Once and Always (26 page)

“About an hour before dawn.”

He nodded, leaned down and pressed a brief, apologetic kiss on her brow, and then left, the sound of his boots echoing sharply against the polished wood floor.

The sky was already lightening when Jason finally located the grove on the Crowley estate and spotted the two duelists standing beneath the shadowy oaks. Fifty yards to the left of the pair, the physician’s black carriage was pulled up ominously beneath another tree, a horse tied at its rear. Jason dug his heels savagely into his mount, sending the black stallion flying down the grassy knoll, its hooves throwing huge clumps of wet sod high into the air.

He skidded to a halt near the combatants and hurtled out of the saddle, running. “What the hell is going on here!” he demanded of Crowley when he reached his side, then he whirled around in surprise as the Marquis de Salle stepped out of the shadows twenty yards away and positioned himself next to young Wiltshire. “What are
you
doing here, de Salle?” Jason said angrily. “You, at least, should have more sense than these two puppies.”

“I’m doing the same thing you are,” de Salle drawled with a faint grin, “but without much success, as you’ll soon discover.”

“Crowley fired at me,” Wiltshire burst out accusingly. His face was twisted with angry surprise, and his words were slurred from the liquor he had consumed to bolster his courage. “Crowley din—didn't delope like a gen—gentleman. Now, I’m going to
shoot
him.”

“I didn’t fire
at
you,” Crowley boomed furiously from beside Jason. “If I had, I’d have
hit
you.”

“You didn't aim in—in the air,” Wiltshire yelled back. “You aren—aren’t a gentleman. You deserve to die, and I’m gonna shoot you!” Wiltshire’s arm shook as he raised it and leveled the pistol at his opponent, and then everything happened at once. The gun exploded just as the Marquis de Salle sprang forward and tried to knock it out of Wiltshire’s hand and as Jason dived at Crowley, sending the rigid boy sprawling to the ground. The ball whined past Jason’s ear as he fell, ricocheted off the trunk of the tree, and ripped across his upper arm.

After a stunned moment, Jason slowly sat up, his expression incredulous. He put his hand to the fiery pain in his arm and then stared at the blood that covered his fingers with an expression of almost comical disbelief.

The physician, the Marquis de Salle, and young Wiltshire all ran forward. “Here, let me have a look at that arm,” Dr. Worthing said, waving the others aside and squatting down on his heels.

Dr. Worthing ripped Jason’s shirt open and young Wiltshire emitted a strangled groan when he saw the blood running from Jason’s wound. “Oh, God!” he wailed. “Lord Fielding, I never meant—”

“Shut up!” Dr. Worthing bit out. “Someone hand me that whiskey in my case.” To Jason he said, “It’s only a flesh wound, Jason, but it’s fairly deep. I’ll have to clean it and stitch it.” He took the bottle of whiskey that the Marquis de Salle handed him, and glanced apologetically at Jason. “This is going to burn like the fires of Hades.”

Jason nodded and clenched his teeth, and the physician swiftly upended the bottle, drenching the torn flesh with the fiery alcohol. Then he handed the bottle to Jason. “If I were you, Jason, I’d drink the rest of this. You’re going to need plenty of stitches.”

“
I
didn’t shoot him,” Wiltshire burst out in an attempt to avoid giving Lord Fielding, the legendary duelist, the satisfaction he had every right to demand at a later date. Four pairs of eyes looked at him in disgust. “I didn’t!” Wiltshire argued desperately. “It was the tree that made it happen. I shot at the tree, and the ball hit the tree,
then
it hit Lord Fielding.”

Jason raised his dark, glittering eyes to his terrified assailant and said in an ominous voice, “If you’re very lucky, Wiltshire, you’ll be able to stay out of my sight until I’m too old to horsewhip you.”

Wiltshire backed away, turned on his heel, and started running. Jason turned his head, impaling the other petrified duelist on his gaze. “Crowley,” he warned softly, “your presence offends me.”

Crowley turned and fled to his horse.

When they had galloped away, Jason raised the whiskey bottle and took a long swallow, gasping as Dr. Worthing’s threaded needle pierced his swollen flesh, pulling it tightly, joining flesh to flesh, then piercing again. Holding the bottle out to de Salle, he said dryly, “I regret the lack of a suitable glass; however, if you would care to join me, help yourself.”

