Once and Always @FOREVER.

Chapter thirty.

VICTORIA WAS SEATED IN THE salon late that afternoon, waiting for Jason to return from an errand, when the elderly butler who presided over the London house appeared in the doorway. "Her grace, the Duchess of Claremont wishes to see you, my lady. I told—"

  "He told me you were not in to visitors," her grace said gruffly, marching into the room to the horror of the butler. "The silly fool doesn't seem to understand that I am 'family,' not 'visitors.' "

  "Grandmama!" Victoria burst out, leaping to her feet in nervous surprise at the unexpected appearance of the gruff old lady.

  The duchess's turbaned head swiveled to the shocked servant. "There!" she snapped, waving her cane at the butler. "Did you hear that? Grandmama!" she emphasized with satisfaction. Mumbling abject apologies, the butler bowed himself out of the room, leaving Victoria apprehensively confronting her relative, who sat d
own upon a chair and folded her blue-veined hands upon the jeweled head of her cane, scrutinizing Victoria's features minutely. "You look happy enough," she concluded, as if surprised.

  "Is that why you came here from the country?" Victoria asked, sitting down across from her. "To see if I am happy?"

  "I came to see Wakefield," her grace said ominously.

  "He isn't here," Victoria said, taken aback by the old lady's sudden scowl.

  Her great-grandmother's scowl darkened. "So I understand. All London understands he isn't here with you! I mean to run him to ground and call him to task if I have to chase him clear across Europe!"

  "I find it amazing," Jason drawled in amusement as he walked into the salon, "that nearly everyone who knows me is half-afraid of me—except my tiny wife, my young sister-in-law, and you, madam, who are three times my age and one-third my weight. I can only surmise that courage—or recklessness—is passed through the bloodline, along with physical traits. However," he finished, grinning, "go ahead. I give you leave to take me to task right here in my own salon."

  The duchess came to her feet and glowered at him. "So! You have finally remembered where you live and that you have a wife!" she snapped imperiously. "I told you I would hold you responsible for Victoria's happiness, and you are not making her happy. Not happy at all!"

  Jason's speculative gaze shot to Victoria, but she shook her head in helpless bewilderment and shrugged. Satisfied that Victoria was not responsible for the duchess's opinion, he put his arm around Victoria's shoulders and said mildly, "In what way am I failing in my duties as a husband?"

  The duchess's mouth fell open. "In what way?" she repeated in disbelief. "There you stand, with your arm about her, but I have it on the best authority that you have been to her bed only six times at Wakefield!"

  "Grandmama!" Victoria burst out in horror.

  "Hush, Victoria," she said, directing her dagger gaze at Jason as she continued. "Two of your servants are related to two of mine, and they tell me all Wakefield Park was in an uproar when you refused to bed your bride for a week after the ceremony."

  Victoria let out a mortified moan and Jason's arm tightened supportively around her shoulders.

  "Well," she snapped, "what have you to say to that, young man?"

  Jason quirked a thoughtful eyebrow at her. "I would say I apparently need to have a word with my servants."

  "Don't you dare make light of this! You, of all men, ought to know how to keep a wife in your bed and at your side. God knows half the married females in London have been panting after you these four years past. If you were some mincing fop with his shirtpoints holding up his chin, then I could understand why you don't seem to know how to go about getting me an heir—"