JMcNaught - Something Wonderful (59 page)

Jordan swallowed more of his brandy, his back still turned to the investigator. "She said she slept in a spare room on the servant's floor."

"Your grace, is it possible the horseman who shot at you that night might have been a woman, rather than a man?"

"My wife is an excellent shot," the duke clipped sarcastically. "If she'd tried to shoot me, she'd not have missed."

"It was dark and she was mounted," Fawkes murmured, more to himself than to Jordan. "Perhaps her horse moved slightly as she fired. Still, I'm inclined to doubt she actually tried to do it herself—it's too risky. In the past, outsiders have been hired to do you in, but now they're trying it on their own, which puts you in far greater peril and makes my job ten times as difficult. Which is why I'm going to ask you to pretend we haven't any idea Nordstrom the footman was poisoned. Let your wife and your cousin think you're ignorant of any scheme of theirs. I've instructed Dr. Danvers to say he thinks Nordstrom's heart simply stopped, and I was cautious when I questioned the kitchen servants about Nordstrom's activities that day, not to put any excessive emphasis on the decanter of wine. They've no reason to think we suspect foul play. If we can carry on that ruse and tighten the surveillance on your wife and Lord Townsende, we ought to have some forewarning of the next attempt on your life, and be able to catch them in the act," Fawkes concluded. "I think they'll try the poison again, since they think we're unaware of it, but perhaps not. If they do, they'll not risk poisoning anything which others might also ingest, because more than a single death would definitely awaken suspicion. For example, that brandy you're drinking is probably safe enough because it's served to guests, but I caution you against eating or drinking anything your wife gives you, which she could have touched without your seeing her. Beyond that, all we can do is watch and wait."

Finished, Fawkes fell silent, waiting for some reaction, but the duke remained as rigid as steel. He hesitated, then he bowed to the duke's stiff back. Softly, and with genuine regret, he said, "I'm very sorry, your grace."

Fawkes had just closed the study door when the deathly silence of the hallway was suddenly shattered by an explosive crash and the sound of breaking glass within the study. Thinking someone had fired through the windows, Fawkes flung the door open and then stopped short: A magnificent gold and crystal brandy decanter, which had once belonged to a French king, was now lying on the polished wood floor a few feet away from the wall against which the duke had hurled it. The duke, who had betrayed no trace of emotion throughout the interview, was standing with his hands braced wide against the mantel of the fireplace, gripping it for support; his broad shoulders were shaking with silent anguish.

Alexandra whirled around in a swirl of bright green silk as Jordan stalked into the drawing room, a dazzling smile on her face that faded slightly as she beheld the hardness of her husband's taut jaw and the cold glitter in his eyes, "Is—is something wrong, Jordan?"

At her gentle use of his name, the muscles of his face clenched so tight a nerve in his cheek began to pulse. "Wrong?" he repeated cynically while his gaze wandered over her body with insulting thoroughness, inspecting her breasts, her waist, then her hips, before lifting to her face. "Not that I can see," he replied with scathing indifference.

Alexandra's mouth went dry and her heart began to beat in heavy, terrifying dread as she sensed that Jordan had seemingly withdrawn from her, as if the closeness, the tenderness and laughter they'd shared had never existed. Panic drove her to try to recover what they had found by reaching for a decanter of sherry on the table. Jordan had said he liked having her do wifely things for him, and so she did the only thing she could think of. Filling a small stemmed glass with sherry, she turned and held it out to him, a wobbly smile on her face. "Would you like some sherry?"

His eyes turned to blazing daggers as they shifted to the glass she held, and the nerve in his cheek began to pulsate wildly. When he raised his gaze to her face, Alexandra stepped back in alarm from the unexplainable violence glittering in his eyes. With his gaze riveted to hers, he took the glass from her hand. "Thank you," he said a split second before the fragile stem snapped in his hand.

