Whisper of Scandal

“I am sorry.” She uttered the formal condolence. “I remember your wife. She was charming.”

His expression snapped shut like a door slamming. Cold, forbidding … Clearly he did not wish to discuss Annabel … Amelia or whatever her name had been.

“Thank you.” He sounded brusque. “But I thought that I was here to condole with you rather than the reverse.”

“If you wish to be conventional.” Joanna could be succinct, too, especially when she was angry.

“You do not mourn him?” His voice held both censure and anger.

“David died over a year ago,” Joanna said. “As you know. You were there.”

Alex Grant had written to her from the Arctic, where David’s final naval mission to find a northeast trade route via the Pole had-literally-died in the endless frozen wastes. The letter had been as short and to the point as the man himself, though she had been able to discern through the words his deep sorrow at the loss of so noble a comrade. It was not a sorrow she could share and Joanna had made no pretense of it.

Alex’s dark gaze flickered over her. She could feel how tightly he was holding his temper in check now. The air was alive with his contempt.

“David Ware was a great man,” he said through his teeth. “He deserved more than this—” His gesture encompassed the bright room, devoid of any gesture of mourning.

He deserved better than you …

Joanna heard the words even though they were unspoken.

“We were estranged,” she said, her light tone masking the pain beneath. “You were his friend. Surely you knew.”

His mouth tightened to a thin line. “I knew he did not trust you.”

Joanna turned a shoulder. “The feeling was mutual. Do you think, then, that I should add hypocrisy to my sins and pretend to care that he is dead?”

She saw something feral and violent flash across Alex Grant’s face and almost recoiled before she realized that it was loyalty, not anger, that drove him.

“Ware was a hero,” he said.

Oh, she had heard that so many times it made her want to scream. In the beginning she had believed it, too, plucked from an obscure vicarage in the country, swept away by David’s swashbuckling spirit, betrayed by him before the ink was barely dry on the wedding register and betrayed again more deeply years later. She clenched her fists; her palms were hot and damp. Alex Grant was watching her and his dark gaze was far too perceptive. She forced her tense muscles to relax.

“Of course he was,” she said lightly. “Everyone says so, so it must be true.”

“Yet it seems that you are already considering replacing him,” Alex said. “I hear tales in the clubs of your suitors falling over themselves to win your hand.”

For a moment his outspokenness silenced Joanna, then she was furious, driven to a whole new level of anger. She wondered what David had told this man about her. Enough to make him dislike her intensely-that was for sure. His aversion to her was not overt, but she could feel it like a constant current beneath the surface, no matter how skillfully, how wickedly, he had kissed her.

“If you listen to gossip in the clubs you will hear all manner of lies,” she said. “You mistake, Lord Grant. I have no desire to remarry.”

Never.

He raised one black brow. “Merely to kiss random strangers, then?”

Oh, this man was provoking. More than that, he was infuriating. Because she knew she did not have a leg to stand on. She had kissed him, after all, not the other way about. It had been an impulse, a desperate attempt to dissuade John Hagan, her husband’s cousin, who had been becoming ever more persistent and disturbingly importunate in his attentions over the past few weeks. Trust her to choose the one man in London who not only called her bluff but also raised the stakes by claiming her as his mistress.

“I think you will find,” she said coldly, “that in announcing our apparent liaison you will have created quite a stir in the ton. John Hagan will waste no time in spreading the scandal. I cannot believe that was what you intended when you came to condole with me.”

“I merely took my cue from you.” His dark eyes studied her, again disconcertingly keen and thorough. There was no liking in them nor the admiration to which she was accustomed, nothing but cool, calculating consideration. Had he really been David’s friend? It seemed extraordinary to her. He was steady where David had been quicksilver, slipping through the fingers. The set of his mouth was firm and decisive where David had been weak and easily swayed. Every angle of Alex’s face looked hard, as though chiseled from the rock of his Scots heritage.

“So why did you kiss me then?” His voice had the faintest of Scots lilt, too. It sounded exotic. “I asked you before but it seems you have a bad habit of failing to answer those questions you dislike.”

Damn him, he had noticed that as well, had he? She raised her chin.

“I needed to … persuade John Hagan to cease his attentions to me,” she said. She folded her arms tightly about her body in an attempt to ward off the fear that chilled her whenever John Hagan was close by. “He is David’s cousin,” she explained, “and as such he claims to be the head of the family now.”

