Whisper of Scandal (12 page)

“Don’t speak of me as though you are referring to a horse,” Joanna said furiously. “I am not headstrong, I am the one with sense here! We have been talking for all of ten minutes and already we are arguing. What Nina will need is reassurance and stability, not a pair of guardians who fight like cat and dog!”

She turned away from him and wiped away the errant tears that insisted on escaping from the corners of her eyes. She did not want to cry in front of Alex Grant. He already made her feel so vulnerable, so emotionally exposed. Her feelings felt as though they had been rubbed raw, stinging. David, she thought bitterly, had chosen well when he had sent this man to torment her.

“You must excuse me,” she said rapidly. “It is late and my business here is concluded—”

She turned to find Alex very close to her.

“You’re crying,” he said, his voice rough with some emotion she could not place.

“Of course I’m crying!” Joanna exclaimed. “I have had a very bad week!” She flashed him a look. “Go away, Lord Grant. Can you not take a hint? I really do not want to cry in front of you!”

Alex ignored her words. His hand was on her waist, the gentle warmth of his touch searing her through the
silk bodice of her gown. How had that happened? He was drawing her closer, as though he wanted to comfort her. Joanna had never equated a man’s physical proximity with reassurance before; David had only ever touched her when he wanted to bed her. And surely Alex, of all people, cared nothing for whether she was distressed or not. She felt confused, disturbed. She was not sure what was showing on her face. Alex raised a hand and brushed away the smudges of her tears with the pad of his thumb. Her heart ached at the tenderness of the gesture. She looked up to meet the dazzling intensity of those gray eyes and then he was kissing her, his mouth gentle and persuasive, and the sheer surprise of it ripped through her and set her trembling.

“Open your mouth,” he whispered and her mind reeled shock whilst her lips parted in instinctive response to the command and to the pressure of his. Alex coaxed them farther apart with sensual deliberation and she felt the slow sweep of his tongue against hers. She could taste brandy mingled with the salt of her tears. The heat consumed her then, fierce, scalding her, leaving her shaking and breathless. They fell apart and stood staring at one another.

“What was that?” Jo found her voice first. “Comfort?”

“Scarcely that.” For a moment Alex looked as stunned as she felt, his expression taut and astonished, his gray eyes mirroring her shock and confusion. Joanna felt a violent wash of pleasure to see how shaken he was.

“That was not what I intended to do,” he said slowly.

“I imagine not.” Joanna bit her lip. She felt dazed and heated, her stomach burning with wicked excitement.
The air between them felt alive. From the room next door came the roar of the boxing crowd as atavistic as a beat in the blood. There was something equally primitive in Alex’s eyes, but it did not scare her. It called to her.

“But now that I have…” He was drawing her close again, his voice so low that she could barely hear it, “I confess I have been wanting this for a long time. In Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and even earlier…”

She could have stopped him. She thought she should have done, knew she should have done. She did not like Alex Grant, yet for some reason that very aversion seemed to make his appeal even more powerful. It added an undertow of raw passion that simultaneously seduced and appalled her. There was a dark current of attraction between them that tempted her with its wicked sweetness, drawing her in so that she clung to him instead of pushing him away. She did not understand it and when Alex held her she did not care.

This time it was not so gentle. Alex’s lips captured hers and took them with all the passion she had always sensed was in him. Joanna yielded to the danger and the excitement, sliding her arms about his neck, pulling him closer. The kiss was so urgent and primitive that she shook with the power of it. It called to an answering need in her. Gone was the ice maiden, the woman David Ware had scorned as barren and frigid. Her mind spun as she realized that she had never felt like this before, never experienced this intensity, this utter desire. It was what she had searched for and never found. She made a small, surrendering noise deep in her throat and felt the harsh need surge in him as he gathered her closer, every hard line of his body taut against hers. There was
a tense, heated spiral of desire tightening within her. She wanted him to make love to her here, in this inn parlor with the wild noise of the crowd in her ears.

When he finally released her Joanna pressed her fingers to her mouth in disbelief and felt her lips swollen and moist from the demand of their kisses.

“Well,” Alex said, “that was interesting.”

Interesting? Was that what he called it? Joanna stared at him in outrage. He had kissed her with lust and sweetness and a fiery heat that had her body still humming and he thought it was interesting? Really, she thought, he only needed to speak to annoy her.

