Whisper of Scandal (9 page)

“A lawyer’s answer,” Alex said. “You did not like Ware?”

Churchward inclined his head. “It is generally accepted that Commodore Ware was a hero.”

“That,” Alex said, “was not what I asked.”

There was another silence. The door to the outer office was ajar; Alex could hear the sound of voices and the scrape of quills as the clerks worked, but in Mr. Churchward’s inner sanctum there was a tense quiet.

“Perhaps,” Churchward said, “you should be asking yourself why my answer matters to you, Lord Grant. Why do you question?” He looked up and met Alex’s eyes very directly with a challenge in his own. “You were Commodore Ware’s greatest friend,” he said. “Surely your loyalty to him is unshakable. Good day, Lord Grant.”

And he held open the door for Alex, leaving his question hanging in the air.

J
OANNA HAD PUT
Max in the carriage, where he jumped up on the seat and went to sleep. She asked the coachman to wait for her and walked briskly along the crowded pavements to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. She needed to be in the open air, needed space and time to think. She barely saw the crowds that passed her other than as a flash of color and a blur of faces. The babble of voices, the shouts of street vendors and the calls of coachmen and grooms broke over her like a wall of noise; the sun seemed too bright and hurt her eyes, the smells of unwashed bodies pressing close, of dung, of cut grass and flowers, sweet and sour, seemed to assault her. She walked almost blindly until she found a bench in the shade of an elm tree, and she sat down on it feeling suddenly old and tired.

It did not grieve her that David had been unfaithful to her. The thought left her hollow and unemotional. It had happened so many times before that she had no trust in him remaining to be betrayed. She had known from early on in their marriage that he simply could not keep his breeches buttoned. And yet it had never occurred to her that he might have fathered a child on another woman. When she had first heard Churchward mention David’s daughter, she had felt shock and disbelief, a blind denial. Her whole world had seemed to
shift and turn dark, blurring at the edges. She felt stupid and sick and naive to have assumed that just because she and David had no children, another woman had not borne him a son or daughter. In that moment all the desires and dreams of motherhood that she had secretly cherished and had fiercely repressed burst out. She was almost engulfed in anger and bitterness, and in a regret so poignant that it stole her breath.

“You are a barren, frigid bitch…”

She could still remember every last word of that last horrible quarrel she had had with David that had culminated in him leaving her lying unconscious and bleeding on the floor. He had been incandescent with fury that after five years of marriage she had failed to burnish his glory by providing him with a son and heir, a whole tribe of little explorers to follow in his footsteps around the globe. How he would have loved that…

David had been absent for the majority of their married life, which, as far as Joanna could see, was a big disadvantage in the production of progeny. He had seemed to believe, however, that he should merely have to look at her and she should be pregnant with triplets. When it had not happened, his pleasure in his young wife had turned to impatience and then to outright hostility and anger. Joanna had suffered his fury in silence, racked with guilt that she had not been able to perform a wife’s duty.

Her courses had always been regular. To start with, that had been reassuring. It had made her think that surely a pregnancy was only a matter of time. But after a while it became a mockery. Her sexual relationship with David, initially no more than a mild disappointment to her, had turned to an obligation and then to
something that she dreaded for its cold lack of love. She knew that many women disliked the enforced intimacy of the physical side of marriage, but she had stubbornly hoped for more pleasure than their meaningless coupling provided. Yet it seemed it was not to be. She told herself that a child would be a solace; it seemed that was not to be either.

Her aunt, superstitious as a witch in the last few years of her life, had sent potions and unguents and advice that had been quite shocking and inappropriate from the wife of a vicar. She had lectured her niece on a wife’s submission in the marriage bed and Joanna had tried to obey. Neither the advice nor the potions had worked to produce the longed-for offspring. And then David, fueled by his rage and his frustration, had come to her bed one night and taken her once again with no care or consideration, and afterward had hit her, beaten her, and at last her guilt had turned to hatred for him.

