Whisper of Scandal (16 page)

Merryn stuck out her bottom lip in the stubborn gesture Joanna remembered from their childhood. “I know that you claim to be selfish, Jo,” Merryn said, “but the truth is that you are doing this for Nina and for me, too, so that we will have a roof over our heads and be safe and protected.”

“You have me all wrong,” Joanna said dryly. “I am doing it for myself.” Nevertheless, she returned Merryn’s hug, holding her tightly for a brief moment.

“I foresee a stumbling block,” Merryn said, pushing back the fair hair from about her face and rubbing eyes that were suspiciously red with tears.

“Oh?” Joanna frowned. “What have I forgotten?”

“That you have nothing to offer Lord Grant,” Merryn said. “It is expecting a great deal of him to ask him to do this purely out of honor and a responsibility toward Nina.”

There was a pause. Merryn was sitting with her hands clasped in her lap, looking earnestly at her sister. Not for the first time, Joanna wondered how she had grown so cynical and Merryn had managed to stay so naive. It was the wicked influence of the ton upon her, she supposed,
and the disillusionment of her marriage to David. For most certainly she could not say to Merryn:

“You mistake. I can offer Lord Grant myself…”

No indeed, she could not say that. Merryn would be shocked to the core. And truth to tell, there was a little—a very little—of her vicarage upbringing still within her that meant that she was shocked, too. But Alex could give her something that she needed—the means by which she could both provide for Nina and remain in the comfort to which she had become accustomed—and this time she was prepared to barter herself for it. Her uncle would probably have denounced her as a whore, but Joanna could not see that it was much different from a marriage of convenience with cold-blooded bargaining over money and land.

“Well,” she temporized, “if I put it to Lord Grant as a business proposition—that I will care for all aspects of Nina’s welfare and perhaps offer to take his young cousin Chessie under my wing for a season as well so that he is free of all family obligations…”

“That is still not my idea of an ideal marriage,” Merryn protested.

Joanna laughed. “I hope that you never make the kind of match,” she said, “where you discover that the less you see of your husband, the better.”

“I suppose,” Merryn said doubtfully, “that Lord Grant might be persuaded to help. He is not a rich man, but we could live cheaply, somewhere small, a village in the country perhaps—” She broke off. “But I do not suppose you would like that,” she finished a little sadly.

“I would hate it,” Joanna said frankly. “You know I detest the country. I find it dull and slow and dirty.”

She remembered the long, monotonous hours in her
uncle’s country vicarage measured out by nothing more than the chiming of the long case clock in the hall. That dreary boredom had been one of the reasons why she had practically thrown herself into David Ware’s arms when she had met him at a local assembly. He had seemed so vivid and dashing in comparison to her drab existence. And of course he had been, but he had also been a complete cad and in throwing herself at him she had made a dreadful mistake. But she would not allow herself to think about the disaster of her first marriage. This time she would have her eyes wide-open and would be marrying Alex to secure the things that were important to her.

“It was fun growing up in the country,” Merryn was saying. “It is far more friendly than London and there were places to play and quiet corners where I could go to read.”

“I sometimes think,” Joanna said, smiling to take the sting out of her words, “that you were growing up somewhere completely different from me.”

“But you did not read,” Merryn said.

“No, I found it boring.”

“Nor did you explore outdoors—”

“In case I spoiled my clothes.”

“So it is not surprising that you prefer London, where you may be entertained all the time,” Merryn finished. She glanced at the clock and stood up.

“Are you going out this evening?” Joanna asked.

For a split second Merryn looked suspiciously guilty, but then she shook her head. “It is already ten o’clock, Jo. You know I still keep country hours. No, I am going to bed.”

“Good night then,” Joanna said, giving her a kiss on
the cheek. “Please, would you send Drury to me? I need her help to dress.”

Merryn closed the door behind her and Joanna sat for a moment staring at her reflection in the pier glass. Was she really going to do this? She had told Alex that night at the boxing inn that she was not careless of her reputation and it must be true or she would not be sitting here agonizing about her actions. This would be a bargain, her choice, struck to gain the things that she wanted most. It would not be the same as David’s careless, cruel claiming of her. She closed her eyes briefly. Best not to think of David when she was planning to seduce his best friend.

