JMcNaught - Something Wonderful (44 page)

"I'm talking about the wager you had Roddy place in your name in the betting book at White's, Alexandra!"

"In
my
name—" Alexandra exclaimed in panic-stricken disbelief. "Oh dear God! He
wouldn't
have!"

"What wager?" the dowager gruffly demanded.

"He would and he did! And everyone in this ballroom knows about it."

"
Dear God
!" Alexandra repeated faintly.

"What wager?" the dowager demanded in a low, thunderous voice.

Too shaken and angry to answer the dowager, Alexandra left that to Melanie. Plucking up her skirts, she whirled around, searching for Roddy. What she saw was dozens of inimical male faces watching her.

She finally saw Roddy and bore down on him with murder in her eye and pain in her heart.

"Alexandra, my love," he said, grinning, "you look more smashing than—" He reached out to take her hand, but she snatched it away, glaring at him with angry, accusing eyes.

"How could you do this to me!" she burst out bitterly. "How could you write that wager down in some book and put
my
name on it!"

For the second time since she had met him, Roderick Carstairs lost momentary control of his bland expression. "What do you mean?" he demanded in a low, indignant voice. "I did what
you
wanted me to do. You wanted to demonstrate to Society that you are not going to fall at Hawk's feet, and I placed the wager for you at the best place to make your feelings public. And it was no easy task," he continued irritably. "Only members of White's are allowed to record wagers there, which is why I had to put my name over yours and guarantee your—"

"I wanted you to place a wager for me in
your
name, not mine, which is why I asked
you
to do it!" Alexandra cried in a voice raw with anxiety. "A quiet,
confidential, unwritten
gentlemen's wager!"

Roddy's brows snapped together as anger replaced his righteous indignation. "Don't be a nitwit! What could you possibly hope to gain from a 'quiet, confidential' wager?"

"
Money
!" Alexandra exclaimed miserably.

Roddy's mouth dropped open. "Money?" he repeated uncomprehendingly. "You made that wager because you want
money
?"

"Of course!" she naively replied. "Why else would anyone wager?"

Looking at her as if she were some curious specimen of humanity completely beyond his ken, Roddy informed her, "One wagers because one enjoys winning. You are married to one of the richest men in Europe. Why should you need money?"

That question, although logical, would have required Alexandra to discuss intentions that were entirely private. "I can't explain," she said miserably, "but I'm sorry for blaming you."

Accepting her apology with a nod, Roddy stopped a passing footman and took two glasses of champagne from his tray, handing one of them to Alexandra. "Do you suppose," she said eagerly, after a moment, oblivious to the pregnant hush suddenly creeping over the huge room, "there's a chance Hawk may not discover my bet?"

Roddy, who was rarely oblivious to anything, glanced curiously about him and then upward, following the direction of everyone's gazes.

"Not much," he said wryly and, with a blasé motion of his hand, he directed her attention to the upper balcony at the same moment the Lindworthy butler announced in a booming voice…

"His grace, the
Duke of Hawthorne.
' "

Jolts of shock and anticipation roared through the crowd and Alexandra's head snapped up, her eyes riveted in alarmed horror on the tall, daunting figure clad in stark black, who was stalking purposefully down the stairs. The staircase was less than fifteen yards from Alexandra, but when Jordan neared the bottom step, the giant sea of people in the ballroom seemed to press forward in a huge wave and an explosion of greetings erupted into a deafening cacophony of sound.

He was taller by half a head than nearly everyone, and from her corner, Alexandra saw him smile slightly as he seemed to listen to what people were saying to him, but his eyes were casually scanning the crowd—searching, Alexandra feared, for her. Panicked, she downed her champagne and handed the empty glass to Roddy, who then gave her his own. "Drink mine," he said dryly. "You're going to need it."

