ictoria went to London and stayed for four days, hoping against hope that Jason might come after her, growing lonelier and more frustrated by the hour when he didn’t. She went to three musicales and to the opera, and visited with her friends. At night she lay awake, trying to understand how a man could be so warm at night and so cold during the day. She couldn’t believe he saw her only as a convenient receptacle for his desire. That couldn’t be true— not when he seemed to enjoy her company at the evening meal so much. He always lingered over each course, joking with her and urging her to converse with him on all manner of subjects. Once he had even complimented her on her intelligence and perception. Several other times he had asked her opinions on subjects as diverse as the arrangement of furniture in the drawing room and whether or not he ought to pension off the estate manager and hire a younger man.

On the fourth night, Charles escorted her to a play, and afterward she returned to Jason’s townhouse in Upper Brook Street to change her clothes for the ball she’d promised to attend that night. She was going to go home tomorrow morning, she decided with a mixture of exasperation and resignation; she was ready to cede this contest of wills to Jason and to resume the battle for his affection on the home front.

Wrapped in a spectacular ball gown of swirling silver-spangled gauze, she walked into the ballroom with the Marquis de Salle on one side and Baron Arnoff on the other.

Heads turned when she entered, and Victoria noticed again the rather peculiar way people were looking at her. Last night she’d had the same uncomfortable sensation. She could scarcely believe the ton would find any reason to criticize her simply because she was in London without her husband. Besides, the glances she was receiving from the elegant ladies and gentlemen were not censorious. They watched her with something that resembled understanding, or perhaps it was pity.

Caroline Collingwood arrived toward the end of the evening, and Victoria pulled her aside, intending to ask Caroline if she knew why people were behaving oddly. Before she had the opportunity, Caroline provided the answer. “Victoria,” she said anxiously, “is everything all right—between Lord Fielding and you, I mean? You aren’t estranged already, are you?”

“Estranged?” Victoria echoed blankly. “Is that what people think? Is that why they’re watching me so strangely?”

“You’re not doing anything wrong,” Caroline assured her hastily, casting an apprehensive glance about to make certain that Victoria’s devoted escorts were out of hearing. “It’s just that, under the circumstances, people are jumping to certain conclusions—the conclusion that you and Lord Fielding are not in accord, and that you’ve, well, you’ve left him.”

“I’ve what!” Victoria burst out in a disgusted whisper. “Whyever would they think such a thing? Why, Lady Calliper isn’t with her husband, and Countess Graverton isn’t with hers, and—”

“I’m not with my husband either,” Caroline interrupted desperately. “But you see, none of our husbands were married before. Yours was.”

“And that makes a difference?” Victoria said, wondering what outrageous, unknown convention she’d broken this time. The ton had rules governing behavior in every category, with a long list of exceptions that made everything impossibly confusing. Still, she could not believe that first wives were permitted to go their own way in society, while second wives were not.

“It makes a difference,” Caroline sighed, “because the first Lady Fielding said some dreadful things about Lord Fielding’s cruelties to her, and there were people who believed her. You’ve been married for less than two weeks, and now you’re here, and you don’t look very happy, Victoria, truly you don’t. The people who believed the things the first Lady Fielding said have remembered them, and now they’re repeating what she said and pointing to you as confirmation.”

Victoria looked at her, feeling absolutely harassed. “I never thought, never imagined, they’d do so. I was planning to go back home tomorrow anyway. If it weren’t so late, I’d leave tonight.”

Caroline laid her hand on Victoria’s arm. “If there’s something bothering you, something you don’t wish to discuss, you know you can stay with us. I won’t press you.”

Shaking her head, Victoria hastily assured her, “I want to go home tomorrow. For tonight, there’s nothing I can do.”

“Except try to look happy,” her friend said wryly.

Victoria thought that was excellent advice, and she set out to follow it with a slight modification of her own. For the next two hours, she endeavored to speak to as many people as possible, managing skillfully to bring Jason’s name into her conversation each time and to speak of him in the most glowing terms. When Lord Armstrong remarked to a group of friends that it was becoming impossible to satisfy his tenants, Victoria quickly remarked that her husband was on the best of terms with his. “My Lord Fielding is so wise in the management of estates,” she finished in the breathless voice of a besotted bride, “that his tenants adore him and his servants positively worship him!”

“Is that right?” said Lord Armstrong, shocked. “I shall have to have a word with him. Didn’t know Wakefield gave a jot for his tenants, but there you are—I was mistaken.”

To Lady Brimworthy, who complimented Victoria on her sapphire necklace, Victoria replied, “Lord Fielding showers me with gifts. He is so very generous, so kind and thoughtful. And he has such excellent taste, does he not?”

