Once and Always (32 page)

Victoria had been warned by her mother and by Miss Flossie that a gentleman could be carried away by his ardor, which would lead him to behave in an unspecified—but very unsuitable—way to the young lady who wrongly permitted him to lose his head. She realized instinctively that Jason was telling her
he
had been very close to losing his head. And she was feminine enough to feel a tiny twinge of satisfaction because her inexperienced kiss could so affect this very experienced man—especially since Andrew had never seemed so affected by her kiss. On the other hand, she had never kissed Andrew in the way Jason liked her to kiss him.

“I see you have my meaning,” he said wryly. “Personally, I have never particularly prized virginity. There are distinct advantages to marrying women who have already learned how to please a man. . . .” He waited, watching her closely as if expecting—hoping for—some sort of reaction from her, but Victoria merely looked away, her spirits drooping. Her virginity, or so it was said, should have been a highly valued gift to her husband. She certainly couldn’t offer him any experience in “pleasing a man,” whatever that entailed. “I—I’m sorry to disappoint you,” she said, embarrassed at the subject. “Things are very different in America.”

Despite the haggard strain in Jason’s voice, his words were gentle. “You’ve no need to apologize or look so miserable, Victoria. Don’t ever fear telling me the truth. No matter how bad the truth is, I can accept it and even admire you for having the courage to say it.” His hand lifted to caress her cheek. “It doesn’t matter,” he said soothingly. Abruptly, his manner turned brisk. “Tell me if you like your ring, then run along back to your friends.”

“I love it,” she said, trying to keep up with his swift, incomprehensible changes of mood. “It’s so beautiful I’m already terrified of losing it.”

Jason shrugged with complete indifference. “If you lose it, I’ll buy you another.”

He left then, and Victoria looked down at her betrothal ring, wishing he hadn’t been so cavalier about its potential loss. She wished the ring was more important to him, and less easily replaced. On the other hand, as a token of his affection, it was dismally appropriate, since
she
was unimportant to him and easily replaced.

He needs you, child.
Charles’s words came back to reassure her and she smiled, remembering that, at least when she was in his arms, Jason seemed to need her very much. Feeling somewhat reassured, she went back to the salon, where her ring was immediately noted and duly exclaimed over by all the young ladies.

In the days that preceded her wedding, nearly three hundred people came to call on Victoria to wish her happiness. Elegant carriages paraded up and down the street, discharging their passengers and returning a correct twenty minutes later to pick them up again, while Victoria sat in the salon, listening to handsome middle-aged matrons offering advice on the difficult tasks of running large houses and entertaining on the lavish scale required of the nobility. Younger married women talked to her about the problems of finding proper governesses and the best way to locate acceptable tutors for children. And in the midst of all the cheerful chaos, a comforting sense of belonging began to take root deep in Victoria. Until now, she’d had no occasion to know these people better than slightly or to converse with them about anything other than the most superficial topics. She had been inclined to see them for the most part as wealthy, pampered females who never gave a thought to anything except gowns, jewels, and diversion. Now she saw them in a new light—as wives and mothers who also cared about performing their duties in an exemplary fashion—and she liked them much better.

Of everyone she knew, only Jason stayed away, but he did so for the sake of appearances, and Victoria had to be grateful for that, even though it sometimes gave her the uneasy feeling she was marrying an absentee stranger. Charles came downstairs often to charm the ladies with his conversation and make it clear that Victoria had his wholehearted support. The rest of the time he remained out of sight, “to gather his strength” as he told Victoria, so that he could have the honor of giving her away. Neither Victoria nor Dr. Worthing could dissuade him from his determination to do that. Jason didn’t bother to try.

As the days passed, Victoria truly enjoyed the time she spent in the salon with her callers—except on those occasions when Jason’s name was mentioned and she sensed a familiar undercurrent of apprehension amongst them. It was obvious her new friends and acquaintances admired the social prestige she would enjoy as the wife of a fabulously wealthy marquess, but Victoria had the uneasy feeling there were some who still had serious reservations about her future husband. It bothered her because she was coming to like these people very much, and she wanted them to like Jason, too. Occasionally, as she chatted with one visitor, she overheard snatches of conversation about Jason from another part of the room, but the conversations always stopped abruptly when Victoria turned attentively to listen. It prevented her from coming to his defense, because she didn’t know what to defend him against.

