JMcNaught - Something Wonderful (39 page)

The duchess' hand flew to her throat. "You didn't!"

"I did."

"Why, for heaven's sake?"

"Because it's the truth," Anthony said with a chuckle, "And because he'd have found out in a matter of days anyway."

"Some future time would have been far more propitious!"

"But not nearly so satisfying," Anthony joked (and Alexandra thought he was the dearest, kindest man alive), "because he'd have heard it from someone else, and I wouldn't have been there to see his reaction."

"How
did
he react?" Alexandra asked, because she couldn't stop herself.

"He didn't," Anthony said and shrugged. "But that's Hawk for you. He never shows how he feels. He's better known for his composure than his flir—"

"That will be enough, Anthony," said the duchess, going over to tug on the bellrope and summon her maids.

Alexandra and Tony also arose. "Do you feel up to some fencing this morning?" he asked.

Alexandra nodded. Fencing would be the perfect thing to help the time before her interview with Jordan pass more quickly.

Shortly before twelve-thirty, Higgins appeared in Jordan's study to deliver a note from a gentleman with offices in Bow Street, which explained that the sender was unwell and wished to postpone their confidential meeting until tomorrow.

Jordan glanced at the butler, deciding to move up his meeting with Alexandra. "Where is your mistress, Higgins?"

"In the ballroom, your grace, fencing with Lord Anthony."

Jordan opened the doors of the huge ballroom on the third floor and walked inside, unnoticed by the pair of skilled duelists moving ceaselessly about the floor, their rapiers clashing, then breaking free as they parried and thrust with grace and expertise.

Propping his shoulder against the wall, Jordan watched them, his unswerving gaze on the lithesome female figure clad in revealing men's breeches that clung to the graceful lines of her slim hips and long legs. She was, Jordan realized, not merely talented with the rapier as he had long ago supposed; she was, in fact, a brilliant swordsman with faultless timing, lightning-quick reflexes, and stunningly executed moves.

Still unaware of his presence, Alexandra suddenly called out that it was time to stop. Breathless and laughing, she reached behind her head, pulled off her face mask and gave her head a hard shake that sent her long, heavy hair falling over her shoulders in a riotous tumble of rich mahogany waves threaded with gold. "Tony, you're getting slow," she teased, her laughing face beguilingly flushed as she removed the protective padded chestplate and knelt on one knee to put it against the wall. Anthony said something to her and she looked over her shoulder at him, smiling… Suddenly Jordan felt himself catapulted backward through time while the image of the lush beauty before him abruptly blended into another image—that of an enchanting, curly-haired girl who had brandished a makeshift saber at him in a woodland glade and knelt down among the flowers, looking up at him with a puppy squirming in her arms and unconcealed love glowing in her eyes.

Within him, Jordan felt a pang of nostalgia, mingled with a sharp sense of loss because the girl in the glade was gone now.

Tony finally saw him standing there. "Hawk," he jokingly asked, "do you think I'm slowing down, because I'm getting old?" On the opposite side of the room, Alexandra lurched around and her face froze.

"I hope not," Jordan replied dryly. "I'm older than you are." Turning to Alexandra, he said, "Since I'm free earlier than I expected to be, I thought we could have our meeting now, rather than later."

In place of the cold animosity that had marked his mood yesterday, his tone today was impeccably polite, impersonal, and businesslike. Relieved but wary, Alexandra glanced down at her snug-fitting pants, erroneously thinking that she would be at a distinct disadvantage if she met with him dressed like this, with her face flushed and her hair in disarray. "I'd like to change first."

"It isn't necessary."

Unwilling to antagonize him by caviling over trifles, when she in fact had a matter of great import to negotiate with him, Alexandra acquiesced with a coolly polite inclination of her head. In tense silence she accompanied him downstairs to his study, mentally rehearsing for the last time what she intended to say.

