“I looked at that obscene woman standing on the makeshift altar, holding a cross, and I wanted to kill her. On the other hand, I didn’t know how loyal her congregation was to her and, since I couldn’t fight them off single-handedly, I asked if she would sell the boy to me. I told her I thought he needed a man to punish him properly.”
Pulling his gaze from its distant focus, Captain Farrell looked at Victoria, a mirthless smirk on his face. “She sold him to me for the six months’ pay I was carrying in my pocket. Her husband had died a year before and she needed money as much as she needed a whipping boy. But before I was out of the place, she was showering my money on her congregation and shouting about God sending His gifts to them through her. She was insane. Utterly insane.”
Victoria’s voice was a pleading whisper. “Do you think things were better for Jason before his father died?”
“Jason’s father is still alive,” Captain Farrell answered stiffly. “Jason is Charles’s illegitimate son.”
The room began to whirl and Victoria clamped her hand over her mouth, fighting down the nausea and dizziness that assailed her.
“Does it disgust you so much to discover you’re married to a bastard?” he asked, watching her reaction.
“How could you think such a stupid thing!” Victoria burst out indignantly.
He smiled at that. “Good. I didn’t think you’d care, but the English are very fastidious about such things.”
“Which,” Victoria retorted hotly, “is extremely hypocritical on their part, since three royal dukes I could name are direct descendants of three of King Charles’s bastards. Besides that, I am not English, I am American.”
“You are lovely,” he said gently.
“Would you tell me the rest of what you know about Jason?” she asked, her heart already full to bursting with compassion.
“The rest isn’t quite as important. I took Jason to Napal’s home that same night. One of Napal’s servants cleaned him up and sent him in to see us. The child didn’t want to talk, but once he did, it was obvious he was bright. When I told Napal the story, he felt pity for Jason and took him into his business as a sort of errand boy. Jason received no money, but he was given a bed in the back of Napal’s office, decent food, and clothes. He taught himself to read and write—he had an insatiable desire to learn.
“By the time Jason was sixteen, he’d learned all he could from Napal about being a merchant. Besides being clever and quick, Jason had an incredible drive to succeed—I imagine that came from being forced to beg with a wooden bowl as a child.
“At any rate, Napal grew more mellow as he grew older and, since he had no children of his own, he began to think of Jason more as a son than a poorly paid, overworked clerk. Jason convinced Napal to let him sail on one of Napal’s ships so that he could learn the shipping business at firsthand. I had become a captain by then, and Jason sailed with me for five years.”
“Was he a good sailor?” Victoria asked softly, feeling terribly proud of the little boy who had grown into such a successful man.
“The best. He started as a common seaman, but he learned navigation and everything else from me in his free time. Napal died two days after we returned from one of our voyages. He was sitting in his office when his heart stopped. Jason tried everything to bring him back, he even bent over him and tried to breathe his own air into his lungs. The others in the office thought Jason had gone crazy, but you see, he loved the old miser. He grieved for him for months. But he didn’t shed a single tear,” Mike Farrell said quietly. “Jason can’t cry. The witch who raised him was convinced that ‘devils’ can’t cry, and she beat him worse if he did. Jason finally told me that when he was about nine years old.
“Anyway, when Napal died he left everything to Jason. During the next six years, Jason did what he’d tried to convince Napal to do—he bought an entire fleet of ships and he eventually multiplied Napal’s wealth many times over.”
When Captain Farrell stood staring silently into the fire, Victoria said, “Jason married, too, didn’t he? I discovered that only a few days ago.”
“Ah, yes, he married,” Mike said, grimacing as he walked over to the bottle of whiskey and poured himself another drink. “Two years after Napal’s death, Jason had become one of the richest men in Delhi. That distinction won him the mercenary interest of a beautiful, amoral woman named Melissa. Her father was an Englishman living in Delhi and working for the government. Melissa had looks and breeding and style, she had everything but what she needed most—money. She married Jason for what he could give her.”
