Whisper of Scandal (19 page)

She drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them tight. She did not wish for intimacy with Alex. Each time he touched her it would be a reminder that he wanted an heir and that she could never provide one for him. It would remind her of her betrayal and her empty promises. She rested her forehead on her knees. Such hateful deception, but what else could she have
done? Nina, abandoned and unloved, needed her, and in return she desperately wanted the child. She had done what she had to do to secure a future for both of them, but the guilt felt like a leaden weight inside her.

She thought again of that night she had spent with Alex. It seemed so long ago and so distant now that it was almost no more than a heated dream. It had awoken all her senses and opened her up to the possibilities of what could be between a man and a woman. It had been tempting and dangerous because it had made her want more than Alex was prepared to give. And it was painful, too, because it had made her see how different her life might have been if she had not fallen in love with David and taken a wrong turn so far back. All she had ever wanted was a loving husband and a family. It had been such an apparently simple aim and yet it had gone painfully wrong and now her second marriage was poisoned, too, based on an appalling lie.

Joanna closed her eyes, took a deep breath and opened them again. It was best not to think of it. Alex would never know the truth. She would simply have to act her part, give herself to him in the marriage bed and hope that his yearning for travel would take him away soon and for a very long time. Alex was an adventurer, after all. He lived to travel and explore. Like David, he was unlikely to want to spend much time in her company. And she would have Nina, and Merryn and Chessie, to provide the family she desired. The thought should have reassured her. Instead it left her feeling cold and lonely.

Joanna eased herself from the bunk and stood up. Miraculously the world remained steady. With hot
water, clean clothes and the ministrations of a maid, she thought, all would soon be well again. It had to be. She had to go forward both with her journey and with this marriage, go forward into the unknown, for she had no other choice.

A
LEX STOOD ON THE
quarterdeck looking out toward the coast of Spitsbergen. Sailing these seas never failed to stir him. They were the greatest challenge he had ever known, quixotic, changing with a sudden backing of the wind, flat glassy blue giving way to angry gray. Then the seabirds would follow the ship, hanging on the edge of the wind and calling like the spirits of sailors lost in the deep. The mountainous coastline, cut by the vast scars of the fjords, plunged deep into the waters with rocks so razor sharp they could cut a ship in two.

He had sailed to Spitsbergen twice before. On the first occasion it had been directly after Amelia had died and he had found in the bleak landscape some echo of his own grief and guilt. His first marriage had been very much a love match. He and Amelia had wed when she was barely out of the schoolroom. This second marriage of his was a vastly different affair. He had only himself to blame that far from being a marriage of convenience, it was proving to be very inconvenient indeed.

Not for the first time in the past weeks, Alex asked himself savagely what he had expected. He had chosen to marry Joanna Ware knowing full well just how flighty, superficial and shallow she could be. He had gone into this without illusions, only asking in return that Joanna do her best to furnish him with the heir Balvenie lacked.
He had hoped that the incendiary passion that had flared between them in London, which had both taken him aback and pleased him, would still be burning between them. He had never imagined that Joanna would respond to him with such unbridled desire. He had expected her to be as superficial in bed as she appeared to be out of it. Instead he had uncovered a woman of unexpectedly deep passions, a woman he wanted to make love to with a fierce desire.

He had not been able to fulfill that desire because Joanna had been seasick, and in the meantime the passion that had burned between them seemed to have dwindled to ashes. Now there was an uncomfortable sense of distance between them, a reserve like a barrier that would require the will of both of them to break down. For the sake of their marriage he hoped that Joanna was willing to try. He did not want a distant, cold relationship with a virtual stranger. A marriage in name only would not provide him with the heir he wanted.

He drummed his fingers on the rail. He doubted very much that he would die of thwarted lust, though it was intensely frustrating, and the fact that Devlin and Lottie Cummings were indulging in a very indiscreet
affaire
right under everyone’s nose only served to make him feel more irritated. More concerning at the present, however, were his doubts about how Joanna would deal with the privations of the journey to Bellsund Monastery and how she would cope emotionally with whatever she found there. Alex had the feeling that it was going to be very difficult. Joanna’s behavior an hour ago in the cabin had not set a good precedent. She had been as willful and spoiled as a child and it had annoyed
him even as he had tried to be tolerant. It was not that he was unsympathetic of her plight; seasickness was deeply unpleasant and she had suffered with it badly indeed. They had been unfortunate that the summer seas had proved so stormy, but he had hoped that now it was calmer Joanna would get up, eat and make ready for landfall.

