Whisper of Scandal (22 page)

“I do not suppose,” Alex said grimly to Dev, “that there is the slightest chance of Mrs. Cummings being ready to travel within another hour?”

“Not the slightest,” Dev said, grinning. “You had best call up reinforcements and send Frazer in.”

Lottie appeared within an hour and a half, and after waiting a further thirty minutes, Alex stormed down the companionway and into Joanna’s cabin without knocking.

And stopped dead.

His wife, her hair in one long thick plait, was sitting on the edge of the bunk wearing the most provocative outfit he had ever seen her in. Merely the sight of her perched there was sufficient to bring back heated images of every night they had spent together, enhanced now by her outrageous riding habit. Buff-colored pantaloons were molded to her shapely thighs. The navy-blue jacket was nipped in at the waist and seemed to strain over the curve of her breasts. Alex’s mouth went dry. His mind went completely blank. His body clenched.

“Am I late?” Joanna said anxiously, misreading his expression. “I am so sorry. I cannot get the boots on.”

She gestured toward a pair of shiny black hussar boots with jaunty tassels.

“It’s like trying to force a greased pig into a rabbit hutch,” Frazer said sourly from his place on the floor. “Cannot be done, my lord.”

Shaking his head, Alex got down on one knee and
with much pushing and pulling he and his steward finally inserted Joanna into her boots.

“Even Mrs. Cummings was ready before you,” Alex said as he helped her to her feet. He looked at her. Now she was standing up, the outfit seemed even more outrageous than before, for the jacket was short and the pantaloons skimmed over the curve of her bottom. Rolling his eyes at Frazer and resisting the urge to cover her up with a blanket, Alex ushered her out of the cabin.

By the time Joanna had mounted the steps to the deck and then climbed down the side of the rope ladder into the longboat, it seemed that every sailor on the
Sea Witch
had found a reason to pause in their work and watch the disembarkation. It was fortunate, Alex thought grimly, that the sea was calm and the ladder was not rocking too violently, because at least the exercise was over relatively quickly even if it did leave him wishing to plant several men a facer for the way in which they were staring at his wife. Owen Purchase and Dev, barely able to hide their appreciation, rowed the longboat across to shore. Lottie, clearly envious of the attention Joanna was drawing, was pointedly ignoring Dev and made a big fuss about having to climb out on the shingle. She insisted that Purchase carry her up the beach to where the horses were waiting so that she did not splash her riding habit.

“What on earth is that?” she asked disagreeably, pointing at one of the shaggy ponies that the Russian Pomor guide had brought down to the beach for them. “It certainly isn’t a horse!”

“Highly bred horses would break their legs in this terrain,” Alex said, “whereas these tough little ponies
are bred to it. Have you changed your mind about riding now, Mrs. Cummings?”

“No,” Lottie said hastily, giving Purchase a charming smile and pressing her body blatantly against his as he lifted her into the sidesaddle. “I want to see the country.”

“You will only see half the country if you ride sidesaddle, Lottie,” Joanna pointed out as Alex bent to give her a leg up. “Would you not prefer to try to ride astride?”

“Not on a horse, I thank you,” Lottie said, making Dev blush.

Joanna swung expertly up into the saddle, leaving Alex looking at Dev in blank astonishment. She took the reins from the guide and thanked him very prettily in Russian. Alex’s jaw almost hit the floor and the man’s face cracked into an appreciative smile.

Catching her husband’s look of utter incredulity, Joanna blushed. “Merryn taught me a few phrases of Russian before we left England,” she said. “I thought it would help. Though I’m not very good,” she added. “They probably will not understand me at all.”

Alex felt stunned. He also felt a little ashamed of himself that he had assumed Joanna to be so wrapped up in herself that she would not even think of learning the language. He saw Owen Purchase give Joanna a smile and a strange possessive pride and an equally strong jealousy gripped him like a vise. He brought his pony alongside hers, cutting the other man out.

They rode all day. The weather was fair, Spitsbergen looking as beautiful as Alex had ever seen it. The breeze was soft and from the south. Tiny yellow poppies grew through the black rocks.

“There is crowfoot,” Alex said. “It is prolific here in the summer.”

“How charming,” Joanna said. “Look, Lottie!”

“Darling,” Lottie said, “I really cannot get excited over a plant that is so small and green.”