“Why did Jason marry her?” Victoria wanted to know.
Mike Farrell shrugged. “He was younger than she was and dazzled by her looks, I suppose. Then too, the lady—and I use the term loosely—had a . . . er . . . look about her that would make any man expect to find warmth in her arms. She sold that warmth to Jason in return for everything she could wheedle from him. He gave her plenty, too—jewels that would please a queen. She took them and smiled at him. She had a beautiful face, but for some reason when she smiled at him like that, it reminded me of that demented old witch with the wooden bowl.”
Victoria had a sharp, painful vision of Jason giving her the pearls and the sapphires and asking her to thank him with a kiss. She wondered sadly if he thought he had to bribe a woman to care for him.
Lifting his glass, Mike took a long swallow. “Melissa was a slut—a slut who spent her life going from bed to bed after she was married. The funny thing was, she had a fit when she found out Jason was a bastard. I was at their house in Delhi when the Duke of Atherton appeared and demanded to speak with his son. Melissa went wild with fury when she realized Jason was Charles’s illegitimate son. It seems it offended her principles to mingle her bloodline with a bastard’s. It did not, however, offend her principles to bestow her body on any man of her own class who invited her into his bed. Odd code of ethics, wouldn’t you say?”
“Extremely!” Victoria agreed.
Captain Farrell grinned at her loyal reply, then said, “Whatever tenderness Jason felt for her when he married her was soon destroyed by living with her. She gave him a son, though, and for that reason, he kept her in the height of fashion and ignored her affairs. Frankly, I don’t think he cared what she did.”
Victoria, who had been unaware that Jason had a son, sat bolt upright, staring in dazed shock at Captain Farrell as he went on. “Jason adored that child. He took him nearly everywhere he went. He even agreed to come back here and spend his money restoring Charles Fielding’s run-down estates so that Jamie could inherit a proper kingdom. And in the end, it was all for nothing. Melissa tried to run away with her latest lover, and she took Jamie with her, intending to ransom him back to Jason later. Their ship sank in a storm.”
Captain Farrell’s hand tightened on his glass and the muscles in his throat worked convulsively. “I was the first to discover Melissa had taken Jamie with her. I was the one who had to tell Jason his son was dead. I cried,” he said hoarsely. “But Jason didn’t. Not even then. He can’t cry.”
“Captain Farrell,” Victoria said in a suffocated voice, “I would like to go home now. It’s getting late, and Jason may be worried about me.”
The sorrow vanished from the captain’s face and a smile broke across his rugged features. “An excellent idea,” he agreed. “But before you go, I want to tell you something.”
“What is it?”
“Don’t let Jason fool you or himself into believing he wants nothing from you but a child. I know him better than anyone else does, and I saw the way he watched you last night. He’s already more than half in love with you, though I doubt he wants to be.”
“I can’t blame him for not wanting to love any woman,” Victoria said sadly. “I can’t imagine how he’s survived everything that’s happened to him and stayed sane.”
“He’s strong,” Captain Farrell replied. “Jason is the strongest human being I’ve ever known. And the finest. Let yourself love him, Victoria—I know
you want to. And teach him how to love you. He has a great deal of love to give, but first, he’ll have to learn to trust you. Once he trusts you, he’ll lay the world at your feet.”
Victoria stood up, but her eyes were cloudy with trepidation. “What makes you so certain this will all work out the way you think it will?”
The Irishman’s voice was soft and there was a faraway look in his eyes. “Because I knew another lass like you long ago. She had your warmth and your courage. She taught me how it feels to trust, to love, and to be loved. I don’t fear dying because I know she’s there, waiting for me. Most men love easily and often, but Jason is more like me. He will love only once—but it will be for always.”
Chapter Twenty-four
WHILE VICTORIA PUT ON HER still-damp clothes, Captain Farrell brought the horse and carriage around from his small barn. He helped her into it, and mounted his own horse. The downpour had subsided to a gloomy, persistent drizzle as he rode beside her in the early darkness toward Wakefield.