Alexandra uttered an alarmed little cry and whirled around, looking for something to use to blot the sherry from the magnificent Aubusson carpet before it stained.

"Don't bother," Jordan snapped, catching her elbow and jerking her roughly around. "It doesn't matter."

"Doesn't matter?" Alexandra uttered in confusion. "But—"

Softly, and without any emotion, he said, "Nothing matters."

"But—"

"Shall we dine, my sweet?"

Swallowing her rising panic, Alexandra nodded. He had made "my sweet" sound almost like an epithet. "No, wait!" she burst out nervously, and then shyly she added: "I have something I want to give you."

Poison
? Jordan thought sarcastically, watching her.

"This," she said and held out her hand to him.

Lying across her open palm was her grandfather's treasured gold watch.

Raising her glowing eyes to his, Alexandra said unsteadily, "I—I want you to have it." For one horrible, incredible moment, she actually thought Jordan was going to refuse it. Instead, he took it from her and dropped it carelessly into his coat pocket. "Thank you," he said with curt indifference. "Assuming it keeps accurate time, it's a half hour past time to dine."

If he had slapped her, Alexandra could not have been more hurt or more bewildered. Like a puppet, she placed her hand upon his proffered arm and let him escort her to the dining room.

Throughout the meal, she tried vainly to convince herself she was merely imagining his complete change in attitude.

When he did not take her to his bed and make love to her that night, she lay awake, trying to understand what she had done to make him regard her with aversion.

When he ceased speaking to her altogether the next day, except when absolutely necessary at meals, she endured it for an entire day before she finally swallowed her pride and meekly
asked
him what she had done wrong.

He looked up from the work on his desk, furious at her interruption, his eyes raking over her as she stood before him like a nervous supplicant, her shaking hands clasped behind her back. "Wrong?" he repeated in the cool, voice of a complete stranger. "There is nothing wrong, Alexandra, except in your timing. Adams and I are working, as you can see."

Alexandra whirled around, embarrassed to the depths of her soul by the heretofore unnoticed presence of Adams, who was seated at a small desk near the windows. "I—I'm sorry, my lord."

"In that case," he nodded meaningfully toward the door, "if you don't mind—"

Alexandra took his rude hint to leave and did not attempt to speak to him until that night, when she heard him enter his bedchamber. Summoning all her courage, she put on a dressing robe, opened the adjoining door, and stepped inside.

Jordan was removing his shirt when he saw her reflection in the mirror and his head jerked toward her. "Yes, what is it?" he snapped.

"Jordan, please," Alexandra burst out, walking toward him, an innocent temptress with her hair tumbling over her shoulders, sliding to and fro against the rich pink satin of her gown as she moved near him. "Tell me what I've done to anger you."

Jordan gazed down into her blue eyes and his hands clenched at his sides as he fought the simultaneous impulse to strangle her for her treachery and the stronger urge to take her to his bed and pretend for just one hour longer that she was still his enchanting, alluring, barefoot duchess. He wanted to hold her and kiss her, to wrap her around him like a blanket and lose himself in her, to blot out the last days of hell. Just for an hour. But he couldn't, because he couldn't blot out the tormenting picture of her and Tony embracing and planning his murder. Not even for an hour. Or a minute.

"I'm not angry, Alexandra," he said frigidly. "Now get out of here. When I want your company, I'll let you know."

"I see," Alexandra whispered, and turned away.

But all she "saw" was the tears that blinded her as she walked with painful dignity back to her own bed.

«
^
»

A
lexandra stared mindlessly
at the embroidery frame in her lap, her long fingers still, her heart as dark and bleak as the sky beyond the open curtains at the drawing-room windows. For three days and nights, Jordan had been a stranger to her, a cold, forbidding man who looked at her with icy blatant disinterest or contempt, on those rare occasions when he looked at her at all. It was as if someone else now inhabited his body—someone she did not know, someone she sometimes saw watching her with a expression in his eyes that was so malign it made her shiver.

