JMcNaught - Something Wonderful (30 page)

"Of course," the duchess repeated grimly, "and that is exactly my point. Today is
exactly
like all the others for nearly a month—suitors arriving in pairs and trios, jamming up traffic in the streets and cluttering up the salons downstairs, but Alexandra has no wish to wed, and she's made that clear to the lot of them. Even so, they keep parading into this house with bouquets in their hands, and marching back out of it with murder in their eyes."

"Now, Grandmama," Anthony soothed.

"Don't 'Now, Grandmama' me," she said, startling Anthony with her vehemence. "I may be old, but I am not a fool. I can see that something very unpleasant, very dangerous, is happening before my own eyes! Alexandra has come to represent some sort of challenge to your foolish sex. Once Alexandra discovered how Jordan had felt about her, and Carstairs took her under his wing, she began to change and shine almost overnight. When that happened, her connections to this family, along with the huge dowry you and I decided she should have, created a uniquely desirable package to any bachelor needful or wishful of acquiring a wife."

The duchess paused, waiting for an argument from her grandson, but Tony merely regarded her in noncommittal silence. "Had Alexandra shown the slightest partiality for one man, or even a preference for one
type
of man at that point," the duchess continued, "the others might have given up and gone away, but she did not. And that is what has brought us to the untenable pass for which I blame your
entire
sex."

"My sex?" he echoed blankly. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that when a
man
sees something that seems to be just beyond the grasp of other men, then of course
he
must try to grasp it to prove
he
can take it." She paused to glower accusingly at an amazed Anthony. "That is a nasty trait which males possess from the time of birth. Walk into any nursery and witness a male babe with his siblings. Whether they are older or younger than he, a male babe will try to snatch whatever toy everyone else is quarreling over. Not, of course, that he wants the toy, he merely wants to prove he can get it."

"Thank you, Grandmama," Anthony said dryly, "for that sweeping condemnation of half of the world's population."

"I am merely stating fact. You do not see
my
sex lining up to enter the lists whenever some silly contest is announced."

"True."

"And that is exactly what has happened here. More and more contestants, drawn by the challenge, have entered the lists to try and win Alexandra. It was bad enough when she was merely that—a challenge—but now she has become something worse, much worse."

"Which is?" Anthony said, but he was frowning at his grandmother's astute assessment of what had already become a very complex, trying situation.

"Alexandra has become a
prize,
" she said darkly. "She is now a prize to be won—or else taken—by the first male bold enough
and
clever enough to carry it off." Anthony opened his mouth, but she raised a bejeweled hand and waved his protest aside. "Do not bother to tell me it won't happen, because I already know it has: As I understand it, three days ago, Marbly proposed a short jaunt to Cadbury and Alexandra agreed to accompany him.

"One of her rejected suitors heard that Marbly had boasted of his intention to take her to his country seat in Wilton instead, and keep her there overnight. He carried the tale to you. You, I understand, caught up with Marbly and Alexandra an hour from here, before the Wilton turnoff, and brought her back, telling Marbly that I had requested her company—which was wise indeed of you. Had you demanded satisfaction, the scandal of a duel would have blackened Alexandra's reputation and compounded our problems tenfold."

"In any case," Tony put in, "Alexandra knew nothing of Marbly's intentions that day, nor does she now. I saw no reason to distress her. I asked her not to see him again, and she agreed."

"And what about Ridgely? What was he about, taking her off to a fair! All London is talking about it."

"Alexandra went to fairs as a child. She had no way of knowing she shouldn't go."

"Ridgely is purportedly a gentleman," the duchess snapped. "He knew better. What possessed him to take an innocent young lady to such a place!"

"You've just hit upon the rest of our problem," Anthony said wearily, rubbing the back of his neck. "Alexandra is a widow,
not
a maid. What few scruples 'gentlemen' possess rarely apply to their behavior with experienced women—particularly if the woman happens to dazzle them witless, which Alexandra does."

"I would hardly describe Alexandra as an experienced woman! She's barely a woman at all."

Despite the grimness of the problem, Anthony grinned at his grandmother's patently inept description of the intoxicating young beauty with the dazzling smile and stunning figure. His grin faded, however, as the problem again came to the fore. "This whole thing is so damn complicated because she is so young and yet she's already been married. If she had a husband now, as does the Countess of Camden, no one would blink an eye at her little larks. If she were older, Society would not expect her to live by the same rules that govern younger girls. If she were plain, then those suitors she's rejected out of hand would not be nearly so inclined to try to blacken her reputation out of spite and jealousy.

"Have they been doing that?"

"Only two or three of them, but they've been busy whispering in the right ears. You know as well as I how easily gossip stimulates gossip, and when it catches fire it begins to spread in every direction. Eventually, everyone hears enough of it to start believing there must be some truth in it."

"How bad is it?"

"Not bad, not yet. At this point, all her rejected suitors have accomplished is to cast an unsavory light on some tiny, harmless misadventures of hers."

"For example?"

Anthony shrugged. "Alexandra spent last weekend at Southeby, attending a party there. She and a certain gentleman made an engagement for an early ride and left the stables at about eight. They did not return until after dusk, and when they did come back, it was seen that Alexandra's clothing was torn and in disarray."

"Dear God!" the duchess expostulated, clutching at her heart in agitation.

Anthony grinned. "The gentleman was seventy-five years old and the vicar at Southeby. He had intended to show Alexandra the location of an old cemetery he'd discovered by chance the week before, so that she might admire some fascinating grave markers he'd seen there. Unfortunately, he could not remember its exact location, and by the time they found it several hours later, Alexandra was completely lost and the old gentleman was so exhausted from the exertion of riding that he was afraid to get back on his horse. Naturally, Alexandra could not have returned without him, even had she wanted to, which of course she didn't."

