JMcNaught - Something Wonderful (47 page)

"And you think
I'm
like her father?" Jordan bit out furiously.

"Ain't you?" Filbert said contemptuously. "Ye break her heart every time yer around, and then it's left to me 'n' Penrose to try to pick up the pieces."

"What are you talking about?" Jordan insisted, clumsily splashing more whisky into his glass. Filbert stuck his empty glass forward and Jordan obediently filled it, too.

"I'm talkin' about the way she cried when she thought you was dead. One day I come upon her standin' in front o' yer portrait at yer big country house. She used to spend hours jest lookin' at you, and I think to myself she's so thin you can see clean through her. She points to you and she says to me in that shaky little voice that means she's tryin not to cry, 'Look, Filbert. Wasn't he
beautiful?' "
Filbert paused to sniff distastefully—an eloquent expression of his private opinion of Jordan's looks.

Slightly pacified by the astounding news that Alexandra had apparently cared enough to grieve for him after all, Jordan overlooked the servant's unflattering opinion of his face. "Go on," he said.

Filbert's eyes suddenly narrowed with anger as he warmed to his story: "You made her fall in love with you, then she comes to London an' finds out you never meant to treat her like a proper wife. You only married her for pity! You meant to send her off to Devon, just like her papa done to her mama."

"She knows about Devon?" Jordan said, stunned.

"She knows about
all
o' it. Lord Anthony finally had t' tell her the truth 'cause all your fancy London friends were laughin' at her behind their hands for lovin' you. They all knew how you felt about her, because you talked 'bout her to yer ladybird, and she talked to everyone else. You called it a marriage of
in
convenience. Ye shamed Miss Alex and
made her cry all over again. But you'll not be able to hurt her again—she knows you for the lyin' cad you be!"

Having said his piece, Filbert shoved to his feet, put down his glass, drew himself up to his full height, and said with great dignity, "I told her, an' I'll tell you: She shoulda let you die the night she found you!"

Jordan watched the old man march off without displaying any effects from the astonishing quantity of liquor he'd consumed.

He stared blindly at his empty glass, while the reasons for Alexandra's complete change in attitude since his disappearance slowly began to crystallize. Filbert's brief but eloquent description of a painfully thin Alexandra staring at his portrait at Hawthorne made his heart wrench. Across his mind paraded a vivid image of Alexandra coming to London wearing her heart on her sleeve—and then facing the cold disdain Elise had apparently instigated by repeating Jordan's thoughtless, joking remark.

Leaning his head against the back of his chair, Jordan closed his eyes while regret and relief flooded through him. Alexandra
had
cared for him. The image he had cherished of the enchanting, artless girl who had loved him had not been false, and for that he was suddenly, profoundly overjoyed. The fact that he had wounded her in countless ways made him wince, but not for one moment was he willing to believe the damage was irreparable. Neither was he fool enough to think she'd believe any explanation he could make. Actions, not words, would be the only way to make her lower her guard and love him again.

A faint, preoccupied smile played about his lips as he contemplated his strategy.

Jordan was not smiling at nine o'clock the following morning, however, when a footman returned with the information that Alexandra had most assuredly not gone to his grandmother's house; nor was he smiling a half hour later when the dowager duchess herself marched into his study to tell him that
he
was entirely to blame for Alex's flight, and to deliver a stinging diatribe on Jordan's lack of sensitivity, his high-handedness, and his lack of good sense.

Clad in her gown from the night before, Alexandra combed her fingers through her tousled hair, peeked into the upper hall, and then walked swiftly along the corridor and down the staircase to her own rooms.

If Jordan followed the same morning schedule as the previous two days, he would be locked away in his study with the men who came to discuss business with him in the mornings. Carefully considering ways to get herself, Filbert, and Penrose out of the house without being noticed, she walked over to the wardrobe and opened the door. The wardrobe was empty, save for a single traveling costume. Turning, Alexandra surveyed the room and noticed that all her perfumes had been cleared from the dressing table. The queer sensation that she was in the wrong room made her turn slowly round just as the door opened and a maid let out a stifled scream.

Before Alexandra could stop her, the servant turned on her heel and fled along the balcony. "Her grace is back!" she called over the balcony to Higgins.

So much for escaping without first encountering Jordan, Alexandra thought with a tremor of fear. She had not completely expected to avoid a confrontation with her husband—but she had rather hoped to do it. "Marie," she called after the maid who was already rushing down the staircase to spread the glad tidings. "Where is the duke? I'll announce my presence to him myself."

"In the study, your grace."

Raking his hands through his dark hair, Jordan paced the length of his huge, book-lined study like a caged tiger, waiting for Alexandra to appear from wherever she had spent the night, refusing to consider that she had come to harm, and unable to banish the gnawing fear that she had.

Anticipating that Hawk was going to unleash his wrath on her the moment he clapped eyes on her, Alexandra stepped quietly into the study and carefully closed the door behind her before she said, "You want to see me, I gather?"

Jordan jerked around, his emotions veering crazily from joy to relief to fury as he beheld her standing before him, her face fresh from a night's sleep that
he
hadn't had.

"Where in the hell have you been?" he demanded, striding to her. "Remind me never to take your 'word' again," he added with blazing sarcasm.

Alexandra restrained the cowardly impulse to back away. "I kept my word, my lord. I came directly home and went to bed."

A muscle jerked ominously in his taut cheek. "Don't lie to me."

"I slept in the governess' room," she clarified politely. "You did not, after all, order me to go to my own room."

