Whisper of Scandal (26 page)

I have been so selfish,
Joanna thought.
I only ever thought of what I wanted.
She could feel her heart breaking piece by little piece.

The abbot was watching her with his perceptive gaze. She said, “I can see that Nina is very happy here, Father Abbot. We must talk about her future and how Lord Grant and I may help ensure that she may stay with her family for as long as she wishes. Now, will you please excuse me?”

And then she turned and walked away before she started to cry.

“J
OANNA
!” A
LEX WAS
almost running by the time he reached the inner courtyard of the monastery. He was desperately worried. He had heard in Joanna’s voice that brittle tone that he was starting to know. It did not mean that she did not care; quite the contrary. It was her defense, her protection. He knew that she must be hurting terribly and the thought made him feel sick.

He had been about to follow her when Father Starostin had put a hand on his arm to detain him and Alex had been obliged to stop.

“Your wife is an extraordinary woman,” the abbot said. “Such generosity and selflessness, to think of the child’s happiness before her own wishes and desires.”

“Yes,” Alex said. He shook his head. He could not believe what Joanna had done, not when he knew how deeply, how desperately, she had wanted Nina. “There are matters that we must discuss, of course,” he said. “Formalities…finances…”

Father Starostin patted his arm. “We have managed very well without those until now. There is no financial obligation, Lord Grant.” He looked back at Nina, engrossed in her play. “I will make sure that when she is old enough, she knows the truth,” he said softly. “About her father—and about Lady Grant’s generosity. She may wish to write, to visit…”

“Of course,” Alex said.

“Bring your wife to see me when she is recovered, Lord Grant,” the abbot said, “and we shall talk on it. You are, of course, welcome to stay at Bellsund for as long as you wish.”

Alex had thanked him and had gone out, impatience and the need to find Joanna thrumming in his veins, but she had already disappeared. The sky above the monastery had turned heavy and gray with the onset of snow. The wind had turned to the north, spiteful and biting cold.

Lottie was supervising the bringing in of her luggage when Alex reached the guesthouse door, and for once she seemed in a good mood.

“Hot water!” she said to Alex, beaming. “Warmth! Young men! I think I might decide to live here.”

“The young men are monks, Mrs. Cummings,” Alex said. “I do beg you not to corrupt them.” He ran an
impatient hand over his hair. “Have you seen Joanna? We are just this minute come from the abbot and I need to find her urgently—”

“Oh, she went out!” Lottie said, waving a vague hand toward the door. “She said that she might be gone some time…”

Alex was out of the door before she had finished speaking.

He could not find Joanna in the lush beauty of the botanical gardens and he stopped, frustrated, trying to think what she would do, where she would go, if she felt so raw and despairing that she wanted to hide from the world. Certainly she would seek out solitude and in Spitsbergen there were plenty of places she might find it. But she was on foot and in her second-best pair of boots at that, so she could not have walked far. For once he blessed the utter inadequacy of her fashionable wardrobe. He slipped out of the monastery gate, turned away from the village and walked out onto the strand.

A hundred yards along the beach he found her. She was standing staring out to sea. She had her back to him. No cloak, no hat. She must have taken them off in the guesthouse and wandered out just as she was. The snow was swirling about her. Her long dark hair tangled in the wind.

“Joanna.” Alex stopped a few feet away from her and she turned to look at him and his heart stuttered when he saw her face. Her blue eyes were terrifyingly blank. He doubted she even saw him, let alone knew who he was. She had turned inside herself and he did not know how to reach her. Her gown clung to her body, soaked through already by the snow. There were flakes in her
hair and on her lips. Alex looked at her and felt a violent surge of emotion.

“We must get into shelter.” He spoke above the rising howl of the wind. Already it was too late to return to the monastery. The snow had thickened to a blizzard and he had seen storms like this blow up time and again. If they did not reach a trappers’ hut soon they would lose their way in the white wilderness and very probably freeze to death even though they were so close to the village.

