Whisper of Scandal (13 page)

“Go home and sleep it off, Lord Selsey,” she said when one sprig of nobility tried to kiss her and almost took a tumble in the gutter. “You are foxed.”

“Devil a bit, ma’am,” Selsey said. “Still sober enough to offer you my hand and my heart—”

“Again,” Joanna said, sighing. “Your guardian would never allow it, I fear.”

“We could elope,” Selsey said hopefully, rebounding
off a lamppost and seeming only slightly cast down as Brooke picked him up by the scruff of the neck and deposited him in the road.

“I need hardly worry for your safety at present,” Alex said, forcing his way through the mob to her side, “since I perceive you have more than a hundred men devoted to your service.”

Joanna smiled. “Yes. Are they not delightful?”

“They are drunk and rough,” Alex said.

“And totally dedicated to me,” Joanna pointed out. “I love them.”

“We love you, too, ma’am!” one pugilist shouted, whilst the crowd whooped and cheered.

Selsey, who was being steadied by his almost equally drunk friend, was blinking at Alex like an owl. “I say!” he exclaimed. “But surely… My God, it is you! Lord Grant, a tremendous honor to meet you, sir!” He attempted another bow and almost overbalanced. “I say, chaps…” He addressed the crowd at large, “It’s Alex Grant, the explorer, you know, the one who wrestled a puma to the ground to save the life of his friend and discovered the ruins of Azer…Azerban… Discovered some ruins in the desert anyway, and—”

Within seconds, it seemed to Joanna, Alex was besieged by well-wishers. The boxing crowd, full of bonhomie, were ready to laud this latest hero who had crossed their path.

“A kiss!” someone shouted. “A kiss from our Lady of the Fancy for Lord Grant!”

Alex turned, the wicked challenge flaring in his eyes. “Lady Joanna? Surely you would not disappoint your admirers.”

“Of course not,” Joanna said recklessly. She stood on tiptoe, intending to give him a peck on the cheek, but Alex cupped her face in his hands and brought his mouth down on hers and the night faded away and the sound of the excited crowd rang in her ears and the stars wheeled and spun overhead.

“I thought,” she said as Alex released her and steadied her with a hand on her arm, “that you had no desire for celebrity, Lord Grant?”

“I do not,” Alex said, “but I did have a great desire to kiss you again.”

“Hypocrite,” Joanna said and heard him laugh.

She watched the crowd submerge him and carry him off. “Totally eclipsed, I fear,” she said, smoothing her gloves. “I have lost all my admirers to Lord Grant and he does not even want them!”

“He shows well to advantage,” Brooke said with a sly sideways glance at her. “I’d like to see him in a fight.”

“You almost did tonight,” Joanna said. “I thought you were going to start a mill earlier.”

Brooke shrugged. “Wouldn’t do that, milady, not when you have a fancy for him.”

“I do not!” Joanna said. She blushed. “Brooke—”

“Just let me know when you don’t like him anymore,” Brooke said, “and I’ll plant him a facer.” He held the door of a hackney carriage for her. “Here you are, milady. It’s Tom Finn—” He nodded to the driver. “He’ll see you home all right and tight.”

As Joanna glanced back, she could see the Duke of Clarence wading his way through the crowd about Alex and clapping him on the back. The two of them were practically being carried along the pavement by a riotous mob in search of the next alehouse. And it served
Alex Grant right, she thought, if he had become the unwilling hero of the boxing fraternity. He needed to lose some of that stern disapproval.

She shut the door of the carriage with a decisive click and sat back with a sigh. She knew that Alex had not conceded on the matter of escorting her to Spitsbergen. He was like a burr against her skin, an irritation that she wanted to be free of but which also fascinated her. Joanna shifted uncomfortably on the seat of the hackney carriage. She could not explain her attraction to him. She wanted to break it. Yet if she was honest, she had to admit that she also wanted him.

“I would never give myself to a man who has no respect for me.”

“You damn near did…”

David Ware had ridden roughshod over her feelings and her self-respect and she had learned the hard way never to let that happen to her ever again. She would not give herself to another adventurer, to a man who would stay only long enough to enjoy the pleasures of her bed and would then be gone on the next expedition, the next challenge, the next adventure. No woman would ever be able to hold Alex Grant because his first love would always be to travel and explore. With Alex it would be a brief taste of delicious pleasure—and she was sure it would be utter bliss to take him as a lover—and then it would be the bitter taste of loss and that would last a lot longer. And Alex could never trust her, never like her, for David’s shadow would always come between them. Even if she told him the whole truth of David’s cruelty, she doubted that he would believe her. He had been David’s friend since childhood, David had saved
his life, she could see that it was a point of honor for Alex to keep faith with his friend’s memory.

