Whisper of Scandal. Nicola Cornick

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      “Alex,” Dev said, a grin curling his mouth. “Have you come to cut in on us?”

      “Mr. Cummings,” Alex said, his gaze riveted on Joanna’s face, “wishes to discuss your Mexican expedition plan with you, Dev, so you had better unhand Lady Joanna and join him in the drawing room.”

      Dev’s face lit up. “Did you put in a word for me, Alex? I say, you are the most splendid chap! Your servant, Lady Joanna.” He sketched Joanna a bow. “Please excuse me.”

      “Of course,” Joanna said, smiling. “Good luck.”

      “May I escort you to the dining room, Lady Joanna?” Alex asked. He was quite definitely not smiling. “Such energetic flirtation as you have indulged in with my cousin must lead you to require some refreshment, I think.”

      Joanna shot him a look of dislike. “We were merely dancing, my lord.”

      Alex arched a brow. “Is that what you call it?”

      “I heard that you had warned Mr. Devlin to keep away from me,” Joanna said as they passed through the door into the dining room, where Lottie’s ice sculptures were wilting in the heat from the candles. “Being of a charitable disposition I assumed that it was because my late husband had asked you to take a brotherly interest in my welfare and you wished to protect me from young rakes.”

      Alex laughed. “You could not be more mistaken, Lady Joanna. Your husband intimated to me that you were well able to take care of yourself and I am inclined to believe him.”

      Joanna felt a stab of sensation that felt curiously like misery. So David had made her sound like a brass-faced bitch and Alex had believed him. Of course he had. Why would he not? Everyone believed David Ware to be the most complete hero, and Alex had been David’s closest friend. She gave herself a little shake. What had she expected? David was never going to sing her praises; they had been estranged for years, locked in mutual loathing. How could it be otherwise when David had felt that she had failed him in the only thing he had required of her? Within five years of their marriage they had quarreled violently, terminally, and after that they had barely spoken to one another again.

      Joanna drew a deep breath to compose herself. David was dead and it should not matter now. Yet Alex Grant’s poor opinion of her seemed to count for more than it ought.

      She stopped dead next to the life-size ice model of Alex himself. “Indeed?” she said scathingly. “It ill becomes you to step in at this eleventh hour to protect your cousin from some imaginary danger, Lord Grant. You have left him to fend for himself in the past, have you not, and his sister, too, so I hear, whilst you traipse about the globe in search of glory—”

      Alex’s gloved hand closed about her wrist tightly enough to make her gasp and break off. The look in his eyes was feral though he kept his tone soft. “Is this your attempt to jilt me in full public view?” he asked. There was an edge of steel to his voice. “I confess I had hoped for something more original than a list of all the ways in which I had failed my family.”

      “Do not be so hasty,” Joanna said. She held his gaze with hers. “You will not be disappointed by your dismissal, I assure you.” She shook him off, rubbing her wrist where he had held her. His grip had not hurt, but there had been something in his touch and in his eyes, something primitive and fierce, that had shaken her. The tone of their encounter had shifted in the space of a second from enmity sheathed in courtesy to all-out antagonism. Joanna could see that in the heat of the moment she had invested in Alex all the faults she had detested in David, and perhaps that was unfair, but she was in no mood to be generous. He had not extended any generosity to her, after all. He had disliked her from the start.

      “You may rest easy for your cousin’s virtue,” she said. “I am not interested in callow youths, whatever you may think.” She looked him up and down. “Nor in adventurers, for that matter, however romantic and mysterious others may find them.” She squared her shoulders. “Lord Grant, I do not know what my husband said about me to make you have such an aversion to me, but I do not care for either your disapproval or your judgmental attitudes.”

      “David never spoke of you to me,” Alex said. “Other than just before he died.”

      Joanna was gripping her fan so tightly between her gloved hands now that she heard the struts creak. She could see a most indiscreet crowd of guests jostling in the doorway of the room, eager to witness the scene playing out between Lady Joanna and her supposed lover.

      “Well,” she said sarcastically, “if David was on his deathbed then whatever he said must be true.”

      “Perhaps,” Alex said. His mouth was set in a thin, angry line. “You may tell me if it was true or not. David told me never to trust you, Lady Joanna. He said that you were deceitful and manipulative. Can you tell me what you had done to incur such hatred from your husband?”

      Their eyes met and locked and Joanna could feel the burn all the way through her body. Alex’s gaze was narrowed on her face with dark intensity and suddenly she hated him, too, for believing her faithless, feckless husband, for taking David’s word without question, for damning her unheard. She wanted to explain to him; she wanted it with a passion that shocked her, that stole her breath and made her heart ache-but she knew she could not confide in Alex Grant, a man who was practically a stranger. “Trust no one” was her maxim when it came to the ton and she had held true to it ever since the day, as a new bride, she had walked into Madame Ermine’s gown shop in Bond Street and had heard two women discussing her intimate affairs in exquisite scandalous detail. It was from that gossip she had first learned of David’s infidelity. As a result, she trusted no one with her secrets, especially not her late husband’s closest friend, colleague and ally.

      “You assume that I am the one who was in the wrong,” she said bitterly, now. “I am sorry you believe that.”

      She saw a hint of doubt in Alex’s eyes; or at least she thought that she did. It was faint and fleeting like a shadow that came and went in the blink of an eye. Then he shook his head slightly.

      “That is not good enough, Lady Joanna.”

      Joanna’s temper snapped. She had been estranged from David for five long years before he had died and had nursed her grief silently through every one of them. This man was trying to force it out into the light of day and in doing so was destroying all the layers she had built up to protect herself.

      “Well, Lord Grant,” she said, “it will have to do. I owe you nothing, and nothing I could say would change your opinion of me anyway, so I shall save my breath.” She squared her shoulders. “I recall that you wanted me to end our supposed liaison. Let me oblige you and then we need not see one another again.”

      She turned to the ice sculpture and broke off the sword in the man’s hand. The ice gave a very satisfying crack as the sword came free. Mrs. Cummings’s guests caught their collective breath on a gasp.

      Joanna snapped the sword sharply in two and handed Alex the pieces.

      “That is what I think of explorers and their amatory abilities,” she said clearly so that the entire company could hear her. “It is to be hoped that you can navigate your way better across the frozen wastes than you can around a woman’s body, or you may end in Spain rather than Spitsbergen.” She smiled. “Consider yourself jilted, Lord Grant,” she added sweetly. “Good night.”

       Chapter 3

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