Once and Always by Judith McNaught Read Free Book Online Page B

Laughing, she tried to explain. “Sir, you don’t under—”
    Northrup ignored her and glanced over his shoulder at the footman behind him. “Get rid of the lot of them! Throw them off—”
    “What the hell is going on here?” demanded a man of about thirty with coal black hair, stalking onto the front steps.
    The butler pointed a finger at Victoria’s face, his eyebrows levitating with ire. “That woman is—”
    “Victoria Seaton,” Victoria put in hastily, trying to stifle her mirth as tension, exhaustion, and hunger began pushing her perilously close to nervous hysteria. She saw the look of unconcealed shock on the black-haired man’s face when he heard her name, and her alarm erupted into hilarity.
    With uncontrollable laughter bubbling up inside her, she turned and dumped the squirming piglet into the flushed farmer’s arms, then lifted her dusty skirts and tried to curtsy. “I fear there’s been a mistake,” she said on a suffocated giggle. “I’ve come to—”
    The tall man’s icy voice checked her in mid-curtsy. “Your mistake was in coming here in the first place, Miss Seaton. However, it’s too close to dark to send you back to wherever you came from.” He caught her by the arm and pulled her rudely forward.
    Victoria sobered instantly; the situation no longer seemed riotously funny, but terrifyingly macabre. Timidly, she stepped through the doorway into a three-story marble entrance hall that was larger than her entire home in New York. On either side of the foyer, twin branches of a great, curving staircase swept upward to the next two floors, and a great domed skylight bathed the area in mellow sunlight from high above. She tipped her head back, gazing at the domed glass ceiling three stories above. Tears filled her eyes and the skylight revolved in a dizzy whirl as exhausted anguish overcame her. She had traveled thousands of miles across a stormy sea and rutted roads, expecting to be greeted by a kindly gentleman. Instead she was going to be sent back, away from Dorothy— The skylight whirled before her eyes in a kaleidoscope of brilliant blurring colors.
    “She’s going to swoon,” the butler predicted.
    “Oh, for God’s sake!” the dark-haired man exploded, and swept her into his arms. The world was already coming back into focus for Victoria as he started up the right-hand branch of the broad marble staircase.
    “Put me down,” she demanded hoarsely, wriggling in embarrassment. “I’m perfectly—”
    “Hold still!” he commanded. On the landing, he turned right, stalked into a room, and headed straight for a huge bed surrounded by blue and silver silk draperies suspended from a high, carved wood frame and gathered back at the corners with silver velvet ropes. Without a word, he dumped her unceremoniously onto the blue silk coverlet and shoved her shoulders back down when she tried to sit up.
    The butler rushed into the room, his coattails flapping behind him. “Here, my lord—hartshorn,” he panted.
    My lord snatched the bottle from his hand and rammed it toward Victoria’s nostrils.
    “Don’t!” Victoria cried, trying to twist her head away from the terrible amoniac odor, but his hand persistently followed her face. In sheer desperation, she grasped his wrist, trying to hold it away while he continued to force it toward her. “What are you trying to do,” she burst out, “feed it to me?”
    “What a delightful idea,” he replied grimly, but the pressure on her restraining hand relaxed and he moved the bottle a few inches away from her nose. Exhausted and humiliated, Victoria turned her head aside, closed her eyes, and swallowed audibly as she fought back the tears congealing in her throat. She swallowed again.
    “I sincerely hope,” he drawled nastily, “that you are not considering getting sick on this bed, because I’m warning you that
you
will be the one to clean it up.”

    Victoria Elizabeth Seaton—the product of eighteen years of careful