She went over to her wardrobe and started to sift through the scores of gown that hung there. The red silk was too fussy. The gold brocade was too formal. The purple velvet was simply too last season.

An hour and a half later, dressed in her most becoming silver gauze gown, Joanna thought she looked every inch the sophisticated society matron. The gown skimmed her hips and clung lovingly to her curves. It rustled when she moved, the shades of silver shifting like opalescence in the light. It was a seductress’s gown, a costume, a disguise. She tried to draw confidence from it, to become the person who was looking back at her from the mirror. It was surprisingly difficult. She felt terrified, for the first time in her life wishing that she were like Lottie with the experience of dozens of lovers to draw on.

She drew herself up. So she did not have much idea of how to seduce Alex, but really, how difficult could it be?

She picked up a matching gauze scarf and wrapped it about her shoulders. The hackney carriage was waiting outside. There was no going back.

L
OTTIE WAS DRAWING.
It was not one of the female accomplishments that she possessed—in fact, had anyone asked her she would probably have said that the only feminine gifts she had were unmentionable ones—and as a result, the map was coming out extremely lopsided. John Hagan, looking over her shoulder, seemed unimpressed. He adjusted the candles to throw more light on the writing desk.

“Are you sure that is what it looked like?” he demanded.

Lottie gave a pettish little shrug. “Near enough. There was a long peninsula and the treasure was buried near the beach and it was called—” She stopped. She could not for the life of her remember the name of the place she had seen on Ware’s hand-drawn Spitsbergen map.

“You will have to go back for another look,” Hagan said. “I am not setting off on some wild-goose chase without knowing the name of the place at the very least.”

Lottie gave an exaggerated sigh. “Darling, much as I enjoy debauching James Devlin, he is going to get a little suspicious if I seem more interested in the treasure map his cousin gave him than in his cock.”

There was a pause. Lottie saw Hagan flush darkly and knew that in that moment he was thinking more about her locked in flagrant immorality with Devlin than he was about David Ware’s hidden treasure. Men, Lottie thought. They were all the same, led by their pricks. She knew that given half a chance he would
have her across the desk. She had no intention of giving him that chance. She did have some standards. And besides, Hagan was looking particularly unattractive tonight with a huge reddish bruise on his forehead and a cut above his eye. She’d asked him what had happened and he’d refused to tell her.

“I am sure,” Hagan said, clearing his throat, “that you will think of a way to distract Mr. Devlin’s attention. You seem a most…imaginative…creature.” His voice lingered over the last few words.

Lottie gave him her little catlike smile and leaned forward so that Hagan could see right down the generously cut neck of her gown. “It will cost you, darling,” she warned. “If I get you more information I shall want a bigger share of that lovely, lovely treasure.”

“You are greedy, madam,” Hagan said, staring at her cleavage as though transfixed. “It is not as though you have a need of the money.”

“No,” Lottie said, draining her brandy and making sure she did not offer him another glass, “but I do feel very strongly that you should pay for my help in some way, darling. After all, Joanna is my dearest friend and I am being a teensy bit disloyal to her in assisting you like this, am I not?”

Hagan grunted. “It sounds to me as though you are not finding the process too onerous, madam.”

“Oh, Devlin is a very talented lover,” Lottie said blithely, “but he is a young man, you know. I fear his sexual demands might well exhaust me.” She gave a heavy sigh. “I need to be…reassured…that my efforts are in a worthy cause.” She fluttered her eyelashes at Hagan. “Mr. Cummings refuses to buy me the stunning diamond bracelet that Lady Peters is obliged to auction
to cover her gambling debts. He says that I have too many diamonds already. As though one could ever have too many diamonds!” She looked appealingly at Hagan. “So you see…”

Hagan toyed with his empty brandy glass. “I am sure,” he said, “that we might come to some…accommodation, madam.”

“Well, that is excellent, darling,” Lottie murmured, getting to her feet and gathering up her drawings so quickly that Hagan pulled back. “I shall allow Mr. Devlin to shaft me with great vigor until he reveals all his secrets.” She saw Hagan’s look of barely controlled lust and gave him a dazzling smile. How she adored shocking people. “The servants will show you out,” she added. “Good night.”

