JMcNaught - Something Wonderful (20 page)

"Shall I play lady's maid?" Jordan asked. Without waiting for her to answer, he turned her around and began unfastening the long row of rose-silk-covered buttons down her back.

"Is this boat swaying?" Alexandra asked, grabbing for the small oaken table beside her.

Jordan's chuckle was rich and deep. "This is a ship, not a 'boat' and
you
are doing the swaying, my sweet—the result, I fear, of a shocking overindulgence in wine at supper."

"The captain was so determined I try each one," she protested. "He's very nice," she added, rather pleased with the world in general.

"You won't think so when you wake up in the morning," Jordan teased.

He obligingly turned his back while she changed, then he tucked her into their bed, drawing up the sheets to her chin.

"My lord," she asked, "aren't you coming to bed?" Alexandra wished devoutly that she wasn't required to address him always as "your grace" or "my lord," but the dowager duchess had lectured her very sternly that she must address him thus, unless and until her husband gave her permission to do otherwise. Which he hadn't.

"I'm going up on deck for a little while to get some air," he said, stopping to take his pistol out of his other jacket and tuck it in the waistband of his dark-blue trousers.

Alexandra was fast asleep before Jordan had finished walking down the narrow passageway toward the steps that led to the upper deck.

At the railing, Jordan reached into his pocket and took out one of the slender cheroots he usually enjoyed after supper. Cupping his hands around the tip, he lit it, then he stood looking out across the Channel, contemplating the highly complex problem of Alexandra. After years of associating with sophisticated, mercenary, shallow women—and of condemning the entire sex on the basis of those women—he had married a girl who was artless, candid, intelligent, and generous.

And he didn't know what to do with her.

Alexandra had some foolish, quixotic notion that he was noble and gentle and "beautiful." When, as he well knew, he was jaded, disillusioned, and morally corrupt. In his brief life, he'd already killed too many men to count and bedded more women than he could possibly recall.

Alexandra believed in openness, trust, and love—and she fully intended to try to make
him
participate in her beliefs. He wanted nothing to do with openness, trust, or love.

She was a gentle dreamer, he was a hard realist.

She was, in fact, such a dreamer that she actually believed "something wonderful" was going to happen—which wasn't that surprising, since she also believed wet dirt in the springtime smelled like perfume…

Alexandra wanted to make him see the world as she saw it—fresh and alive and unspoiled, but it was too late for that. All he could do was to try to keep the world that way for her for as long as possible. But he would not share her imaginary world with her. He didn't want to. He didn't belong there. At Devon she would be safe from the corrosive effects of Society, safe from the dissipations and brittle sophistication of his world—the world where he was comfortable—where he was not expected to
feel
things like love; where he wasn't expected to trust, or to reveal his inner thoughts and feelings…

He dreaded the hurt he knew he'd see on her face when she realized he did not intend to stay in Devon with her, but that he would not do. Could not do.

In front of him, the Channel stretched for as far as he could see, its inky surface swept by a giant yellow moonbeam. Irritably, Jordan flicked his cheroot over the side, then he remembered it was his only one. He'd left the flat gold case with the others in it at Elise's house in London the night before last.

Restless from days of enforced confinement in the coach and from trying unsuccessfully to find a better solution to the problem of Alexandra, he turned from the rail and glanced along the wharf, where light spilled out from taverns and inebriated sailors staggered along, their arms flung over the shoulders of the whores who walked at their sides.

Less than four yards away, two men darted swiftly into the shadows of the ship and crouched down among the coiled ropes out of his sight.

Hoping to buy a few cigars in the tavern across the wharf, Jordan strolled across the deck and headed for the gangplank. Two shadows emerged from the ropes and followed him, hanging back, watching.

Jordan was aware that the wharf was a dangerous place to be at night, particularly with impressment gangs ranging about, pouncing upon the unwary and loading their unconscious victims onto His Majesty's warships, where they woke up to discover they had the "honor" of becoming seamen for months or years—until such time as the ship returned to port. On the other hand, Jordan was armed, all he saw on the wharf were drunken seamen, and, after surviving years of bloody battles all over Spain, he saw little to fear from the few yards of wharf that separated him from the tavern.

"Stay back, yer fool—let 'im get to th' wharf," one of the shadows whispered to the other as they moved silently down the gangplank in Jordan's wake.

"What the bloody hell are we waitin' for," the second shadow demanded of his cohort as they waited in the darkness under the eaves of the tavern, where their prey had disappeared. "We was supposed ter hit him over the head and dump him into the water, which we coulda done better while he was on the ship."

The first man smiled sardonically. "I got a better idea—it ain't more work, and it'll get us more blunt."

Jordan emerged from the tavern with three fat, unappealing cigars stuck in the inside pocket of his coat. Now that he had them, he doubted he'd want to light them. Behind him, shadows shifted suddenly, a board creaked, and Jordan tensed. Without changing his pace, he reached inside his coat for the pistol, but before his hand ever touched it, his skull had already exploded into shards of agonizing pain, sending him sliding into a black tunnel of oblivion. And then he was floating, drifting, moving toward a welcoming light at the end of the tunnel that seemed to beckon him.

Alexandra awoke at dawn to the shouts of seamen moving above her, getting the ship ready to put out to sea. Despite the fact that her head felt as if it was stuffed with wool, she was still eager to be up on deck when the lines were cast off and the ship set sail. Her husband must have had a similar idea in mind, she thought as she pulled on a fresh gown and wrapped herself in a matching cloak of soft lavender wool. He had already arisen and left the cabin.

