Whisper of Scandal. Nicola Cornick

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      “As to that,” Alex said, holding her eyes, “I really would not know if it is one of your talents.” He paused. “Would I?”

      Her eyes flashed, smoky with dislike. “Nor will you.”

      “My lord, my lady!” Mr. Churchward intervened. The tips of his ears glowed bright red. “If you please.”

      Joanna dropped her gaze. “People pay me to design the interior of their homes, Lord Grant. I am considered to have excellent taste, sufficient that people wish to buy it for themselves. They pay me well and a few years ago I was also fortunate enough to inherit a legacy from my aunt.” She shifted in her seat, glancing again at Mr. Churchward, who was looking most uncomfortable. “But we wander from the point. Mr. Churchward has more bad news to impart, I believe. Let us put him out of his misery.”

      “Thank you, my lady,” Churchward said unhappily. He placed the letter Alex had delivered two days before on the top of his desk and smoothed it as though in doing so he could somehow alter the content.

      “Lord Grant delivered this letter to me on behalf of your husband,” he said to Joanna. “It is a codicil to his will.”

      “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 СКАЧАТЬ