T
HE NIGHT HAD BEEN
long and hot and Alex was tired and, he thought, as the cool night air made his head spin, more than a little cast away. Truth to tell, it had been the only way to get through an interminable evening. Charles Yorke had arranged a dinner at the Admiralty at which the Prince Regent was the honored guest, and as he was not escorting Lady Joanna Ware to Lady Bryanstone’s ball, Alex had run out of reasons for refusing to attend. Indeed, it had been made very plain to him that he could not refuse, not if he wished the Admiralty to maintain their support for his trip to Spitsbergen and provide him with supplies and a ship to accompany the
Sea Witch
in case of any difficulties.

As he entered the doors of Grillon’s and made his way to his room, Frazer came out to meet him, his long dour face even longer and more dour than ever in the candlelight.

“There is a lady waiting to see you, my lord.”

Alex swore. Dodging invitations from overamorous ladies had become something of an occupational hazard in the past week, but none of them had previously had the temerity to invade his bedroom, least of all with the connivance of his steward.

“Frazer,” he said, “it is three o’clock in the morning.”

“Aye, my lord.”

“And I wish to sleep.”

“Aye, my lord.”

“And I am foxed.”

Frazer sniffed. “You do indeed smell like a rough night in a taproom in Aberdeen, my lord.” He paused. “It is Lady Joanna Ware, my lord.”

“I don’t care if it is the pope,” Alex said irritably. Joanna Ware was here, in his bedchamber, at three in the morning? He must be fantasizing now.

“You should have sent her away,” he said.

“He tried to. I refused to go.”

Alex spun around. The door to his chamber had opened and Joanna was standing in the aperture. There was one candle burning on the nightstand behind her. It cast a halo of light around her head, burnishing her hair to bronze and gold. She came forward, her skirts making the softest, most sensual rustling sound. Alex caught a breath of her perfume, honey and roses mingled with her warmth, so sweet and seductive it went straight to his head—and his groin. She was wearing a confection in silver lace that clung in all the appropriate—or was that inappropriate?—places and was so opaque that it was almost transparent. Alex found himself staring.

Behind her stretched the unruffled cover of Alex’s bed. A minute ago he had been longing for sleep. Now it represented quite a different temptation.

“What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded. “How did you know I was staying here?” He knew that he sounded ungracious, but it was either that or grabbing her and kissing the life out of her. He had no real wish to do that in front of Frazer, but it was a close-run thing.

“Brooke found you,” Joanna said. “He can find anyone. I need to speak with you.”

“Could it not wait?”

“Naturally not, or I would not be here.” She wrinkled up her nose as the smell of taproom reached her. “Oh, you are foxed!”

“Just a little.”

“I am sorry, madam,” Frazer said.

“Don’t apologize for me, Frazer,” Alex said. “I am quite capable of apologizing myself if I feel the situation warrants it.” He turned to Joanna. “Lady Joanna, go home. I’ll call on you in the morning.”

“In the morning I may not be there for you to call upon.” There was just the tiniest catch in her voice and befuddled as he was, Alex caught it. Looking at her face, he saw determination there as well as anxiety in the way that she pressed her hands together. He felt something shift inside him, a stir of compassion mixed with something else, an emotion he thought long lost. He swore.

“My lord!” Frazer sounded like an outraged uncle now. “Not in front of the lady!”

“Frazer, fetch me some cold water, if you please,” Alex said, ignoring the remonstrance. “Lady Joanna, what may I offer you? Other than a hackney carriage home.”

“I came here to seduce you,” Joanna said in a rush.

“Excuse me, my lord,” Frazer said into the silence that followed. “I do not believe that I should be present at a moment like this.”

“Damn right you shouldn’t,” Alex said. “Pray excuse us.” He caught Joanna’s arm and steered her back into
the room, closing the door behind them and leaning his shoulders against it.

“You came here to seduce me?” he repeated.

“Yes.” She looked annoyed.

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why didn’t you do it?” Alex repeated. “Good God, you don’t announce something like that!” He cast his hands up. “You do it!”

He saw Joanna bite her lip. “I couldn’t do it!” she protested. “Frazer was there and I did not want to shock him. I like him—he brought me a glass of wine whilst I waited for you and we were talking about his home—” She stopped, as though the reality of the situation was suddenly catching up with her. For a second she looked tragic. She also looked seventeen rather than twenty-seven; despite the sophistication of her silver gown she looked bewildered, a little lost, as unhappy as a virgin bride whose mother had just scared her with tales of men’s uncontrollable lusts.

