“Miss Flossie,” Victoria said, plunging straight in, “I’ve just come from Uncle Charles’s room, but he was asleep. You are the only other person I can turn to. It’s about Jason. Something is terribly wrong.”

“Good heavens!” Miss Flossie cried, setting her needlework aside. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I’ve just discovered that he was married before!” Victoria burst out.

Miss Flossie tipped her head to one side, an elderly china doll in a little white lace cap. “Dear me, I thought Charles had told you—or Wakefield himself. Well, in any event, Jason was married before, my dear. So now you know.” Having dispatched that problem, Miss Flossie smiled and picked up her needlework again.

“But I don’t know anything. Lady Clappeston said the oddest thing—she said Jason’s wife deserved everything he did to her. What did he do?”

“Do?” Miss Flossie repeated, blinking. “Why, nothing that I know of for certain. Lady Clappeston was foolish indeed to say he did anything, for she couldn’t know either, unless she was married to him, which I can assure you she was not. There, does that make you feel better?”

“No!” Victoria burst out a little hysterically. “What I wish to know is why Lady Clappeston believes Jason did bad things to his wife. She must have reason to think so, and unless I miss my guess, a great many people think as she does.”

“They may,” Miss Flossie agreed. “You see, Jason’s wretched wife, may she rest in peace—though I don’t know how she could do so, when one considers how wickedly she behaved when she was alive—cried to everyone about Wakefield’s abominable treatment of her. Some people evidently believed her, but the very fact that he didn’t murder her should prove that he is a man of admirable restraint. If I had a husband, which of course I don’t, and I did the things Melissa did, which of course I would never do, he would surely beat me. So if Wakefield beat Melissa, which I don’t know for certain he did, he would be more than justified in it. You may take my word on that.”

Victoria thought of the times she had seen Jason angry, of the leashed fury in his eyes and the awesome, predatory power she sometimes glimpsed beneath his urbane exterior. A picture flashed across her terrified mind—an image of a woman screaming as he beat her for some trivial infraction of his personal rules. “What,” she whispered hoarsely, “what sort of things did Melissa do?”

“Well, there is no nice way to say it. The truth is that she was seen in the company of other men.”

Victoria shuddered. Nearly every fashionable lady in London was seen in the company of other men. It was a way of life for fashionable married ladies to have their cicisbeos. “And he beat her for that?” she whispered sickly.

“We don’t know that he beat her,” Miss Flossie pointed out with careful precision. “In fact, I rather doubt it. I once heard a gentleman criticize Jason—behind his back, of course, for no one would ever have the courage to criticize him to his face—for the way he ignored Melissa’s behavior.”

A sudden idea was born in Victoria’s reeling mind. “Exactly what did the gentleman say?” she asked carefully. “Exactly,” she emphasized.

“Exactly? Well, since you insist, he said—if I remember correctly—‘Wakefield is being cuckolded in front of all London and he damned well knows it, yet he ignores it and wears the horns. He’s setting a bad example for the rest of our wives to see. If you ask me, he ought to lock the harlot up in his place in Scotland and throw away the key.’ ”

Victoria’s head fell back weakly against her chair, and she closed her eyes with a mixture of relief and sorrow. “Cuckolded,” she whispered. “So that’s it. . . .” She thought of how proud Jason was, and how much his pride must have been mangled by his wife’s public infidelities.

“Now, then, is there anything else you want to know?” Miss Flossie said.

“Yes,” Victoria said with visible unease.

The tension in her voice gave Miss Flossie a nervous start. “Well, I hope it isn’t anything about you-know,” she twittered nervously, “because as your nearest female relative I realize it is my responsibility to explain that to you, but the truth is I’m abysmally ignorant about it. I’ve cherished the hope your mother might have already explained it.”

Victoria curiously opened her eyes, but she was too exhausted by all that had happened to do more than say mildly, “I don’t quite understand what you’re talking about, ma’am.”

“I’m speaking of ‘you-know’—that is what my dearest friend, Prudence, always called it—which was very silly for I didn’t know at all. However, I can repeat to you the information given my friend Prudence by her mother on the day before her marriage.”

“I beg your pardon?” Victoria repeated, feeling stupid.

“Well, you needn’t beg my pardon; I should ask yours for not having the information to give you. But ladies do not discuss you-know. Do you wish to hear what Prudence’s mother said about it?”

Victoria’s lips twitched. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, without having the vaguest idea what they were discussing.

“Very well. On your wedding night, your husband will join you in your bed—or perhaps he takes you to his, I can’t recall. In any event, you must not, under any circumstances, demonstrate your revulsion, nor scream, nor have vapors. You must close your eyes and permit him to do you-know. Whatever that may be. It will hurt and be repugnant, and there will be blood the first time, but you must close your eyes and persevere. I believe Prudence’s mama suggested that while you-know is happening, Prudence should try to think of something else—like the new fur or gown she will soon be able to buy if her husband is pleased with her. Nasty business, is it not?”

Tears of mirth and anxiety gathered in Victoria’s eyes and her shoulders shook with helpless laughter. “Thank you, Miss Flossie,” she giggled. “You’ve been very reassuring.” Until now, Victoria hadn’t let herself worry about the intimacies of marriage to which Jason would be entitled and of which he would undoubtedly avail himself, since he wanted a son from her. Although she was the daughter of a physician, her father had meticulously ensured that her eyes were never exposed to the sight of a male patient’s anatomy below the waist. Still, Victoria was not completely ignorant of the mating process. Her family had kept a few chickens and she had witnessed the flapping of wings and squawking that accompanied the act, although exactly what was happening was impossible to tell. Moreover, she had always averted her eyes out of some peculiar need to allow them their privacy while they went about creating new chicks.