“There’s no reason for you to ride all the way back with me,” she said. “I know the way.”
“There’s every reason,” Captain Farrell warned. “The roads aren’t safe for a woman alone after dark. Last week a coach was stopped just the other side of the village, the occupants robbed, and one of them shot. A fortnight before that, one of the older girls at the orphanage wandered too far abroad at night and was found dead in the river. She was an addled girl, so there’s no telling whether foul play was involved, but you can’t take chances.”
Victoria heard him, but her mind was on Jason, her heart filled with warmth for the man who had sheltered her when she came to England, given her beautiful things, teased her when she was lonely, and ultimately married her. True, he was frequently distant and unapproachable, but the more she contemplated the matter, the more convinced she became that Captain Farrell was right—Jason must care for her, or he’d never have risked another marriage.
She remembered the hungry passion of his kisses before they were married and she became even more convinced. Despite the torment he had suffered as a child in the name of “religion,” he had gone into a church and married her there, because she asked him to.
“I think you’d better not come any farther,” Victoria said when they neared the iron gates of Wakefield.
“Why?”
“Because if Jason knows I’ve spent the afternoon with you, he’s bound to suspect you told me about him as soon as I act differently toward him.”
Captain Farrell lifted his brows. “Are you going to act differently toward him?”
Victoria nodded in the darkness. “I rather think I will.” In a soft underbreath she said, “I’m going to try to tame a panther.”
“In that case, you’re right. It’s best not to tell Jason you came to my place. There were two deserted cottages before you reached mine. I suppose you could say you stopped there—but I warn you, Jason has an aversion to deceit. Don’t get caught up in the lie.”
“I have an aversion to deception, too,” Victoria said with a little shiver. “And an even greater aversion to being caught in one by Jason.”
“I’m very much afraid he’ll be worried and angry if he’s returned and discovered you’ve been out in this storm alone.”
Jason had returned, and he was worried. He was also furious. Victoria heard his raised voice coming from the front of the house as soon as she entered it from the rear, after tying Wolf outside. With a mixture of alarm and eagerness to see him, she walked down the hall and stepped into his study. He was pacing back and forth, his back to her, addressing a group of six terrified servants. His white shirt was soaked, clinging wetly to his broad shoulders and tapered back, and his brown riding boots were covered in mud. “Tell me again what Lady Fielding said,” he raged at Ruth. “And stop that damned weeping! Start from the beginning and tell me her words exactly."
The maid wrung her hands. “She—she said to have your gentlest horse harnessed to the smallest carriage, because she said she weren’t—wasn’t too good at driving carriages. Then she told me to have Mrs. Craddock—the cook—pack baskets with food left over from the party last night, and to have the baskets put in the carriage. I w-warned her it was comin’ on to storm, but she said it wouldn’t start for hours. Then she asked me if I was certain-sure you’d left the house and I told her I was. Then she left.”
“And you let her go?” Jason exploded at the servants, passing a contemptuous glance over all of them. “You let an overemotional woman, who’s completely inept at the reins, take off in a storm with enough food to last her for a month, and not one of you had the brains to stop her!” His eyes sliced over the groom. “You heard her tell the dog they were ‘free at last’ and you didn’t think that was peculiar?”
Without waiting for a reply, he turned his dagger gaze on Northrup, who was standing like a proud man before a firing squad, prepared to meet a terrible and unjust fate. “Tell me again, exactly what she said to you,” Jason snapped.
“I asked her ladyship what I should tell you when you returned,” Northrup said stiffly. “She said, ‘Tell him I said good-bye.’ ”
“And that didn’t sound a damned bit odd to you?” Jason bit out. “A new bride leaves the house and says to tell her husband good-bye!”
Northrup flushed to the roots of his white hair. “Considering other things, my lord, it did not seem ‘odd.’ ”
Jason stopped pacing and stared at him in blank fury. “Considering what ‘other things’?” he demanded.