She reminded herself of that as she went upstairs to try to sleep.

The night seemed long and the bed empty.

T
HE ROOM WAS HOT
and stuffy. It smelled of beeswax polish and dust and it was as far from the fresh salt air and open horizons of the sea as Alex could imagine. As soon as he stepped inside he had felt trapped and on edge. Despite his being a sailor, a most superstitious breed of men, Alex had never considered himself irrational. Yet now he had a strong conviction that something bad was about to happen and as he looked at the men sitting around the table his stomach roiled with tension.

The week had already been extremely trying as a result of David Ware’s inexplicably cavalier behavior in dragooning him into wardship of his daughter. Alex wanted to forgive Ware and to understand why his friend had acted in this manner, but he could not come up with a rational explanation other than that Ware had wanted to do the best thing for the child and had thought that he would be a reliable guardian. That did not really fit with the facts. It left unanswered questions that were starting to torment Alex through his sleepless nights. If Ware had wanted what was best for Nina, why had he never mentioned her before or taken an interest in her welfare? Why, when he had known that he was dying, had he not told Alex of the baby and entrusted her to his care, instead of requiring that Joanna make
this perilous journey to the Arctic to rescue her instead? There seemed to be no satisfactory answers and it was becoming more and more difficult to explain away or close his eyes to the less-than-admirable aspects of Ware’s behavior—his infidelities, his lack of care for those who depended on him, his harshness when opposed.

Alex’s encounter with Joanna the previous night had not helped, fueling both his anger and his sexual frustration until he was boiling with it. He had been utterly determined to accompany her to Spitsbergen and was thwarted by her refusal. They were at an impasse. He was even more irritable over the lamentable lack of control he appeared to have over his physical desires, wanting Joanna but distrusting her, aching for her at the same time as wanting to shake some sense into her.

As though that were not bad enough, he had felt a completely unexpected and unwelcome urge to comfort her in the tavern parlor. He wished he could attribute her tears to female manipulation, but he instinctively knew she had not been pretending. Her distress was all too real. She had been pushed to the edge of control by the shocking revelations of the week and he had wanted to shield her with a powerful desire that owed nothing to lust and was more about protection. Now,
that
was particularly worrying.

Alex ran a hand over the back of his neck, trying to ease the tension in his muscles. The entire situation was maddening. Joanna Ware infuriated him.

He felt bewitched.

He had also been surprised in Joanna. He acknowledged it. He had made judgments, assumed that she would be as inclined to indulge in a love affair as were
many fast widows of the ton. But when she had refused him she had spoken with a passion and sincerity he could not doubt. It was a different Joanna Ware he had seen in that moment, a woman quite contrary to the superficial, confident society hostess.

That morning he had tried to burn off his bad temper and his bodily frustrations with a bout of fencing at Henry Angelo’s academy. It had probably been a mistake, for his leg ached like the devil now and he hated the fact that more and more he was beginning to notice the restrictions the old injury was placing on him. At the back of his mind was a fear, faint but persistent, that one day it would prevent him from exploring and would confine him to “home,” wherever that might be, like a caged animal pacing the rest of its life out in captivity. The thought appalled him. And then when he had arrived back at Grillon’s, Frazer had greeted him with the news that word had come at last from the Admiralty about his next posting.

“They wanted to see you immediately, my lord,” Frazer had said, his mouth turning down at the corners. “I had to tell them you were out attending to some pressing business matters. That was two hours ago. I’m guessing they are not best pleased to be kept waiting.”

A
LEX HAD BEEN EXPECTING
a frosty welcome for his tardiness and had been most taken aback to be greeted with great bonhomie. Contrarily, this was making him suspicious. He shifted surreptitiously in his chair and rubbed his bad leg, which was throbbing unpleasantly.