Joanna wrapped her arms about her body and hugged herself tightly. Hideous visions, hideous memories filled her mind, blocking out the blue of the sky and the call of the birds. The searing pain, David’s shouts of anger, the crop falling again and again on her naked body, merciless and harsh… She had known that David had been intent on demonstrating his absolute power over her, master in his home and of his wife, her body, her spirit. He thought he had claimed every facet of her life, but he had been mistaken. His viciousness had turned his biddable country wife into a different woman. Oh, how she had changed.

After the attack Joanna’s courses had stopped completely and she had wondered if she was, at last, pregnant. She had longed for it desperately with every fiber
of her being, hugging the hope to her like a secret. Yet even then her instinct had told her that there would be no baby. She tried to ignore the stubborn feeling, but over time it grew stronger and stronger. She started to believe that the hatred she felt for David was a canker that had killed all chance of a child. Superstitious as her aunt, she thought she had ill wished the baby and driven out all hope. And when her courses had started again a few months later, almost as though nothing had happened, she had felt empty and bereft, different in some way, as barren as David had taunted her she was. The doctors had shaken their heads and said that nothing was certain, but Joanna had known.

She opened her eyes. The sky, a little blurred but a beautiful clear, sweet blue, swam back into focus. She felt the breeze. Heard the sound of voices carry to her, saw the richness of spring color all around. She drew a deep breath.

She had told herself that it did not matter that she would always be childless, David’s grass widow, abandoned as he sailed the world. She had carved out a life of her own in ton society. She loved her beautiful, stylish existence in her beautiful, stylish house. She had her work; she had her friends. And she had told herself that it was all she wanted.

She had lied.

David had known that she had lied to herself and to everyone else. He had exposed that falsehood in searing detail in his letter:

Such cruel, heartless words revealing the true nature of her desperation and lonely desire to be a mother! She felt a tight, painful lump in the back of her throat. David had stripped away the pretense that had protected her and shown her weakness and her vulnerability. She wondered if Alex Grant had picked up on the implication of David’s words, if he had realized that her husband had detested her for her childless state. Her insides curled up at the thought of his scorn.

So now she could lie to herself no longer. She could not pretend that her life gave her everything she wanted. The truth hurt very much. It was more painful than anything she had allowed herself to feel ever before. But she had also been given a chance. She had to save this child, little Nina Tatiana Ware, alone, unloved, an orphan abandoned in a monastery somewhere in the Arctic wastes. Her mind, her heart, fastened on to the necessity of claiming the child with a tenacity that she knew instantly could not, would not, be shifted. Come hell or high water, she was rescuing Nina, bringing her back and raising her as her own. The giving part of her, the part that had been thwarted time and again because she had never been able to find enough people or animals or causes to love, almost exploded within her, making her shake with longing and fear and newness and excitement.

“Lady Joanna!”

It was not the moment that she wanted to be interrupted. Stifling a most unladylike curse and hastily
rubbing the tears from her cheeks, Joanna turned to see that Alex Grant was approaching her along the gravel path. She might have known that he would not accept his dismissal. He was not the sort of man to go tamely away when he wanted something. She found she could not speak. Her throat was stiff and dry. The words would not form.
If he tells me all this is my own fault because I drove David into the arms of another woman,
she thought viciously,
or if he demands to know again in that high-handed manner of his what I did to make David hate me, I think it very likely I will box his ears in public and damn the scandal of it.

Alex Grant said nothing. He settled himself on the bench beside her and allowed his gaze to wander across the green swath of parkland to the buildings beyond. The silence fell between them. It felt strangely comforting. The breeze rustled the thick green leaves above their heads and cooled Joanna’s hot cheeks. The sounds of the city were muted as though the heavy cares of the world were suddenly far away.

Joanna looked at Alex. His body was relaxed, long and lean and elegant in a casual jacket, breeches and boots. He looked comfortable inside his skin. She realized that she had not noticed earlier in Mr. Churchward’s office. She had noticed him with the prickly sense of awareness and distrust that characterized their encounters, but she had not looked at him properly. When he had come to call on her in his dress uniform he had looked authoritative, powerful. Now the power was still there, but it was banked down. She felt a prickle of apprehension, the legacy of David’s cruelty. Like David, Alex Grant was a very physical man, a man of great strength and force. Yet there was a difference and she
struggled to define it. Perhaps it was that her instinct told her that Alex, unlike his late comrade, would never misuse that power. But instinct, she reminded herself, was a notoriously unreliable guide.