Not even Uncle Monty's unexpected arrival and bluff presence had any effect on lightening the heavy atmosphere at Hawthorne. He had come to Alexandra's rescue—he explained to her privately after settling into his rooms yesterday and critically surveying the plump bottom of the upstairs maid who was turning down his bed—because he'd heard belatedly in London that "Hawthorne had looked like the wrath of God," when he discovered her wager in the book at White's.

But all of Uncle Monty's dogged, transparently obvious attempts to engage Jordan in friendly conversation yielded nothing but scrupulously courteous, extremely brief responses. And Alexandra's attempts to pretend that was normal and natural fooled no one, including the servants, into believing they were a happily married couple. The entire household, from Higgins the butler to Henry the dog, were vibrantly, nervously aware of the strained atmosphere.

In the oppressive silence of the drawing room, Uncle Monty's hearty voice boomed out like a thunderclap, making Alexandra jump: "I say, Hawthorne, capital weather we're having!" Lifting his white brows in an inquiring expression, hoping for an answer that might lead to further conversation, Uncle Monty waited.

Jordan raised his eyes from the book he was reading and replied, "Indeed."

"Not a bit wet," Uncle Monty persevered, his cheeks rosy from the wine he'd imbibed.

"Not wet at all," agreed Jordan, his face and voice devoid of expression.

Unnerved but undaunted, Uncle Monty said, "Warm, too. Good weather for crops."

"Is it?" Jordan replied in a tone that positively discouraged any additional attempt at conversation.

"Er… quite," Uncle Monty replied, retreating farther back in his chair and shooting Alexandra a desperate look.

"Do you have the time?" Alexandra asked, longing to retire.

Jordan looked up at her and said with deliberate cruelty, "No."

"Ought to have a watch, Hawthorne," Uncle Monty suggested, as if he thought the idea a wonderfully original one. "They're the very thing to keep abreast of the time!"

Alexandra quickly averted her face to hide her hurt that Jordan had for the second time accepted her grandfather's watch and then cast it aside.

"It's eleven o'clock," Uncle Monty provided helpfully, pointing to his own watch and chain. "
I
always wear a watch," he boasted. "Never need to wonder about the hour. Wondrous things, watches," he rhapsodized. "One can't help conjecturing about how they work, can one?"

Jordan slammed his book shut. "Yes," he said bluntly, "one
can
."

Having failed utterly in his attempt to draw the duke into an animated discussion about watchmaking, Uncle Monty sent another pleading look to Alexandra, but it was Sir Henry who responded. The huge English sheepdog, while utterly nonchalant about his duty to protect people, was deeply cognizant of his duty to console them, lavish them with affection, and generally be underfoot in case they had need of his attention. Seeing the unhappy expression on Sir Montague's face, he roused himself from the hearth and trotted over to the distressed knight, whereupon he delivered two extremely wet licks to his hand. "Ye gods!" burst out Uncle Monty, leaping to his feet with more energy than he'd displayed in a quarter century and vigorously wiping the back of his hand against his trousers. "That animal has a tongue like a wet mop!"

Offended, Sir Henry cast a mournful look upon his disgruntled victim, then turned and flopped down on the hearth.

"If you don't mind, I think I'll retire," Alexandra said, unable to bear the atmosphere another moment.

"Is everything in readiness at the grove, Filbert?" Alexandra asked the next afternoon, when her faithful old footman answered her summons and appeared in her bedchamber.

"It is," the footman announced bitterly. "Not that yer husband deserves a birthday party. After the way 'e's been treatin' ye, 'e deserves a kick in the arse!"

Alexandra tucked a wayward curl beneath the brim of her sky-blue bonnet and did not argue the issue. She'd conceived the idea for a surprise party in honor of Jordan's birthday the day they'd strolled out to the pavilion—the happiest day of what was apparently a short-lived period of bliss.