Whisper of Scandal

“David entrusted it to me when he was dying,” Alex added.

Joanna looked at him thoughtfully. He could not read her expression now. Those violet eyes were guarded. “Another of David’s melodramatic deathbed gestures,” she said. “You did not mention this when you called on me, Lord Grant.”

“No,” Alex said, “I did not. I had no idea if the contents were relevant to you or not.”

He saw her lashes come down, veiling her expression still further. Only the tattoo beaten by her fingers on the desk suggested she was in any way discomposed. He knew what she was thinking, though. He could read her as clearly as if she had spoken. She thought him David’s pawn; that his loyalty to her late husband had enabled Ware to use him. Alex found that he did not like to be judged that way, as though he had no independent thought. Then he recognized with grim irony that he had judged Joanna Ware, too. Not on his experience of her but on Ware’s word alone. The tension thickened, the atmosphere in the room feeling prickly with antagonism.

“Please proceed, Mr. Churchward,” Joanna said politely.

Churchward cleared his throat. “‘Written in my own hand, by Commodore David Ware on the seventh of November in the year nine.’” He looked at them over his glasses.

“‘I have decided that I have been remiss,’” he read aloud, “‘in leaving so little in my last will and testament to my wife, Lady Joanna Caroline Ware. I am aware that various parties might criticize my neglect of her, so I hereby redress the balance in this codicil to my will.’”

Alex looked at Joanna. She did not look like a woman eagerly anticipating a hitherto-unexpected windfall. Her expression was that of someone expecting a very nasty surprise.

“‘I leave to Lady Joanna’s care and welfare-’” Mr. Churchward paused and swallowed so hard that his Adam’s apple bobbed “‘-my baby daughter, Nina Tatiana Ware.’”

Alex felt a short, sharp jolt of shock. He had known that Ware had taken a Russian mistress during their last expedition to the Arctic. Ware’s association with the girl had been no secret; he had boasted of it, claiming that she was Pomor nobility even if he had found her in a whorehouse. Ware’s men had joked about their captain’s promiscuity and the fact that even on a trip where women were few and far between, he had found both time and opportunity for his whoring. Alex had thought that the girl had left Spitsbergen for the Russian mainland. But Ware had never mentioned a child before. Alex could only assume that approaching death had shaken his colleague into taking some action toward his bastard daughter.

Churchward’s words reclaimed his attention. “‘Nina is currently four years old and an orphan resident in the monastery at Bellsund, in Arctic Spitsbergen.’” The lawyer’s voice wobbled. “‘I know my wife will be delighted at this proof of my fecundity.’” Churchward’s voice dwindled and died away. Looking at Joanna, Alex could see that she had turned chalk white, her eyes vivid in a parchment-pale face. “Madam—” Churchward said helplessly.

“Pray proceed, Mr. Churchward,” Joanna said again. Her voice was quite steady.

“‘There are two conditions contingent on this legacy,’” Churchward read. “‘Firstly that my wife must travel in person to the Bellsund Monastery in Spitsbergen where my daughter is currently being cared for, and bring her back to London to live with her.’” Mr. Churchward’s voice was getting faster and faster as though by hurrying over the words he could somehow lessen their impact. He shot both Joanna and Alex a hunted glance like a rabbit trapped in the poacher’s sights. “‘I am aware,’” he continued, the letter shaking now in his hand, “‘that Joanna will detest the strictures that I have placed upon her, but that her desire for a child is so strong she will have no choice other than to put herself into the greatest danger and discomfort imaginable in order to rescue my daughter-’”

He stopped as Joanna took a sharp breath. “Madam—” he said again.

Joanna had turned even paler, so deathly white that Alex thought she might faint. “He abandoned a baby girl in a monastery,” she whispered. “How could he do such a thing?”

Alex got up and threw open the door into the outer office, calling for a glass of water. One of the clerks scurried away to fetch it.

“Fresh air,” Churchward said, pushing open the window and causing a draft to blow in that scattered the papers on his desk, “burnt feathers, sal volatile—”

“Brandy,” Alex said grimly, “would be more effective.”

“I do not keep spirits in my place of work,” Churchward said.

“I would have thought that you would need them sometimes,” Alex said, “for the benefit of both yourself and your clients, Mr. Churchward.”

“I am perfectly all right,” Joanna interposed. She was sitting upright, still very pale but with a dignity drawn about her now like a cloak. Alex pressed the glass of water into her hand, holding it steady with his hand clasped about hers. She raised her eyes thoughtfully to his face before she drank obediently. A shade of color came back into her cheeks.

“So,” she said after a moment, “my late husband manages to manipulate me from beyond the grave. It is quite an achievement.” She met Alex’s gaze. “Were you aware that David had an illegitimate daughter, Lord Grant?” She placed the glass gently on the table.

“No,” Alex said. “I knew that he had a mistress but not that the woman bore him a child. She was a Russian girl who claimed she was Pomor nobility. I thought she had returned to the mainland, but she must have died shortly before Ware if the baby is now an orphan.”

Joanna’s gaze was cloudy and disillusioned. “A Russian noblewoman,” she said slowly. “David would have loved that. How that would have enhanced his prestige!”

“The girl was young,” Alex said, “and wild. Her family had cast her out, washed their hands of her, I believe.” He looked at Joanna’s tight expression and felt something shift inside him. “I am sorry,” he said. He realized that he meant it. Whatever his opinion of Joanna Ware, he knew that this must be an immensely difficult issue for her to confront. He had to reluctantly admire her unflinching acceptance when most women would be having the vapors to have been bequeathed their husband’s bastard child.

