She crossed the room, her footsteps silenced by the thick Aubusson carpet, and went to stand behind his chair. “Why do you work so hard?” she asked softly.

He jumped at the sound of her voice but did not turn around. “I enjoy working,” he said shortly. “Is there something you want? I’m very busy.”

It was not an encouraging beginning, and for a split second Victoria actually considered saying, very bluntly, that she wanted him to take her to bed. But the truth was that she was not that bold, and not that eager to actually go upstairs either—particularly when he was in a mood that was even colder than the mood he’d been in on their wedding day. Hoping to improve his spirits, she said softly, “You must get horrid backaches, sitting all day like this.” She summoned all her courage and put her hands on his wide shoulders, intending to knead them with her fingers.

Jason’s whole body stiffened the instant she touched him. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

“I thought I would rub your shoulders.”

“My shoulders are not in need of your tender ministrations, Victoria.”

“Why are you snapping at me?” she asked, and went around to the front of his desk, watching his hand as it moved swiftly across the page, his handwriting bold and firm. When he ignored her, she perched on the side of his desk.

Jason threw down his quill in disgust and leaned back in his chair, studying her. Her leg was beside his hand, swinging slightly as she read what he had been writing. Against his volition, his eyes moved upward over her breasts, riveting on the inviting curve of her lips. She had a mouth that begged to be kissed, and her eyelashes were so long they cast shadows on her cheeks. “Get off my desk and get out of here,” he snapped.

“As you wish,” his wife said cheerfully, and stood up. “I just came in to say good-day. What would you like for dinner?”

You, he thought. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

“In that case, is there anything special you’d like for dessert?”

The same thing I’d like for dinner, he thought. “No,” he said, fighting down the instantaneous, clamoring demands of his body.

“You’re awfully easy to please,” she said teasingly, and reached out to trace the line of his straight eyebrows.

Jason seized her hand in midair and held it away, his grip like iron. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he bit out.

Victoria quailed inwardly, but she managed a light shrug. “There are always doors between us. I thought I’d open your study door and see what you were doing.”

“There is more separating us than doors,” he retorted, dropping her hand.

“I know,” she agreed sadly, looking down at him with melting blue eyes.

Jason jerked his gaze from hers. “I am very busy,” he said curtly, and picked up his papers.

“I can see that,” she said with an odd softness in her voice. “Much too busy for me right now.” She left quietly.

At suppertime she walked into the drawing room wearing a peach chiffon gown that clung to every curve and hollow of her voluptuous body and was nearly transparent. Jason’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Did I pay for that?”

Victoria saw his gaze rivet on the daringly low vee of the chiffon bodice, and smiled. “Of course you did. I don’t have any money.”

“Don’t wear it out of the house. It’s indecent.”

“I knew you’d like it!” she said with a chuckle, sensing instinctively that he liked it very much or his eyes wouldn’t have flared like that.

Jason looked at her as if he couldn’t believe his ears, then turned to the crystal decanters on the table. “Would you like some sherry?”

“Lord, no!” she said and laughed. “As you must already have guessed, wine does not agree with me. It makes me ill. It always has. Look what happened when I drank it on our wedding day.” Unaware of the importance of what she had just said, Victoria turned to examine a priceless Ming Dynasty vase reposing on a gilt table inlaid with marble, her mind turning over an idea. She decided to do it. “I’d like to go to London tomorrow,” she said, walking toward him.

“Why?”

She perched on the arm of the chair he had just sat in. “To spend your money, of course.”

“I wasn’t aware I’d given you any,” he murmured, distracted by the sight of her thigh beside his chest. In the romantic candlelight, the sheer chiffon appeared to be translucent and flesh-colored.

“I still have most of the money you’ve been giving me as an allowance all these weeks. Will you go to London with me? After I shop, we could see a play and stay at the townhouse.”

“I have a meeting here, the morning after next.”

“That’s even better,” she said without thinking. Alone for several hours in the coach, there would be ample time for lazy conversation. “We’ll come home together tomorrow night.”

“I can’t spare the time,” he said shortly.

“Jason—” she said softly, reaching out to touch his crisp dark hair.

He shot up out of the chair, looming over her, his voice ringing with contempt. “If you need money to use in London, say so! But stop acting like a cheap strumpet or I’ll treat you like one, and you’ll end up on that sofa with your skirts tossed over your head.”

Victoria stared at him in humiliated fury. “For your information I would rather be a cheap strumpet than a complete, blind fool like you, who mistakes every gesture someone makes and leaps to all the wrong conclusions!”

Jason glared at her. “Just exactly what is that supposed to mean?”

Victoria almost stamped her foot in frustrated wrath. “You figure it out! You’re very good at figuring me out, except you’re always wrong! But I’ll tell you this—if I were a strumpet, I’d starve to death if things were left up to you! Furthermore, you can dine alone tonight and make the servants miserable instead of me. Tomorrow I am going to London without you.” With that, Victoria swept out of the room, leaving Jason staring after her, his brows drawn together in bafflement.

Victoria stormed up to her room, flung off the sheer chiffon dress, and put on a satin robe. She sat down at her dressing table and, as her ire cooled, a wry smile touched the generous curve of her lips. The look of amazement on Jason’s face when she told him she would starve to death if she was a strumpet and things were left up to him had been almost comical.