Once and Always

by Judith McNaught

  Jason watched her in tormented silence, unwilling to disturb her. Finally he reached down and gently drew the covers over her slim bare shoulders, then smoothed her heavy hair off her forehead. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to his sleeping wife.

  He blew out the candle and put the velvet box on the little table beside the bed where she would be certain to see it when she awoke. Diamonds would soothe her. Women would forgive anything for diamonds.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  VICTORIA OPENED HER EYES AND stared blankly out the windows at a dark, overcast sky. Sleep hung over her like a thick web, tangling her waking thoughts as she gazed aimlessly past the unfamiliar rose and gold silk draperies hanging from the corners of her bed.

  She felt sluggish and dull, as if she hadn’t slept at all, yet she had no particular urge to go back to sleep or to fully awaken. Her mind floated aimlessly, and then it suddenly began to clear.

  Dear God, she was married! Truly married. She was Jason’s wife.

  She stifled a cry of stricken protest at the thought and jerked upright as the full recollection of last night hit her. So this was what Miss Flossie had tried to warn her about. No wonder women didn’t discuss it! She started to hurtle from the bed in response to some belated instinct to flee; then she checked herself, straightened the pillows, and fell back against them, gnawing on her lower lip. The humiliating details of her wedding night came back in painful clarity and she cringed, remembering the way Jason had crudely disrobed in front of her. She shuddered as she recalled the way he had taunted her about Andrew, and then he had used her. He had used her as if she were an animal, a dumb animal without feeling or emotion, unworthy of tenderness or kindness.

  A tear trickled down her cheek as she thought of tonight, and tomorrow night, all the nights that lay ahead of her until Jason could finally get her with child. How many times would it take? A dozen? Two dozen? More? No, please, not more. She couldn’t bear much more of it.

  Angrily she dashed the tear away, furious with herself for succumbing to fear and weakness. Last night he had said he intended to continue doing that ugly, humiliating thing to her—it was her part of their bargain. Now that she knew what the bargain really entailed, she wanted out of it immediately!

  She flung the bedcovers aside and climbed out of the silken cocoon that was supposed to be her compensation for a lifetime of misery imposed on her by a cynical, heartless man. Well, she was no simpering English girl, afraid to stand up for herself or face the world. She would rather face a firing squad than another night like the last one! She could live without luxury, if this was the way she was expected to pay for it.

  She glanced around the room, trying to plan her next step, and her gaze fell on a black velvet box on the table beside the bed. She picked it up and opened the clasp, then ground her teeth in rage at the sight of the spectacular diamond necklace that lay within it. It was two inches wide and fashioned to look like a delicate cluster of flowers, with diamonds cut in various shapes to make up the petals and leaves of tulips, roses, and orchids.

  Rage billowed in her in a red mist as she picked up the necklace by its clasp, holding it up with two fingers as if it were a poisonous snake, then dropped it into the box in an unceremonious pile.

  Now she understood what had bothered her all along about the gifts Jason gave her and the way he wanted to be thanked with a kiss. He was buying her. He actually believed she could be bought—purchased like a cheap dockside harlot. No—not a cheap one, an expensive one, but a harlot, nonetheless.

  After last night, Victoria already felt used and injured; the necklace added another insult to her growing list of Jason’s offenses. She could hardly believe she’d deceived herself into thinking he cared for her, that he needed her. He cared for no one, needed no one. He didn’t want to be loved and he had no love to give anyone. She should have known—he’d said as much.

  Men! Victoria thought furiously, her temper adding bright spots of color to her pale cheeks. What monsters they were—Andrew with his false declarations of love, and Jason who thought he could use her and then pay her off with a stupid necklace.

  Wincing at the pain between her legs, she climbed out of bed and marched into the marble bath that adjoined her suite on the opposite side of Jason’s. She would get a divorce, she decided. She’d heard of them. She would tell Jason she wanted one, now.

  Ruth came in just as Victoria emerged from the bath.