He had been hoping that for the past two hours. Now he was resigned to the fact that she would not be joining him on deck. He felt disappointed in her and angry as well. She had assured him that she would do whatever it took to secure Nina and take her to safety. She had fallen at the first hurdle. But again, he had to ask himself what he had expected. Joanna was as she was, unused to hardship and privation. He had simply hoped for better.

He heard the sound of voices on the poop deck and turned abruptly to see Joanna approaching, escorted by an eager phalanx of the ship’s young officers, including Dev. Alex stared. It was Joanna, no doubt about it, but a Joanna restored to all her London glory, dressed in a glowing red pelisse with matching bonnet and gloves, neat boots on her feet, her hair pinned up, glossy and brown, beneath the brim of her hat, her face bright and with a hint of pink color in her cheeks rather than the wan ghostly image of two hours before. She was carrying Max and he was wearing a matching red coat.

“I feel marvelous,” she said as she reached Alex’s side. She smiled up at him, a brilliant, charming smile that Alex knew was as much for the benefit of their audience as it was for him. She put a small, gloved hand on his arm. “I do not know what was in that porridge, Alex darling, but it worked miracles! And who would have
thought that Frazer would prove so adept as a lady’s maid?”

Her posse of admirers laughed. Alex felt his throat turn dry.

“Alex darling…”

One thing he would not tolerate was that she address him with that casual, meaningless endearment which she and her friends seemed to scatter at whim. That teasing little smile on her lips reminded Alex of the woman he had made love to in London. It made him want to scoop her up into his arms and kiss the life out of her, audience or not. Suddenly he wanted to rip apart the superficial facade and rediscover the woman who had been warm and sensual and responsive in his arms that night.

“Gentlemen—” He dismissed the officers with a sharp jerk of the head and they suddenly recalled that they had work to do. Alex and Joanna were left alone.

“I did not think you were going to join me,” Alex said. “You took so long.”

Joanna arched her brows. “I was less than two hours.” A mischievous smile curved her lips. Alex felt his senses jolt. “If you think that is a long time you should see how long it takes me to get ready for a ball.” Her smile faded a little. “But of course you will not have to endure that,” she said. “I forgot that as soon as we return to London you will no doubt be able to persuade the Admiralty to give you another posting and you will be gone. Doubtless we shall barely see one another after that.”

Alex found he was stung by the lack of regret in her tone, even though he knew it was only what they had agreed as part of their pact.

“You will not be rid of me so easily,” he said
smoothly. “We shall still share the responsibility of Nina’s upbringing and I am of a mind to stay in England until you are all settled in your new home—and you are enceinte with my heir, of course.”

He saw the color sting Joanna’s cheeks. Her lashes swept down, hiding her expression.

“It is most indelicate of you to speak openly of such matters,” she said frostily. “Anyone could overhear you when we are in public.”

“My dear Joanna,” Alex said, “I fear you will have to adapt your notions of decorum. I do not merely intend to speak of such matters—I intend to make love to you at every available occasion. I would not wish you to be in any doubt as to my intentions.”

He heard her sigh sharply, an indication that his amorous approaches would be about as welcome as the plague. She flicked him a glance. “You may find yourself ashore for longer than you wish if you are waiting on my pregnancy,” she said.

Alex smiled at her, determined not to concede. “There will be compensations,” he said. “I doubt I shall grow bored of occupying your bed.”

Joanna set her lips in a mulish expression. It was clear that she did not wish to pursue the conversation. She had turned away from Alex so that he could not see her face. She seemed to be studying the view with a fierce attention. Alex waited. What should he expect now? That she would denigrate the stark beauty of the scenery the way that Lottie Cummings had criticized Shetland? He was well aware that Spitsbergen was too wintry and too empty to please many people. It frightened them, especially those who had never seen anything but the soft, rolling green fields of southern England. As a Scotsman
he was accustomed to scenery that daunted other men; he loved it, found his inspiration and his peace in it. But he knew he could hardly expect Joanna to feel the same way.

He waited, braced, for her to tell him that the place looked like hell on earth.

Joanna’s face was tilted upward now and suddenly Alex remembered that she had not seen the sun for several weeks. She had not been outside at all. He realized that she was lapping up the heat sensually, as a cat would, luxuriating in it, eyes closed, a small smile on her lips, her body soft and pliant in the warmth. Alex felt a sudden tightening in his groin. Her lips were soft, pink and parted in frank appreciation. He wanted to kiss her. He ached to kiss her.

The sea breeze plastered the feathers in her hat against her lips and she opened her eyes and brushed them away.

“How wonderful to be in the open air again,” she said. “I had almost forgotten what it was like.”

