. And now you are saying I can’t leave with him unless he passes muster with you, you who practically tossed me out on my ear the day I arrived at Wakefield!” It was all so absurd that Victoria started to laugh. “Do you know, I never have the faintest idea what you are going to do or say next to astound me. I don’t know what to do where you’re concerned.”

  “All you have to do,” Jason said, an answering smile tugging at his lips, “is look over the current crop of London fops during the next few weeks, choose the one you want, and bring him to me for my blessing. Nothing could be easier—I’ll be working here in my study nearly every day.”

  “Here?” Victoria uttered, choking back a horrified giggle at his description of the way she ought to go about choosing a husband. “I thought you were going to stay at Uncle Charles’s house.”

  “I’m going to sleep there, but I’m going to work here. Charles’s house is damned uncomfortable. The furniture is old and the rooms are mostly small and dark. Besides, no one will think anything of it if I’m here during the day, so long as you’re properly chaperoned, which you are. There’s no reason for me to be inconvenienced when I work. Speaking of chaperones, has Flossie Wilson chattered you into a coma yet?”

  “She’s very sweet,” Victoria said, trying again not to laugh.

  “I’ve never heard a woman talk so much and say so little.”

  “She has a kind heart.”

  “True,” he agreed absently, his attention shifting to the clock. “I’m engaged for the opera tonight. When Charles returns, tell him I was here and that I’ll be here tomorrow night in time to greet the guests.”

  “Very well.” Giving him an impudent, laughing look Victoria added, “But I warn you I shall take the greatest pleasure when Andrew arrives and you’re forced to admit how wrong you’ve been about everything.”

  “Don’t count on it.”

  “Oh, but I am counting on it. I shall ask Mrs. Craddock to fix a crow pie and I shall force you to eat it while I watch.” In surprised silence, Jason gazed down at her laughing, upturned face. “You’re not afraid of anything, are you?”

  “I am not afraid of you,” she announced blithely.

  “You ought to be,” he said, and on that enigmatic remark he left.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “NEARLY EVERYONE HAS ARRIVED,” MISS Flossie bubbled excitedly as Ruth finished putting the last touches to Victoria’s coiffure. “It’s time to make your grand entrance, my dear.”

  Victoria rose obediently but her knees were trembling. “I would much rather have stood in the receiving line with Uncle Charles and Lord Fielding, so I could meet the guests separately. It would have been much less nerve-racking.”

  “But not nearly as effective,” Miss Flossie said airily.

  Victoria took a last critical glance at her reflection, accepted the fan that Ruth gave her, and picked up her skirts. “I’m ready,” she said shakily. As they passed across the landing, Victoria paused to look down upon the foyer below, which had been turned into a wondrous flower garden in honor of her ball, with giant pots of airy ferns and huge baskets of white roses. Then she drew a nervous breath and climbed the curving staircase that led upward to the next story, where the ballroom was located. Footmen dressed in formal, green velvet livery trimmed with gold braid stood at attention along the staircase beside tall silver stands of more white roses. Victoria smiled at the footmen she knew and nodded politely to the others. O’Malley, the head footman, was stationed at the top of the staircase and she asked him softly, “Has your tooth been bothering you? Don’t fail to tell me if it pains you again—it’s no trouble at all to fix another poultice.”

  He grinned at her with unabashed devotion. “It ain’t bothered me a bit since you fixed me the last one, my lady.”

  “Very well, but you won’t try to suffer with it if it starts up again, will you?”

  “No, my lady.”

  He waited until Victoria had rounded the corner, then turned to the footman beside him. “She’s a grand one, ain’t she?”

  “A lady through and through,” the other footman agreed. “Just like you said she was from the start.”

  “She’ll brighten up things for the lot of us,” O’Malley predicted, “and for the master too, once she’s warmin’ his bed. She’ll give him an heir—that’ll make him happy.”

  Northrup stood on the balcony overlooking the ballroom, his back ramrod straight, ready to announce the names of any late-arriving guests who passed beneath the marble portal beside him. Victoria approached him on legs that felt like jelly. “Give me a moment to catch my breath,” she pleaded with him. “Then you can announce our names. I’m dreadfully nervous,” she confided to him.