“I am not naive enough to think that David was not capable of such a thing,” Joanna said slowly. “Indeed, perhaps I should be grateful that there are not more of his offspring scattered about the globe, or at least not as far as I am aware.” She looked at him. “Are you aware of any more of his sideslips, Lord Grant?”

“No.” Alex shifted. “I am truly sorry.” Ware’s profligate tendencies were the one aspect of his friend’s character that Alex had always had difficulty accepting. Some had seen Ware’s dissolute whoring as part of his heroic, charismatic persona. Alex had, in contrast, considered it the single weakness that David Ware had possessed, but a weakness he could condone because Ware’s marriage bed had been so cold and his relationship with his wife so fraught with dislike.

He looked at Joanna. She did not look like a woman who would wither a man to nothing in her bed. She looked warm and tempting and eminently appealing. Whatever the quarrel with Ware had been, it must have been so bitter and deep that she had driven him away.

“You do not try to soften the blow.” A faint smile touched Joanna’s lips. “There is no comfort to be had from you, is there, Lord Grant?”

“Very little, I fear,” Alex said. “But I am also sorry that Ware saw fit to do this.”

“Well, that is something, I suppose,” Mr. Churchward interposed huffily.

“Because,” Alex finished, “I fear his judgment must have been severely lacking to leave the future of his daughter in Lady Joanna’s hands.”

He saw Joanna’s eyes open very wide in shock. “You think me an unsuitable guardian?”

“How could I think otherwise?” Alex said. “Ware mistrusted you. He told me so. I cannot see why he would leave his daughter’s upbringing to a woman he disliked so strongly.”

Joanna chewed her lower lip hard. “Always you fall back on David’s judgments, Lord Grant,” she said. “Do you have no independent thoughts of your own?”

Alex brought his hand down flat on the table with a slap that made the piles of legal documents jump and flutter. He was furious-with Ware for involving him in his unpleasant personal vendetta against his wife, with Lady Joanna for forcing him to question his judgment and with himself for doubting his loyalties for even a second, for doubt them he did, the suspicions and misgivings wreathing his mind as unsubstantial as smoke and yet somehow impossible now to dismiss.

“Ware was my friend and colleague for over ten years,” he said through his teeth. He wondered if he was trying to convince Joanna-or himself. “He was an inspirational leader to his men. He never let me down. He saved my life on more than one occasion. So, yes, I trust his word and his judgment.”

They glared at one another until Mr. Churchward raised a pacifying hand.

“Lord Grant.” Mr. Churchward’s voice brought them back to the point. “Perhaps we could postpone the discussion until I have finished?” He polished his glasses, replaced them on his nose and resumed: “‘Further, I hereby appoint my friend and colleague Alexander, Lord Grant, as joint guardian with my wife to my daughter, Nina, to share all the responsibilities and decisions relating to her upbringing.’” Mr. Churchward cleared his throat. “‘Lord Grant will in addition be sole trustee, controlling all financial aspects relating to my daughter’s rearing and education.’”

“What?” Alex exploded. He felt trapped, baffled and angry. He could barely believe what he was hearing. Ware had been his friend since childhood. Alex had thought they had known one another well. Yet despite knowing his history, his way of life and the demands of his profession, Ware had put him in this invidious position, burdened him with the responsibility for his child, her welfare and upbringing, a duty Alex would be obliged to share with the wife that David Ware had hated. Truly, Ware had lost his mind. Either that or he had embroiled Alex in his game of revenge against his wife with a callous disregard for the feelings of everyone but himself, and Alex could not, would not believe that a man of Ware’s honor would do such a thing.

He looked at Joanna. Her eyes burned as hard and bright as sapphires. “So,” she said slowly, “I am to have the child reside with me but you will hold the purse strings for both of us, Lord Grant.”

“So it seems,” Alex said. He could feel Joanna’s gaze riveted on his face with such intensity that he could sense the power of her fury and distress no matter how well she strove to hide it.

“You said at the start of this interview that you did not know the contents of this letter, Lord Grant.” Her tone was dry, skeptical and hard. “I find that difficult to believe when you and David were evidently so deep in each other’s confidence.”

“Believe it,” Alex said. He was struggling with his own response to Ware’s outrageous behavior and was in no mood to be gentle. “I had no notion. I want this burden as little as you do.”

“Then just as you think that David was mistaken to leave a child’s welfare in my hands,” Joanna said very politely but with the anger burning though the words as hot as a furnace, “so I cannot imagine why my late husband thought for one moment that you were the appropriate person to have care of a small child nor control of her fortune.”

“At least I have proved that I can provide materially for my family,” Alex said, giving her a contemptuous look that brought the color flying into her cheeks. “I do not shirk my responsibilities. In contrast, your rackety lifestyle in the ton is hardly suited to the stable existence Miss Ware will require, Lady Joanna.”

Joanna’s eyes were icy with outrage. “I beg your pardon? Rackety? You know nothing of my way of life, Lord Grant, other than what is based on David’s lies and your own arrogant assumptions!” Her tone dripped disdain. “If it comes to that, you are the one who rackets about the world like a poorly aimed cannonball. You may provide materially for your family but you have no interest in engaging with them in any emotional sense!”

Alex’s anger and guilt kindled to a blaze at her words. He had inherited little in the way of fortune but had plowed every penny he had back into his estates and into ensuring his cousins were well provided for financially. It was enough. It had to be enough because it was all that he could give. Amelia had been the one who had been warm and loving. When she had died he had cut that emotion from his life. The thought of Amelia twisted a bitter knife in him again. He had failed once before; he could not fail Ware in this obligation. He was hog-tied, compelled by honor and his own guilty conscience to assist Ware’s orphaned daughter.