“I am glad that you thought so,” she said frostily, trying to damp down her feelings.

His grin was pure wickedness. He looked damnably pleased with himself. Joanna’s annoyance grew.

“I suppose it was a little more than that,” he said.

“You flatter me,” Joanna said. “I should like to know how you can kiss me like that when you profess to dislike me so heartily.”

“It seems that I do not need to like you to kiss you,” Alex said. His gaze was dark and hot. “Nor do you need to like me to kiss me back.”

She felt color flare into her face. “It is unaccountable, is it not,” she said, “for I do not like you at all.”

“And yet…” Alex ran his finger down the curve of her cheek. Her skin seemed to warm to his touch; she resisted a powerful impulse to turn her face against his hand, seeking further caresses. She was simultaneously mortified and fascinated by her response to him. She could feel the arousal building deep inside her again, tight as a knot.

“And yet you want me,” Alex said.

“I want a carriage with matching grays and a diamond necklace from Hatton Garden,” Joanna said, “but it is not going to happen, just as any sort of
affaire
between us is not going to happen.”

“Is it not?” His voice was dangerously soft. His hand fell to the hollow at the base of her throat, his touch as gentle as the brush of a butterfly’s wing. Joanna could feel her breathing catch. She knew that the pulse there would be pounding; her heart was racing so fast now that she could feel the beat of it against the silk of her bodice. Alex ran a finger along her collarbone, dipping his hand beneath the ruffled neckline of her gown to caress the upper curve of her breast in a touch that was fleeting and yet wrenched so deep a sensation from Joanna that her knees almost buckled beneath her. Her nipples hardened instantly and a tiny gasp broke from her lips. Alex’s gaze was intent, dark, focused, utterly consumed with desire. He slid the slippery silk from her shoulder and his lips replaced his fingers, drifting down across the tender skin of her neck and the delicious line of her breasts to dip into the hollow between them, his tongue flicking, hot and shocking against her skin.

Joanna’s mind spun with dark, erotic images, her body melting into slow, luxuriant pleasure. It was like a game, a dare, a test of how far he could push her, and she knew she should stop it, stop him, but she did not want to because she was trapped in a web of sensual delight.

She felt his palm against her breast, warm through the silk of her chemise. The spread of his fingers against the slippery richness of the silk made her gasp again, the thought of his hands on her body with only the thin material between setting her shaking. She reached out
to steady herself and her hand brushed the edge of the table, her wedding ring catching on the wood. It was a tiny thing and yet it caught her attention, not because she felt that she was in any way being unfaithful to David’s memory—such a thought was laughable given their estrangement—but because it reminded her who Alex was. Her late husband’s best friend, a man who disliked her and yet could make such exquisite love to her that her body hummed and sang under his touch.

Wrenched by a spasm of self-disgust, she pulled back and he let her go. He was breathing as hard as she was. His gray eyes were smoky dark.

For a moment neither of them spoke and then Alex smiled. “So,” he said, his voice very soft, flagrantly seductive. “Have you changed your mind? Can I come with you?”

Joanna was so disoriented that for a split second she wondered what he was talking about. Then she remembered. Spitsbergen, the Arctic, the voyage…

She stared. “Did you kiss me simply to try to seduce me into consenting?”

Alex looked amused at the chagrin she could not keep from her voice. “No,” he said. “I would not have stopped there if I was trying to seduce you.”

“I stopped,” Joanna said. “You did not.”

He shrugged. “I might have known that we would quarrel about that, as we do about all things.” He shot her a challenging glance. “You enjoyed it.”

Her chin came up. “So did you.”

“On that we do agree then.”

Again there was a taut silence.

“How vexing you are,” Joanna said. “How mad
dening it is that I can find you so utterly infuriating and yet—”

“And yet you wish to tear my clothes off and make love to me?” He smiled at her evident outrage. “Forgive me, you know how very direct I can be.”

“What I wish to do or do not wish to do makes no odds,” Joanna said. “You still cannot come with me to Spitsbergen.”

The words came out with stark finality and Alex looked taken aback.

“You refuse me—after that?”

“That was a mistake, Lord Grant.” She stepped back to try to gain some breathing space. “David’s daughter is the only thing that brings us together, Lord Grant. I am going to fetch her from Spitsbergen. You will be going wherever the Admiralty posts you, I imagine.” She held his gaze. “And since you have always made it so clear that you desire no emotional ties or responsibilities, perhaps you will wish to exercise your guardianship via the lawyers in future?”