  The little maid’s face was wreathed in a secretive smile as she tiptoed into the room and glanced about her. Whatever she expected to see, it obviously was not her mistress striding militantly across the room, already up and bathed, wrapped in a towel, ruthlessly brushing her hair. Nor did she expect to hear the new bride of Jason Fielding, who was rumored to be an irresistible lover, say in a tone of dripping ice, “There’s no reason to creep about in here as if you’re afraid of your shadow, Ruth. The monster is in the next room, not this one.”

  “M-monster, miss?” the poor maid stammered blankly. “Oh,” she giggled nervously, thinking she was mistaken, “you must have said ‘the master,’ but I thought you said—”

  “I said 'monster,’” Victoria almost snapped. The sound of her waspish voice made her instantly contrite. “I’m sorry, Ruth. I’m just a little . . . well, tired, I guess.”

  For some reason, that made the little servant blush and giggle, which irritated Victoria, who was already teetering on the verge of hysteria, despite her efforts to tell herself how cold and logical and determined she was. She waited, drumming her fingers, until Ruth was finished tidying the room. The clock on the mantel showed the hour as eleven as she walked to the door of her suite through which Jason had come last night. She paused with her hand on the handle, trying to compose herself. Her body was shaking like jelly at the thought of confronting him and demanding a divorce, but she meant to do exactly that, and nothing was going to deter her. Once she informed him that their marriage was over, Jason would have no more marital rights. Later, she would decide where she was going and what she would do. For now, she needed to get him to agree to a divorce. Or did she even need his permission? Since she wasn’t certain, she decided it was wise not to alienate him unnecessarily or anger him into refusing. But then, she shouldn’t beat about the bush too long, either.

  Victoria straightened her shoulders, tightened the belt of her velvet robe, turned the handle, and marched into Jason’s room.

  Suppressing the desire to hit him over the head with the porcelain pitcher beside his bed, she said very civilly, “Good morning.”

  His eyes snapped open, his expression instantly alert, wary almost, and then he smiled. That sleepy, sensual smile of his, which before might have melted her heart, now made her grind her teeth in rage. Somehow, she kept her expression polite, almost pleasant.

  “Good morning,” Jason said huskily, his eyes running over her voluptuous figure, clad in the sensuous softness of shimmering gold velvet. Recalling the way he had ravaged her last night, Jason dragged his eyes from the low vee of her robe and shifted his body to make room for her beside him on the bed. Deeply touched that she would come in to bid him good morning when she had every right to despise him for last night, he patted the space he had vacated and said gently, “Would you like to sit down?”

  Victoria was so busy trying to think of a way to ease into what she had to say that she automatically accepted Jason’s invitation. “Thank you,” she said politely.

  “For what?” he teased.

  It was exactly the opening Victoria was searching for. “Thank you for everything. In many ways, you’ve been extraordinarily kind to me. I know how displeased you were when I showed up at your door months ago, but even though you didn’t want me here, you let me stay. You bought me beautiful clothes, and you took me to parties, which was excessively kind of you. You fought a duel for me, which wasn’t necessary at all, but was very gallant on your part. You married me in a church, which you didn’t in the least wish to do, and you gave me a lovely pa
rty here last night and invited people you didn’t know, just to please me. Thank you for all that.”

  Jason reached up, idly rubbing his knuckles against her pale cheek. “You’re welcome,” he said softly.

  “Now I’d like a divorce.”

  His hand froze. “You what?” he said in an ominous whisper.

  Victoria clenched and unclenched her hands in her lap, but she kept her resolve strong. “I want a divorce,” she repeated with false calm.

  “Just like that?” he said in an awful, silky voice. Although Jason was very willing to concede he had treated her badly last night, he had not expected anything like this. “After one day of marriage, you want a divorce?”

  Victoria took one look at the anger kindling in his glittering eyes and hastily stood up, only to have Jason’s hand clamp about her wrist and jerk her back down. “Don’t manhandle me, Jason,” she warned.

  Jason, who had left her last night looking like a wounded child, was now confronted with a woman he didn’t recognize—a coldly enraged, beautiful virago. Instead of apologizing, as he’d intended to do a minute ago, he said, “You’re being absurd. There’ve only been a handful of divorces in England in the last fifty years, and there’ll be no divorce between us.”

