Once and Always

by Judith McNaught

  Victoria’s hand flew self-consciously to her bare throat. She did not have any emeralds. “I think you look very nice, too,” she said, admiring the way his expensively tailored dark blue jacket clung to his splendid shoulders. His face was so tanned, his hair so dark, that his white shirt and neckcloth stood out in dazzling contrast. “You’re very handsome,” she said wistfully.

  A glimmer of a startled smile appeared at his lips. “Thank you,” he said, visibly taken aback.

  “You’re welcome,” Victoria replied and, because she thought he seemed pleased by her compliment to his looks, she seized on that as an acceptable topic of conversation. “When I first saw you, I thought you were frightening-looking, did you know that? Of course, it was nearly dark and I was nervous, but—well—you’re so huge that it was frightening.”

  Jason choked on his wine. “To what are you referring?”

  “To our first meeting,” Victoria clarified innocently. “Remember—I was outside in the sunlight, holding that piglet, which I gave to the farmer, and then you dragged me inside the house and it was dark compared to outdoors—”

  Jason stood up abruptly. “I’m sorry I treated you uncivilly. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll spend the evening doing some work.”

  “No,” Victoria said hastily, also standing up, “please don’t work. Let’s do something else—something we can do together. Something you’d like.”

  Jason’s heart slammed into his ribs. He gazed down at her flushed cheeks and saw the invitation in her imploring blue eyes. Hope and disbelief collided in his chest, exploding, as he laid his hand tenderly against her flushed cheek, slowly running it back, smoothing her heavy silken hair.

  Victoria trembled with pleasure because he was finally treating her with warmth. She should have tried to draw him out days ago, rather than suffering in silence. “We could play chess if you like,” she said happily. “I’m not very good at it, but if you have cards—”

  His hand jerked away from her, and his face became a closed mask. “Excuse me, Victoria. I have work to do.” He moved around her and disappeared into his study, where he remained for the rest of the evening.

  Victoria’s heart sank with bewildered disappointment, and she spent the evening trying to read. By bedtime, she was absolutely resolved not to let him fall back into their former pattern of being polite strangers, no matter what it took to change things. She remembered the way he had looked at her just before she suggested playing chess—it was the same way he looked at her before he kissed her. Her body had recognized it instantly, turning warm and shaky in that unexplainable way it always did when Jason touched her. He may have wanted to kiss her, rather than play chess. Dear God, he may have wanted to do that awful thing to her again—

  Victoria shuddered at the thought, but she was willing to do even that if harmony could be restored. Her stomach turned over at the thought of Jason fondling her when she was naked, studying her body in that awful, detached way as he’d done on their wedding night. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so terrible if he’d been nice to her while he did it—nice in the way he was when he kissed her.

  She waited in her room until she heard Jason moving about in his, then put on a turquoise satin dressing robe trimmed with wide strips of beige lace at the hem and full sleeves. She opened the connecting door to Jason’s suite, which had been rehung—minus its lock—and walked in. “My lor—Jason,” she said abruptly.

  He was shrugging out of his shirt, his chest almost completely exposed, and his head snapped up.

  “I’d like to talk to you,” she began firmly.

  “Get out of here, Victoria,” he said with icy annoyance.

  “But—”

  “I do not want to talk,” he bit out sarcastically. “I do not want to play chess. I do not want to play cards.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “I want you out of here. Is that clear enough?”

  “I’d say it’s very clear,” she replied with unbending dignity. “I won’t bother you again.” She walked back into her room and closed the door, but she was still angrily determined to make her marriage happy and solid. She didn’t understand what he expected from her. Most particularly she did not understand him. But she knew someone who did. Jason was thirty, much older and more worldly than she, but Captain Farrell was older than Jason, and he would be able to advise her about what to do next.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  VICTORIA WALKED DETERMINEDLY DOWN TO the stables the next morning and waited while a horse was saddled for her. Her new black riding habit was beautifully cut, with a tight, fitted jacket that accentuated her full breasts and tiny waist. The snowy white stock of her shirt set off her vivid coloring and high cheekbones, and her titian hair was caught up at the nape in an elegant chignon. The chignon made her feel older and more sophisticated; it bolstered her flagging confidence.

  She waited at the stables, idly tapping her riding crop against her leg; then she smiled brightly at the groom who led out a prancing gelding, its ebony coat shimmering like satin.

  Victoria gazed in admiring wonder at the magnificent horse. “He’s beautiful, John. What’s his name?”

  “This here’s Matador,” the groom said. “He’s from Spain. His lordship picked him for you to ride until your new horse gets here in a few weeks.”

  Jason had bought her a horse, Victoria realized as the groom gave her a leg up into the saddle. She couldn’t imagine why Jason had felt the need to buy another horse for her when his stable reportedly housed the finest horseflesh in England; still, it was a generous thing for him to do, and perfectly typical of the man not to bother mentioning it.

  She slowed Matador to a walk as they turned up the steep, winding lane that led to Captain Farrell’s house and breathed a sigh of relief when the Captain stepped out onto the porch to help her down from the sidesaddle. “Thank you,” she said when her feet were safely on the ground. “I was hoping you’d be here.”

