JMcNaught - Something Wonderful (14 page)

With an audible sigh, Alexandra accepted the fact that the Duke of Hawthorne didn't need her to look after his needs in the way ordinary country-bred wives looked after their husbands'. Even so, she couldn't help conjuring up a wonderful vision of herself, seated across from him in a chair before the fire, her fingers nimbly adding stitches to one of his snowy white shirts. Wistfully, she imagined the look of gratitude and pleasure on his ruggedly handsome face as he watched her mend his shirt How grateful he would be…

A smothered laugh escaped her as she reconsidered her utter lack of talent with a needle. If she didn't prick her finger and bleed all over his shirt, she would surely sew the armhole closed or something equally disastrous. The picture of cozy marital bliss faded and her expression became determined.

Every instinct she possessed told her that the duke was a highly complex man, and she hated her youthful inexperience. On the other hand, she was not a featherbrain, despite the fact that his grace seemed to regard her as an amusing child. When necessary, she could draw on a wealth of common sense and practicality. Hadn't she managed to hold her household together from the time she was fourteen?

Now she had a new challenge ahead of her. She needed to make herself fit to be the Duke of Hawthorne's wife. His grandmother had already, in the last several days, made a hundred critical remarks about Alexandra's manners and mannerisms, and although Alex had bridled over what seemed to her be an excessive emphasis on superficial matters of conduct and convention, she secretly intended to learn everything she needed to know. She would make certain her husband never had reason to be ashamed of her.

My husband
, Alexandra thought as she snuggled down into the pillows. That huge, handsome, elegant aristocrat was going to be her husband…

«
^
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L
ounging in a
big wingback chair the next morning, Anthony studied his cousin with a combination of admiration and disbelief. "Hawk," he chuckled, "I swear to God, what everyone says about you is true—you
don't
have a nerve in your entire body. This is your wedding day, and
I'm
more nervous about it than you are."

Partially dressed in a frilled white shirt, black trousers, and a silver-brocade waistcoat, Jordan was simultaneously carrying on a last-minute meeting with his grandmother's estate manager and pacing slowly back and forth across his bedchamber, glancing over a report on one of his business ventures. One step behind him, his beleaguered valet followed doggedly in his wake, smoothing a tiny wrinkle from his finely tailored shirt and brushing microscopic specks of lint from the legs of his trousers.

"Hold still, Jordan," Tony said, laughing with sympathy for the valet. "Poor Mathison is going to drop dead in his tracks from exhaustion."

"Hmm?" Jordan paused to glance inquiringly at Tony, and the stalwart valet seized his chance, snatched up a splendidly tailored black jacket, and held it up so Jordan had little choice but to slide his arms into the sleeves.

"Do you mind telling me how you can be so damned nonchalant about your own marriage? You
are
aware that you're getting married in fifteen minutes, aren't you?"

Dismissing the estate manager with a nod, Jordan laid aside the report he was reading, and finally shrugged into the jacket Mathison was still holding out to him, then he turned to the mirror and ran a hand over his jaw to verify the closeness of his shave. "I don't think of it as getting married," he said dryly. "I think of it as adopting a child."

Anthony smiled at the joke and Jordan continued more seriously, "Alexandra will make no demands on my life, nor will my marriage to her require any real changes. After stopping in London to see Elise, I'll take Alexandra down to Portsmouth and we'll sail along the coast so that I can see how the new passenger ship we've designed handles, then I'll drop her off at my house in Devon. She'll like Devon. The house there isn't so large as to completely overwhelm her. Naturally, I'll return there to see her from time to time."

"Naturally," Anthony said wryly.

Without bothering to answer that, Jordan picked up the report he'd been reading and continued scanning it.

"Your beauteous ballerina is not going to like this, Hawk," Tony put in after a few minutes.

"She'll be reasonable," Jordan said absently.

"So!" the duchess said tautly, sweeping into the room wearing an elegant brown satin gown trimmed in cream lace. "You truly mean to go through with this mockery of a marriage. You actually intend to try to pass that countrified chit off on Society as a young lady of breeding and culture."

"On the contrary," Jordan said blandly. "I mean to install her in Devon and leave the last part of that to
you
. There's no rush, however. Take a year or two to teach her what she needs to know in order to take her place as my duchess."

"I couldn't accomplish that feat in a
decade,"
his grandmother snapped.

Until then, he had tolerated her objections without rancor, but that remark seemed to push him too far, and his voice took on the cutting edge that intimidated servants and socialites alike. "How difficult can it be to teach an intelligent girl to act like a vapid, vain henwit!"

The indomitable old woman maintained her stony dignity, but she studied her grandson's steely features with something akin to surprise. "That is how you see females of your own class, then? Vapid and vain?"

"No," Jordan said curtly. "That is how I see them when they are Alexandra's age. Later, most of them become much less appealing."

Like your mother
, she thought.

Like my mother
, he thought.

"That is not true of all females."

"No," Jordan agreed without conviction or interest. "Possibly not."

The grooming and dressing preparations for her wedding had taken Alexandra and two maids three hours. The wedding took less than ten minutes.

An hour later, self-consciously holding a crystal glass of bubbling golden champagne in her hand, Alexandra stood alone with her groom in the center of the huge blue and gold salon, as Jordan poured champagne for himself.

Despite her determination to ignore it, her wedding had a distinct aura of unreality, of strain. Her mother and Uncle Monty had attended and been barely tolerated by the duke and his grandmother, even though Uncle Monty was on his very best behavior and had scrupulously refrained from eyeing the derrière of any female in the room, even the duchess'. Lord Anthony Townsende and Mary Ellen had also been here, but now everyone was already on the way home.