Alexandra looked around like a fox searching for a bolt-hole, her glance skidding to a stop in every direction that might inadvertently put her in Hawk's line of vision. Helpless to move, she pressed back against the wall and unthinkingly lifted Roddy's glass to her lips, just as her eyes encountered the dowager duchess off to her right. The duchess sent her an odd, quelling look, then turned and spoke rapidly to Melanie. A moment later, Melanie was wending her way around the crowd surrounding Jordan, moving toward Alexandra and Roddy.

"Your grandmother says," Melanie said in an urgent voice as soon as she reached Alexandra, "to pray
not
choose tonight of all nights to overindulge for the first time in your life, and
not
to worry because she says Hawthorne will know exactly how to act when he realizes you're here."

"Did she say anything else?" Alexandra begged, desperately needing reassurance.

"Yes," Melanie said with a vigorous nod. "She said I am to stick to your side like
glue
and not leave you,
no matter what happens tonight
."

"Dear God!" Alexandra burst out. "I thought she said there was nothing to worry about!"

Roddy shrugged mildly. "Hawk may not know of your wager yet, so don't look so overwrought."

"I'm not worried solely about the wager," Alexandra informed him darkly, watching Jordan, trying to anticipate in which direction he would ultimately move when he disentangled himself from the large crowd around him, so that she could slide in the opposite one. "I'm worried he'll discover I'm—"

Someone on Jordan's right said something to him and he turned his head; his gaze sliding swiftly, searchingly along the wall where Alexandra stood… past Melanie, past Roddy, past Alexandra… and then slashed back, leveling on her like a pair of deadly black pistols. "—here," Alexandra finished weakly, while Jordan looked straight at her, impaling her on his gaze, leaving her in no doubt that he intended to seek her out at the first possible moment.

"I think he's just discovered it," Roddy teased.

Jerking her eyes from Hawk's, Alexandra looked around for a safe place to conceal herself until he moved out of her only path of escape—somewhere where it would not
seem
to anyone she was hiding. The safest thing to do, she decided quickly, was simply to stroll into the midst of the seven hundred guests and try to melt into the crowd until Jordan lost sight of her.

"Shall we 'mingle,' my dear?" Roddy suggested, obviously arriving at the same conclusion.

Slightly relieved, Alexandra nodded, but the idea of "mingling" lost its appeal a few minutes later when she passed by Lord and Lady Moseby and Lord North, who were all standing on the sidelines near the mirrored wall that ran the width of the ballroom. Lady Moseby held out her hand, detaining Alexandra as she said in a laughing voice tinged with admiration, "I heard about your wager, Alexandra."

Alexandra's polite smile froze on her face.

"It—it was merely a jest," Melanie Camden put in, materializing at Alexandra's side, in accordance with the duchess' earlier instruction.

Regarding Alexandra with a disapproving look, Lord North said stiffly, "I wonder if Hawk will find it amusing."

"
I
wouldn't, I assure you," Lord Moseby darkly informed Alexandra, then he took his wife's arm and, with a curt nod, firmly guided his lady away from Alexandra, with Lord North right beside him.

"I'll be damned!" Roddy said softly, glowering at the men's rigid backs. After a long, thoughtful moment, he slowly transferred his gaze to Alexandra's stricken face, regarding her with a combination of contrition, annoyance, and irony. "I fear I've done you a grave wrong by placing that wager at White's," he said. "I naturally expected a
few
of the more prudish of my sex to frown on our little wager. Regrettably, I failed to consider that in openly defying your husband with that wager, you would outrage every other husband in the
ton
."

Alexandra scarcely heard him. "Roddy," she said hastily, "you're very sweet to stay by my side, but you're quite tall and—"

"And you'd be less easily spotted without me at your side?" Roddy guessed, and Alexandra nodded. "In that case," he said contritely, "I shall take myself off."

"Thank you."

"Inasmuch as I feel inadvertently responsible for part of your dilemma, the least I can do is make myself scarce so you can escape it for now." With a brief bow, he strode into the crowd, heading in the opposite direction from Alexandra and Melanie.