  Captain Farrell grinned at her. “I intended to ride over to Wakefield today, to see for myself how you and Jason were coming along.”

  “In that case,” Victoria said with a sad smile, “it’s just as well you didn’t put yourself to the trouble.”

  “No improvement?” he said in surprise, ushering her into his house. He filled a kettle with water for tea and put it over the fire.

  Victoria sat down and morosely shook her head. “If anything, things are worse. Well, not worse, exactly. At least Jason stayed home last night instead of going to London and visiting his, er . . . well, you know what I mean,” she said. She hadn’t planned on such an intimate topic. She only wanted to discuss Jason’s mood, not their most personal relationship.

  Captain Farrell took two cups from a shelf and glanced over his shoulder, his expression perplexed. “No, I don’t. What do you mean?”

  Victoria gave him an acutely uneasy look.

  “Out with it, child. I confided in you. You must know you can confide in me. Who else can you talk to?”

  “No one,” Victoria said miserably.

  “If what you’re trying to say is as difficult as that, suppose you think of me as your father—or Jason’s father.”

  “You aren’t either one. And I’m not certain I could tell my own father what you’re asking.”

  Captain Farrell put the teacups down and turned slowly, watching her across the room. “Do you know the only thing I dislike about the sea?” When she shook her head, he said, “The solitude of my cabin. Sometimes I enjoy it. But when I’m worried about something—like a bad storm I can feel brewing—there’s no one I can confide my fears to. I can’t let my men know I’m afraid or they’ll panic. And so I have to keep it bottled up inside of me, where the fear grows all out of proportion. Sometimes I’d be out there and I’d get a feeling my wife was ill or in peril, and the feeling would haunt me because there was no one there to reassure me that I was being foolish. If you can’t talk to Jason and you won’t talk to me, then you’ll never
find the answers you’re looking for.”

  Victoria gazed at him with affection. “You are one of the kindest men I’ve ever known, Captain.”

  “Then why don’t you just imagine I’m your father and talk to me in that way?”

  Many people, including women, had confided all sorts of things to Dr. Seaton with very little embarrassment and no shame, Victoria knew. And if she was ever going to understand Jason, she had to talk to Captain Farrell.

  “Very well,” she said, and was relieved when he was thoughtful enough to turn his back and busy himself with the preparations for tea. It was easier to talk to his back. “Actually, I came here to ask you if you were certain you told me everything you knew about Jason. But to answer your question, Jason stayed home last night for the first time since I last saw you. He’s been going to London, you see, to visit his . . . ah . . .” She drew a long breath and said firmly, “His paramour.”

  Captain Farrell’s back stiffened, but he did not turn around. “What makes you think a thing like that?” he said, slowly taking down a bowl of sugar.

  “Oh, I’m certain of it. The papers hinted at it yesterday morning. Jason was gone all night, but when he returned I was at breakfast and I’d just read the paper. I was upset—”

  “I can imagine.”

  “And I nearly lost my temper, but I tried to be reasonable. I told him I realized that considerate husbands kept mistresses, but that I thought he ought to be discreet and—”

  Captain Farrell lurched around, gaping at her with a bowl of sugar in one hand and a pitcher of milk in the other. “You told him that you thought it was considerate of him to keep a mistress, but that he ought to be discreet?"

  “Yes. Shouldn’t I have said that?”

  “More importantly, why did you say it? Why did you even think it?”

  Victoria heard the criticism in his voice and stiffened slightly. “Miss Wilson—Flossie Wilson explained that in England it is the custom for considerate husbands to have—”

  “Flossie Wilson?” he burst out in appalled disbelief. “Flossie Wilson?” he repeated as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “Flossie Wilson is a spinster, not to mention a complete henwit! An utter peagoose! Jason used to keep her at Wakefield to help look after Jamie so that when he was away, Jamie would have a loving female with him. Flossie was loving, all right, but the ninnyhammer actually misplaced the baby one day. You asked a woman like that for advice on keeping a husband?”

  “I didn’t ask her, she offered the information,” Victoria replied defensively, flushing.

  “I’m sorry for shouting at you, child,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “In Ireland a wife takes a skillet to her husband’s head if he goes to another woman! It’s much simpler, more direct, and far more effective, I’m sure. Please go on with what you were trying to tell me. You said you confronted Jason—”

  “I’d really rather not continue,” Victoria said warily. “I don’t think I should have come. Actually, it was a dreadful idea. I only hoped you could explain to me why Jason has become so distant since our wedding—”

  “What,” Captain Farrell said tensely, “do you mean by ‘distant’?”

  “I don’t know how to explain it.”

  He poured tea into two cups and picked them up. “Victoria,” he said, frowning as he turned, “are you trying to tell me he doesn’t come to your bed very often?”

  Victoria blushed and stared at her hands. “Actually, he hasn’t been there since our wedding night—although I greatly feared that, after he broke the door down the next morning when I locked it—”

  Without a word, Captain Farrell turned back to the cupboard, put down the teacups, and filled two glasses with whiskey.