“Indeed,” agreed Lady Brimworthy, admiring the fortune in diamonds and sapphires at Victoria’s slender throat. “Brimworthy flies into the boughs when I buy jewels,” she added morosely. “Next time he rings a peal over my head for being extravagant, I shall mention Wakefield’s generosity!”

When elderly Countess Draymore reminded Victoria to join her tomorrow for a Venetian breakfast the countess was giving, Victoria replied, “I’m afraid I cannot, Countess Draymore. I’ve been away from my husband for four days now, and to tell you the truth, I miss his company. He is the very soul of amiability and kindness!”

Countess Draymore’s mouth dropped open. As Victoria moved away, the old lady turned to her cronies and blinked. “The soul of amiability and kindness?” she repeated in puzzlement. “Where did I conceive the idea she was married to Wakefield?”

In his house on Upper Brook Street, Jason paced back and forth across his suite like a caged beast, silently cursing his aging London butler for giving him incorrect information about Victoria’s whereabouts tonight, and cursing himself for coming to London in pursuit of her like a jealous, lovesick boy. He had gone to the Berfords’ tonight, which was where the butler said Victoria was, but Jason hadn’t seen her among the crush at the Berfords’ ball. Nor was she at any of the other three places the butler thought she might be.

So successful was Victoria in her attempt to appear devoted to her husband that by the end of the evening, the guests were regarding her with more amusement than concern. She was still smiling about that when she entered the house shortly before dawn.

She lit the candle the servants had left for her on the table in the foyer and climbed the carpeted staircase. She was in the process of lighting the candles in her bedchamber when a stealthy sound from the adjoining suite caught her attention. Praying that the person in there was a servant and not a prowler, Victoria moved quietly toward the door. Holding her candle high in her shaking hand, she reached for the handle on the connecting door just as it was flung open, startling a scream from her. “Jason!” she said shakily, her hand on her throat. “Thank God it’s you. I-I thought you were a prowler and I was about to have a look.”

“Very brave,” he said, glancing at the upraised candle in her hand. “What were you going to do if I was a prowler— threaten to set my eyelashes on fire?”

Victoria’s giggle caught in her throat as she noticed the ominous glitter in those green eyes and the muscle leaping in his hard jaw. Behind that sardonic facade of his, there was a terrible burning anger, she realized. Automatically, she began backing away as Jason moved forward, towering over her. Despite the civilized elegance of his superbly tailored evening clothes, he had never looked more dangerous, more overpowering than he did as he came toward her with that deceptively lazy, stalking stride of his.

Victoria started backing around her bed, then stopped moving and quelled her rioting, irrational fear. She had not done anything wrong, and here she was behaving like a cowardly child! She would discuss this whole thing reasonably and rationally, she decided. “Jason,” she said, with only a small quiver in her reasonable voice, “are you angry?”

He stopped a few inches from her. Brushing back the sides of his black velvet jacket, he put his hands on his hips, his booted feet planted apart, his legs spread in a decidedly aggressive stance. “You could say that,” he drawled in an awful voice. “Where the hell have you been?”

“At—at Lady Dunworthy’s ball.”

“Until dawn?” he sneered.

“Yes. There’s nothing unusual in that. You know how late these things go—”

“No, I don’t know,” he said tightly. “Suppose you tell me why the minute you are out of my sight you forget how to count!”

“Count?” Victoria repeated, growing more frightened by the moment. “Count what?”

“Count days,” he clarified acidly. “I gave you permission to be here for two days, not four!”

“I don’t need your permission,” Victoria burst out unwisely. “And don’t pretend you care whether I’m here or at Wakefield!”

“Oh, but I do care,” he said in a silky voice, stripping off his jacket with slow deliberation and beginning to unbutton his white lawn shirt. “And you do need my permission. You’ve become very forgetful, my sweet—I’m your husband, remember? Take off your clothes.”

Wildly, Victoria shook her head.

“Don’t make me angry enough to force you,” he warned softly. “You won’t like what happens if you do, believe me.”

Victoria believed that wholeheartedly. Her shaking hands went to the back of her dress, awkwardly fumbling with the tiny fasteners. “Jason, for God’s sake, what’s wrong?” she pleaded.

“What’s wrong?” he repeated scathingly, tossing his shirt on the floor. “I’m jealous, my dear.” His hands went to the waistband of his trousers. “I’m jealous, and I find the feeling not only novel, but singularly unpleasant.”