Five minutes later, standing with her back angled toward the ballroom, Alexandra looked anxiously at Melanie. "Do you see him?"

"No," Melanie said, after casting a surreptitious look over the crowded room. "He's no longer by the stairs, nor in your path."

"In that case, I'm going to leave now," Alexandra said quickly, pressing a brief kiss to Melanie's cheek. "I'll be fine—don't worry. I'll see you tomorrow if I can—"

"You can't," Melanie said unhappily. "My husband does not think the London air suitable for my condition. He's bent on taking me back to the country, and staying there until the baby comes."

The thought of having to face the near future without Melanie to confide in made Alexandra feel positively miserable. "I'll write to you," she promised, wondering dismally if she would ever see Melanie again. Unable to say more, Alexandra plucked up her skirts and began making her way toward the staircase. Behind her, Melanie called out her name, but the roar of laughing conversation in the crowded ballroom swallowed the warning as Alexandra walked quickly, staying close to the wall.

Without stopping, she bent to put her champagne glass on a table, then stifled a scream as a hand clamped cruelly onto her forearm and spun her around. At the same instant, Jordan stepped in front of her, neatly isolating them both from view of the ballroom guests. Bracing his hand high on the wall behind her, he managed to imprison her with his body and yet look to all appearances like a relaxed gentleman engaging in somewhat intimate conversation with a lady.

"Alexandra," he said in an ominously calm tone that belied the leaping fury in his eyes, "there are approximately four hundred men in this room, most of whom believe it's my
duty
to set an example for their wives by dragging you out of here in front of everyone, and then to take you home and beat some sense into you—which I am perfectly willing, no—
anxious
—to do."

To her terrified disbelief, he paused in that horrible announcement to reach out and take a glass of champagne from the tray on the pedestal beside them and then to blandly hand it to her—a gesture designed to keep up the charade of two people engaged in ordinary conversation. Continuing in that same deadly voice, he said, "Despite the fact that your public wager—and your flagrant disobedience in coming here tonight—more than deserve public retaliation, I am going to offer you two choices." Silkily he said, "I want you to listen to them very carefully."

To her angry shame, Alexandra was so terrified her chest was rising and falling like a frightened bird and she could only nod her head.

Unmoved by her obvious fright, he gave her the first choice: "You can either leave with me right now—quietly and ostensibly willingly, or kicking and screaming—it doesn't matter to me. Either way, if we do leave now, everyone in this ballroom is going to know why I'm taking you out of here."

When he paused, Alexandra swallowed convulsively, her voice a parched whisper. "What is the second choice?"

"To salvage your pride," he replied, giving her the second choice, "I am willing to walk onto that dance floor with you and try to make it appear that we both regard your wager as nothing more than a harmless little jest. But whichever choice you make," he finished ominously, "I am still going to deal with you when we get home, do you understand that?"

His last sentence and the unmistakable threat of physical retribution it carried were dire enough to make Alexandra agree to anything—anything that would delay their leavetaking.

Somewhere in the tumult of her mind, it dimly occurred to her that, in offering her a chance to salvage her pride this way, he was treating her with more consideration than she had done when she placed a public bet against him. On the other hand, she could hardly find it in her heart to be very grateful to him for sparing her public humiliation—not when he was promising private, physical retribution later. With a supreme effort of will, she managed to steady her voice and arrange her features into a reasonably calm mask. "I would prefer to dance."

Jordan stared down into her lovely pale face and had to stifle a spurt of admiration for her courage. Instead, he politely offered her his arm and she placed her trembling hand on it.

The moment Jordan stepped out of her way, Alexandra glimpsed the swift, guilty movements of heads turning away, and she realized that a great many people had been watching their little tête-à-tête. With an outward appearance of unhurried dignity, she strolled with Jordan through the fascinated crowd, which parted like the Red Sea to let them pass, then turned to watch their progress.