  He walked over and thrust one at her. “Drink this,” he ordered firmly. “It will make it easier to talk, and I intend to hear the rest of this tale.”

  “Do you know, before I came to England I’d never tasted spirits of any kind, except wine after my parents died,” she said, shuddering at the contents of the glass and then looking at him as he sat down. “But ever since I came here, people have been giving me wine and brandy and champagne and telling me to drink it because I’ll feel better. It doesn’t make me feel better in the least.”

  “Try it,” he ordered.

  “I did try it. You see, I was so nervous the day we got married that I tried to pull away from Jason at the altar. So when we arrived at Wakefield, I thought some wine might help me face the rest of the night. I drank five glasses at our wedding celebration, but all it did was make me sick when we—I went to bed that night.”

  “Am I to understand that you nearly left Jason at the altar in front of a churchful of his acquaintances?”

  “Yes, but they didn’t realize it. Jason did, though.”

  “Good God,” he whispered.

  “And on our wedding night I nearly threw up.”

  “Good God,” he whispered again. “And the next morning you locked Jason out of your room?”

  Victoria nodded, feeling miserable.

  “And then you told him yesterday that you thought it was considerate of him to go to his mistress?” When Victoria nodded again, Captain Farrell stared at her in mute fascination.

  “I did try to make up for it last night,” she informed him defensively.

  “I’m relieved to hear that.”

  “Yes, I offered to do anything he would like.”

  “That should have improved his disposition immensely,” Captain Farrell predicted with a faint smile.

  “Well, for a moment it seemed to. But when I said we could play chess or cards, he became—”

  “You suggested he play chess? For God’s sake, why chess?”

  Victoria looked at him in quiet hurt. “I tried to think of the things my mother and father used to do together. I would have suggested a walk, but it was a little chilly.”

  Visibly torn between laughter and distress, Captain Farrell shook his head. “Poor Jason,” he said in a laughing underbreath. When he looked at her again, though, he was in deadly earnest. “I can assure you that your parents did . . . er . . . other things.”

  “Such as what?” Victoria said, thinking of the nights her parents had sat across from each other before the fire, reading books. Her mother cooked her father’s favorite dishes for him, too, and she kept his house neat and his clothes mended, but Jason had an army of people to perform those wifely tasks for him, and they did it to perfection. She glanced at Captain Farrell, who had lapsed into uneasy silence. “What sort of things are you referring to?”

  “I’m referring to the sort of intimate things your parents did when you were in your own bed,” he said bluntly, “and they were in theirs.”

  A long-ago memory paraded across her mind—a memory of her parents standing outside her mother’s bedroom door, and her father’s pleading voice as he tried to hold his wife in his arms—"Don’t keep denying me, Katherine. For God’s sake, don’t!”

  Her mother had been denying her father her bed, Victoria realized weakly. And then she remembered how hurt and desperate her father had seemed that night and how furious she had been with her mother for hurting him. Her parents were friends, true enough, but her mother did not love her father. Katherine had loved Charles Fielding, and because she did, she had barred her husband from her bed after Dorothy was born.

  Victoria bit her lip, remembering how lonely her father had often seemed. She wondered if all men felt lonely—or perhaps what they felt was rejected—if their wives refused them their bed.

  Her mother had not loved her father, she knew, but they had been friends. Friends . . . She was trying to make Jason into her friend, she realized suddenly, exactly as she’d seen her mother do to her father.

  “You’re a warm woman, Victoria, full of life and courage. Forget about the sorts of marriages you’ve seen amongst the ton—they’re empty and unsatisfying and superficial. Think about your parents’ marriage instead. They were happy, weren’t they?”


  Her prolonged silence made Captain Farrell frown and abruptly change his tack. “Never mind about your parents’ marriage. I know about men, and I know Jason, so I want you to remember one thing. If a woman locks her husband out of her bedroom, he will lock her out of his heart. At least he will if he has any pride. And Jason has a great deal of it. He won’t grovel at your feet or beg you for your favors. You’ve withheld yourself from him; now it’s up to you to make certain he understands you don’t wish to do so any longer.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Not,” he said succinctly, “by suggesting that he play chess. And not by thinking it’s considerate of him to go to another woman, either.” Captain Farrell rubbed the muscles at the back of his neck. “I never realized how difficult it must be for a man to raise a daughter. There are some things that are very hard to discuss with the opposite sex.”

  Victoria stood up restlessly. “I’ll think about everything you said,” she promised, trying to hide her embarrassment.

  “May I ask you something,” he said hesitantly.

  “I suppose it’s only fair,” Victoria said with a winsome smile, hiding her dread. “After all, I’ve asked you a great deal.”

  “Didn’t anyone ever talk about married love with you?”

  “It isn’t the sort of thing one discusses with anyone except one’s mother,” Victoria said, flushing again. “One hears about one’s marital duty, of course, but somehow you don’t really understand—”

  “Duty!” he said in disgust. “In my country, a lass is eager for her wedding night. Go home and seduce your husband, my girl, and he’ll take care of the rest. You won’t look upon it as a duty after that. I know Jason well enough to assure you of that fact!”