Once and Always (50 page)

She was nothing but a pawn in a game played by two selfish, heartless men, she realized hysterically. Jason had known all along that Andrew was coming, just as he had known all along that Charles had been playing cards the night of his false “attack.”

Victoria pushed away from the door, ripped off her gown, and changed into a riding habit. If she stayed in this house another hour, she would go insane. She couldn’t scream at Charles and risk having his death on her conscience. And Jason— He was due back tonight. She would surely plunge a knife into his heart if she saw him now, she thought hysterically. She snatched a white woolen cloak from the wardrobe and ran down the stairs.

“Victoria, wait!” Charles shouted as she raced down the hall toward the back of the house.

Victoria spun around, her whole body trembling. “Stay away from me!” she cried, backing away. “I’m going to Claremont. You’ve done enough!”

“O’Malley!” Charles barked desperately as she ran out the back door.

“Yes, your grace?”

“I’ve no doubt you ‘overheard’ what happened in the drawing room—”

O’Malley the eavesdropper nodded grimly, not bothering to deny it.

“Can you ride?”

“Yes, but—”

“Go after her,” Charles said in frantic haste. “I don’t know whether she’ll take a carriage or ride, but go after her. She likes you, she’ll listen to you.”

“Her ladyship won’t be in a mood to listen to no one, and I can’t say as I blame her fer it.”

“Never mind that, dammit! If she won’t come back, at least follow her to Claremont and make certain she gets there in safety. Claremont is fifteen miles south of here, by the river road.”

“Suppose she heads for London and tries to go away with the American gentleman?”

Charles raked his hand through his gray hair, then shook his head emphatically. “She won’t. If she meant to leave with him, she’d have done it when he asked her to go with him.”

“But I ain’t all that handy with a horse—not like Lady Victoria is.”

“She won’t be able to ride her fastest in the dark. Now, get down to the stables and go after her!”

Victoria was already galloping away on Matador, with Wolf running beside her, when O’Malley dashed toward the stables. “Wait, please!” he yelled, but she didn’t seem to hear him, and she bent low over the horse’s neck, sending the mighty gelding racing away as if the devil were after her.

“Saddle the fastest horse we’ve got, and be quick!” O’Malley ordered a groom, his gaze riveted on Victoria’s flashing white cloak as it disappeared down Wakefield’s long winding drive toward the main road.

Three miles flew by beneath Matador’s thundering hooves before Victoria had to slow him down for Wolf’s sake. The gallant dog was racing beside her, his head bent low, willing to follow her until he dropped dead from exhaustion. She waited for him to catch his breath and was about to continue her headlong flight when she heard the clatter of hooves behind her and a man’s unintelligible shout.

Not certain whether she was being pursued by one of the brigands who preyed on solitary travelers at night or by Jason, who might have returned and decided to track her down, Victoria turned Matador into the woods beside the road and sent him racing through the trees on a zigzagging course meant to lose whoever was following her. Her pursuer crashed through the underbrush behind her, following her despite her every effort to lose him.

Panic and fury rose apace in her breast as she broke from the cover of the trees that should have concealed her and spurred her horse down the road. If it was Jason behind her, she would die before she’d let him run her to ground like a rabbit. He’d made a fool of her once too often. No, it couldn’t be Jason! She hadn’t passed his coach on the drive when she rode away from Wakefield, nor had she seen any sign of it before she turned off onto the river road.

Victoria’s anger dissolved into chilling terror. She was coming to the same river where another girl had mysteriously drowned. She remembered the vicar’s stories about bloodthirsty bandits who preyed on travelers at night, and she threw a petrified glance over her shoulder as she raced toward one of the bridges that traversed the winding river. She saw that her pursuer had temporarily dropped back out of sight around a bend in the road, but she could hear him coming, following her as surely as if he had a light to guide him— Her cloak! Her white cloak was billowing out behind her like a waving beacon in the night.