Alex put an arm about her, wrapping them both in his cloak, guiding her along the shore toward the nearest dwelling. She felt stiff, but she came with him docilely enough and he had no difficulty drawing her in through the door into the meager shelter within. Unlike some of the trappers’ huts it was snug and well cared for, ready for overwintering once the long dark Spitsbergen nights came. Alex sent up a silent prayer that it was proof against the storm.

Joanna sat down on the edge of the bed. Her arms were locked about her body, but she was not even shivering with the cold. It was as though she was not really conscious of either herself or her surroundings. Alex wished he had some way to light the fire, something hot to give her, but there was nothing they could do but sit out the storm and hope that it would be of short duration, no more than a squall.

“You have to get out of those wet clothes.” The words came out more roughly than Alex had intended. “Come on. I cannot have you taking a fever.”

She allowed him to undress her, passive beneath his ministering hands and it was only when she was sitting there in her shift that suddenly she looked up and her
eyes met his. There was such a blind anger and such terrible hurt there that Alex flinched.

“Alex,” she said. Her arms went about him in desperate need and he drew her closer so that her head was resting against his chest. He found himself cradling her, whispering endearments, pressing his lips to her hair. She clung to him, soft and pliant in his arms. He felt her body shake with the sudden onset of tears; they soaked his shirt, hot against his cold skin. She was crying so hard now that the shudders were racking her entire body. He held her tighter until she stopped at last.

“I had to do it,” she said.

“I understand.” His heart felt so full that he could hardly speak. “You were so generous. More generous than I could ever have imagined.”

“I did not want to be.” She sounded angry, vicious even. “I wanted to take her away. I wanted her to be mine…” Another sob racked her. “But she never was…”

“Hush…” Alex gentled her with his hands. Her face was streaked with tears and her eyes were swollen and red and he felt the most enormous compassion for her. He touched her cheek, tilted her chin up in his hand and then she was leaning into his touch, linking her hands behind his neck and their lips met and his world exploded.

There was neither love nor tenderness in the kiss. It was deeply physical, a desperate cry from Joanna for relief from intolerable strain. Alex knew she only wanted him as an escape from the pain, but she was holding nothing back and every desire he had ever had leaped into full and shocking life. If he thought she had been responsive before, now she was as fierce and
elemental as the storm. He kissed her back, his hands hard on her slender frame, his palms tingling from the rub of her silk chemise and the warmth of her skin beneath it.

She opened her lips to him, nestling closer now, and his mind went blank of everything except the innocent scent of her, almond and herbs, and the taste of her on his tongue and the tightening spiral of his lust. He responded to her by taking her mouth with a growing demand, pressing deeper and closer, and whatever claim he made she met and pushed him further. Her tongue tangled with his now, tempting him, intimate, provocative, the kiss delicious in its intensity. She pulled him down to lie beside her on the bed, running her hands over the muscles of his shoulders and chest, pressing herself against the whole hard length of him. He felt the swell of her breasts through the thin silk of her shift and his body tightened and heated to feverish proportions. But though his desire drove him he grabbed the last shreds of self-control and eased back, feathering kisses across the curve of her cheek and the line of her throat, tracing his fingertips lightly across her skin even as he drew away from her.

Her face was flushed now, her breathing had quickened and her eyes were glittering deep blue with desire.

“Joanna,” he whispered. “Wait—”

“I want you.” She grabbed a handful of his shirt and pulled him back down to her so that their lips were touching. “Oh, please…” Her tone had changed. There was something desperate in it now even as she kissed him again with heat and need and longing. She slid a hand beneath his shirt and his skin jumped and quivered
at her touch. She tugged the shirt up and pressed her lips where her hands had been and he groaned aloud.

“Please, Alex…” Her lips were grazing his belly now. He could feel her breath brushing against him even as the tip of her tongue traced a tantalizing path lower and lower to the band of his breeches. “Please make love to me.”

