Once and Always (36 page)

The only three women who had ever been part of his life— Victoria, Melissa, and his foster mother—had all seen something in him that made him loathsome and ugly in their sight, although both his wives had hidden their revulsion until after the wedding, when his wealth was finally theirs.

With implacable resolve, Jason approached Victoria and touched her arm. She jumped and pulled away as if his touch burned her. “It’s late and it’s time to go in,” he said.

Even in the moonlight her face turned noticeably pale and a trapped, haunted look widened her eyes. “B-but it’s not really late—”

“It’s late enough to go to bed, Victoria,” he told her bluntly.

“But I’m not the least bit sleepy!”

“Good,” Jason said with deliberate crudity. He knew she understood because her whole body began to tremble. “We made a bargain,” he said harshly, “and I expect you to keep your part of it, no matter how distasteful you find the prospect of going to bed with me.”

His icy, authoritative voice chilled her to the bone. Nodding, Victoria walked stiffly into the house and up to her new rooms, which adjoined Jason’s.

Sensing her withdrawn mood, Ruth silently helped Victoria remove her wedding gown and put on the cream satin and lace negligee Madame Dumosse had created especially for use on her wedding night.

Bile rose in Victoria’s throat and terror clutched at her insides when Ruth went over to turn the bed down. The wine she had drunk, hoping to quiet her fears, was now making her dizzy and sick. Instead of calming her as it had earlier, it was making her feel violently ill and horribly unable to control her emotions. She wished devoutly she hadn’t touched it. The only other time she’d had more than a sip of the stuff was after her parents’ funeral, when Dr. Morrison insisted she have two glasses. It had made her retch that time, and he had told her she might be one of those people whose systems couldn’t tolerate it.

With Miss Flossie’s lurid description screaming through her mind, Victoria walked toward the bed. Soon her blood would be spilled on these sheets, she thought wildly. How much blood? How much pain? She broke out in a cold sweat, and dizziness swept over her as Ruth plumped up the pillows. Like a puppet she climbed in, trying to control her quaking panic and rising nausea. She mustn’t scream or show her revulsion, Miss Flossie had told her, but when Jason pulled the connecting door open and strode into the room wearing a maroon brocade dressing robe that showed much of his bare chest and legs, Victoria couldn’t stifle her gasp of fear. “Jason!” she burst out, pressing back into the pillows.

“Who were you expecting—Andrew?” he asked conversationally. His hands went to the satin belt that held the sides of his dressing robe together, and Victoria’s fear escalated to panic. “D-don’t do that,” she pleaded wildly, unable to speak or think coherently. “A gentleman surely doesn’t disrobe in front of a lady, even if they
are
m-married.”

“I think we’ve had this conversation before, but in case you’ve forgotten, I’ll remind you again that I’m no gentleman.” His hands pulled at the ends of the satin belt. “However, if the sight of my ungentlemanly body offends your sensibilities, you can solve that problem by closing your eyes. The only other solution is for me to get into bed and
then
remove my robe, and
that
option offends
my
sensibilities.” He opened the robe, shrugging out of it and Victoria’s eyes widened in mute terror on his huge, muscular body.

Whatever tiny, secret hope Jason had harbored that she might yet submit willingly to his advances vanished when she closed her eyes and averted her face from him.

Jason stared at her and then, with deliberate crudity, he yanked the sheets from her fists and swept them away. He got into bed beside her and wordlessly untied the bow at the low bodice of her satin and lace negligee; then he sucked in his breath as he beheld the nude perfection of her body.

Victoria’s breasts were full and ripe, her waist tiny, her hips gently rounded. Her legs were long and incredibly shapely, with slim thighs and trim calves. As his gaze roved over her, a blush stained her smooth ivory skin and when he laid his hand tentatively against one voluptuous breast, her whole body lurched and stiffened, rejecting his touch.