The desire to murder exploded in Jordan's brain, followed instantaneously by the opposing urge to wrap his arms around her and shout with laughter at her incredibly ingenious defiance. She had been upstairs, blissfully asleep, the entire time he'd been prowling and drinking down here in an agony of uncertainty. "Tell me something," he said irritably, "have you always been like this?"

"Like what?" Alexandra said warily, not certain of his mood.

"A blight on peace."

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"I'll tell you what I mean," he drawled, and as he advanced upon her, Alexandra began cautiously retreating step for step. "In the last twelve hours, I have rudely walked out on my friends at White's. I've been involved in a public quarrel on a dance floor, and I've been chastised by a footman, who incidentally can drink me under the table. I've had to listen to a lecture from my grandmother, who for the first time in her life so forgot herself as to raise her voice to what can only be described as a
shout
! Do you know," he finished darkly while Alexandra fought to hide a wayward grin, "that I used to lead a reasonably well-ordered life before I laid eyes on you? But from that moment on, every time I turn around, something else—"

He broke off his diatribe as Higgins raced into the study, without stopping to knock, his coattails flapping behind him. "Your grace!" he panted, "there's a constable here who insists on seeing you, or her grace, personally."

With a quelling glance at Alexandra that warned her to remain where she was until he returned to finish with her, Jordan strode swiftly from the study. Two minutes later he returned, an indescribable expression of amusement and annoyance on his tanned face.

"Is—is something wrong?" she dared to venture when he seemed not to
know
what to say.

"Not much," he drawled dryly. "I'd say it's just another ordinary little event in what seems to be a typical day with you."

"What event?" Alexandra persisted, aware that he seemed to be holding her accountable for whatever had just happened.

"Your faithful old butler has just appeared on my doorstep in the custody of a constable."

"Penrose?" Alexandra gasped.

"The very same."

"But—what did he do?"

"Do, my dear? He went to Bond Street and was caught red-handed yesterday trying to sell my watch." So saying, Jordan lifted his hand, from which hung Alexandra's grandfather's gold watch and chain.

"Attempted bigamy, larceny, and gambling," Jordan summarized with a twitch of ironic humor at his lips. "Do you have any plans for the immediate future? Extortion, perhaps?"

"It isn't
your
watch." Alexandra's eyes were riveted on the watch, her only hope for purchasing her freedom. "Please give it to me. It belongs to me."

Jordan's brows drew together in surprise, but he slowly held his hand out. "I was under the impression you had given it to me as a gift."

"You accepted it under false pretenses," Alexandra insisted with angry obstinacy, reaching for the watch. "My grandfather was a man of… of noble virtue… a warm, caring,
gentle
man. His watch ought to go to a man like him, not like you."

"I see," Jordan replied quietly, his face suddenly wiped clean of expression as he put the watch into her outstretched palm.

"Thank you," Alexandra said, feeling somehow as if she had actually hurt him by taking the watch back. Since he had no heart, perhaps she had hurt his ego, she decided. "Where is Penrose? I must go to the authorities and explain."

"If he followed my instructions, he's in his room," Jordan dryly replied, "meditating on the Eighth Commandment."

Alexandra, who had leapt to the understandable conclusion that her cold-hearted, autocratic husband would have let the authorities haul poor Penrose off to be hanged, stared at him in confusion. "That's all you did? Send him to his room?"

"I could hardly have the closest thing I have to a father-
in-law
carted off to a dungeon, now could I?" Jordan replied.

Utterly dumbfounded by his odd mood this morning, Alexandra stared searchingly at him. "Actually, I thought you could and would."

"Only because you don't really know me, Alexandra," he said in a tone Alexandra could have sworn was conciliatory. Briskly, he continued, "However, I intend to remedy that, beginning"—he glanced up as footmen came trooping downstairs bearing several trunks, including here—"in one hour, when we leave for Hawthorne."

Alexandra swung around, saw her trunks and turned back to him, her eyes blazing with rebellion. "I won't go."

"I think you'll agree to go when I set forth the terms for your consideration, but first, I would like to know why Penrose was trying to sell my… your
grandfather's
… watch."

Alexandra hesitated, then decided silence was best.

"The obvious answer to that is that you wanted money," Jordan continued in a matter-of-fact voice. "And I can think of only two reasons why you should need funds. The first reason would be that you've been placing more scandalous wagers against me, which I forbade you to do. Frankly, I doubt you've done that." He held up his hand when Alexandra looked angry at his supposition that she would meekly accede to his orders. "My reason for discounting the possibility you've placed additional wagers against me since yesterday has nothing to do with the fact that I forbade it. I simply don't think you've had the
time
to defy me again."

His lazy grin was so unexpected and so contagious that Alexandra had to fight the urge to smile back at him.

"Therefore," he concluded, "I would assume the reason you suddenly want money is the same reason you gave me two days ago—you want to leave me and live on your own. Is that it?"

He sounded so understanding that Alexandra reversed her former decision and nodded in the affirmative.

"Just as I thought. In that case, let me offer a solution to your predicament which should also appeal to your penchant for gambling. May I?" he politely asked, motioning her to a chair in front of his desk.

"Yes," Alexandra agreed, sitting down while he leaned against his desk.

When she was settled, Jordan said, "I will give you enough money to live out the rest of your life in regal splendor, if after three months you still wish to leave me."

"I—I don't entirely understand," Alexandra said, scrutinizing his tanned face.

"It's quite simple. For three full months, you must agree to be my most obedient, loving, biddable wife. During that time, I will endeavor to make myself so—shall we say— 'agreeable' to you that you no longer wish to leave me. If I fail, you may leave at the end of three months. It's as simple as that."