Kitabı oku: «Sins and Scandals Collection», sayfa 26

Alex’s dark gaze was hooded. “You damn near did.”

“Which is why I do not intend to see you ever again,” Joanna said.

The temperature in the room fell as swiftly as though a door had opened to allow in the coldest winter night.

“You will see plenty of me,” Alex said. “I fully intend to be on that ship.”

“I don’t want you there,” Joanna said, holding fast to her temper.

“Your wishes count for nothing in this,” Alex said. “I cannot in all conscience as Nina’s guardian allow you to wander into danger through your own stupidity.”

Joanna gritted her teeth. “How arrogant you are! I do not need a hero to protect me. I can think of nothing worse.”

She broke from his grip, grabbed her cloak and bonnet from the chair and flung open the door.

“Brooke,” she said, throwing Alex a defiant look. “Lord Grant is leaving.”

“My lord.” The prizefighter bowed to Alex with an exquisite courtesy that barely masked his hostility and stood to one side to allow Alex to exit. Alex ignored him. He took Joanna’s hand and pressed a kiss on it. She felt the brush of his lips on her skin and repressed the response that flared through her.

Brooke rocked back on his heels, spoiling for a fight. “My lady?” he said, but Joanna shook her head. Alex stood back courteously for her to pass and they went out.

In the street the night was dark and hot. The pugilist club members were spilling out of the inn now that the bout was over, raucous and full of ale and good humor with the money they had won. When they saw Joanna, a ragged cheer broke over the crowd. They surrounded her, pressing close, bowing, wanting to kiss her hand. She saw Alex watching, his expression darkly disapproving in the glow of the lamplight and she felt reckless and defiant and blew kisses to all her admirers. The riotous mood of the crowd swelled; Alex’s frown correspondingly deepened. Two pinks of the ton made an elaborate leg to Joanna, competing to quote sonnets in her praise whilst the more disorderly elements in the throng booed so loudly that Joanna felt obliged to intervene before there was a breach of the peace.

“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.

Chapter 7

THE 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.”

ALEX 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.”

“Thank you, sir,” Alex said. “That is exactly what I was hoping.”

“Rum business about David Ware’s sideslip,” Bickerton said, rubbing his chin doubtfully. “You do realize that the story will be all round the ton within the hour? It’ll be the on dit in every ballroom in London. Yorke will lose no time in turning it to his advantage.” He looked at Alex. “Dashed bad form of Ware to leave Lady Joanna in such a situation. I’m surprised at him.”

“Indeed,” Alex agreed.

“What does Lady Joanna think of your plan to escort her to Spitsbergen?” Bickerton pursued.

“She does not wish for my escort,” Alex said, “but now she will have no choice in the matter.”

Bickerton pursed his lips on a soundless whistle. “Well, rather you than me, Grant. I would not choose to incur Lady Joanna’s disapproval.” He frowned. “Mind you, I do not think this escapade of hers will play well in society. All very well for you to go off to the Arctic on some mission of mercy-you’re a damned explorer, a hero, it’s what you do! But for a woman alone, a widow, to go to the ends of the earth to rescue her husband’s bastard child.” He shook his head. “Some will consider it eccentric and others a downright disgrace.”

Alex drove his hands into his pockets. “Lady Joanna is stubborn,” he said. “She will not change her mind about going.”

“Then it is good that she has you to protect her,” Bickerton said gruffly. “Damned fine woman. Plenty of mettle.”

“So everyone keeps telling me,” Alex said. He hesitated. “Did you know David Ware, sir?”

Bickerton gave him a shrewd look from his blue eyes. “Not well,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

“I wondered what you thought of him,” Alex admitted. He was not really sure why he was asking. Perhaps, he thought wryly, he wanted to reassure himself that David Ware had been a good man so that the disloyal doubts that he was starting to harbor could be put to flight.

“Splendid fellow, by all accounts,” Bickerton said. “Absolute hero, which makes this business with the bastard brat all the more surprising. But then—” He shrugged. “Great men must be allowed their weaknesses and Ware’s was most certainly women.”

He shook Alex’s hand and went back inside Somerset House, and Alex walked along the Strand, and turned down Adam Street toward the Thames. The fresh breeze from the river was cold and clean and cutting even in the warmth of a London spring. Alex watched the ships on the river and felt relief and pleasure to be out in the open air and to have escaped the gilded trap the Admiralty had prepared for him. He wondered what would happen when Lady Joanna Ware learned that he had set himself up as Nina’s savior, the dashing explorer who had selflessly offered to travel back to Spitsbergen to rescue Ware’s baby daughter. Bickerton was right; Yorke would milk this for all it was worth and use it to boost both Alex’s popularity and that of the navy itself.