“Good of you to join us, Grant! Splendid to see you, old fellow!” Charles Yorke, the First Lord of the Admiralty, shook him warmly by the hand. Yorke was
not a man for whom Alex had ever had a great deal of respect. He disliked the fact that the First Sea Lord was a politician rather than a sailor. For how was a man like that ever to understand the challenges facing a serving officer, let alone the experiences of his men? Even worse was the fact that Yorke’s brother Joseph also sat on the Admiralty Board. At least Joseph Yorke had served in the navy, but his appointment looked unpleasantly like nepotism to Alex. He understood that that was the manner in which such business was often conducted, but that did not mean that he liked it. He took the chair that Charles Yorke indicated and tried not to let his antagonism show.

Alex reminded himself that all he was here for was to discover what his next commission would be. Since Joanna Ware had summarily turned down his offer to accompany her to Bellsund he had no need to beg his masters to allow him to undertake another trip to the Pole. In fact, he had no responsibilities to keep him in London at all. He could be in and out of this office in moments and back to his ship where he belonged. He could escape from the stifling heat and airlessness of this room and be out in the fresh air again. He felt oppressed, as though all the monstrous piles of paper on the table before him might rise up and smother the life out of him. He had never been content to sit indoors. Ever since his boyhood on Speyside, he had lived to be out in the fresh air.

“Delighted to have you back in London, Grant,” Charles Yorke was saying. “Delighted, what! His Grace of Clarence tells me you were a tremendous hit with the boxing crowd at Cribbs’s last night.”

Alex tried not to grimace. He had spent the best part
of the night trying to escape from an overexcited mob that had kept toasting him and buying him drinks until he had almost slid off his chair with excess.

Fortunately Yorke did not appear to require an answer. “It will be a great pleasure to have you working here at the Admiralty for a space,” he continued. He waved an expansive hand around. “Promotion, don’t you know… Maybe a rear admiral’s position in a year or two—” Alex saw Joseph Yorke smile through gritted teeth and there were nods around the table. “You’re a hero, Grant, an idol of the people and no mistake.”

Alex felt a pang of shock. Working at the Admiralty? He found his voice. “Gratified as I am, gentlemen,” he said, “I do not quite understand…”

“Of course not, of course not!” Yorke boomed magnanimously. “Just a simple sailor, eh, Grant?” He inclined his head toward another of the navy board, James Buller, a career politician.

“The government is pleased with you, Grant,” Buller said in his high-pitched voice, brushing snuff off his sleeve as he spoke. “Need a hero now Nelson’s gone. Cochrane’s too showy, don’t you know, and too insubordinate. Explorers are all the rage in society now—”

“I see,” Alex said grimly. He caught the eye of Sir Richard Bickerton, onetime colleague of Nelson, who cast him the ghost of a wink.

“You’re famous, Grant,” Bickerton said dryly. “I know how much you will relish that.”

“Quite, sir,” Alex said. He took a deep breath. “Gentlemen, you do me too much honor. All I wish is to be assigned another commission and rejoin my ship.”

There was a sudden hush about the table. Alex
looked at Charles Yorke, who was fidgeting with his quill pen.

“Sir?” he said very politely but with an undertone of steel.

“That’s the thing, Grant,” Yorke said, tapping his fingers uncomfortably on the polished surface of the table. “No money for further exploration at the moment, y’see. Can’t be done.”

“Government can’t afford it,” Buller confirmed with gloomy relish.

“Tide might turn in a few years, of course,” Yorke continued, “but for now we need you here in London, Grant, pressing the flesh, you know. You’re famous, like Bickerton says. You’ll be the most splendid ambassador for the navy in ton society. Guest of honor, what! Dinners, balls, marvelous stuff!”

Alex expelled his breath very slowly. This was starting to look very, very bad. He could see his future stretching ahead, desk-bound in some pointless Admiralty job during the day, his evenings an endless whirl of dinners and social events until society tired of him or some new sensation came along to displace him. He felt the walls close in on him, felt trapped, felt his blood turn cold at the prospect of never being given another command.

He could see Joseph Yorke looking at him with dislike and a spurt of powerful envy. Ironic, Alex thought, to be envied for something he had not even sought in the first place, for fame and popularity and the love of the people, when all he wanted was to escape from all that celebrity.

“Gentlemen,” he said, setting his jaw, aware of anger and a strange sense of desperation jetting up within him,
“might I ask you to reconsider? I am a sailor. I am not cut out to be some sort of ambassador in society.”

“Exactly what I said, Grant,” Joseph Yorke agreed. “You have no social graces at all.”

