Wicked Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (25 page)

      
The other possibility was so remote, so inconceivable that it only belatedly occurred to him. Joss. She was his wife. But as soon as the absurd notion entered his mind, he dismissed it. Joss had never indicated anything but aversion to marriage and physical intimacy. He'd had to practically drag her before the priest even after pledging that they would both retain their freedom and that he would make no demands on her.

      
They had an agreement. Joss was a woman of high moral principles who would never break her word. The idea of her slipping into this bed, well fortified with drink, to seduce him was well beyond the improbable. Dismissing that disquieting thought from his mind, he called out for Foxworthy to draw him a bath.

      
When he entered the dining room, he was startled to see Joss sitting at the table, toying with a plate of kippered salmon and eggs. "What are you doing home at this scandalously late hour?" he inquired more sharply than he intended. Normally she rose at dawn and was off to the hospital or the school well before he came in to break his fast.

      
"Oh, good morning, Alex." She took a deep breath, clutching the fork in her hand so tightly she must surely have bent the soft sterling. "Lady Wyckham sent round a note canceling the Mission Society meeting this morning. I decided to wait until Archie brings Poc home before I walk to the hospital. Mr. Vincent asked if he could take him to the school yesterday evening. The children had been frightened by another big rat." Her voice was steadier than she'd hoped but she could not meet his eyes.

      
"Ah, I wager he's made short work of it by now," he replied. "I wondered where he was when I came in last night." Why would she not look at him?
Dear God, don’t let it be!

      
"I might ask you why you're home from the country so soon. Weren't you to remain for hunting until Monday?"

      
He shrugged, studying her nervous fidgeting with increasing foreboding. "I became bored with Brownlea’s crowd.... Is there something you wish to say to me, Joss?" he asked at length, standing rigidly by the sideboard, staring at the congealing eggs on the platter.

      
"Well..." She moistened her lips and took a deep breath. "There was a fire while you were gone."

      
His head jerked up and their eyes collided. "A fire?" he echoed dumbly.

      
"I started it. I'm sorry I'm so clumsy. I was playing with Poc and overturned a branch of candles in my quarters. Bonnie says the damage can be fixed with a bit of fresh paint but some furniture must be refinished, too."

      
She looked so wretchedly contrite and he felt so utterly relieved that he almost picked her up and kissed her. "Was no one injured?" he asked, chuckling aloud when she brightened and shook her head.

      
"I'm ever so glad you aren't cross, Alex. I couldn't bear it if you were out of sorts with me. Bonnie and Archie both said you wouldn't be."

      
"They were right, Joss. What kind of ogre do you think I am? Now you can at last spend some of my ill-gotten gains on yourself. Refurbish the upstairs to your taste," he said expansively as he filled a plate with kippers, eggs and a generous portion of kidney pie.

      
It was uncommonly reassuring to know that his drunken lust had not destroyed his camaraderie with Joss. Now if only he could track down his "gift." He would begin first thing this afternoon.

* * * *

      
"Haven't the foggiest, old chap," Drum said, lifting his wrist to his nose as he flicked his emerald-encrusted snuff box closed with his other hand. "You have my word, I did not procure that chit for you, nor have I heard rumors regarding who did." He inhaled and sneezed precisely in a snowy linen handkerchief. "Sounds like Forrester to me."

      
Alex paced in frustration. "I've already asked Puck. And Chitchester and Alvanley, everyone I could think of."

      
Drum's cool green eyes looked amused. "I was last on your list, I assume," he observed dryly.

      
Alex scowled at his friend's good humor. "I have observed ... shall we say, your rather surprising sense of protectiveness toward Joss since we were married."

      
Drum laughed. "Your lady is in as much need of protection as General Massena is from the Austrian army." He studied Alex's agitated pacing. "That chit must've been quite a sybaritic delight for you to search her out this way."

      
Alex had not mentioned his midnight lady's virginity ...

but his fascination with her went beyond even that. He wished he knew precisely what compelled him. Drum's next comment brought him from his brown study.

      
"Have you considered Caruthers as your benefactor?"

      
"He would certainly know where such an expensive delicacy could be procured," Alex replied. "Yet I doubt he was the one. I had planned to visit him last." Frankly he dreaded facing Monty's mocking amusement when he was forced to enlist his aid. Alex had always made it clear that the decadent diversions of the peerage held no charms for him, refusing his uncle's invitations to visit "viewing rooms" to watch other men perform on women, even boys. An appalling variety of perversions, active and passive, were available if one possessed sufficient blunt.. . and the ennui required for one to wish this sort of entertainment.

      
His uncle professed to know nothing of Alex's gift. "A virgin, you say? Are you certain? There are ways to fake it involving surgical skills acquired in the Orient."

      
"She was most certainly a virgin. I've had enough women of both kinds to tell the difference," Alex replied stiffly, looking about the deserted alcove in Whites where he and Monty sat sharing a drink.

      
"You were foxed, were you not?" Monty asked, lifting one brow.

      
The old devil's enjoying this
. "Not nearly that drunk. Can you help me find her? How many places deal in genuine innocents?"

      
The cynicism in the baron's eyes glowed. "I told you marrying that Methody wench was a mistake. She may be twice as smart as Octavia but she's equally cold."

      
"Leave Joss out of this. She's a good and loyal friend. We were speaking of bedmates."

      
"You'd have been better served to defy your father and remain single. Lud, it's not as if you needed the blunt."

      
"You're an odd one to preach against a marriage of convenience. And I did not accuse you of wedding just for

money. You did it as a duty to your family, don't deny it."

      
Monty shrugged. "I do admit to a once and faded hope for an heir to claim the title ... but after my wife suffered two miscarriages, her physicians assured me she would be barren. Your arrangement neatly precludes even the possibility of legitimate Blackthornes."

