Читать книгу Sins and Scandals Collection - Nicola Cornick - Страница 37

JOANNA 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:

I am aware that my wife will detest the strictures that I have placed upon her but that her desire for a child is so strong that she will have no choice other than to put herself into the greatest danger and discomfort imaginable in order to rescue my daughter …

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.”

“I am not in the least bit anxious to help you,” Alex said with brutal candor. He sounded exasperated and angry. “The friendship I had for Ware means that I feel an obligation to the child, that is all. If I had known that he had left a daughter orphaned and in such dire straits—” He broke off. “Ware appointed me her guardian alongside you,” he added. “I wish he had not, but I take that duty seriously and as such will do what I can to help her. If that means assisting you, then, against my will, I shall try.”

“How very handsome of you!” Now Joanna felt exasperated, too. “Well, I do not require your unwilling assistance, Lord Grant! I am perfectly capable of traveling to Bellsund on my own.”

She tried to sound confident but was aware of feeling woefully inadequate. She shivered at the thought of everything she had to accomplish. She was no explorer, fearlessly seeking out new lands and new adventures. David had never wanted her to travel with him and she had heard the most terrible stories of hardship and sickness and shipwreck. If she had her way she would go no farther than the shops in Bond Street, but that was not an option.

Alex was watching her and she thought she could see pity as well as irritation in his gaze. It stiffened her backbone.

“If you have nothing pertinent to add to our conversation,” she said, “then I shall bid you good day. I have arrangements to make. I will contact you again when I return from Spitsbergen with Nina, so that we may make the financial arrangements for her upbringing. Though by then—” she allowed her gaze to travel over him “—I imagine that you will be long gone from London on your next adventure.”

Alex’s black gaze snapped at her. He ignored the jibe. “You are a complete fool even to think of doing this journey, Lady Joanna.”

“Thank you,” Joanna said. “I am aware of your opinion of me. And you are a boor.”

She made to rise, but his hand snaked out and caught her wrist. “Are you really prepared to go all that way into the unknown, Lady Joanna?” His gaze burned into her. “I do not think you have the courage to be so foolhardy.”

Joanna shook him off, incensed by both his taunts and even more by the incendiary power of his touch.

“You mistake, Lord Grant,” she said icily. “I know you think me shallow and silly, but I will go to Spitsbergen and prove you wrong. I have no intention of succumbing to seasickness, or fever, like David did, or. or scurvy, or whatever it is your sailors suffer from! I will take fruit with me to eat and I have plenty of warm clothes to protect against the cold climate—”

She broke off as Alex gave a crack of laughter. “Fruit will perish within a few days, and I doubt very much that your London fashions are designed to withstand a polar winter, Lady Joanna.”

“That is why I plan to set out at once,” Jo said. “How bad can it be? People travel every week to far-flung destinations like India and the Americas!”

“You have no idea what you are talking about,” Alex said brusquely, demolishing her optimism in one blow. “I’ll wager you have never even been abroad in your life!”

“I have been to Paris,” Joanna said defiantly. “I went after the Treaty of Amiens.”

“Paris is scarcely comparable with the Arctic!” Alex expelled his breath in an exasperated sigh. “I might have known you would have followed the fashionable crowds to France.”

“I did not follow,” Joanna said. “I led.”

Alex sighed again. He was rubbing his thigh in absentminded fashion, as though his leg was paining him.

“Lady Joanna, please.” He sounded frustrated, angry even. “You have absolutely no concept of the utter discomfort of such a trip.” His gaze considered her from saucy hat to stylish shoes, his disapproval, his utter contempt, quite plain. Joanna’s face burned under his scrutiny. “You would hate it,” he said. “You would not be able to maintain even a quarter of your style without hot water and clean clothes and servants to wait on you.”

Joanna’s face burned even hotter. “Do you really think such things weigh with me?” she demanded.