Closing the double doors behind them, Jordan waited for Alexandra to be seated in one of the chairs arranged in a semicircle in front of his massive, intricately carved oaken desk. Instead of sitting behind it, he perched a hip on the edge of it, crossed his arms over his chest and studied her impassively, his leg swinging lazily to and fro, so close to her own leg that the fabric of his trousers whispered against hers.

It seemed like an eternity before he finally spoke. When he did, his voice was calm and authoritative: "We have had two 'beginnings,' you and I—that first one at my grandmother's house a year ago, and the one here in this house yesterday. Because of the circumstances, neither of them has been particularly auspicious. Today is the third—and last—beginning for us. In a few minutes, I will decide what the course of our future will be. In order to do that, I'd first like to hear what you have to say about this…" Reaching behind him, he picked up a sheet of paper from his desk and calmly handed it to her.

Curious, Alexandra took the sheet, glanced at it, then nearly shot out of her chair as fury boiled up inside her, exploding through her body with the force of a holocaust. On the sheet, Jordan had listed more than a dozen "questionable activities" including her dueling practice with Roddy, her race in Hyde Park, her brush with disgrace when Lord Marbly tried to lure her off to Wilton, and several other escapades that had been relatively harmless, but when catalogued in this fashion read like an indictment.

"Before I decide on the course of our future," Jordan continued dispassionately, immune to the wrathful expression on her beautiful face, "I thought it only fair to give you a chance to deny any item on the list that isn't true, as well as to offer any explanations you may wish to give."

Rage, full-bodied and fortifying, sent Alexandra slowly to her feet, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected he would have the gall to criticize
her
behavior. Why, next to the life
he
had led,
she
was as innocent as a babe.

"Of all the loathsome, hypocritical, arrogant—!" she burst out furiously, and then with a superhuman effort, she took control of her rampaging ire. Lifting her chin, she looked straight into his enigmatic eyes and took infuriated pleasure in baldly admitting to the entire—grossly exaggerated—list. "I'm guilty," she wrathfully declared. "Guilty of every single meaningless, harmless, innocuous incident on that list."

Jordan gazed at the tempestuous beauty standing before him, her eyes flashing like angry jewels, her breasts rising and falling with suppressed fury, and his anger gave way to a reluctant admiration for her honesty and courage in admitting her guilt.

Alexandra, however, was not finished. "How
dare
you confront me with a list of accusations and give me ultimatums about my future!" she raged, and before he could react, she moved sideways out of his reach, turned on her heel, and headed for the door.

"Come back here!" Jordan ordered.

Alexandra spun around so swiftly that her shining hair came spilling over her left shoulder in a riotous waterfall of gleaming waves and curls. "I'll be back!" she assured wrathfully. "Just give me ten minutes."

Jordan let her go, his brow furrowed in a thoughtful frown as he stared at the door she had slammed behind her. He hadn't expected her to react quite so violently to the items on the list. In fact, he wasn't entirely certain what he'd hoped to achieve by showing her the list, other than to somehow discover from her reaction if that was
all
she'd been up to while he was gone. The only thing he wanted,
needed
to know, was the one question he couldn't possibly ask her—and that was who had shared her bed and her body while he was gone.

Reaching over to the stack of papers on his desk, he picked up a shipping contract and began absently reading it while he waited for her to return.

The list, he admitted to himself, had not been a sterling idea.

That conclusion was emphatically borne out a few minutes later, when Alexandra rapped upon the door, stalked into his study without waiting for him to invite her to do so, and slapped a sheet of paper on the desk beside his hip. "Since you want to exchange accusations and offer opportunities for denial," she told him furiously, "I'll give you the same 'courtesy' before I hand
you
an ultimatum about our future."

Jordan's curious glance shifted from her flushed, beautiful face to the sheet of paper lying on his desk. Laying aside the contract he'd been reviewing, he nodded toward the chair where she had been seated earlier, and waited until she sat down, then he picked up the list.