Surrounded by the stifling elegance of the gilt salon and garbed in Jordan's mother's fabulous wedding gown of ivory satin encrusted with pearls, Alex felt more like an interloper than she had at any time since coming to Rosemeade. The feeling that she was a trespasser, who had invaded a world where she was no more welcome than her relatives, was nearly choking her.

It was odd that she felt so insecure and uneasy now, Alexandra mused, for she was wearing a gown more glorious than any she had ever imagined, and she looked far prettier than she had ever believed she could. Craddock, the duchess' dresser, had personally supervised Alexandra's toilette this morning. Under her exacting ministrations, Alexandra's riotous curls had been brushed until they gleamed, then swept into a mass at the crown and held in place at the sides with a beautiful pair of pearl combs that matched the pearls at her small ears.

Alexandra had looked at her reflection in the full-length mirror in her room and been privately overjoyed. Even Craddock had stood back and announced that she looked "very well indeed, considering—" But Jordan had said nothing about her appearance. He had smiled reassuringly at her when Uncle Monty placed her hand in his, and that had been enough to sustain her during the hour since the ceremony had taken place. Now, however, they were alone together as husband and wife for the first time, and the only sound was that of servants carrying their heavy trunks down the stairs and out to the traveling chaise, where they were being loaded for the wedding journey.

Uncertain of what to do with the champagne, Alexandra chose the path of least resistance and drank some of it, then she put it down on an elaborately carved gilt table.

When she turned, Jordan was studying her as if seeing her for the first time. Not once all morning had he commented on her appearance, but now, as his gaze drifted from the top of her shining hair to the hem of her gleaming satin gown, she sensed that he was finally going to comment, and she held her breath expectantly.

"You're taller than I originally thought."

The unexpected observation, added to his genuinely puzzled expression, wrung a startled laugh from Alexandra. "I don't think I've grown more than a few inches in the last week."

He smiled absently at her quip and then continued thoughtfully, "In the beginning, I mistook you for a boy, and you would be small for a boy."

Determined to inject gaiety into their relationship at every possible opportunity from this day forward, Alexandra said teasingly, "I am not, however, a boy."

Despite his intention to treat her impersonally after yesterday's kiss, Jordan was not proof against her sunny, entrancing smile. It even dispelled the gloom of his marriage ceremony from his heart. "You are not a boy," he agreed, smiling back at her. "Nor are you a young girl exactly. But then, neither are you a woman."

"I seem to be at an awkward age, don't I?" she agreed, her eyes aglow with gentle mockery of his fixation with her age.

"Evidently," he chuckled. "How do you describe a young lady who is not quite eighteen?"

"I am already eighteen," Alexandra said seriously. "Today is my birthday."

"I had no idea today was your birthday," he said, truly apologetic. "I'll buy you a present on our trip. What do girls your age like?"

"We like not to be constantly reminded of our extreme youth," Alexandra said lightly, but with a meaningful look.

Jordan's sharp bark of laughter echoed throughout the salon. "God, you have a quick wit. Amazing in one so youn—so pretty," he corrected swiftly. "I apologize once again—for teasing you about your age
and
for forgetting the matter of a present."

"I greatly fear that, like it or not,
you
were my birthday present."

"What a way to phrase it," he chuckled.

Alexandra glanced at the clock; it was less than a half hour before Jordan had said he wished to be off for their ship. "I'd better go upstairs and change my gown," she said.

"Where has my grandmother gone?" he asked as she started to leave.

"I believe she has taken to her bed, prostrate with grief over your unfortunate marriage," Alexandra said with a lame attempt at humor. More seriously, she added, "Will she be all right, do you think?"

"It would take more than our marriage to send her to her couch calling for her hartshorn," Jordan said with what sounded very much like fondness and admiration. "My grandmother could take on Napoleon himself and emerge victorious from the encounter. When she was through with him, he'd be plumping up her pillows and begging her pardon for his bad manners in making war on us. A little thing like my 'unfortunate marriage' won't send her into a decline, believe me. And now that you bear my name, she will flay anyone alive who dares to cast aspersions on you."

A half hour later, clad in the cherry traveling costume the dressmakers had designed for her, Alexandra climbed into a shiny black-lacquered coach with Jordan's ducal seal emblazoned in silver upon the door, and settled back against incredibly luxurious grey velvet squabs. The coachman put up the stairs and closed the door, and with scarcely any sensation of motion, the well-sprung traveling chaise glided down the long drive behind four prancing bays, escorted by six liveried outriders.

Alexandra glanced about her, admiring the heavy silver handles at the doors and the crystal-and-silver lamps. Luxuriating in the unexpected comfort of the spacious conveyance, she tried to believe she was really married, really leaving on her wedding trip. Across from her, Jordan stretched his legs out, crossed them at the ankles, and stared out the window, lapsing into a comfortable silence.

He had changed for the trip, and Alex quietly admired the way his tight-fitting biscuit breeches and shiny brown boots emphasized his long, muscular legs. His cream shirt was open at the neck, displaying a glimpse of tanned throat, and his coffee-colored jacket set off his powerful shoulders to wonderful advantage. She uttered a silent prayer that someday he might find her as pleasing to look at as she found him, then she decided that some form of pleasant conversation might be in order.

"Your mother's wedding gown was very beautiful," she ventured softly. "I was worried that some harm might come to it, but nothing happened."

He flicked a glance in her direction. "You needn't have worried," he said dryly. "I'm certain you are far more worthy of that symbol of chaste purity than my mother was when she wore it."