JMcNaught - Something Wonderful (21 page)

For four endless days, Alexandra existed in the same house with the duchess, who persistently treated her as if she were invisible, neither speaking to her nor looking at her. On the fifth day, Alexandra was standing at the window of her bedchamber when she saw Sir George leaving the house. Too agitated to wait for a summons, she raced downstairs to the salon and burst in on the duchess. "I saw the Minister leaving. What did he say?"

The duchess glared her displeasure at Alexandra's peremptory entrance into the room. "Sir George's visits are of no concern to you," she coldly replied and turned her head away in rude dismissal.

Her words snapped the slender thread of control Alexandra had managed to keep on her emotions. Clenching her hands at her sides, she said in a voice shaking with frustration and fury, "Despite what you think, I am not a witless child, ma'am, and my husband is the most important person in the world to me now. You cannot,
must not
, keep information from me!"

When the duchess merely continued to regard her in stony silence, Alexandra switched to pleading. "It is so much kinder to tell me the truth than to hide it from me. I cannot bear not knowing—please don't do this to me. I won't embarrass you with hysterics… When my father died and my mother could not resume her life, I took over the running of our household at the age of fourteen. And when my grandfather died, I—"

"There is no news!" her grace snapped. "When news comes, I will see that you hear it."

"But it's been so long!" Alexandra burst out

The dowager's gaze raked over her, blazing with contempt. "You're quite a little actress, aren't you? However, you can stop worrying about your welfare. A marriage settlement was made between that mother of yours and my grandson, providing her with enough money to live in splendor for the rest of her days. She has more than enough to share with you."

Alexandra's mouth dropped open as she realized the duchess actually believed her concern was for her own future, instead of for her husband, who might even now be lying at the bottom of the English Channel.

Speechless with fury, Alexandra listened as the dowager scathingly finished: "Get out of my sight. I cannot abide your feigned concern over my grandson's well-being, not for another moment. You scarcely knew him, he was nothing to you."

"How
dare
you!" Alexandra cried. "How dare you sit there and say those things to me. You—you wouldn't understand how I feel about him, because
you
don't have any feelings! Even if you did, you're too—too
old
to remember what love is like!"

The duchess slowly arose, seeming to tower over Alexandra, but Alexandra was too hysterical, too enraged, to stop her mindless tirade: "You can't imagine what it was like for me to see him smile at me or to have him laugh with me. You can't know how it felt to look into his eyes—" A sob rose in Alexandra's throat and tears began pouring down her pale cheeks. "I don't want his money—I just want to be able to look into his eyes and to see him smile." To her horror, Alexandra's knees buckled and she sank to the floor, at the duchess' feet weeping. "I just want to see his beautiful eyes," she sobbed brokenly.

The duchess seemed to hesitate, then she turned on her heel and left the room, leaving Alexandra to weep out her grief and misery in lonely solitude. Ten minutes later, Ramsey entered the room bearing an ornate silver tea service. "Her grace said you were 'weak from hunger' and wishful of refreshment," he said.

Still on the floor with her arms on the settee and her face buried in them, Alexandra slowly raised her head and self-consciously brushed her tears away. "Please—take that away. I can't bear the sight of food."

Following the duchess' orders and ignoring Alexandra's request, Ramsey placed the unwanted tray on the table, then he straightened and, for the first time since Alexandra had met him, the servant looked uncertain and uneasy. "It is not my intent to gossip," he began stiffly after a pause, "but I am informed by Craddock, her grace's dresser, that her grace has scarcely eaten a meal in five days. A tray has just been brought to her in the small drawing room. Perhaps if you were to offer to dine with her, you could persuade her to eat."

"That woman doesn't need food," Alexandra gulped, listlessly getting up. "She isn't like mortal people."

Ramsey's chilly demeanor became positively glacial at the indirect criticism of his employer. "I have been with the Duchess of Hawthorne for forty years. My deep concern for her led me to presume incorrectly that you might also feel some concern for her, since you are now part of the family. I apologize for my error in judgment."