  Victoria pulled her arm free with a wrenching tug that nearly dislocated her shoulder, then stepped back, well out of his reach, her chest rising and falling in fury and fright. “You are an animal!” she hissed. “I am not absurd, and I won’t be used like an animal ever again!”

  She stalked into her room and slammed the door, then locked it with a loud snap.

  She had taken only a few steps when the door burst open behind her with an explosive crack and came flying out of its frame, hanging drunkenly from one hinge. Jason stood in the gaping hole of the doorway, his face white with rage, his voice hissing between his teeth. “Don’t you ever bar a door to me again as long as you live,” he snarled. “And don’t ever threaten me with divorce again! This house is my property, under the law, just as you are my property. Do you understand me?”

  Victoria nodded jerkily, mentally recoiling from the blinding violence flashing in his eyes. He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, leaving her shaking with fear. Never had she witnessed such volcanic rage in a human being. Jason wasn’t an animal, he was a crazed monster.

  She waited, listening to the sounds of his drawers abruptly opening and closing as he dressed, her mind working frantically for some way to extricate herself from the nightmare her life had become. When she heard his door slam and knew he had gone downstairs, she walked over to her bed and sank down. She remained where she was, thinking, for nearly an hour, but there was no way out. She was trapped for a lifetime. Jason had spoken the truth—she was his chattel, just like his house and his horses.

  If he wouldn’t agree to a divorce, she couldn’t imagine how she could possibly go about obtaining one on her own. She wasn’t even certain she had adequate reason to convince a court to give her a divorce, but she was perfectly certain she couldn’t possibly explain to a group of bewigged male judges what Jason had done to her last night to make her want a divorce.

  She had been grasping wildly at straws when she conceived the idea of divorce this morning. The whole idea was impossibly radical, she realized with a despondent sigh. She was trapped here until she gave Jason the son he wanted. Then she would be bound to Wakefield by the existence of the very child who might have set her free, because she knew she could never go away and leave a baby of hers.

  Victoria looked aimlessly about the luxurious room. Somehow she was going to have to learn to adapt to her new life, to make the best of things until fate might intervene to help her somehow. In the meantime, she would have to take steps to keep her sanity, she decided as a numbing calm stole over her. She could spend time with other people, leave the house and go about her own business or amusements. She would have to devise pleasant diversions to distract herself from dwelling upon her problems. Beginning immediately. She hated self-pity and she refused to wallow in it.

  She had already made friends in England; soon she would have a child to love and to love her in return. She would make the best of an empty life by filling it with anything she could find to keep her sane.

  She raked her hair back away from her pale face, and stood up resolved to do exactly that. Even so, her shoulders dropped as she rang for Ruth. Why did Jason hold her in such contempt, she wondered miserably. She ached for someone to talk to, to confide in. Always before she’d had her mother, or her father, or Andrew to talk with and listen to. Talking things out always helped. But since she came to England, there was no one. Charles’s health was poor and she’d had to put on a brave, cheerful face for him from the very first day she came here. Besides, Jason was his nephew, and she couldn’t possibly discuss her fears about Jason with his own uncle, even if Charles were here at Wakefield. Caroline Collingwood was a good and loyal friend, but she was miles away, and Victoria doubted if Caroline could understand Jason, even if she herself tried to discuss him.

  There was nothing for it, Victoria decided, but for her to continue holding everything inside herself, to pretend to be happy and confident, until—someday—she might actually feel that way again. There would come a time, she promised herself grimly, when she could face the night without dread of Jason walking into her room. There would come a time when she could look at him and feel nothing—not fear or hurt or humiliation or loneliness. That day would come—somehow, it would! As soon as she conceived a child, he would leave her alone, and she prayed it would happen soon.