“Yes,” Alex said. “I do.” His shoulder lifted in half a shrug. “Oh, I do not blame you for it—”

“How magnanimous of you!”

“But a woman who has had nothing important to do with her life, whose whole existence centers upon frivolity and idleness, will never be able to survive in so inhospitable a climate …”

Joanna did not hear the rest of his words. She was too angry. Idle, superficial? She supposed she had never been a bluestocking, writing intellectual tracts or holding philosophical salons. That was Merryn’s interest. And it was also true that her existence in ton society was amusing and lighthearted for the most part. But that did not mean that she could be dismissed as no more than a giddy social butterfly, a woman with the emotional depth of a small puddle. How dare Alex Grant, with his juvenile bravado and high-handed manner, dismiss her as having no backbone? She felt a sheer, bloody-minded determination to prove him wrong.

“No,” she interrupted. “You may save your breath, Lord Grant. I am going.”

Alex got to his feet and took a few furious paces away from the bench. He was moving stiffly, as though once again his old injury was hurting. He turned back so sharply that Joanna almost flinched. He rested a hand on the arm of the seat, leaning in, trapping her against the hard wooden back. Once again, his physical presence engulfed her. She felt a tide of heat race through her body and retreat again to leave her shaking with a mixture of awareness and fear.

“You do not understand, Lady Joanna,” he said between his teeth. His eyes were blazing. Joanna could feel his anger like a living force. “Women have died on less demanding journeys.”

“And women have died at home,” Joanna argued hotly, “from sickness or in child bed or even from their clothes catching alight from a candle.” She spread her hands wide. “Men, too. Lord Rugby died of a chill he caught in Brighton. One cannot protect against every accident, Lord Grant.”

“One can avoid actively seeking them out,” Alex said. He looked as though he wanted to shake her. “Must you be so willfully foolish, Lady Joanna? If you insist on going then I shall do everything in my power to oppose you.” He straightened. “No one will give you passage. I will make it my business to see that you fail in this venture before you even begin.”

His hands were on her upper arms. The sensation of his touch whipped through her, making her shiver. He pulled her to her feet. Suddenly they were very close together, so close that she could hear how hard he was breathing and smell the scent of his citrus cologne mingled with the fresh morning air. She looked up into his face and saw the anger there; saw also the moment it transmuted into something else, hot and primitive, stealing her breath. He bent his head. She knew he was going to kiss her.

Not like this. Not in anger.

She did not say the words aloud, but her feelings must have shown in her eyes, for his brows snapped together in another intimidating frown as though he, too, had realized how close they had come to a shocking-and very public-kiss. He lifted his hands from her shoulders with such care that it seemed he could no longer bear to touch her. Joanna’s heart plummeted and she felt a little sick.

“Lady Joanna—” Now it sounded as though he could not bear to speak to her, let alone touch her.

“Lord Grant.” She was sure she could outdo him in hauteur if she tried.

He smiled a little grimly. “We have an audience,” he murmured. “Though if yesterday is anything to go by, that should encourage you to throw yourself into my arms.”

“I shall try to restrain myself, difficult as it may be,” Joanna said coldly. Inside she felt shaken. She had come so close to casting herself into his arms. The burn of his touch was still in her blood.

Turning away with deliberation, she saw that several ladies were scurrying across the grass toward them.

“Why are they dressed exactly like you?” Alex inquired.

“Because they wish to imitate my style.” Joanna sighed. “I shall have to introduce a new fashion now. It does not do to look like everyone else.”

“How demanding your life must be,” Alex murmured. “I am surprised that you have the energy to contemplate a trip to the Arctic when there is so much to be done here.”

“So many baubles and trifles to sell,” Joanna said sweetly. “Excuse me, Lord Grant. I must take full advantage of the demand for my services. There are ships to be chartered. I am sure that you understand.”

She had the satisfaction of seeing his black frown return. “We shall see,” he said. With a muttered curse he turned on his heel and walked away.