“It was not quite so wonderful when the weather was bad,” Alex said. He was intrigued by this quicksilver change in her, from stubborn and petulant to open and appealing. Perhaps she was not quite such a hothouse flower as he had imagined. “The only good thing that can be said about the storms that we endured was that the wind was behind us and so lessened our journey time considerably,” he said. “I have known it to take two months or more to make this journey.”

“Then I count myself most fortunate.” Joanna pirouetted on her heel and ran across to the starboard side of the ship, gripping the rail in her hands.

“I had no notion it would be so warm,” she called to him over her shoulder.

Alex laughed. Merryn, he thought, would have been quizzing him about weather patterns, average temperatures and barometric-pressure readings. Joanna, in contrast, seemed quite happy to take at face value the fact that today it was relatively warm for the Arctic. She had no intellectual curiosity, unlike her sister.

“It will probably be snowing in an hour,” he said.

Joanna looked at him dubiously. “Truly?”

“Possibly.” Alex raised a shoulder in a shrug. “Predicting the weather is not an exact science, particularly here where matters can change dramatically in the space of a half hour.”

“Oh, well…” Joanna smiled at him, an open and uncomplicated smile this time. “I shall simply have to enjoy this for as long as it lasts, then.”

It was not, Alex realized with surprise, a bad philosophy. Perhaps, he thought, there was something to be said for living in the moment after all.

Joanna walked across the deck again, turning slowly to take in all aspects of the view. The sky was a perfect clear blue, the color of a duck egg.

“There is no smoke here to obscure the view,” she said, “not like the London fogs. It is so light it almost hurts my eyes and the air is so clear and fresh it cuts like a knife. Everything sparkles!” There was an expression of astonishment on her face as she took in the jagged peaks of the mountains cut by glacier streams and the long white folds of snow on their flanks, as pale and soft as a blanket.

“So much snow,” she whispered, “and so white it is
almost blue… I have never seen anything like it, not even when I was a child in the country and it snowed every winter.”

She spun away from Alex again as though she could not keep still. “Where are the icebergs?” she demanded.

“There are no icebergs here,” Alex said. “They do not form in the same way that they do to the northwest. No one knows why.”

Joanna pouted with disappointment. “No icebergs? But there must be sea ice.”

“Farther to the north,” Alex said.

Her face lit up. “Oh, I would love to see it!”

“Perhaps you will,” Alex said. “A ship from the Greenland fisheries came alongside this morning and told us the ice stretches a long way south this summer.” He came to stand beside her at the rail. Her eyes were alight with excitement and so blue that they seemed to reflect the sky.

“I have never seen anywhere so empty,” she whispered. She turned to him spontaneously. “It is very beautiful.”

Alex felt his heart leap. He looked down into her face, so vivid and excited, more animated than he had ever seen her.

“Do you truly think so?” he said.

“Oh, yes…” He saw her shiver and wrap her arms about herself like a child hugging a treat to its heart. “I had no idea. I thought it would be dark and cold and miserable, or foggy and wet and miserable, or simply miserable.” She was laughing.

“It can be every one of those things,” Alex said.

“I suppose so.” The sparkle did not die from her eyes. “But on a day like this it is enchanted.”

“And yet you hate the countryside in England,” Alex said.

Joanna laughed. “So I do. I am very fickle.”

They looked at one another for a long, long moment and Alex felt something warm unfurl inside him. “You are full of surprises, Joanna,” he said slowly. “I thought that you would hate it here.”

“I thought that I would, too,” Joanna said. “I probably shall when it rains. And I detest the cold. But for now it is like paradise.” She tilted her head to look at him. “I wondered why you became an explorer.” Her voice was soft. “You said once that you felt a compulsion to travel and I did not understand it, but now…” She placed a hand on the rail and looked out across the water. “It is as though there is something out there, something hidden that calls to you and draws you on, and it gives you no rest…”

Alex felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Never in his life had anyone put into words the passion and the elemental mystery that he felt as an adventurer in distant lands. And now this woman, who did not share his passion, whom he would have sworn had absolutely no depth to her character, had spelled out more precisely than he could have done himself exactly how he felt… He had never shared such ideas with anyone, never spoken of them to Amelia or even to Ware and the others he had traveled with. They were locked inside him, a secret, the essence of his soul.

He stared at Joanna and her eyes widened in bewilderment to see the passion in his.

“That is it precisely,” he said. He realized that his voice was a little rough. “That is exactly how I feel.”

“Then I am sorry for it,” Joanna said, turning away, “for I imagine it gives you no peace.”

“But how did you know?” Alex put a hand out and caught hers. He felt disturbed, vulnerable in some odd way that he could not place, as though she had seen too much. “Did Ware tell you?”