  “Ruth,” she said tightly when the little maid appeared. “Would you ask someone to harness one of the horses to the smallest carriage we have—one I can easily drive? And please ask whoever does it to choose the gentlest horse we have—I’m not very familiar with driving a carriage. When you’ve done that, please ask Mrs. Craddock to pack several baskets of leftover food from the party last night so I may take them with me.”

  “But, my lady,” Ruth said hesitantly, “only look out the window. It’s turned chilly and there’s a storm comin’. See for yourself how dark the sky is.”

  Victoria glanced out the windows at the leaden skies. “It doesn’t look as if it will rain for hours, if at all,” she decided a little desperately. “I’d like to leave in half an hour. Oh, has Lord Fielding gone out, or is he downstairs?”

  “His lordship’s gone out, my lady.”

  “Do you happen to know if he’s left the estate, or is merely outdoors somewhere?” Victoria asked, unable to disguise the desperate anxiety in her voice. Despite her resolve to think of Jason as a complete stranger and to-treat him as one, she did not relish the idea of confronting him again right now, when her emotions were still so raw. Besides, she was rather certain he would order her to stay at home, rather than permitting her to go out when a storm could be coming on. And the truth was, she had to get out of this house for a while. She had to!

  “Lord Fielding ordered the horses put to the phaeton and he drove off. He said he had some calls to make. I saw him leave with my own eyes,” Ruth assured her.

  The carriage was loaded with food and waiting in the drive when Victoria came downstairs.

  “What shall I tell his lordship?” Northrup said, looking exceedingly distressed when Victoria insisted upon leaving despite his dire prediction of an impending storm.

  Victoria turned, allowing him to place a lightweight mauve cloak over her shoulders. “Tell him I said good-bye,” Victoria said evasively.

  She walked outside, went around to the back of the house and unsnapped Wolf’s chain, then came around to the front again. The head groom assisted her into the carriage and Wolf bounded up beside her. Wolf looked so happy to be unchained that Victoria smiled and patted his regal head. “You’re free at last,” she told the huge animal. “And so am I.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  VICTORIA SNAPPED THE REINS WITH more assurance than she felt, and the spirited horse
bounded forward, its satiny coat glistening in the gloom. “Easy, now,” Victoria whispered in fright. Jason obviously did not believe in keeping sedate carriage horses in his stables—the flashy mare harnessed to Victoria’s carriage was incredibly hard to control. She pranced and danced until Victoria’s hands were blistered and red from trying to hold her to a slow trot.

  As Victoria was nearing the village, the wind picked up and lightning flashed in blue streaks, splitting the sky into jagged slices while thunder boomed an ominous warning and the sky turned almost as black as night. Minutes later, the sky opened up and rain came down in blinding sheets, driving into her face, obscuring her vision, and turning her cloak to a sodden mass.

  Straining to see the road ahead, Victoria shoved her dripping hair off her face and shivered. She had never seen the orphanage, but Captain Farrell had told her where the road was that led to it, as well as the road that led to his own house. Victoria strained her eyes, and then she saw what looked like one of the roads he had described. It forked off to her left and she turned the horse onto it, not certain whether she was heading toward the orphanage or Captain Farrell’s house. At the moment she didn’t care, so long as she was going to a warm, dry place where she could get out of the downpour. The road rounded a bend and began to climb upward through increasingly dense woods, passed two deserted cottages, then narrowed until it was scarcely more than a dirt track, which was rapidly becoming a quagmire in the torrential downpour.

  Mud sucked at the wheels of the carriage and the mare began to labor with the effort of freeing her hooves from the deep slime every time she took a step. Up ahead Victoria saw a dim light coming through the trees. Shivering with relief and cold, she turned onto a little lane that was sheltered by a thick stand of ancient oak trees, their branches meeting overhead like a dripping umbrella. Suddenly lightning rent the sky, illuminating a cottage large enough for a small family but certainly not large enough to house twenty orphans. Thunder cracked deafeningly overhead and the mare shied, half-rearing in the traces. Victoria jumped down from the carriage. “Easy now,” she told the mare soothingly as she reached for the nervous animal’s bridle. Her feet sank into the mud as she led the horse to the post in front of the cottage and tied her there.