      
"My parents are already provided with ample heirs," he replied, uncomfortable now for an entirely different reason.

      
"But your sister's children won't be Blackthornes, will they? You could bed the bluestocking," Monty said, shifting the subject back to Joss.

      
A faint hint of color heated Alex's dark countenance. "Why must everyone persist in throwing Joss at me?" he replied with an oath.

      
"Perhaps because you married her," the baron suggested dryly. A rich, mocking chuckle came from him as he signaled a waiter to refill their drinks. Then seeing the mutinous set of his nephew's jaw, a characteristic that reminded him fondly of his younger sister, he said, "I shall make inquiries with several of the more discreet and pricey establishments that most likely were the source of your mysterious gift. Are you quite certain you can't describe her with any greater clarity?"

      
Alex raked his fingers through his hair, newly cut in the latest Brutus fashion. Frustration was etched on every plane of his face. "I told you 'twas black as a moonless night in the Apalachicola swamplands. I could feel, not see. She had long, long hair, lots of it, thick and soft, a slender body, high breasts—rounded but not large, flared hips and sleek curved calves."

      
Monty chuckled. "At least 'tis obvious it could not have been your wife come to claim her marital rights of you." At Alex's look of guilty horror, the baron laughed again, then said, "I shall see what I can do to locate your vanishing virgin, my boy."

* * **

      
In the following weeks, warmer weather finally arrived along with some distressing news from America. Barbara Blackthorne was coming to meet her new daughter-in-law. But there was still no word regarding the identity of Alex's mysterious bedmate. To further add to the turmoil in his already complicated life, his relationship with Joss, which had subtly shifted from the hour they'd spoken their marriage vows, had now deteriorated still more.

      
At first he had thought she would get over her maidenly discomfort at sharing a house with a man who lived in his style. He gave her time to adjust. They shared occasional meals and discussed matters of mutual concern—politics, social reform and her work. But the easy camaraderie, the teasing laughter seemed less spontaneous than it had before they shared a name and a roof.

      
Since the silly accident with the fire, the situation had grown decidedly worse. Joss seemed to avoid him at every opportunity. When they did meet accidentally, she always seemed to have a ready excuse for not sharing a meal or spending the evening together. Over the course of the past year and a half he had come to expect her to welcome him whenever he felt in need of her cheer. He relied on her companionship far more than he'd realized. Now the shoe seemed to be on the other foot. It was he who waited and she who came and went as she wished.

      
At times he wondered if she had somehow found out about the virgin he'd taken in their home. The thought of asking her directly left him frankly terrified. What would her reaction be? He assured himself that the chance she knew anything of the event was so remote as to be nearly impossible, unless the chit had ventured upstairs to confront his wife. But that was an equally remote possibility inasmuch as the mystery woman, virgin or no, was a professional who had doubtless been well paid.

      
Whatever the baffling reasons for this estrangement, Alex was coming to realize that his original misgivings when he'd proposed this arrangement to Joss might have been well founded. Marriage had become the ruination of a rare friendship.

      
It helped not a whit that he was as sexually frustrated as a fourteen-year-old at Eton. For some utterly perverse reason, since the virgin, none of the women who had crossed his path appealed to him. Lady Cybill pouted a while, then cast her lure once more, but he was heartily sick of her and all her sisters under the skin from drawing rooms to bordellos.

      
Truth be told, he was finding many of his earlier wastrel pleasures to be a source of boredom. He found himself working longer hours at the warehouse and brooding about the virgin who seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth. If only he could find his bedmate, he was certain at least one of his problems would be solved. But Monty had not been able to turn up a trace of her in spite of his formidable connections.

      
For the moment a more pressing difficulty loomed, however. The imminent arrival of his mother. He must at all costs keep her from learning the true nature of his arrangement with his wife. But how could he make her believe that a woman like Joss had ever attracted him in the first place? Barbara Blackthorne was no fool and she knew her only son's taste in females quite well. The situation was almost enough for him to wish for war between Britain and the United States, thus keeping her safely at home across the Atlantic.

      
But war had not arrived and his mother's ship had.
The Savannah Star
would be docking that very afternoon. Somehow he and Joss must join forces to convince Barbara of their domestic felicity. Nervously he waited for his wife to join him for luncheon. With no appetite whatsoever, he stared at the cold collation of fruit, cheeses and thinly sliced beef that Bonnie had set out.

      
"My, you look as if you planned to slaughter that cow all over again," Joss said to her scowling husband as she entered the dining room. Her forced gaiety ill concealed her unease regarding her mother-in-law. What would a beautiful woman such as Barbara Blackthorne think of her son being wed to a clumsy, half-blind bluestocking such as Jocelyn Woodbridge?

      
Alex looked up and smiled. "I hope your morning was productive. No trouble at the school?"

      
"No. Poc's freed the building of rats and sweep catchers."

At the mention of his name, the dog gave a cheerful bark and sat expectantly at the end of the sideboard, his keen nose twitching at the smell of food.

      
"Just be certain you never walk about that neighborhood or anywhere near the hospital without him along to protect you."

      
"I've always been quite safe, Alex." Unspoken between them lay the memory of her father's untimely death. Like Elijah, his daughter had made many enemies. She studied her husband's face as he filled their plates, mindful that she disliked Stilton cheese and preferred her beef well done. "This isn't about my safety, is it, Alex?" she said after they sat facing each other at the table.

      
He sighed and leaned back in his chair, shoving the small pot of freshly grated horseradish in circles on the pristine white linen tablecloth. "No, it isn't. We have to come to some sort of understanding about my mother."