“Oh, dear God!” she burst out as Matador clattered across the bridge. On her right there was a path that ran along the riverbank, while the road continued straight ahead. She jerked the horse to a bone-jarring stop, scrambled out of the saddle, and unfastened her cloak. Praying wildly that her ploy would work, Victoria flung her cloak over the saddle, turned the horse down the path along the riverbank, and whacked Matador hard on the flank with her crop, sending the horse galloping down the river path. With Wolf at her side, she raced into the woods above the path and crouched down in the underbrush, her heart thundering in her chest. A minute later, she heard her pursuer clatter across the bridge. She peeked between the branches of the bush concealing her and saw him veer off on the path that ran beside the river, but she couldn’t see his face.

She didn’t see that Matador eventually slowed from a run to a walk, then ambled down to the river for a drink. Nor did she see the river tug her cloak free from the saddle while the horse drank, carrying it a few yards downstream, where it tangled among the branches of a partially submerged fallen tree.

Victoria didn’t see any of that, because she was already running through the woods, parallel with the main road, smiling to herself because the bandit had fallen for the best trick Rushing River had ever taught her. To mislead one’s pursuer, one merely sent one’s horse in one direction and took off on foot in another. Tossing her cloak over the saddle had been an ingenious improvisation of Victoria’s own.

O’Malley jerked his horse to a jolting stop beside Victoria’s riderless gelding. Frantically, he twisted his head around to scan the steep bank behind and above him, searching for some sign of her up there, thinking her horse must have thrown her at some point between there and here. “Lady Victoria?” he shouted, his gaze sweeping in a wide arc over the bank behind him, the woods on his left, and finally the river on his right. . . where a white cloak floated eerily atop the water, hooked on a partially submerged fallen tree. “Lady Victoria!” he screamed in terror, vaulting from his horse. “The damned horse!” he panted, frantically stripping off his jacket and pulling off his boots. “The damned horse threw her off the ridge into the river ...” He raced into the murky, rushing water, swimming toward the cloak. “Lady Victoria!” he cried and dove under. He came up, shouting her name and gasping for breath, then he dove under again.

The house was ablaze with lights when Jason’s coach pulled to a stop in the drive. Eager to see Victoria, he bounded up the shallow terraced front steps. “Good evening, Northrup!” he grinned, slapping the stalwart butler on the back and handing over his cape. “Where is my wife? Has everyone already eaten? I was delayed by a damnable broken wheel.”

Northrup’s face was a frozen mask, his voice a raw whisper. “Captain Farrell is waiting for you in the salon, my lord.”

“What’s wrong with your voice?” Jason asked good-naturedly. “If your throat’s bothering you, mention it to Lady Victoria. She’s wonderful with things like that.”

Northrup swallowed convulsively and said nothing.

Tossing him a mildly curious look, Jason turned and strode briskly down the hall toward the salon. He threw open the doors, an eager smile on his face. “Hello, Mike, where is my wife?” He glanced around at the cheerful room with the little fire burning in the grate to ward off the chill, expecting her to materialize from a shadowy corner, but all he saw was Victoria’s cloak lying limply across the back of a chair, water dripping from its hem. “Forgive my poor manners, my friend,” he said to Mike Farrell, “but I haven’t seen Victoria in days. Let me go and find her, then we’ll all sit down and have a nice talk. She must be up—”

“Jason,” Mike Farrell said tightly. “There’s been an accident—”

The memory of. another night like this one ripped agonizingly across Jason’s brain—a night when he had come home expecting to find his son, and Northrup had acted oddly; a night when Mike Farrell had been waiting for him in this very room. As if to banish the terror and pain already screaming through his body, he shook his head, backing away. “No!” he whispered, and then his voice rose to a tormented shout. “No, damn you! Don’t tell me that—!”

“Jason—”

“Don’t you dare tell me that!” he shouted in agony.

Mike Farrell spoke, but he turned his head away from the unbearable torment on the other man’s ravaged face. “Her horse threw her off the ridge into the river, about four miles from here. O’Malley went in after her, but he couldn’t find her. He—”

“Get out,” Jason whispered.

“I’m sorry, Jason. Sorrier than I can say.”

“Get
out
!”

When Mike Farrell left, Jason stretched his hand toward Victoria’s cloak, his fingers slowly closing on the wet wool, pulling it toward him. The muscles at the base of his throat worked convulsively as he brought the sodden cloak to his chest, stroking it lovingly with his hand, and then he buried his face in it, rubbing it against his cheek. Waves of agonizing pain exploded through his entire being, and the tears he had thought he was incapable of shedding fell from his eyes. “No,” he sobbed in demented anguish. And then he screamed it.