"What about her gown?"

"The hem of her riding habit was torn."

"Then the whole episode was too trifling to mention."

"Exactly, but the tale has been repeated and exaggerated so many times it's now become an instance of questionable conduct. The obvious solution is for us to employ some old dragon to act as Alexandra's chaperone wherever she goes, but if we do that—particularly in light of the recent gossip—everyone will think we don't trust her. Besides, it would spoil all the fun of her first Season for her."

"Rubbish!" the duchess said stoutly. "Alexandra is not having fun, and that is
precisely
why I asked you to attend me here. She is jaunting about hither, thither, and yon, flirting and smiling and wrapping men around her little finger for one reason only, and that is to prove to Jordan she can do it—to show him posthumously that she is beating him at his own game. If all her suitors dropped off the face of the earth, she wouldn't notice and, if she did, she wouldn't care a pin."

Anthony stiffened. "I'd scarcely call an innocent jaunt to a fair, or racing Jordan's horse in Hyde Park, or any of her other harmless little peccadilloes 'beating Jordan at his own game.' "

"Nevertheless," the duchess replied, refusing to be gainsaid, "that is what she is doing, though I doubt she realizes it. Do you disagree?"

Tony hesitated and then reluctantly shook his head. "No, I suppose you're exactly right."

"Of course I am," she said with force. "Will you also agree Alexandra's current situation is placing her reputation and her entire future in serious jeopardy and, moreover, that the situation seems destined to worsen?"

Faced with his grandmother's piercing stare and her astute assessment of all the facts, Anthony shoved his hands in his pockets and sighed. "I agree."

"Excellent," she said, looking surprisingly satisfied. "Then I know you will understand when I say I do not wish to live out the rest of my days in a London house that is under siege from Alexandra's suitors, waiting on tenterhooks for another one of them to succeed at what Marbly tried to do, or to do something even more unspeakable to her—to us as a family. I wish to spend what years I have left at Rosemeade. But I cannot do that because Alexandra would have to accompany me there, which would make her future nearly as bleak as it is here, but for the opposite reasons. The only remaining solution would be to leave her here with you, which is beyond the bounds of consideration. It would cause a scandal that is not to be thought of." She paused, watching him very closely, waiting for his answer as if it were of momentous importance.

"Neither solution is feasible," Tony agreed.

The duchess pounced on that with ill-suppressed glee. "I
knew
you would see the situation exactly as I do. You are a man of superior understanding and compassion, Anthony."

"Er—thank you, Grandmama," Anthony said, visibly taken aback by such effusive compliments from his normally taciturn grandmother.

"And now that we've discovered we are in complete accord," she continued, "I have a favor to ask of you."

"Anything."

"Marry Alexandra."

"Anything but that," Anthony swiftly corrected, frowning darkly at her.

In response, she pointedly lifted her brows and disdainfully gazed at him as if he had just shrunk drastically in her estimation. It was a look which she had effectively employed for fifty years—and with singular success—to intimidate her peers, awe servants, silence children, and depress the pretensions of anyone who dared oppose her, including her husband and sons. Only Jordan had been immune to its effect. Jordan and his mother.

Anthony, however, was no more immune to it now than he had been at twelve, when that same look had silenced his outcry at having to learn Latin and sent him upstairs to ashamedly devote himself to his studies. Now he sighed, looking desperately around the room as if searching for some means of escape. Which he was.

The dowager duchess waited in silence.

Silence was the next weapon in her arsenal, Tony knew. At moments like this she
always
waited in silence. It was so much nicer—so much more dignified and refined—to wait in polite silence for one's prey to stop struggling, rather than to swoop in for the kill with a barrage of unnecessary verbal fire.

"You don't seem to realize what you're asking of me," he said angrily.

His refusal to yield gracefully and at once made her brows lift a fraction higher, as if she were not only disappointed in him, but annoyed because she was now compelled to fire a warning shot. But she fired it without hesitation, striking home, exactly as Anthony expected she would. In verbal combat, his grandmother's aim was faultless. "I sincerely hope," she drawled with just the right touch of disdain, "that you don't intend to say you aren't
attracted
to Alexandra?"

"And if I
did
say that?"

Her white eyebrows shot straight into her hairline, warning him she was prepared to open fire if he continued to be obstinate.

"There's no need to bring out the heavy guns," Anthony warned cryptically, holding up his hand in the gesture of a weary truce. Although he resented the fact that in any clash of wills she could still reduce him to the level of a child, he was also adult enough and wise enough to know that it was truly childish to argue with her when she was right. "I don't deny it. Moreover, the idea has occurred to me on more than one occasion."

Her eyebrows dropped to their normal position and she favored him with a slight, regal inclination of her white head—a gesture meant to convey that
perhaps
he stood a slight chance of regaining her favor. "You're being very sensible." She was always gracious to those she subdued.

"I'm not agreeing to what you suggest, but I'll agree to discuss it with Alex and leave the decision up to her."

"Alexandra has no more choice in the matter than you have, my dear," she said, so carried away with pleasure that she had inadvertently used an endearment without waiting the usual interval of weeks or even months to forgive him for his tardy capitulation to her will. "And there's no need to fret about when and where to discuss the matter with her, because I took the liberty of instructing Higgins to have her join us here"—she stopped at the sound of the knock upon the door—"now."