De Salle unhesitatingly reached for the proffered bottle, explaining as he did so, “I went to your house when I learned of the duel earlier this evening, but your man said you were out for the evening and wouldn’t tell me where you’d gone.” He took a long swallow of the strong whiskey and handed the bottle back to Jason. “So I went after Dr. Worthing and we came here, hoping to stop them.”

“We should have let them shoot themselves,” Jason said disgustedly, then clenched his teeth and stiffened as the needle again pierced his jagged flesh.

“Probably so.”

Jason took two more long swallows of liquor and felt the stuff begin to numb his senses. Leaning his head back against the hard bark of the tree, he sighed with amused exasperation. “Exactly what did my little countess do to cause this duel?”

De Salle stiffened at Jason’s affectionate phrasing and his voice lost its polite friendliness. “As nearly as I could tell, Lady Victoria supposedly called Wiltshire a dandified English bumpkin.”

“Then Wiltshire should have called
her
out,” Jason said with a chuckle, taking another swig of whiskey. “She wouldn’t have missed her shot.”

De Salle didn’t smile at the joke. “What do you mean, ‘your little countess’?” he demanded tersely. “If she is yours, you’re taking your time making it official—you said yourself the matter wasn’t settled. What kind of game are you playing with her affections, Wakefield?”

Jason’s gaze shot to the other man’s hostile features; then he closed his eyes, an exasperated smile on his lips. “If
you’re
planning to call me out, I hope to hell you can shoot. It’s damned humiliating for a man of my reputation to be shot by a tree.”

Victoria tossed and turned in her bed, too exhausted to sleep and unable to still her churning thoughts. At daybreak she gave up trying and sat up in bed, watching the sky change from dark gray to pale gray, her thoughts as dismal and bleak as the morning promised to be. Propped up against the pillows, she plucked idly at the satin coverlet, while her life seemed to stretch before her like a dark, lonely, frightening tunnel. She thought about Andrew, who was married to another and lost to her now; she thought about the villagers she had loved from childhood and who had loved her in return. Now there was no one. Except Uncle Charles, of course, but even his affection couldn’t still her restlessness or fill the aching void inside her.

She had always felt needed and useful; now her life was an endless round of frenzied frivolity with Jason paying all the expenses. She felt so—so unnecessary, so useless and burdensome.

She’d tried to take Jason’s callous advice and choose another man to marry. She’d tried, but she simply couldn’t imagine herself married to any of the shallow London blades who were trying so hard to win her. They didn’t need her as a wife; she would merely be an ornament, a decoration in their lives. With the exception of the Collingwoods and a few others,
ton
marriages were superficial conveniences, nothing more. Couples rarely appeared together at the same function and, if they did, it was unfashionable for them to remain in each other’s company once there. The children born of these marriages were promptly dumped into the hands of nannies and tutors. How different the meaning of “marriage” was here, Victoria thought.

Wistfully she recalled the husbands and wives she’d known in Portage. She remembered old Mr. Prowther sitting on the porch in the summers, determinedly reading to his palsied wife, who scarcely knew where she was. She remembered the look on Mr. and Mrs. Makepeace’s faces when Victoria’s father informed them that, after twenty years of childless marriage, Mrs. Makepeace had conceived. She remembered the way the middle-aged couple had clung to each other and wept with unashamed joy.
Those
were marriages as marriage was surely meant to be—two people working together and helping each other through good times and bad; two people laughing together, raising children together, and even crying together.

Victoria thought of her own mother and father. Although Katherine Seaton hadn’t loved her husband, she had still made a cozy home for him and been his helpmate. They did things together too, like playing chess before the fire in the winter and taking walks in the summer twilight.

In London, Victoria was desired for the simple, silly reason that she was “in fashion” at the moment. As a wife she would have no use, no purpose, except as a decoration at the foot of the dining table when guests were expected for supper. Victoria knew she could never be content if that was her life. She wanted to share herself with someone who needed her, to make him happy and be important to him. She wanted to be useful, to have a purpose other than an ornamental one.

The Marquis de Salle truly cared for her, she could sense that—but he didn’t love her, regardless of what he said.

Victoria bit her lip against the pain as she recalled Andrew’s tender avowals of love. He hadn’t really loved her.