How many men would refuse such a plea? Alex wondered dazedly. He felt he ought to—that if he was a gentleman he would offer her comfort in other ways that were not so deeply physical. He should talk to her, listen and allow her to pour out her feelings. And yet, if all she wanted in this moment was to escape from the intolerable loss of giving Nina up then he would not refuse her that comfort.

Then all thoughts were lost in the hot darkness conjured by her lips and her hands. She was easing open his breeches now and her breath caught on a sigh of satisfaction as she found him so primed and hard for her. She rose to her knees and shed her shift and in the pale light of the hut she was naked and beautiful. He pulled her roughly down beside him and looked at her and his heart ached because she was so lovely and she tasted so sweet and yet she looked so impossibly wanton with her hair spread about her and her limbs pale and tumbled in abandonment.

“Now,” she said. The dark blue glitter of her gaze challenged him.

“No.” If he was going to do this he was damned if it would be no more than a swift coupling to wipe out her misery. He was not going to allow her to use him to that extent. He would make sure she could not forget this. He would bring her back to him.

He would show her he loved her…

He touched her cheek again then ran his fingers over her lush lower lip, seeing her eyes darken still further with lust. She moved restlessly on the bed and reached for him, but he resisted, bending to kiss her again, a kiss that began gently and deepened into rich sensuality and sweet demand. He felt her sigh against his mouth and he prolonged the kiss until the tension and haste left her at last, replaced with a different sort of eagerness that was soft and tender. Her whole body seemed to relax beneath his hands, melting into pleasure.

Only then did he let her touch him at will, her hands smoothing and roaming with caresses that brought him to wicked pleasure all too quickly. Fire roared through his veins and he forced it back down, controlling it so that he did not simply plunge inside her and take what he wanted. Outside, the storm was driving itself to a whirling, frenzied rage that threatened to lift the hut from its foundations.

Alex groaned as Joanna slid down on top of him, hot and silken. He could not keep still and rose to meet the glide of her body on his. She gasped and he raised a hand to bring her head down to meet his, kissing her hot, open mouth, feeling the press of her breasts against his chest, lowering his hands to her hips to anchor her hard and deep above him.

“I love you,” she whispered.

Alex heard the words and felt them like a breath across his soul. Something inside him, the last defenses he had been keeping against her, snapped once and for all.

I love you, too…

He felt her teeter on the edge and then she cried out
and drew him in deeper still, and he fell with her into a void so bright and light and consuming he had never known anything like it.

J
OANNA WOKE TO THE WARMTH
of the sun. Opening her eyes, she saw that it was filtering through the shutters and lying across her body in bars of light and shadow. For a moment she was aware of a feeling of sublime well-being and happiness, and then she remembered everything that had happened and something inside her chilled and shriveled like a flower left out in the frost. She could see her clothes lying in pools on the floor. Alex’s cloak was still wrapped about her and beneath it she was naked. Alex had gone.

Shivering, resolutely refusing to think about the fact that Alex was no longer there, she reached for her clothes and dressed as best she could. Her shift felt cold against her chilled skin. The temperature in the hut could be barely above freezing and she was starting to feel icy both inside and out. Her limbs were stiff and she moved slowly, almost painfully.

She opened the door of the hut and the sunlight struck across her eyes, almost blinding her. The sun was high in the sky. She must have slept through the night and the entire morning. The air, cutting and fresh, teased her hair. She wrapped the cloak about her and wandered down the beach toward the shore. The sea was calm again now. Mist rose from its surface like wraiths. Joanna sat down on a boulder and drew her knees up to her chest.

The anger and grief that had possessed her the day before had gone, leaving her feelings hurt and battered, but no longer aching with pain. It was interesting, she
thought, that David had not lied to her. His daughter had indeed been waiting for her at the end of her journey. Probably David never thought that she would have the tenacity to make the trip to Spitsbergen to claim Nina and so would never know one way or the other. He had laid out the temptation before her to cause her emotional misery, but she had been stronger than he had imagined, for she had undertaken the trip and she had survived the physical hardship. And in the end she had done the right thing, the only thing that she could do, in letting Nina go.