He bowed stiffly out of the room, leaving Alexandra feeling thoroughly obnoxious and completely bewildered. Ramsey was apparently devoted to the duchess, yet Alexandra well knew the duchess' attitude toward her servants: Twice at Rosemeade, she had sternly reprimanded Alexandra for "gossiping with the servants," when all Alexandra had done was ask Ramsey if he was married and a parlormaid if she had children. From the duchess' lofty view, talking to a servant consistituted gossiping with them, which in turn constituted treating them as equals—and that, Alexandra remembered from the duchess' blistering remarks, was
not done
. Despite all that, Ramsey was apparently devoted to her. Which meant there had to be more to the elderly woman than pride and hauteur, Alexandra decided.

That possibility led to another, and Alexandra gazed at the tea tray in blank confusion, wondering if the duchess could possibly have meant it as a "peace offering." Until five minutes ago, the duchess had never shown the slightest interest in whether Alexandra ate or not. On the other hand, the tray could just as easily have been intended as a sharp reminder to Alexandra to get control of herself.

Alexandra bit her lip as Ramsey's words rang ominously through her mind: Five days… the duchess had not eaten in five days. Alexandra had scarcely done so either, but she was young and healthy and strong. Alexandra's attitude softened yet more as it occurred to her that if the duchess had been unable to eat, she must be a great deal more distressed over her grandson's disappearance than she was letting on.

With a sigh of determination, Alexandra raked her hair back off her forehead and decided the tea tray had been intended as a peace offering. She did so because she could not endure the thought of a seventy-year-old woman wasting away.

Through the partially open door of the blue salon, Alexandra saw the duchess sitting in a high-backed chair, staring into the fire. Even in repose, the old woman presented a forbidding figure, yet there was something about her stiff, withdrawn features that reminded Alexandra poignantly of her own mother during the early days after her father's death, before the arrival of his other wife turned Mrs. Lawrence's grief to hatred.

She stepped softly into the room, throwing a shadow across the duchess' line of vision, and the old woman's head snapped up. Just as swiftly, she looked away—but not before Alexandra had glimpsed the suspicious sheen of tears in the duchess' pale eyes.

"Your grace?" Alexandra said softly as she stepped forward.

"I did not give you leave to interrupt me here," the woman snapped, but for once Alexandra was unfooled by that harsh voice.

In the same soothing tone she'd used with her mother, Alexandra said, "No, ma'am, you did not."

"Go away."

Deflated but determined, Alexandra said, "I shan't stay long, but I must apologize for the things I said to you a few minutes ago. They were unforgivable."

"I accept your apology. Now go away."

Ignoring the duchess' scathing glower, Alexandra walked forward. "I thought, since we both have to eat, it might be more tolerable if we shared a meal together. We—we could bear each other company."

Anger flared in the woman whose wishes were being ignored. "If. you want company, you should go home to your mother, as I suggested to you not fifteen minutes past!"

"I can't."

"Why not?" the old woman snapped.

"Because," Alexandra said in a suffocated whisper, "I need to be near someone else who loves him."

Naked, uncontrollable pain slashed across the old duchess' features before she brought herself under control, but in that instant, Alexandra saw the torment that lay beneath her facade of stiff dignity.

Aching with pity, yet careful not to show it, Alexandra hastily sat down in the chair across from the duchess and uncovered one of the trays. Her stomach churned at the sight of food, but she smiled brightly. "Would you like a slice of this nice chicken—or would you prefer the beef?"

The duchess hesitated, her eyes narrowed on Alexandra. "My grandson is still alive!" she stated, her expression daring Alexandra to deny it.

"Of course he is," Alexandra said fervently, aware she was being warned to get out if she doubted it. "I believe that with all my heart."

The duchess studied Alexandra's face, assessing her sincerity, then she gave a small, hesitant nod and said gruffly, "I suppose I could eat a bit of chicken."