  A smile almost, but not quite, cracked his stern countenance as his expert eye flicked over the breathtaking young woman before him. “While you are catching your breath, my lady, may I say how very much I enjoyed hearing you play Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in F Minor yesterday afternoon? It is a particular favorite of mine.”

  Victoria was so pleased, and so startled, by this unexpected cordiality from the austere servant that she nearly forgot the noisy, laughing crowd in the ballroom below. “Thank you,” she said, smiling gently. “And what is your very favorite piece?”

  He looked shocked by her interest, but he told her.

  “I shall play it for you tomorrow,” she promised sweetly.

  “That is kind of you, indeed, my lady!” he replied with a stiff face and a formal bow. But when he turned to announce her name, Northrup’s voice rang with pride. “Lady Victoria Seaton, Countess Langston,” he called out, “and Miss Florence Wilson.”

  A lightning bolt of anticipation seemed to shoot through the crowd, breaking off conversations and choking off laughter as some 500 guests turned in near-unison for their first real look at the American-born girl who now bore her mother’s title and who was soon to receive an even more coveted one from Jason, Lord Fielding.

  They saw an exotic, titian-haired goddess draped in a shimmering Grecian-style gown of sapphire silk that matched her lustrous eyes and clung to every curve of her slender, voluptuous body. Long gloves encased her arms, and her shining hair was caught up at the crown in a mass of thick, glossy curls entwined with ropes of sapphires and diamonds. They saw a sculpted face of unforgettable beauty with high, delicately molded cheekbones, a perfect nose, generous lips, and a tiny, intriguing cleft at the center of her chin.

  No one looking at her would have believed that the regal young beauty’s knees were nearly knocking together with panic.

  The sea of nameless faces staring up at her seemed to part as Victoria descended the steps, and Jason suddenly strode forward from among the crowd. He held his hand out to her and Victoria automatically placed her hand in his, but the eyes she turned up to his were wide with fright.

  Bending low as if to murmur some intimate compliment, Jason said, “You’re scared to death, aren’t you? Do you want me to begin the hundreds of introductions now, or would you rather dance with me and let them finish giving you a thorough look-over that way?”

  “What a choice!” Victoria whispered on a choked laugh.

  “I’ll start the music,” Jason decided wisely, and signaled the musicians with a nod of his head. He led her onto the dan
ce floor and took her in his arms as the musicians struck up a dramatic waltz. “Can you waltz?” he said suddenly.

  “What a time to ask!” she said, laughing, on the verge of nervous hysteria.

  “Victoria!” Jason said severely, but with a dazzling smile for the benefit of their watchful audience, “you are the selfsame young woman who coolly threatened to blow my brains out with a gun. Do not dare turn cowardly now.”

  “No, my lord,” she replied, desperately trying to follow him as he began to guide her through the first steps of the waltz. He waltzed, she thought, with the same relaxed elegance with which he wore his superbly tailored black evening clothes.

  Suddenly his arm tightened around her waist, forcing her into nerve-racking proximity with his powerful body, and he warned in a low voice, “It is customary for a couple to engage in some form of conversation or harmless flirtation when they are dancing, otherwise onlookers perceive that the two dislike one another.”

  Victoria stared at him, her mouth as dry as sawdust.

  “Say something to me, dammit.”

  The curse, uttered with such a brilliant, attentive smile, wrung an involuntary laugh from her, and she temporarily forgot about their audience. Trying to do as he bade her, she said the first thing that came to mind. “You waltz very well, my lord.”

  Jason relaxed and smiled down at her. “That is what I am supposed to say to you.”

  “You English have rules to govern absolutely everything,” Victoria countered in mock admiration.

  “You happen to be English too, ma’am,” he reminded her, then added, “Miss Flossie has taught you to waltz very well. What else have you learned?”

  A little stung by his assumption that she hadn’t known how to waltz before, Victoria gave him a jaunty smile and said, “You may rest assured that I now possess all the skills which the English deem necessary for a young lady of birth and refinement.”