Once and Always (Sequels 1)

Jason’s low voice vibrated with annoyance. “Tell the gardener to get back to work, then tell Miss Seaton to stay out of his way. And you,” he added darkly, “stay out of mine. I have work to do.” Jason turned to his thin, bespectacled secretary and snapped, “Now, where were we, Benjamin?”

“The letter to your man in Delhi, my lord.” ?

Jason had dictated only two lines when there was a commotion outside his door and the cook barged in, followed by Northrup, who was trying to outrun him and block his path. “Either she goes, or I go!” Monsieur Andre boomed, marching up to Jason’s desk. “I do not permit that red-haired wench in my kitchen!”

With deadly calm, Jason laid down his quill and turned his glittering green gaze on the chef’s glaring face. “What did you say to me?”

“I said I do not permit—”

“Get out,” Jason said in a silky-soft voice.

The cook’s round face paled. “Oui,” he said hastily, as he began backing away, “I will return to the kitch—”

“Out of my house,” Jason clarified ruthlessly, “and off my property. Now!” Surging to his feet, Jason brushed past the perspiring chef and headed for the kitchens.

Everyone in the kitchens jumped and spun around at the sound of his incensed voice. “Can any of you cook?” he demanded, and Victoria assumed that the chef had resigned because of her. Horrified, she started to step forward, but Jason’s ominous gaze impaled her, threatening her with dire consequences if she dared to volunteer. He looked around at the others in angry disgust. “Do you mean to tell me none of you can cook?”

Mrs. Craddock hesitated, then stepped forward. “I can, my lord.”

Jason nodded curtly. “Good. You’re in charge. In future, please dispense with those nauseatingly rich French sauces I’ve been forced to eat.” He turned the icy blast of his gaze on Victoria. “You,” he ordered ominously, “stay out of the barn and leave the gardening to the gardeners and the cooking to the cooks!”

He left, and the servants turned to Victoria, looking at her with a mixture of shock and shy gratitude. Too ashamed of the trouble she’d caused to meet their eyes, Victoria bent her head and began mixing the poultice for Mr. O’Malley.

“Let’s go to work,” Mrs. Craddock said to the others in a brisk, smiling voice. “We have yet to prove to his lordship that we can manage very well without having our ears boxed and our knuckles rapped by Andrew.”

Victoria’s head snapped up, her shocked gaze flying to Mrs. Craddock.

“He is an evil-tempered tyrant,” the woman confirmed. “And we are deeply grateful to be rid of him.”

With the exception of the day her parents died, Victoria couldn’t remember a worse day than this one. She picked up the bowl containing the mixture her father had taught her to make to ease the pain of an afflicted tooth and walked out.

Failing to find O’Malley, she went searching for Northrup, who was just emerging from a book-lined room. Beyond the partially open doors, she glimpsed Jason seated at his desk with a letter in his hand, talking to a bespectacled gentleman who was sitting across from him.

“Mr. Northrup,” she said in a suffocated voice as she handed him the bowl, “would you be kind enough to give this to Mr. O’Malley? Tell him to apply it to his tooth and gum several times a day. It will help take away the pain and swelling.”

Distracted yet again by the sound of voices outside his study, Jason slapped the paper he was reading onto the desk and stalked to the door of his study, jerking it open. Unaware of Victoria, who had started up the staircase, he demanded of Northrup, “Now what the hell has she done?”

“She—she made this for O’Malley’s tooth, my lord,” Northrup said in a queer, strained voice as he raised his puzzled gaze to the dejected figure climbing the stairs.

Jason followed his gaze and his eyes narrowed on the slender, curvaceous form garbed in mourning black. “Victoria,” he called.

Victoria turned, braced for a tongue-lashing, but he spoke in a calm, clipped voice that nevertheless rang with implacable authority. “Do not wear black anymore. I dislike it.”

“I’m very sorry my clothes offend you,” she replied with quiet dignity, “but I am in mourning for my parents.”

Jason’s brows snapped together, but he held his tongue until Victoria was out of hearing. Then he told Northrup, “Send someone to London to get her some decent clothes, and get rid of those black rags.”

When Charles came down for lunch, a subdued Victoria slid into the chair on his left. “Good heavens, child, what’s amiss? You’re as pale as a ghost.”

Victoria confessed her follies of the morning and Charles listened, his lips trembling with amusement. “Excellent, excellent!” he said when she was finished and, to her amazement, started to chuckle. “Go ahead and disrupt Jason’s life, my dear. That is exactly what he needs. On the surface he may appear cold and hard, but that is only a shell—a thick one, I’ll admit, but the right woman could get past that and discover the gentleness inside him. When she does bring out that gentleness, Jason will make her a very happy woman. Among other things, he is an extremely generous man. . . .” He raised his brows, letting the sentence hang, and Victoria stirred uneasily beneath his intent gaze, wondering if Charles could possibly be harboring the hope that she was that woman.

Not for a moment did she believe there was any gentleness inside Jason Fielding and, moreover, she wanted as little to do with him as possible. Rather than tell that to Uncle Charles, she tactfully changed the subject. “I should receive word from Andrew in the next few weeks.”

“Ah, yes—Andrew,” he said, his eyes darkening.

Chapter Seven

Charles took her for a carriage ride to the neighboring village the next day, and although the outing filled her with nostalgic homesickness for her former home, she enjoyed herself immensely. Flowers bloomed everywhere—in flower boxes and gardens where loving care was lavished upon them, and wild on the hills and in the meadows, tended only by mother nature. The village with its neat cottages and cobbled streets was utterly charming and Victoria fell in love with it.

Each time they emerged from one of the little shops along the street, the villagers who saw them stopped and stared and doffed their hats. They called Charles “your grace,” and although Victoria could tell that he was usually at a loss for their names, he treated them with unaffected pleasantness, regardless of their station in life.