They ate in complete silence broken only by the occasional crackle from the little fire burning in the grate. Not until Alexandra arose and bade her goodnight did the old woman speak, as for the first time she addressed Alexandra by her given name:

"Alexandra—" she whispered hoarsely.

Alexandra turned. "Yes, ma'am?"

"Do you…" The duchess drew a ragged, pain-edged breath. "Do you… pray?"

Tears swelled in Alexandra's throat and burned the backs of her eyes for, as she instantly realized, the proud old woman was not interested in her personal religious habits. She was
asking
Alexandra to pray.

Swallowing painfully, Alexandra nodded. "Very, very hard," she whispered.

For the next three days, Alexandra and the duchess kept a quiet vigil in the blue salon, their sentences desultory, their voices unnaturally hushed—two strangers with little in common except the unspeakable terror that bound them together.

On the afternoon of the third day, Alexandra asked the duchess if she had sent for Anthony, Lord Townsende.

"I sent word to him to join us here, but he was—" She broke off as Ramsey materialized in the doorway. "Yes, Ramsey?"

"Sir George Bradburn has arrived, your grace."

Alexandra leapt anxiously to her feet, scattering the embroidery the duchess had pressed on her, but when the distinguished, white-haired man walked into the room a moment later, she took one look at his carefully expressionless face, and her whole body began to vibrate with terror.

Beside her, the duchess evidently drew the same conclusion from his features, because her face became drained of color and she slowly arose, leaning heavily on the cane she'd been using since they came to Grosvenor Square. "You have news, George. What is it?"

"The investigators have ascertained that a man meeting Hawthorne's description was seen in a tavern on the wharf at approximately eleven on the night Hawthorne disappeared. With the assistance of a sizable bribe, the proprietor of the tavern also recalled that the man was unusually tall—well over six feet—and was dressed as a gentleman. The gentleman purchased several cigars and left. The tavern was located almost directly across the wharf from where the
Fair Winds
was docked and we are certain the man was Hawthorne."

Bradburn paused and said miserably, "Would you ladies not prefer to be seated while you hear this?"

His dire suggestion made Alexandra grasp the side of her chair for support, but she shook her head.

"Continue," the duchess ordered hoarsely.

"Two seamen aboard the
Falcon
, which was docked near the
Fair Winds
, witnessed a very tall, well-dressed man leaving the tavern, followed by two men who looked like ordinary rabble. The seamen aboard the
Falcon
were not paying particular attention, and they were already in their cups, but one of them thinks he saw the tall gentleman bludgeoned over the head by one of the rabble. The other seaman did not see that happen, but he did see the gentleman—whom he assumed had passed out from too much drink—being slung over one of the ruffians' shoulders and carried off down the wharf."

"And they didn't do anything to help him?" Alexandra cried.

"Neither seaman was in a condition to offer aid, nor were they of a mind to interfere in a scene that is, unfortunately, all too common on the docks."

"There's more, isn't there?" the duchess predicted, her eyes searching his grim face.

Sir George drew a long breath and slowly expelled it. "We've known all along that press gangs were very active on the night in question, and after further investigation, we discovered that one of the gangs purchased a man whose description was unmistakably that of Hawthorne. Believing he was passed out from drink, and finding no identification on him, they paid the rabble for Hawthorne and then delivered him on board one of His Majesty's warships—the
Lancaster. "

"Thank God!" Alexandra cried as joy exploded in her heart. Without thinking, she caught the duchess' icy hand in her own and squeezed it tightly. But Bradburn's next words sent Alexandra's spirit plummeting into the depths of hell. "Four days ago," he said grimly, "the
Lancaster
was engaged in battle by a French ship, the
Versailles
. Another of our ships, the
Carlisle
, was limping back to port under cover of the fog, crippled from an encounter with the Americans. Unable to go to the aid of his sister ship, the captain of the
Carlisle
witnessed the entire battle through his glass. When the battle was over, the
Versailles
was barely under sail…"