“Nonsense, Grant!” Charles Yorke interrupted his brother. “Society adores you!”

“I do not adore society,” Alex said, sitting forward urgently, trying to find a way through this thicket of unwanted approval. “Please—I beg you to give me another role.” He was aware that diplomacy was not his strong suit. He had never been a politician nor had he cultivated the connections needed to prosper. Until now it had not mattered. He had been a sailor, an explorer. His men were like Devlin and Purchase, young, anxious for adventure and promotion, efficient and daring. They had charm and courage. The Admiralty had wanted them at sea—until now. Now it seemed that the politicians and financiers were in charge, there was no money for exploration anymore and he was about to be promoted to some role he was woefully inadequate to fulfill, his only duties charming the ton and acting the role of heroic explorer in the ballrooms of London. The thought revolted him. He knew that he would rather resign than have this job. He swallowed hard. He was older and wiser than Devlin—he could not simply turn in his commission on a whim. Yet what choice would he have if the only alternative was being chained to a desk, London’s least enthusiastic celebrity, paraded about like a lion at the Tower of London menagerie for the entertainment of the crowd?

Most members of the Admiralty Board were looking at him with baffled incomprehension. Joseph Yorke
looked mulish and envious. Only Bickerton had a spark of sympathy in his eyes.

“Understand your need to be at sea, old fellow,” Bickerton said, “but…” His shrug indicated that he was in a minority of one and that the argument was already lost.

“Gentlemen,” Alex repeated, suddenly seeing a glimmer of light and grasping after it, “I wonder if you would consider an alternative?”

Charles Yorke was frowning now, displeased that his largesse had not received the response he had been expecting. “An alternative, Grant? An alternative to cultivating the support and approval of the Prince Regent and the leaders of society?”

“I think,” Alex said gravely, “that you will like this.”

There was silence. Everyone was staring at him.

“There is a mission of mercy,” Alex said, “that I feel I simply must fulfill.”

Charles Yorke sat forward, his frown easing a little. “Go on, Grant. A mission of mercy, eh? I do like the sound of this.”

“When David Ware died,” Alex said carefully, “he left behind an illegitimate daughter. The matter came to light only a couple of days ago. I am named one of the child’s guardians, along with Ware’s widow, Lady Joanna.”

There was a rustle of speculation and comment about the table.

“Disgraceful,” whispered one of the board members. “What could Ware have been thinking?”

“How very ramshackle of Ware to put his wife in
such a situation,” Joseph Yorke said coldly. “And how very out of character.”

“Indeed,” Alex agreed smoothly. “Ware was… an original. He left the child in the care of an Eastern Orthodox monastery in Spitsbergen, scarcely ideal for a baby girl. I feel it my duty to assist Lady Joanna Ware by accompanying her on her journey to rescue the child and bring her back to London. So you see, gentlemen—” he spread his hands in a gesture of appeal “—this is why I feel I must return to the Arctic as soon as possible…”

He saw Bickerton’s lips twist into an appreciative smile at his strategy. “Nice work, Grant,” he said.

Buller was looking cautious. “There’s no money to sponsor such an expedition,” he began.

“But what a marvelous, marvelous venture!” Charles Yorke threw up his hands, a broad smile splitting his face. “I can see the news sheets now—dashing naval adventurer in Arctic rescue! Polar hero comes to the aid of grieving widow and orphaned child… Absolutely splendid, Grant! The prince will love it. The papers will love it! The people will love it!”

The rustle of comment about the table swelled to a roar of approval once the First Lord of the Admiralty had given his agreement. Alex sat back in his chair feeling a rush of relief.

“Splendid!” Buller echoed, rubbing his hands. “I must go at once to acquaint the prime minister with the news!”

“I’ll tell the prime minister,” Joseph Yorke said, glaring at him. “And the Prince Regent.”

“Those were fine tactics, Grant,” Sir Richard Bickerton said as he and Alex strode out of the Admiralty and Alex drew in a deep, appreciative breath of fresh air.
“Used the Admiralty’s desire for a hero to work in your favor, eh? Didn’t think you could pull it off, old fellow, but I have to hand it to you—masterly stratagem.” He laughed. “And by the time you return they will probably have changed their minds and decided to post you somewhere exciting, like the South Americas, especially if you cover yourself with glory on this trip.”