For an experienced woman, she was as cold and unyielding as a stone, lying there, her averted face twisted with revulsion. Jason considered trying to seduce her into cooperating, then tossed the idea aside with contempt. She had nearly left him at the altar this morning, and she obviously had no desire to suffer his prolonged caresses.

“Don’t do this,” she pleaded frantically as he caressed her breast. “I’m going to be sick!” she cried, trying to lunge out of bed. “You’re going to make me sick!”

Her words hammered into his brain like sharp nails, and black rage exploded inside him. Shoving his hands into her luxurious hair, Jason rolled onto her. “In that case,” he growled on a raw, infuriated breath, “we’d better get this over with in a hurry.”

Visions of blood and terrible pain roared through Victoria, adding their horror to the nausea the wine was causing. “I don’t want to!” she cried piteously.

“We made a bargain, and as long as we’re married, you’ll keep it,” he whispered as he pried her stiff thighs apart. Victoria whimpered as his rigid manhood probed boldly at her, but somewhere in the depths of her stricken mind, she knew he was right about the bargain and she stopped fighting him. “Relax,” he warned bitterly in the darkness above her, “I may not be as considerate as your dear Andrew, but I don’t want to hurt you.”

His vicious mention of Andrew at a time like this cut her to the heart, and her anguish erupted in a scream of pain as Jason rammed into her. Her body writhed beneath his, and tears poured from her eyes in hot, humiliated streaks as her husband used her without kindness or caring.

The instant his weight lifted from her, Victoria turned onto her side, burying her face in the pillow, her body racked with sobs that were part horror, part shock. “Get out,” she choked, pulling her knees up to her chest and curling into a ball of anguish. “Get out, get out!”

Jason hesitated, then rolled from the bed, picked up his robe, and walked into his room. He closed the door, but the sounds of her weeping followed him. Nude, he went over to his dresser, snatched up a crystal decanter of brandy and half-filled a glass with the potent brew. He swallowed all of the burning liquid, trying to drown out the memory of her resistance and the sound of her heartbroken revulsion, to blot out the thought of her stricken face when she tried to pull her hand free of his at the altar.

How stupid he’d been to believe he’d felt warmth from Victoria when she kissed him. She’d told him when he first suggested they marry that she didn’t want to marry him. Long ago, when she discovered they were supposedly betrothed, she’d told him what she really thought of him:
“You are a cold, callous, arrogant monster.
. . . No
woman in her right mind would marry you. . . . You aren’t worth a tenth of Andrew. . . .”

She’d meant every word.

How stupid he’d been to convince himself she actually cared for him.. . . Jason turned to put the glass down on the dresser and caught his reflection in the mirror. Traces of blood were smeared on his thighs.

Victoria’s blood.

Her heart might have belonged to Andrew, but not her beautiful body—that she had given only to Jason. He stared at himself while self-loathing poured through his veins like acid. He had been so damned jealous, so wounded by her attempt to leave him at the altar, that he hadn’t even noticed she was a virgin.

He closed his eyes in agonizing remorse, unable to bear the sight of himself. He had shown Victoria no more tenderness or consideration than a drunken seaman shows a paid doxy.

He thought of how dry and tight her passage had been, how small and fragile she had felt in his arms, how viciously he had used her, and a fresh surge of sickening regret ripped through him.

Opening his eyes, he stared at himself in the mirror, knowing he had turned her wedding night into a nightmare. Victoria was indeed the gentle, courageous, spirited angel he had thought she was from the very beginning. And he—he was exactly what his foster mother had called him as a child: the spawn of the devil.

Shrugging into his robe, Jason took a velvet box from a drawer and went back into Victoria’s room. He stood beside her bed, watching her sleep. “Victoria,” he whispered. She flinched in her slumber at the sound of his voice and he ached with remorse. How vulnerable and hurt she looked; how incredibly beautiful she was with her hair spilling over the pillows and gleaming in the candlelight.

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.

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 dock-side 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.