They saw no one all day. Joanna was at first talkative, exclaiming over the view, asking questions, but as the day went on she fell silent and as the afternoon progressed Alex could see that she was swaying with tiredness in the saddle. He tried to persuade her to ride in the provisions cart, but she set her lips mulishly and said she would carry on. Alex admired her determination, but wanted to shake her for her stubbornness.

“You have nothing to prove,” he argued when they stopped to water the horses. “Devil take it, you have already bested me at chess and shown that you have the stamina to ride across rough terrain for hours!” He gestured toward the cart, where Lottie was sitting looking bad-tempered amidst the packing cases. “For pity’s sake, take a rest!”

“It would not be a rest if I was obliged to listen to Lottie’s complaints,” Joanna said, hauling herself up into the saddle again. “Nor is a cart a mode of transport I could bring myself to use.” She smiled suddenly. “Lottie’s reputation for style would never recover, you know, if it were noised about the ton that she had traveled alongside a sack of dry biscuits.”

By the time Alex called a halt to the day’s journey, on the edge of a small inlet, he could see that Joanna was almost asleep in the saddle. He lifted her down, holding her gently, feeling tenderness and compassion for her, mixed with exasperation. She was white with fatigue by now.

“You have only yourself to blame,” he said more roughly than he had intended, strangely moved by her spirit and determination.

“I know.” She smiled at him. “You are right, as always.”

Alex’s lips twitched. “I suppose you think I am being judgmental again.”

“You can safely leave me to make my own mistakes,” Joanna said, “though I appreciate your concern.” She looked around. “Where are we to stay tonight?”

Alex nodded in the direction of the shore. “We stay in that trappers’ hut.”

It was a long, low building, scarcely more than a box that looked as though it had been tossed onto the beach by an angry sea. Around it were scattered bones bleached white by the sun and the tides. Seeing them, Lottie gave a theatrical shriek and threw herself into Owen Purchase’s arms.

“Darling, where on earth have you brought us?”

The guide was laughing and Alex translated for them.

“He says it was the home of a Norwegian trapper who hunted bears and Arctic foxes and eider duck last winter.”

“He left enough bits of them behind,” Lottie grumbled.

“Oh…” Joanna’s gasp was a half laugh, half groan. “I suppose there is no hot water?”

“Not until we find some and heat it up,” Alex said.

“Food?”

Alex nodded toward the cart. “We will make some porridge and cocoa once the fire is lit.”

Joanna pulled a face. Alex waited for her to complain
at the paucity of their supplies, but she was silent. Lottie, on the other hand, was voicing sufficient grumbles for two.

“What can I do to help?” Joanna asked after a moment.

“You can collect birch wood for the fire,” Alex said. “It burns well. You’ll find some washed up on the beach. But don’t venture out of sight,” he added. “There is always a danger from the bears.”

Joanna nodded. Alex watched her walk over to Lottie. He saw Lottie shake her head, saw Joanna say something to her and saw Lottie shake her head again.

“Darling.” Lottie’s voice floated to him across the still Arctic air. “What is the point of being surrounded by so many strapping young men if we have to lift a finger ourselves? No, indeed, I intend to wait here until someone fetches me food and drink. I have paid for this trip, you know.”

“Remind me,” Owen Purchase said a little grimly in Alex’s ear, “why I allowed that woman to join us on this trip.”

“Because she is rich and Dev wanted to sleep with her,” Alex said, equally grimly.

Purchase laughed. “She is behaving exactly as I imagined she would,” he said. He shook his head. “It’s the devil of a thing to be proved right.”

“Whereas Joanna,” Alex said, his eyes following the slim figure of his wife as she walked along the beach, bending every so often to pick up pieces of flotsam, “is the reverse.”

“Not at all,” Purchase said. His eyes met Alex’s and held them for a long moment. “Lady Grant is behaving exactly as I knew she would,” Purchase said. “You are
the one whose expectations were all wrong, Grant.” He nodded briskly and walked away, leaving Alex staring after him.

J
OANNA LAY BACK AGAINST
the soft furs of the dogsled, Max curled up by her side. Alex had been quite right; it was a deal more comfortable than riding. She had ached all over last night. Waking up in the morning had been worse, though. She was covered in dust, her skin felt gritty and rough and her hair was dull and lifeless. She had found a tin plate and had peered at her appearance in it and then she had wished she had not bothered, for she looked appalling, worse even than she had when she was sick on the ship. She had not thought that possible. Now she could see it was.