A feeling of tenderness stirred within Alex. He recognized it with incredulity and wondered if it was the drink addling his head. Could Joanna Ware really induce such an emotion in him when he did not care for her? It seemed insane. Just for a second he was afraid he
was
insane.

“You have made a spectacular muddle of this, have you not?” he said a little more roughly than he had intended.

Her eyes flashed, magnificent lavender blue. “Well, thank you! Forgive me if I do not have any experience to draw upon!”

“I cannot imagine what you were thinking.”

She blushed a deeper rose. “Neither can I!”

There was a tentative knock at the door. Frazer stuck his head around on Alex’s summons and looked mightily relieved to see that they were both still respectably dressed. He handed Alex a ewer of water.

“I was not sure if you were…um…negotiating terms,” he said.

“Not in the sense in which you mean,” Alex said, glaring at Joanna. He emptied the ewer of water over his head. Joanna looked scandalized.

“What a frightful mess!” she said. “That is an Aubusson carpet, you know, though what they are doing putting it in a hotel room where it is abused by people like you, I cannot imagine.”

“At least I can think now,” Alex said. Frazer went out, taking the ewer with him, and Alex rubbed a towel around the back of his neck. “So, what the hell is all this about?”

He saw Joanna’s lips tighten into a very cross, very tight bow and felt once again the urge to kiss her.

“I need you to marry me,” she said.

Alex rocked back on his heels. “Why on earth?” he said.

“Because I am desperate.”

“Thank you,” Alex said dryly. “I am still waiting to understand where the element of seduction comes into this.”

Joanna sighed sharply. She took a few steps away from him. Her skirts swished like the hiss of an angry cat. “I was thinking that the only time we do not argue is when we are kissing,” she said crossly. “So it seemed logical to approach you in that way.”

“I might have slept with you,” Alex said, following his own logic, “but why imagine that I would marry you?”

Now she looked even more infuriated. He supposed that he might have put it in a more chivalrous way, but his head was aching.

“Because you are supposed to be a gentleman,” she snapped, “and that is what a gentleman does!”

“Your logic,” Alex said, “is hopelessly at fault.”

“As are your manners.” She sounded exasperated. He saw the pink color run up under her skin, saw her shake her head in defeat. “I am sorry,” she said abruptly. “I am tired, and evidently I was not thinking straight at all, and I can see I have made a fool of myself—”

“Joanna.” Alex found that he had taken her hands in his. He felt her tremble, felt, too, an urge to comfort her that was unfamiliar and disquieting. The contrast between the sophisticated façade conjured by the silver gown and the real emotion beneath her brittle exterior was extremely confusing.

“Tell me what this is really about,” he said.

She freed herself and went and sat on the side of the bed. Alex’s body responded to the vision of her, hair escaping from its knot, silken skirts spread about her. Hell. Did she not realize what she was doing to him, here in his bedchamber in the dead of night? For a widow she was exceptionally naive. She had boldly stated her decision to seduce him and seemed to think that because he had turned her down she was now as sexless as Frazer. He certainly was not going to sit down beside her. That would present him with an excess of temptation. He drove his hands into his pockets and strode across to the other side of the room.

“It is John Hagan,” Joanna said. She spoke in a rush. “He said—” Her breath hitched despite her valiant attempts to keep it steady. “He said that if I went to the Arctic I would have no home to come back to and that he would make sure no one received me.” She made a despairing gesture. “He said he did not want Nina in the family, that she was David’s bastard brat and should be left to rot unless—” Her voice quivered. “He wanted—” She stopped, met his eyes. “Well, he suggested an arrangement…”

“I see,” Alex said. He felt a tight, possessive fury. “And you refused him.”

“Not exactly.” Joanna’s blue gaze was defiant. Alex felt her words like a kick in the gut. “I need a home to offer Nina,” she said, “and I could see no other way. I cannot work as a servant or live in penury—I have to be comfortable! So I thought—”

“Bloody hell, Joanna!” Alex thought he was going to explode. He grabbed her shoulders. “You refuse to have an
affaire
with me because of your so-called moral principles and then you sleep with John Hagan because you wish to preserve your standard of living!” He let her go. He was seething with anger and a primitive possessiveness that felt white-hot.