“Here, now, my dear,” the Duchess of Claremont said, patting her great-granddaughter’s shoulder. “It breaks my heart to see you looking so wretched.”

Victoria bit her lip, staring out of the window at the manicured lawns stretching out before her, and said nothing.

“I can scarcely believe your husband hasn’t come here yet to apologize for the outrageous deceit he and Atherton practiced on you,” the duchess declared irritably. “Perhaps he didn’t arrive home the night before last, after all.” Restlessly, she walked about the room, leaning on her cane, her lively eyes darting toward the windows as if she, too, expected to see Jason Fielding arriving at any moment. “When he does put in an appearance, it will afford me great satisfaction if you force him to get down on his knees!”

A wry, mirthless smile touched Victoria’s soft lips. “Then you are bound to be disappointed, Grandmama, for I can assure you beyond any doubt that Jason will not do that. He’s more likely to walk in here and try to kiss me and, and—”

“—and seduce you into coming home?” the duchess finished bluntly.

“Exactly.”

“And could he accomplish that?” she asked, tipping her white head to the side, her eyes momentarily amused despite her frown.

Victoria sighed and turned around, leaning her head against the windowframe and folding her arms across her midriff. “Probably.”

“Well, he’s certainly taking his time about it. Do you truly believe he knew about Mr. Bainbridge’s letters? I mean, if he did know about them, it was utterly unprincipled of him not to tell you.”

“Jason has no principles,” Victoria said with weary anger. “He doesn’t believe in them.”

The duchess resumed her thoughtful pacing but she stopped short when she came to Wolf, who was lying in front of the fireplace. She shuddered and changed direction. “What sin I’ve committed to deserve having this ferocious beast as a houseguest, I don’t know.”

A sad giggle emitted from Victoria. “Shall I chain him outside?”

“Good God, no! He tore the seat of Michaelson’s breeches when he tried to feed him this morning.”

“He doesn’t trust men.”

“A wise animal. Ugly though.”

“I think he’s beautiful in a wild, predatory way—” like Jason, she thought, and hastily cast the debilitating recollection aside.

“Before I sent Dorothy off to France, she had already adopted two cats and a sparrow with a broken wing. I didn’t like them either, but at least
they
didn’t watch me like this animal does. I tell you, he has every happy expectation of eating me. Even now, he’s wondering how I’ll taste.”

“He’s watching you because he thinks he’s guarding you,” Victoria explained, smiling.

“He thinks he’s guarding his next meal! No, no,” she said, raising her hand when Victoria started toward Wolf, intending to put him outside. “Don’t, I beg you, endanger any more of my servants. Besides,” she relented enough to admit, “I haven’t felt this safe in my house since your great-grandfather was alive.”

“You don’t have to worry about prowlers sneaking in,” Victoria agreed, returning to her vigil at the window.

“Sneaking in? My dear, you couldn’t
bribe
a prowler to enter this room.”

Victoria remained at the window for another minute, then turned .and wandered aimlessly toward a discarded book lying upon a glossy, satinwood table.

“Do sit down, Victoria, and let me pace for a while. There’s no sense in us banging into one another as we traverse the carpet. What could be keeping that handsome devil of yours from our lair?”

“It’s just as well Jason hasn’t come before now,” Victoria said, sinking into a chair and staring at her hands. “It’s taken me this long to calm down.”

The duchess stomped over to the windows and peered out at the drive. “Do you think he loves you?”

“I thought so.”

“Of course he does!” her grace asserted forcefully. “All London is talking about it. The man is besotted with you. Which is undoubtedly why he went along with Atherton’s scheme and kept Andrew’s letter a secret from you. I shall give Atherton the edge of my tongue for that shoddy piece of business. Although,” she added audaciously, still peering out the window, “I probably would have done the same thing in the same circumstances.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“Of course I would. Given a choice between letting you marry some colonial I didn’t know and didn’t have any faith in, versus my own wish to see you married to the premier
parti
in England!—a man of wealth, title, and looks—I might well have done as Atherton did.”