Breakfast consisted of strips of the most disgusting meat that Joanna had ever tasted washed down with cold water. The weather had changed and in the thick damp mist the fire had refused to light, spitting and hissing, so there had been no cocoa.

“This is salted seal meat,” Dev had confided in her as he passed her a plate of what had looked like boiled leather. “Pray do not tell Mrs. Cummings, though. She thinks it is salt beef.”

They ate largely in silence, even Lottie, who, extraordinarily, seemed to have run out of things to complain about. But at least today, Joanna thought, stretching luxuriously against the rich warmth of the fur-lined sledge, with Max’s little body pressed cozily against her, they were crossing the mountain passes and so would be traveling over snow not the rocky terrain that lay lower down the mountains.

There was absolutely nothing to see. The mist pressed
closer than a smothering blanket, lifting only occasionally to reveal mountains as black as coal. The snow hissed beneath the blades of the sledge. Joanna could not believe that a country that had looked so beautiful the day before could now seem so comfortless, pewter from horizon to horizon, dark, stony and disheartening.

“Everything is so gray,” she had complained when they set out.

“Most quelling,” Lottie had agreed as she had scrambled in beside Joanna into the fur-lined interior of the sledge. She had at first refused to ride in it, claiming that she had never seen dogs with such mad blue eyes and that she did not trust them not to overturn the sled. “Gray has never been one of my favorite colors,” she had added. “It is too draining for my complexion.”

“Alex tells me that this is good weather and that sometimes it can rain for twenty days on end,” Joanna said glumly. “That is when it is not snowing. So perhaps we should count ourselves lucky.”

“Darling,” Lottie said, “there is nothing in the least to be grateful for in this godforsaken country. Are you regretting coming?” she added, fixing Joanna with her bright dark gaze. “I cannot believe that David’s little bastard can possibly be worth all this trouble when we could be strolling in the park now or trying hats at Mrs. Piggott’s shop.” She did not wait for a reply but chattered on: “Did you hear that the Parisian bonnet will be all the rage this winter? It is Lady Cholmondeley who sponsors the trend and says that it should be decorated with flowers, but I have in mind to thwart her by announcing that I prefer fruit on mine. I intend to have the sweetest little beaver hat made especially and adorned with plums and apricots. What do you think?”

Joanna, whose mind had drifted away to fret over her first meeting with Nina, jumped.

“I beg your pardon, Lottie,” she said. “I was not attending.”

“Why on earth not?” Lottie looked affronted.

“I was thinking about Nina,” Joanna confessed, “and whether she will like the toys that I have brought for her.”

“Darling!” Lottie’s face cleared. “Of course she will! They are from Hamleys! She will love them! She has probably never even seen a toy before, locked up in that ghastly place with a bunch of monks!”

Joanna frowned. “I suppose not. It is true that I can give her plenty of things that she will never have had before—”

“Toys, and pretty clothes.” Lottie nodded sagely. “Only think what fun we will have back in London, darling, dressing a little girl in miniature versions of all the latest fashions. Why, she will be just like a doll!” Lottie’s face fell. “At least she will be if she is pretty. I am not sure what we shall do with her if she is not.”

“Lottie,” Joanna said, “Nina is not a toy herself.”

Her head was aching. Suddenly she wanted to cry and she was not entirely certain why. Surely Nina would be delighted to have so many gifts and presents showered on her. What child would not? And yet… Joanna thought of the box of balls and spinning tops and dolls that was bouncing about in the provisions cart and anxiety clutched at her and she was not quite sure why. She wanted to talk to Alex, draw comfort somehow from sharing her fears with him, but he was riding with Dev and Owen and their guide up ahead.

Late in the afternoon they drove into a tiny settlement of huts on the edge of another wide fjord. Karl, the Pomor guide, was bursting with pride.

“This is his home, is it not?” Joanna said as Alex helped them out of the sleigh. “That much Russian I do understand.”

She looked about her. The village was no more than a bunch of cabins grouped along the edge of the strand, but it looked sturdy and was built of brick rather than the driftwood of the trappers’ hut the previous night. There was a forge and a couple of storage barns and a long low building that looked like a hall. On a little hill overlooking the ocean stood a large wooden cross.