Alex looked angry now. There was an ominous stillness about him. “Are you still trying to imply that I shirk my duty?”

“No,” Joanna said. She pressed her damp palms together. “No, of course not. Not in any material sense at least.”

“And I do not intend to evade my responsibility to Nina either.” Alex moved restlessly. “So I will accompany you on the journey and keep you safe. You can scarcely offer her a good home if you are sick or injured or dead.”

“But I do not want you with me,” Joanna argued, feel
ing her temper rising again, irritated by his stubbornness. “I have told you! Can you not see—”

“I can see that you are afraid of our attraction,” Alex said bluntly, “and that is why you are denying me.” His eyes were an intense dark gray. “You are afraid that if we spend time in one another’s company we will become lovers because that is what we both want.”

Joanna’s throat dried at his words. That was precisely what she was afraid of.

“We might, of course, kill one another first,” she said politely.

Alex smiled again, that adventurer’s smile. “We might. It is a risk worth taking.”

“No, it is not.”

“You are trying to pretend that nothing happened between us.”

“No,” Joanna said. “I am not. I cannot deny our inconvenient attraction.” She made a helpless gesture. “But I do not wish for an
affaire
with you.”

Alex stepped closer to her.

“Yes, you do,” he said. “I can tell you do. Whatever is between us burns you as fiercely as it does me, Joanna.”

Overwhelmed by his physical proximity, Joanna could only shrug helplessly. “You see—we always disagree.” She tilted her face up to meet the intensity of his gaze. “I don’t deny that I want you,” she said honestly. “I do not like it, nor do I understand it, but—” She broke off. His hand was on her wrist again, his touch warm, compulsive, drawing her closer. She stepped away, swept by fragile, turbulent emotion. She did not for a moment believe that this man was like her late husband. Alex might be direct and even harsh, but he
was never untrustworthy or dishonest. She felt it. She knew it instinctively. He would never physically hurt her. Yet indulging in an
affaire
with him would be madness. Once their desire burned out there would be nothing left but reproach and dislike.

“I will not do it,” she said. “You think me shallow, and as light with my reputation as many other ladies of the ton, but I am not, and even if I were, you are the very last man I would take as a lover. I would never give myself to a man who has no respect for me.”

Alex’s dark gaze was hooded. “You damn near did.”

“Which is why I do not intend to see you ever again,” Joanna said.

The temperature in the room fell as swiftly as though a door had opened to allow in the coldest winter night.

“You will see plenty of me,” Alex said. “I fully intend to be on that ship.”

“I don’t want you there,” Joanna said, holding fast to her temper.

“Your wishes count for nothing in this,” Alex said. “I cannot in all conscience as Nina’s guardian allow you to wander into danger through your own stupidity.”

Joanna gritted her teeth. “How arrogant you are! I do not need a hero to protect me. I can think of nothing worse.”

She broke from his grip, grabbed her cloak and bonnet from the chair and flung open the door.

“Brooke,” she said, throwing Alex a defiant look. “Lord Grant is leaving.”

“My lord.” The prizefighter bowed to Alex with an exquisite courtesy that barely masked his hostility and
stood to one side to allow Alex to exit. Alex ignored him. He took Joanna’s hand and pressed a kiss on it. She felt the brush of his lips on her skin and repressed the response that flared through her.

Brooke rocked back on his heels, spoiling for a fight. “My lady?” he said, but Joanna shook her head. Alex stood back courteously for her to pass and they went out.

In the street the night was dark and hot. The pugilist club members were spilling out of the inn now that the bout was over, raucous and full of ale and good humor with the money they had won. When they saw Joanna, a ragged cheer broke over the crowd. They surrounded her, pressing close, bowing, wanting to kiss her hand. She saw Alex watching, his expression darkly disapproving in the glow of the lamplight and she felt reckless and defiant and blew kisses to all her admirers. The riotous mood of the crowd swelled; Alex’s frown correspondingly deepened. Two pinks of the ton made an elaborate leg to Joanna, competing to quote sonnets in her praise whilst the more disorderly elements in the throng booed so loudly that Joanna felt obliged to intervene before there was a breach of the peace.