“I should have known,” he said bitterly, “that had I offered you that carriage and four you mentioned, you would have changed your mind.”

“It was not like that,” Joanna said. She had her hands on her hips. Her eyes were as vivid as stars. “Hagan was blackmailing me, but I could see no other way!” Her voice faltered. “I really do want to help Nina and to keep her safe, Alex. And anyway—” her tone strength
ened “—I could not go through with it. He was too unattractive and I thought he might cheat me.”

Alex gave a short laugh. “You were probably right.” He looked at her. He was astounded at how angry he felt; he was furious with her for even considering succumbing to John Hagan’s blackmail and he was even more enraged with Hagan for his intolerable behavior. He could see why Joanna had come to him. She needed not only somewhere for herself and Nina to live, but, more important, the protection of his name against Hagan’s mean-spirited revenge. The man had influence and would turn the ton against her. Joanna, a widow with no fortune of her own, had survived as society’s darling because she had pleased those who had power and influence. Now, though, they might bring her down simply to prove that she was their creation.

He realized that Joanna was gathering up her gauze wrap and preparing to leave.

“It was a mistake for me to come here,” she said abruptly. “I can see that. If Hagan really does throw me from my house I suppose I can always find another gentleman to wed me—”

Alex’s head still hurt and his thought processes were taking longer than usual, but the one thing he did know was that no one else was going to marry Joanna Ware. That seemed crystal clear.

“Lewisham, or Belfort or Preston?” he suggested softly. “They are not men, my dear, they are barely alive.”

“I know.” Once again she gave him a look of challenge. “But they are safe. And so would I be, Merryn and Nina, too.”

“None of them would wish to take on another man’s illegitimate daughter,” Alex pointed out.

“I suppose not.” She fidgeted with the fringing on the gauze scarf, pleating it between her fingers. “I know that you do not wish to wed any more that I do, Alex, but you at least might do it for the sake of the child.” She let the material slip from between her fingers. “David made you Nina’s guardian for a reason and I think that reason was because he knew you would not let him down. No matter how much you hated the responsibility he placed on you, you would still do your duty…” Her voice faded away. “You do hate it, don’t you?” she added softly. “I feel that anger and reluctance in you all the time.”

The bitterness and fury twisted in Alex again. How much could he tell her, here in this shadowy room, how much of his guilt about Amelia’s death, how much of the way that he chafed against responsibility and obligation and yet would never shirk it? It was almost as though it was his penance, his punishment. Oh, yes, David Ware had chosen his daughter’s guardians well, for neither of them would ever desert the child. Joanna, with her tenacious desire to help Nina, and he with his appalling sense of culpability from which he could never be free, a sense of guilt that meant he could never again fail an innocent child…

“Yes,” he said gruffly. “I hate it.”

“Why?”

He had never lied to her before. They had, he realized with a sense of surprise, been utterly open and direct with one another. But this was different. This canker in him, this blame, the guilt he felt about Amelia’s death, was not something he ever spoke of and he would not start now. No, a partial truth would have to suffice.

“Because I hate to be tied down,” he said. “I want no responsibilities. I am an explorer.” He shrugged. “It is a compulsion, hard to explain…”

She nodded. Her gaze was cloudy. “I understand.”

If Ware had had the same compulsion, he imagined that she would understand very well, more than any woman he knew. But…

“You do not want that in a man,” he said.

“Of course not.” There was bitterness in her voice now. “But I want the child, Alex. I feel a moral obligation to care for her, but more than that I have to help her. I cannot leave her, so far away, unloved and abandoned… And I am shallow enough to want to keep my style of life as well. I admit it freely.” She drew a deep breath, got to her feet. “So I am offering you a bargain. I know I have little to offer you in return, but all I ask is that you give us the protection of your name and somewhere to live—” she smiled slightly “—myself and Merryn and Nina. Perhaps your cousin Francesca could come to stay with us, too. I could sponsor her come-out, if anyone in society will still speak to me.” She stopped again. “Anyway, I ask nothing else of you. I will raise Nina and care for her and you will be free to travel as you please, no obligations, no ties. What do you say?”