A band of grey and pink was streaking the horizon when Alexandra arrived on deck. Seamen hurried about their tasks, sidestepping her as they uncoiled ropes and scrambled up the rigging. In front of her, the first mate stood with his feet braced wide apart, his back to her, calling out orders to the men climbing the masts. She looked about for her husband, but she seemed to be the only passenger on deck. At supper last night, she'd heard Jordan tell Captain Farraday that he always enjoyed being on deck when the lines were cast off and the ship set sail. Picking up her skirts, Alexandra walked over to the captain as he came on deck. "Captain Farraday, by any chance have you seen my husband?"

Seeing the impatience on his face, she quickly explained her reason for detaining him. "He isn't in our cabin and he's not on deck. Is there anywhere else on this ship he might be?"

"It's not likely, your grace," he said absently, his gaze on the lightening sky, assessing the amount of time before it was fully dawn. "Now, if you'll excuse me—"

Puzzled, trying to ignore the tingles of alarm dancing up and down her spine, Alexandra went down to their cabin and stood in the center of it, looking uncertainly about. Deciding Jordan had probably gone for a stroll on the docks, she walked over and picked up the tan coat he'd tossed over the back of the chair after they boarded the ship last night. Carrying it over to the wardrobe to hang it inside, she rubbed her cheek against the soft superfine fabric, inhaling the faint scent of Jordan's spicy cologne, then she put it away. He was accustomed to having a valet picking up after him, she realized with a fond smile, as she reached for his tan trousers and took them to the wardrobe. Turning, she looked for the dark blue coat he'd been wearing when he went up on deck late last night. The blue coat was nowhere in the cabin; neither was the rest of the clothing he'd had on last night when she last saw him.

Captain Farraday sympathized with her concern, but he did not intend to let the tide go out without his ship, and he said so. A terrible premonition of calamity was raging through Alexandra, making her tremble, but she knew instinctively that pleading would have no effect on the man in front of her. "Captain Farraday," she said, drawing herself up and speaking in what she hoped was a good imitation of Jordan's grandmother's imperious voice, "if my husband is lying injured somewhere on this ship, the blame will be on your head, not only for his injury, but for putting out to sea instead of getting him off this ship and into the hands of a proper doctor. Furthermore," she said, struggling to keep her voice from shaking, "unless I misunderstood what my husband told me yesterday, he
owns
part of the company that owns this ship."

«
^
»

I
n full-dress uniform
, Captain Farraday and his first mate stood at military attention on the deserted deck of the impounded
Fair Winds
, watching the black traveling chaise draw to a stop directly in front of their gangplank. "
That's
her?" the first mate said in disbelief, staring at the slender, ramrod-straight figure who was walking slowly up the gangplank, her hand on the arm of Sir George Bradburn, one of the most influential men in the Admiralty. "You mean to tell me that white-haired old woman has enough influence to make the Minister impound our ship and have both of us quarantined on it? Just so she can get here and listen to what we have to say?"

Alexandra jumped up at the sound of the knock upon her cabin door, her heart hammering with fear and hope as it had for the last five days, whenever there was a sound outside, but it was not the duke who stood in her doorway; it was his grandmother whom she hadn't seen since her wedding day. "Has there been any word?" Alexandra whispered desperately, too distraught to greet the woman.

"The captain and first mate know nothing," her grace said shortly. "Come with me."

"No!" Teetering on the brink of hysteria, where she had hovered for more than two days and nights, Alexandra shook her head wildly and backed away. "He'd want me to stay—"

The duchess drew herself up and regarded the pale, stricken girl down the full length of her aristocratic nose. "My grandson," she said in her coldest voice, "would expect you to behave with the dignity and self-control that befits his wife, the Duchess of Hawthorne."

The words hit Alexandra like a slap in the face—and with the same result—bringing her back to her senses. Her husband
would
expect that of her. Fighting for control of her Wild panic, Alexandra picked up the puppy, straightened her spine, and walked woodenly beside the duchess and Sir George Bradburn to the coach, but when the coachman took her elbow to help her inside, Alexandra drew back sharply, her eyes making one last, frantic search of the fronts of the taverns and warehouses lining the bustling wharf. Her husband was here somewhere. Sick or hurt. He had to be… Her mind refused to consider any possibility beyond that.

Hours later, the coach slowed, making its decorous way through the London streets, and Alexandra shifted her bleak gaze from the window to the duchess, who was seated across from, her back rigidly erect, her face so cold and emotionless that Alexandra wondered if the woman was capable of feeling anything. In the tomblike silence of the coach, Alexandra's hoarse whisper sounded like a shout. "Where are we going?"

After a deliberate, prolonged pause that made it eloquently clear the dowager resented having to explain her intentions to Alexandra, she said coldly, "To my town house. Ramsey will have already arrived there with a small staff who will keep the shades drawn and inform any callers that we are at Rosemeade. News of my grandson's disappearance is all over the papers, and I have no wish to be badgered by callers and curiosity seekers."

The duchess' brusque tone evidently evoked a pang of sympathy in the Minister, Bradburn, because he broke his own silence for the first time and tried to reassure her: "We are moving heaven and earth to discover what has happened to Hawthorne," he said gently. "Bow Street has a hundred men scouring the wharves, making official inquiries, and the Hawthorne family solicitors have employed another hundred investigators with instructions to use any means whatsoever to obtain information on their own. No demand for ransom has been received, so we do not think he was abducted for that purpose."

Stifling the tears that she knew the old duchess would despise, Alexandra made herself ask a question she feared to have answered: "What are the chances of finding him—?" Her voice trailed off. She could not say the word "alive."

"I—" He hesitated. "I don't know."

His tone implied the chances were not extremely good, and Alexandra's eyes blurred with scalding tears that she concealed by laying her cheek against Henry's soft fur while she swallowed against the painful knot of misery congealing in her throat.