Sins and Scandals Collection: Whisper of Scandal / One Wicked Sin / Mistress by Midnight / Notorious / Desired / Forbidden

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.”