Under other circumstances, Victoria would have been overjoyed at his admission of jealousy. Now it only made her more frightened, more tense, and her fingers more awkward.

Seeing her lack of progress, Jason reached out and roughly spun her around, his hands unfastening the tiny loops at the back of her gown with an ease that spoke of long experience in undressing women. “Get into bed,” he snapped, giving her a shove in that direction.

Victoria was a mass of quivering rebellion and jellied fear by the time he joined her and pulled her roughly into his arms. His mouth came down on hers in a hard, punishing kiss and she clamped her teeth together, gasping at the harsh pressure.

“Open your mouth, damn you!”

Victoria braced her hands against his chest and averted her face from his. “No! Not this way. I won’t let you!”

He smiled at that—a hard, cruel smile that chilled her blood. “You’ll let me, my sweet,” he whispered silkily. “Before I’m done with you, you’ll ask me.”

Furious, Victoria shoved against his chest with an unexpected strength born of fear and rolled out from under him.

She had almost got her feet to the floor when he caught her arm and yanked her back onto the bed, jerking her hands up and pinioning them above her head, then throwing his leg over both of hers. “That was very foolish,” he whispered, and slowly bent his head.

Tears of fear sprang to Victoria’s eyes as she lay pinned on her back like a trussed hare, watching Jason’s mouth descend purposefully toward hers. But instead of a renewed, painful assault like the last one, his mouth took hers in a long, insolently thorough kiss while his free hand began roving up and down her body, his fingers cupping a rosy breast, lightly squeezing the thrusting nipple, then drifting lower down her flat abdomen, stroking and caressing the triangular mound of curly golden hair, until her traitorous body began to respond to his skillful hand. Victoria squirmed in frantic earnest as his fingers moved lower yet, but it was no use—he wedged his leg between her knees and his fingers gained entry to the place they sought.

Liquid heat began to race through her, eventually sapping her strength, melting her resistance, and her lips parted beneath his. His tongue drove into her mouth, filling it, then withdrawing, while his fingers within her began to match the slow, driving movements of his tongue. The incredibly erotic onslaught of her senses was more than Victoria could withstand. With a silent moan of surrender she gave herself up to him, turning her face fully toward him and returning his kiss, her body pliant beneath him. The moment she did, Jason released her hands.

His head dipped lower and he nuzzled her neck as he sought the rosy ripeness of her breasts. His tongue drew tiny circles on her heated skin; then his mouth closed over her nipple, wringing a gasp of pure pleasure from her as she clasped his dark, curly head and held it to her. With an odd little laugh he moved lower, his tongue tracing a hot path down her taut abdomen until Victoria realized what he meant to do and tried frantically to wriggle away. His hands caught her hips, lifting her to him as his mouth closed around her. By the time he stopped, white-hot sensations were screaming through Victoria’s entire body and she was desperate for release.

He raised himself up over her, his hot engorged manhood probing lightly, teasingly at the place his hands and mouth had been. Moaning softly, Victoria arched her hips, her hands pulling his hips to her. He eased into her wet warmth with tormenting slowness, then moved gently backward and forward, thrusting himself into her a fraction deeper each time, withdrawing slightly, then driving deeper, until Victoria was half-mad with the need to be completely filled by him. Her legs gripped him and she lifted to meet each thrust, her face flushed, her chest rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths. Suddenly he drove into her with a force that sent a scream of pure pleasure through her—and just as suddenly, he pulled out.

“No!” Victoria cried out in surprised loss, wrapping her arms around him.

“Do you want me, Victoria?” he whispered.

Her dazed eyes flew open and she saw him, his hands braced beside her head as he held himself away from her, his face hard.

“Do you?” he repeated.

“I’ll never forgive you for this,” Victoria choked.

“Do you want me?” he repeated, circling his hips provocatively against her sensitive softness. “Tell me.”

Passion was raging through her body, battling against her weakened will, arguing in his favor. He was jealous. He cared. He was hurt by her long absence. Her lips formed the word “yes,” but not even raging desire could make her voice it.

Satisfied with that, Jason gave her what she wanted. As if to atone for humbling her, he gave of himself with unselfish determination, moving his body in the ways that gave her maximum pleasure, fighting down the demands of his rampaging desire as she shuddered beneath him with each plunging stroke. He brought her to a tumultuous climax, holding her impaled on his throbbing staff as spasms of pleasure shook her. Then he crushed her to him and finally allowed himself release.

When it was over, there was complete silence between them. Jason was still for a long minute, staring at the ceiling; then he got out of bed and walked into his own rooms. Other than their wedding night, it was the first time he had ever left her after making love to her.