“So he seeks to take his cousin’s widow as well as his place?”

Joanna’s eyes narrowed at his tone. “As you heard.”

“You came up with a somewhat extreme solution.”

Joanna’s skin prickled with antagonism at the disbelief that rang clear in his voice. “He would not accept a more subtle dismissal. He has been importuning me for weeks.”

“Then it is fortunate I was here. Or would you have called in one of the servants-one of your handsome matching footmen-and kissed him instead?”

Temper flickered through Joanna. She had seldom felt so discomposed. There was something about this man that cut straight through her defenses, something so provocative that got under her skin. She could not deny that he was disturbingly, fatally attractive, but she had absolutely no wish to succumb to that attraction. Men, she had discovered, were generally more trouble than they were worth. Dogs were preferable. Max, lying so sweetly on his tasseled cushion, loved her with an uncomplicated devotion that far outstripped any attentions she had ever received from fickle males.

“My footmen are handsome, are they not?” she said sweetly. “Although I did not expect you to admire them, too.”

“You mistake.” Alex sounded amused. “It was an observation only-that you surround yourself with attractive and expensive items. The footmen, the dog …” His gaze swept around the library, over the bowl of lilies that Joanna had arranged so carefully as a centerpiece on the rosewood table and the elegant china displayed on the mantelpiece and her collection of watercolors. For some reason his scrutiny made Joanna feel lacking in some way, as though she was shallow, with tastes to match. She had always been pleased with her style and her flair for design. Damn him for disparaging them.

“I also hear that you were the darling of the ton,” he said. “I am sure that is no lie. I hope it pleases you.”

“It is most gratifying.” She had never sought to be a leader of society, but somehow popularity and prominence had come her way anyway. In truth, what had happened was that she had used her friends and acquaintances to ward off the loneliness of being abandoned by her husband for years on end and she had come to value the life she had carved out for herself. In all the nine years of their marriage she calculated that she had been with David for perhaps a fifth of the time, possibly less. In contrast, her closest friends were always there for her.

“You had a similar celebrity when you were last in London,” she reminded Alex sharply. Three years before, David and Alex had returned from some naval expedition to the South Americas with tales of hacking their way through dense jungle, discovering ancient ruins and being attacked by strange and wild creatures. At least David had boasted of it, displaying the teeth marks some giant cat had made on his arm. Joanna had uncharitably wished it had eaten him rather than being shot for its pains. She had hated the way in which David had reveled in his celebrity, rolling home drunk from some brothel at dawn, reeking of perfume and with some whore’s cosmetics smeared all over him. It seemed so cheap. David had bragged his way around London from the gambling tables to the ballrooms to the bawdy houses. He had been brash and vulgar, but people had excused it as part of his larger-than-life character, David Ware the hero, beloved by all men. Pain and loss twisted inside her. When she had wed she had expected her life to be so different, with a loving husband and a brood of children. She had been quite remarkably naive.

Alex, in contrast, she seemed to recall, had scorned the ton’s excited fawning and had escaped to Scotland instead whilst his comrade took all the credit for their exploits and enjoyed all the fame. And now she saw Alex’s firm mouth had turned down at the corners with distaste to be reminded of his illustriousness.

“I do not seek celebrity.” He made it sound as though she had suggested he was engaged in some activity that was illegal or repellent or possibly both at the same time. “You will not see me courting the ton whilst I am here. Indeed, I plan to leave London as soon as I have my orders from the Admiralty.”

“I will have to dismiss you from my bed first,” Joanna said waspishly, “since you have announced to all society that you occupy it.”

Once again he gave her that disconcerting, wholly unexpected smile. It was the look of an adversary not an admirer. “I imagine you will enjoy that,” he murmured.

“I shall.”

“How will you dismiss me?”

Joanna put her head on one side and considered him thoughtfully. “I am not certain. Be assured that it will be public and humiliating, though, and you will probably be the last in society to know. It is the least that you deserve for embarrassing me so.”

His smile deepened. “It was worth it.”

Joanna gritted her teeth. She was known for her glacial coolness and was certainly not going to let this man change that. She knew Alex had only claimed to be her lover in order to punish her for her presumption in using him. It was a salutary lesson not to tangle with him. However far she went, he would go further.

But for now he would go out her front door and she would be glad to see him leave.