Once and Always (Sequels 1)

“Nothing. Mama never spoke of England or her life here. Dorothy and I always assumed she was... well, an ordinary person.”

“There was nothing ‘ordinary’ about your mama,” he said softly. Victoria heard the thread of emotion in his voice and wondered about it, but when she started to question him about her mother’s life in England, he shook his head and said lightly, “Someday I shall tell you all about. . . everything. But not yet. For now, let’s get to know each other.”

An hour passed with unbelievable swiftness as Victoria answered Charles’s pleasantly worded questions. By the time breakfast was over, she realized, he had smoothly gleaned from her an exact picture of her life, right up to the time of her arrival at his door with an armful of squealing piglet. She’d told him about the villagers at home, about her father, and about Andrew. For some reason, hearing about the last two seemed to severely dampen his spirits, yet those were the two people he seemed to be most interested in. About her mother, he carefully avoided inquiring.

“I confess I’m confused about the matter of your betrothal to this fellow Andrew Bainbridge,” he said when she was finished, his forehead etched with a deep frown. “The letter I received from your friend Dr. Morrison made no mention of it. Quite the opposite—he said you and your sister were alone in the world. Did your father give his blessing to this betrothal?”

“Yes and no,” Victoria said, wondering why he looked so distressed about it. “You see, Andrew and I have known each other forever, but Papa always insisted that I must be eighteen before I became formally betrothed. He felt it was too serious a commitment for a younger female to make.”

“Very wise of him,” Charles agreed. “However, you became eighteen before your father passed away, and yet you still are not formally betrothed to Bainbridge, is that correct?”

“Well, yes.”

“Because your father still withheld his consent?”

“Not exactly. Shortly before my birthday, Mrs. Bainbridge—Andrew’s widowed mama—proposed to my father that Andrew should take a shortened version of the Grand Tour to test our commitment to each other, and to give him what she called a ‘last fling.’ Andrew thought the idea was nonsensical, but my papa was fully in agreement with Mrs. Bainbridge.”

“It sounds to me as if your father was extremely reluctant to have you marry the young man. After all, you’ve known each other for years, so there was no real need to test your commitment to each other. That sounds very much like an excuse, not a reason. For that matter, it seems to me that Andrew’s mother is also opposed to the match.”

The duke sounded as if he were firmly setting his mind against Andrew, which left Victoria no choice but to explain the whole, embarrassing truth. “Papa had no reservations about Andrew making me an excellent husband. He had serious reservations about my life with my future mother-in-law, however. She is a widow, you see, and very attached to Andrew. Besides that, she is prone to all sorts of illnesses that make her somewhat ill-tempered.”

“Ah,” said the duke in an understanding way. “And how serious are these illnesses of hers?”

Victoria’s cheeks warmed. “According to what my father told her on one occasion when I was present, her illnesses are feigned. When she was very young, she did have a certain weakness of the heart, but Papa said that getting out of bed would help her far more than staying in it and wallowing in self-pity. They—they didn’t like each other very well, you see.”

“Yes, and I can understand why!” The duke chuckled. “Your papa was entirely right to throw obstructions in the way of your marriage, my dear. Your life would have been very unhappy.”

“It won’t be unhappy at all,” Victoria said firmly, determined to marry Andrew with or without the duke’s approval. “Andrew realizes that his mother uses her illnesses to try to manipulate him, and he doesn’t let it stop him from doing what he wishes to do. He only agreed to go on this tour because my father insisted he should.”

“Have you received many letters from him?”

“Only one, but you see, Andrew left for Europe only a fortnight before my parents’ accident three months ago, and it takes almost that long to get letters to and from Europe. I wrote to him, telling him what happened, and I wrote to him again, just before I sailed for England, to give him my direction here. I expect he’s on his way home right now, thinking he is coming to my rescue. I wanted to stay in New York and wait for him to return, which would have been much simpler for everyone, but Dr. Morrison wouldn’t hear of it. He was convinced for some reason that Andrew’s feelings would not withstand the test of time. No doubt Mrs. Bainbridge told him something like that, which is the sort of thing she would do, I suppose.”

Victoria sighed and glanced out the windows. “She would much prefer Andrew to marry someone of more importance than the daughter of a penniless physician.”

“Or better yet, that he marry no one at all and remain tied to her bedside?” the duke ventured, his brows raised. “A widow who feigns illnesses sounds like a very possessive, domineering sort to me.”

Victoria couldn’t deny it, so rather than condemn her future mother-in-law, she remained charitably silent on that subject. “Some of the families in the village offered to let me remain with them until Andrew returned, but that solution wasn’t a very good one. Among other things, if Andrew returned and found me staying with them, well, he would have been furious.”

“With you?” his grace asked, frowning in annoyance at poor Andrew.

“No, with his mother, for not insisting that I stay with her instead.”

“Oh,” he said, but even though her explanation completely vindicated Andrew of any possible blame, Charles seemed somewhat depressed by it. “The man sounds like a countrified paragon of virtue,” he muttered.

“You will like him very much,” Victoria predicted, smiling. “He will come here to bring me home, you’ll see.”

Charles patted her hand. “Let’s forget about Andrew and be glad you’re here in England. Now, tell me how you like it thus far...”

Victoria told him she liked what she had seen very much, and Charles responded by describing the life he had planned for her here. To begin with, he wanted her to have a new wardrobe and a trained lady’s maid to assist her. Victoria was about to refuse when she caught sight of the dark, forbidding figure striding toward the table with the silent sureness of a dangerous savage, his buckskin breeches molding his muscular legs and thighs, his white shirt open at his tanned throat. This morning, he seemed even taller than she’d thought yesterday, lean and superbly fit. His thick black hair was slightly curly, his nose straight, his stern mouth finely chiseled. In fact, if it weren’t for the arrogant authority stamped in his rugged jawline and the cynicism in his cold green eyes, Victoria would have thought him almost breathtakingly handsome.