It consisted of only sixteen words. Eight names. Of his former paramours. Setting the list aside, he quirked a speculative brow at her and said nothing.

"Well?" she demanded finally. "Are there any inaccuracies on that list?"

"One inaccuracy," he stated with infuriating calm, "and several omissions."

"Inaccuracy?" Alexandra demanded, distracted by the glint of amusement in his eyes.

"Maryanne Winthrop spells her first name with a y rather than an'i.' "

"Thank you for that edifying piece of information," Alexandra retorted. "If I ever decide to give her a gaudy diamond bracelet to match the necklace everyone says
you
gave her, I shall be sure to spell her name correctly on the card."

This time there was no doubting the humor tugging at the corner of his mouth and she came to her feet—a proudly enraged goddess dwarfed by a dark, arrogant giant of a man. "Now that you've admitted
your
guilt,
I
will tell you what the course of our future will be." Pausing to draw an infuriated breath, Alexandra announced triumphantly, "I am going to get an annulment."

The harsh words rebounded through the room, ricocheting off the walls, reverberating in the deafening silence. But not a flicker of emotion registered on Jordan's impassive features. "An annulment," he finally repeated. With the patience of a teacher discussing an absurd rhetorical issue with an inferior student, he said mildly, "Would you care to tell me how you intend to accomplish that?"

His damnable calm made Alexandra long to kick him in the shin. "I'll do nothing of the sort. You can discover what my legal grounds are from—from whoever it is that handles these things."

"Solicitors," Jordan provided helpfully, "handle these things.' "

Her ire at his condescending superiority was almost more than Alexandra could contain as he smoothly added, "I can recommend several excellent solicitors for you to consult. I keep them on retainer."

That outrageous suggestion was such an insult to her intelligence that Alexandra felt tears sting her eyes. "Was I such a gullible fool over you two years ago?" she demanded in a pain-edged whisper. "Was I so gullible that you honestly think I'd ask
your
solicitor to give
me
advice?"

Jordan's brows pulled together as several astonishing realizations struck him at once: First, despite her magnificent show of courage and unconcern, Alexandra was apparently on the brink of tears; second, the brave, innocent, engaging girl he had married had become a gorgeous creature of exotic beauty and spirit, but along the way she had also acquired an undesirable streak of fiery rebellion; last—and most disconcerting—was the discovery that he was as physically attracted to her now as he had been a year ago. More so. Much more.

Calmly he said, "I was merely trying to spare you what will be a very embarrassing and completely futile ordeal in the office of some unknown—and possibly indiscreet—solicitor."

"It will not be futile!"

"It will," he stated with certainty. "The marriage was consummated, or have you forgotten?"

The bold reminder of the night she had lain naked and willing in his arms was more than Alexandra's taut nerves could withstand. "I'm not senile," she retorted, and the spark of laughter in his eyes made her so desperate to demolish his damnable calm that she informed him how she intended to get an annulment, after all. "Our marriage is invalid because I didn't choose to marry you of my own free will!"

Instead of reacting with alarm, Hawk looked more amused than ever. "Tell that to a solicitor and he may laugh himself into a seizure. If a marriage was invalid merely because the bride felt obliged to marry a groom not of her choosing, then most of Society's couples are—at this very moment—living in sin."

"I wasn't merely 'obliged,' " Alexandra flung back. "I was coerced, cajoled, connived, and
seduced
into doing it!"

"Then find a solicitor and tell him that, but bring your smelling salts because you're going to have to revive him."

Alex was horribly certain he was right, and her heart plummeted sickeningly. In the last fifteen minutes, she had already vented all her pent-up resentment and fury on Jordan—without seeing a single gratifying scrap of reaction from him—and now she suddenly felt devoid of everything including hope and hate. Empty. Raising her eyes to his, she looked at him as if he were a stranger, an unfamiliar specimen of humanity for whom she felt… nothing. "If I can't get an annulment, I'll get a divorce."