The day before they were to be married, the pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place, forming a lurid picture that nearly sent Victoria reeling to the floor. As Lady Clappeston, the last visitor of the afternoon, took her leave, she gave Victoria’s arm a fond pat and said, “You’re a sensible young woman, my dear. And unlike some of the foolish doomhangers who worry about your safety,
I
have every faith you’ll deal well with Wakefield. You’re nothing like his first wife. In my opinion, Lady Melissa deserved everything she said he did to her, and more. The woman was nothing but a trollop!”

With that. Lady Clappeston sailed out of the salon, leaving Victoria staring at Caroline. “His first wife?” she uttered, feeling as if she were in the midst of a nightmare. “Jason was married before? Why—why didn’t someone tell me?”

“But I thought you knew at least that much,” Caroline burst out, anxious to acquit herself. “I naturally assumed your uncle or Lord Fielding would have told you. Surely you must have heard at least some gossip?”

“All I ever heard were snatches of conversations that always stopped as soon as people noticed I was present.” Victoria returned, white with rage and shock. “I’ve heard the name Lady Melissa mentioned in connection with Jason, but no one ever referred to her as his
wife.
People usually spoke of her in such disapproving tones that I assumed she had been . . . involved . . . with Jason, you know,” she
finished awkwardly,
“in the same way Miss
Sybil
someone-or-other was involved with him until now.”

“Was involved?” Caroline repeated in surprise at Victoria’s use of the past tense. She caught herself immediately, and looked down, apparently fascinated with the pattern of the upholstery on the blue silk sofa.

“Naturally, now that we are going to be married, Jason won’t—or will he?” she asked.

“I don’t know what he’ll do,” Caroline said miserably. “Some men, such as Robert, do give up their paramours when they marry, but others do not.”

Victoria rubbed her temples with her fingertips, her mind in such turmoil that she was sidetracked by this discussion of mistresses. “Sometimes, England is so strange to me. At home, husbands do not give their time or affection to women other than their wives. At least, I never heard about it. Yet I’ve heard remarks here that make me think it is perfectly acceptable for wealthy married gentlemen to consort with— with ladies who are not their wives.”

Caroline turned the conversation to a more pressing topic. “Does it matter terribly to you that Lord Fielding was married before?”

“Of course it does. At least I think it does. I don’t know. What matters most right now is that no one in the family told me about it.” She stood up so abruptly that Caroline jumped. “If you’ll excuse me, I want to go up and talk to my Uncle Charles.”

Uncle Charles’s valet put his finger to his lips when Victoria tapped at Charles’s door and informed her the duke was asleep. Too upset to wait for him to awaken so her questions could be answered, Victoria marched down the hall to Miss Flossie’s room. In recent weeks, Miss Flossie had virtually relinquished her duties as Victoria’s chaperone to Caroline Collingwood. As a result, Victoria had scarcely seen the lovable little yellow-haired woman except at an occasional meal.

Victoria tapped at her door, and when Miss Flossie cheerfully invited her to enter, she stepped into the pretty little sitting room that adjoined Miss Flossie’s bedroom.

“Victoria, my dear, you’re looking as radiant as a bride!” Miss Flossie said with her bright, vague smile and usual lack of discernment, for in truth Victoria was deathly pale and visibly overwrought.

“Miss Flossie,” Victoria said, plunging straight in, “I’ve just come from Uncle Charles’s room, but he was asleep. You are the only other person I can turn to. It’s about Jason. Something is terribly wrong.”

“Good heavens!” Miss Flossie cried, setting her needlework aside. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I’ve just discovered that he was married before!” Victoria burst out.

Miss Flossie tipped her head to one side, an elderly china doll in a little white lace cap. “Dear me, I thought Charles had told you—or Wakefield himself. Well, in any event, Jason was married before, my dear. So now you know.” Having dispatched that problem, Miss Flossie smiled and picked up her needlework again.

“But I don’t know anything. Lady Clappeston said the oddest thing—she said Jason’s wife deserved everything he did to her. What did he do?”