Alex’s lips twisted into a parody of a smile. He had done it to save himself from the disaster of the Admiralty grounding him in London. He had done it out of a need to escape the impossible, unbearable role of celebrity explorer, lionized by society, fawned over by the Prince Regent himself.

He knew that Lady Joanna Ware would despise him for using her.

IT WAS A PERFECT AFTERNOON for a drive in Hyde Park.

“Shopping is such an exhausting business.” Lottie sighed, flinging herself back in abandoned pose on the plush green cushions of her landau and smiling flirtatiously at the footmen in their livery. “I would go home to rest before the ball tonight were it not for the fact that I simply cannot miss being here to see and be seen!” A tiny frown marred her brow as she looked from them to Joanna, who was sitting opposite her, a frothy pink parasol tilted against the sun. “Darling Joanna, are you sure I cannot buy your twin footmen from you? These two are all very fine, but they do not look the same and I have asked and asked at the employment agency but they cannot seem to find twins for me.” Her mouth turned down at the corners. “It is most disappointing.”

“I am sorry, Lottie,” Joanna said, smiling. “I don’t want to sell. It gives me too much pleasure to excite so much envy over them!”

“Oh, well, I can understand that.” Lottie pouted. She smoothed her fingers over the heraldic embroidery on the hammer cloth. “I thought I might try to persuade you, for what else is there for me to do in life? You know that I live to spend!”

Joanna sighed. She knew that Lottie was bored, bored by her life in the ton with its emptiness and extravagance, bored with the entertainments and events even as she grasped greedily after some new experience to fulfill her. Joanna loved the social whirl of the season-it was familiar, distracting, safe in some odd way because it occupied her and kept her thoughts from dwelling too much on the failure of her marriage and her failure to have a family of her own-but deep down she also knew that life in the ton was shallow and empty. Unlike Lottie, though, she had her work, her drawings and designs. Alex Grant might disparage them, but they gave her a purpose as well as an income. Though whether she would still have a clientele when she returned from Spitsbergen remained to be seen. Already that morning she had had to tell Lady Ansell that the redecoration of her dining room would be delayed by at least six months. Her ladyship had not been pleased and had scurried away to complain to her bosom bows in the ton.

“My dears!” Lady O’Hara, an inveterate society gossip, brought her barouche alongside them. “I have just heard the news!” She put one gloved hand on the edge of Lottie’s landau in a confiding gesture. “How noble you are, Lady Joanna, how truly courageous to rescue your husband’s bastard child and bring her home!” She leaned closer to Jo, her gray eyes sharp and not in the least friendly. “Of course, it is difficult to travel abroad-especially to so far-flung a place as the Pole-and to maintain your reputation as a lady of quality.”

“I shall do my poor best,” Joanna said. She glanced at Lottie. “Word has spread fast,” she added dryly. “I only heard the news of David’s daughter myself yesterday morning.”

“Well, you cannot blame me,” Lottie said with a toss of the head. “You have been shopping in my company the entire day today, so you know I have not had the chance to gossip about you! More is the pity,” she added, “for I love to be first with the on dit and I see I have been pipped to the post now. Perhaps the servants were listening at the keyhole when we talked yesterday, or Mr. Jackman has passed on word that we have ordered very special Esquimaux boots for our trip—”

Lady O’Hara, whose carriage was now being jostled out of the way by those of Mrs. Milton and Lord and Lady Ayres, gave a little shriek. “Esquimaux boots? Oh, how marvelous! They will be all the rage this winter!”

“How gratifying it will be to bring them into fashion,” Joanna agreed, “for they are the most elegantly cozy footwear imaginable.”

“I shall tell everyone to order some,” Lady O’Hara promised.

Lottie’s dark eyes were sparkling as she looked around the park. “No wonder there is such a crush today,” she said. “Evidently we are the talk of the town, Jo darling! How splendid this is!”

“I am not sure that everyone approves,” Joanna murmured. A little shiver ran down her spine as she remembered Lottie’s prophetic words the day before:

“You are the darling of society, but I wonder if even you can carry this off … Think of the whispers of scandal …”

How infuriating it was that the qualities of daredevil risk taking, of adventure and exploration, were lauded in men like Alex Grant and yet were considered utterly unbecoming in a woman.

“Lady Joanna!” Now it was Lord Ayres hailing them. He was a thin, dyspeptic man who looked as though he spent his life disapproving of things. “Surely the gossip cannot be true,” he said plaintively. “Curiosity about travel is a most ill-bred trait in a woman.”