Nevertheless it felt oddly reassuring and peaceful to have him sitting beside her, his elbows resting casually on his knees, as his thoughtful dark gaze dwelled not on her for a change but on the far horizon.

“I will find which navy ships are traveling to the Arctic and will arrange with the Admiralty to go to Bellsund Monastery to bring Miss Ware back for you,” Alex said.

Joanna’s feeling of peacefulness fled. How typical of a man that he should be thinking of solutions to problems she had not even articulated when she had simply been sitting and feeling. She felt a quick flash of antagonism flare back into life.

“On the contrary,” she said coldly, “I shall charter a ship and travel to Bellsund to bring Miss Ware home.”

“That’s impossible.” Alex spoke flatly, but Joanna sensed some emotion behind the words. Was it shock, disapproval or something more complex? She could not be sure. His expression was unrevealing, but she was certain he was not as calm as he sounded.

“How so?” She could think of at least ten reasons why it was difficult—if not impossible—for her to travel to Spitsbergen, but she wanted to hear his.

“Ships do not sail regularly to the Arctic,” Alex said. “You will not find anyone to take you.”

“They will if I pay them enough.”

Again she saw emotion flicker in his eyes. “You must make a great deal of money selling fashionable baubles
and trifles to the ton if you can afford to charter a ship.” He sounded contemptuous and again her skin prickled with antagonism. “Although I am sure that you have no real idea of the costs involved.”

Joanna did not, but she was damned if she was going to admit it. “I am touched by your concern,” she said, “but you need have no fears. I mentioned that in addition to the income from my bauble selling I also inherited a considerable legacy from my aunt a year ago.”

It was not precisely true—the sum was adequate rather than enormous and this trip would take all of it and more—but Alex Grant did not need to know that.

Their eyes met, hers bright with defiant challenge, his dark and stormy.

“You cannot sail off to the Arctic on your own.” Alex sounded angry now. “The idea is absurd. I have already offered to escort Miss Ware back to London.”

“No!” Joanna could not explain to him that as soon as she had heard about David’s daughter she had had an overwhelming, tenacious urge to claim the child as her own. She only knew that the thought of the child, orphaned in a monastery so far away, had kindled in her an emotion fiercer than any she had experienced before—the urge to claim and defend and protect, to take something for herself from the wreckage that David had left behind and to shield that child against all adversity.

“David laid that requirement on me,” she argued. “I must fulfill it.”

“You have never before done what your husband required of you,” Alex said, making her catch her breath in outrage. “Why start now?”

“Because I wish to,” Joanna said. She was damned
if she was going to explain. “The monks are far more likely to be persuaded to hand the child over to me, his widow, than to you, Lord Grant.” She looked at him. “You have no arts of persuasion, have you? You are more inclined to direct action, from what I have seen.”

“I can convince them to let me bring Nina home,” Alex said. His face was dark and unyielding. “I know the Bellsund Monastery… The monks trust me.” His dark gaze appraised her. “In truth I imagine that they will have considerable concerns about handing the child to you, Lady Joanna. A single woman, a widow, commands courtesy, but has little stature in their society, and a foreign one even less so.”

This was another stumbling block that Joanna had not anticipated. She did not doubt Alex’s assertion, for in the short time she had known him he had been brutally honest with her. David was another matter. Had he known that the monks would be reluctant to entrust Nina to her when he had written his extraordinary codicil? Was he trying to trick her, lead her on a wild-goose chase, tempting her with the promise of a child, her heart’s desire, and then snatching it from beneath her nose? Surely not even he could be so cruel. Yet she had no way of knowing, and thinking of a little girl left alone in the confines of a monastery, she knew she had no choice other than to go to try to fetch her back.

She sighed. “I am sorry,” she said. “I cannot permit you to act for me in this. And I do not see,” she added, “why you are so anxious to offer me your help. I would have thought that another responsibility, another tie, would be the last thing that you would wish for.” She
looked at him. “And that I would be the last person you would help anyway.”