“Do?” Miss Flossie repeated, blinking. “Why, nothing that I know of for certain. Lady Clappeston was foolish indeed to say he did anything, for she couldn’t know either, unless she was married to him, which I can assure you she was not. There, does that make you feel better?”

“No!” Victoria burst out a little hysterically. “What I wish to know is
why
Lady Clappeston believes Jason did bad things to his wife. She must have reason to think so, and unless I miss my guess, a great many people think as she does.”

“They may,” Miss Flossie agreed. “You see, Jason’s wretched wife, may she rest in peace—though I don’t know how she could do so, when one considers how wickedly she behaved when she was alive—cried to everyone about Wakefield’s abominable treatment of her. Some people evidently believed her, but the very fact that he didn’t murder her should prove that he is a man of admirable restraint. If I had a husband, which of course I don’t, and I did the things Melissa did, which of course I would never do, he would surely beat me. So if Wakefield beat Melissa, which I don’t know for certain he did, he would be more than justified in it. You may take my word on that.”

Victoria thought of the times she had seen Jason angry, of the leashed fury in his eyes and the awesome, predatory power she sometimes glimpsed beneath his urbane exterior. A picture flashed across her terrified mind—an image of a woman screaming as he beat her for some trivial infraction of his personal rules. “What,” she whispered hoarsely, “what sort of things did Melissa do?”

“Well, there is no nice way to say it. The truth is that she was seen in the company of other men.”

Victoria shuddered. Nearly every fashionable lady in London was seen in the company of other men. It was a way of life for fashionable married ladies to have their cicisbeos. “And he beat her for that?” she whispered sickly.

“We don’t
know
that he beat her,” Miss Flossie pointed out with careful precision. “In fact, I rather doubt it. I once heard a gentleman criticize Jason—behind his back, of course, for no one would ever have the courage to criticize him to his face—for the way he
ignored
Melissa’s behavior.”

A sudden idea was born in Victoria’s reeling mind. “Exactly what did the gentleman say?” she asked carefully.
“Exactly,”
she emphasized.

“Exactly? Well, since you insist, he said—if I remember correctly—
‘Wakefield is being cuckolded in front of all London and he damned well knows it, yet he ignores it and wears the horns. He’s setting a bad example for the rest of our wives to see. If you ask me, he ought to lock the harlot up in his place in Scotland and throw away the key.’ ”

Victoria’s head fell back weakly against her chair, and she closed her eyes with a mixture of relief and sorrow. “Cuckolded,” she whispered. “So that’s it. . . .” She thought of how proud Jason was, and how much his pride must have been mangled by his wife’s public infidelities.

“Now, then, is there anything else you want to know?” Miss Flossie said.

“Yes,” Victoria said with visible unease.

The tension in her voice gave Miss Flossie a nervous start. “Well, I hope it isn’t anything about
you-know,”
she twittered nervously, “because as your nearest female relative I realize it is my responsibility to explain that to you, but the truth is I’m abysmally ignorant about it. I’ve cherished the hope your mother might have already explained it.”

Victoria curiously opened her eyes, but she was too exhausted by all that had happened to do more than say mildly, “I don’t quite understand what you’re talking about, ma’am.”

“I’m speaking of
‘you-know’
—that is what my dearest friend, Prudence, always called it—which was very silly for I didn’t know at all. However, I can repeat to you the information given my friend Prudence by
her
mother on the day before her marriage.”

“I beg your pardon?” Victoria repeated, feeling stupid.

“Well, you needn’t beg my pardon; I should ask yours for not having the information to give you. But ladies do not discuss
you-know.
Do you wish to hear what Prudence’s mother said about it?”

Victoria’s lips twitched. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, without having the vaguest idea what they were discussing.

“Very well. On your wedding night, your husband will join you in your bed—or perhaps he takes you to his, I can’t recall. In any event, you must not, under any circumstances, demonstrate your revulsion, nor scream, nor have vapors. You must close your eyes and permit him to do
you-know.
Whatever that may be. It will hurt and be repugnant, and there will be blood the first time, but you must close your eyes and persevere. I believe Prudence’s mama suggested that while
you-know
is happening, Prudence should try to think of something else—like the new fur or gown she will soon be able to buy if her husband is pleased with her. Nasty business, is it not?”