The Marquis de Salle didn’t love her either. Perhaps wealthy men, including Andrew, were incapable of feeling real love. Perhaps—

Victoria sat bolt upright as heavy, dragging footsteps sounded in the hall. It was too early for the servants to be about, and besides, they practically
ran
through the house in their haste to satisfy their employer. Something thudded against a wall and a man moaned. Uncle Charles must be ill, she thought, and flung back the covers, hurtling out of bed. Racing to the door, she jerked it open. “Jason!” she said, her heart leaping into her throat as he sagged against the wall, his left arm in a makeshift sling. “What happened?” she whispered, then quickly amended, “Never mind. Don’t try to talk. I’ll get a servant to help you.” She whirled around, but he caught her arm in an amazingly strong grip and hauled her back, a crooked grin on his face.

“I want
you
to help me,” he said, and threw his right arm over her shoulders, nearly sending her to her knees beneath his weight. “Take me to my room, Victoria,” he ordered in a thick, cajoling voice.

“Where is it?” Victoria whispered as they started awkwardly down the hall.

“Don’t you know?” he chided thickly in a hurt tone. “I know where
your
room is.”

“What difference does that make?” Victoria demanded a little frantically as she tried to shift his weight.

“None,” he said agreeably, and stopped before the next door on the right. Victoria opened it and helped him inside.

Across the hall, another bedroom door opened and Charles Fielding stood in the doorway, his face anxious and worried as he pulled on a satin dressing robe. He stopped with only one arm in its sleeve as Jason said expansively to Victoria, “Now, li’l countess, escort me to my bed.”

Victoria caught the odd way Jason was slurring his words; she even thought there was a flirtatious tone in his voice, but she blamed his queer speech on either pain or possibly loss of blood.

When they reached his big four-poster bed, he pulled his arm away and waited docilely while Victoria swept the covers back; then he sat down and looked at her with a foolish grin. Victoria looked back at him, hiding her anxiety. Using her father’s gentle, matter-of-fact tone, she said, “Can you tell me what happened to you?”

“Certainly!” he said, looking affronted. “I’m not an imbecile, you know.”

“Well, what happened?” Victoria repeated when he made no attempt to tell her.

“Help me take off my boots.”

Victoria hesitated. “I think I ought to get Northrup.”

“Never mind about the boots then,” he said magnanimously, and with that, he lay down and carelessly crossed his booted feet upon the maroon coverlet. “Sit down beside me and hold my hand.”

“Don’t be silly.”

He gave her a hurt look. “You ought to be nicer to me, Victoria. After all, I have been wounded in a duel over your honor.” He reached out and captured her hand.

Horrified at the mention of a duel, Victoria obeyed the increasing pressure of his hand and sat down beside his prone body. “Oh, my God—a duel! Jason, why?” She searched his pale features, saw his brave, lopsided smile, and her heart melted with contrition and guilt. For some reason, he had actually fought for her. “Please tell me why you dueled,” she implored.

He grinned. “Because Wiltshire called you an English bumpkin.”

“A what? Jason,” she asked anxiously, “how much blood have you lost?”

“All of it,” he averred outrageously. “How sorry do you feel for me?”

“Very,” she answered automatically. “Now, will you please try to make sense? Wiltshire shot you because—”

He rolled his eyes in disgust. “Wiltshire didn't shoot me— he couldn’t hit a stone wall at two paces. A
tree
shot me.” Reaching up, he cradled her shocked face between his two hands, drawing her closer to him, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Do you know how beautiful you are?” he said hoarsely, and this time pungent whiskey fumes blasted her in the face.

“You’re foxed!” Victoria accused, lurching back.

“Yer right,” he agreed genially. “Got drunk with yer friend de Salle.”

“Dear God!” Victoria gasped. “Was he there too?”

Jason nodded but said nothing as his fascinated gaze moved over her. Her shining hair tumbled over her shoulders in a gloriously untidy mass of molten gold, framing a face of heartbreaking beauty. Her skin was as smooth as alabaster, her brows delicately arched, her lashes thick and curly. Her eyes were like large luminous sapphires as they worriedly searched his face, trying to assess his condition. Pride and courage showed in every feature of her face, from her high cheekbones and stubborn little nose to her small chin with its tiny, enchanting cleft at the center. And yet her mouth was vulnerable and soft—as soft as the breasts that swelled at his eye level above the bodice of her lace-edged cream satin nightdress, practically begging for his touch. But it was her mouth Jason wanted to taste first. ... He tightened his hand on her upper arm, drawing her closer.