“Considering what you said to me when you left the house an hour before her ladyship did, I naturally assumed the two of you were not in accord, and that her ladyship was distressed about it.”
“Considering what I said when I left?” Jason demanded murderously. “What the hell did I say?”
Northrup’s thin lips quivered with resentment. “When you left the house this morning, I bade you have a good day.”
“And?” Jason gritted.
“And you told me you had already made other plans. I naturally assumed that meant you did not intend to have a good day and so, when her ladyship came down, I assumed you were not in accord.”
“It’s too damn bad you didn’t ‘assume’ she was leaving me and try to stop her.”
Victoria’s heart ached with remorse. Jason thought she had left him, and for a man as proud as he to admit such a thing to his servants, he must be beside himself. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined he would jump to that conclusion, but now that she knew what Melissa had done, she could understand why he had. Determined to save his pride, she summoned up a bright, conciliatory smile and crossed the thick Aubusson carpet to his side. “Northrup would never be so silly as to think I would leave you, my lord,” she said brightly, tucking her hand in Jason’s arm.
Jason whirled around so violently that he nearly pulled her off her feet. Victoria recovered her balance and said softly, “I may be ‘overemotional,’ but I hope I’m not a complete fool.”
Jason’s eyes blazed with relief—a relief that was instantly replaced by fury. “Where in hell have you been?” he hissed.
Victoria took pity on the mortified servants and said contritely, “You’ve every right to scold me, and I can tell you intend to, but I hope you won’t do it in front of the servants.”
Jason clamped his jaws together so tightly that a nerve pulsed in his cheek as he bit back his wrath and nodded his head in the general direction of the servants, curtly dismissing them. In the charged silence that followed, the servants rushed out of the room, the last one closing the door behind him. The instant the door closed, Jason’s wrath erupted. “You idiot!” he bit out between clenched teeth. “I’ve turned the countryside upside down looking for you.”
Victoria looked at his handsome, ruggedly hewn face with its stern, sensual mouth and hard jaw, but what she saw was a helpless, dirty little boy with dark curly hair being whipped because he was “evil.” A lump of poignant tenderness swelled i
n her throat and she unthinkingly laid her hand against his cheek. “I’m sorry,” she whispered achingly.
Jason jerked away from her touch, his brows snapping together over biting green eyes. “You’re sorry?” he mocked scathingly. “Sorry for what? Sorry for the men who are still out there, searching for a trace of you?” He turned away as if he couldn’t bear her closeness and walked over to the windows. “Sorry for the horse I rode into the ground?”
“I’m sorry you thought I was leaving you,” Victoria interrupted shakily. “I would never do that.”
He turned back to her, regarding her ironically. “Considering that yesterday you tried to leave me at the altar, and this morning you demanded a divorce, I find your last announcement somewhat astonishing. To what shall I attribute your freakish streak of fidelity this evening?”
Despite his outward attitude of sarcastic indifference, Victoria heard the clipped terseness in his voice when he referred to her leaving him at the altar, and her heart sank. Evidently that had bothered him very much.
“My lord—” she began softly.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” he snapped. “Stop calling me your lord and don’t grovel. I despise groveling.”
“I was not groveling!” Victoria said, and in her mind saw him kneeling beneath a black, uncoiling whip. She had to clear the tears from her throat before she could go on. “What I started to say was that I only tried to take the extra food to the orphanage today. I’m sorry I worried you, and I won’t do it again.”
He stared at her, the anger draining out of him. “You’re free to do whatever you want to do, Victoria,” he said wearily. “This marriage was the greatest mistake of my life.”
Victoria hesitated, knowing nothing she could say would change his mind when he was in this mood, and finally excused herself to change her gown. He did not have supper with her, and she went to bed that night thinking he would surely join her there—if for no other reason than to hold her to her bargain to give him a son.