JMcNaught - Something Wonderful (8 page)

When he left, Alexandra stood stock still, reeling from the kiss that seemed branded into her forehead.

It did not occur to her that she might have just fallen under the spell of a man who automatically used his voice and smile to charm and disarm. Practiced seducers were beyond the realm of her experience.

Dishonest rakes and practiced seducers were not, however, beyond the experience of Mrs. Lawrence, who had fallen victim to just such a treacherous charmer when she was scarcely older than Alexandra. Like the Duke of Hawthorne, her husband had been outrageously handsome, with suave manners, beautiful clothes, and absolutely no scruples.

Which was why, when Alexandra awakened the next morning, it was to see her mother storming into her room, her voice vibrating with fury. "Alexandra, wake up this instant!"

Alexandra wriggled into a sitting position and pushed her curly hair out of her eyes. "Is something wrong?"

"I'll tell you what's wrong," her mother said, and Alexandra was shocked at the virulent rage emanating from her mother. "We've had four visitors this morning, beginning with the innkeeper's wife, who informed me you shared a bedroom there with that low, conniving seducer of innocents last night. The next two visitors were curiosity seekers. The fourth visitor," she enunciated in a voice shaking with pent-up wrath and tears, "was the squire, who told me that, because of your scandalous behavior last night, your state of undress, and your general lack of modesty and sense, he now considers you beyond the bounds of a fit wife for his son or for any other self-respecting man."

When Alexandra merely stared at her in visible relief, Mrs. Lawrence lost control. She grabbed Alexandra by the shoulders and shook her. "Do you have any idea what you've done," she screamed. "Do you? Then I'll tell you—you've disgraced yourself beyond recall. Gossip has stretched everywhere, and people are talking about you as if you were a slut. You were seen being carried into an inn in a state of undress and you occupied a bedroom alone with a man. You were carried out of that same inn a half hour later by the same man. Do you know what everyone thinks?"

"That I was tired and needed to rest?" Alexandra suggested sensibly, more alarmed by her mother's pallor than her words.

"You fool! You're a bigger fool than I ever was. No decent man will have you now."

"Mama," Alexandra said with firm quiet, trying to reverse their roles as she had needed to do so often in the past three years, "calm yourself."

"Don't you dare use that condescending tone on me, miss!" her mother shouted, her face only inches from Alexandra's. "Did that man
touch
you?"

Growing increasingly alarmed by her mother's hysteria, Alexandra said matter-of-factly, "You know he did. You saw him carry me in here and—"

"Not that way!" Mrs. Lawrence cried, positively shaking with rage. "Did he put his hands on you? Did he
kiss
you? Answer me, Alexandra!"

Alexandra actually considered defying the principles her grandfather had ingrained in her, but before she could open her mouth to lie, her mother had already spotted the telltale flush blooming brightly in her cheeks.

"He did, didn't he!" she screamed. "The answer is written all over your face." Mrs. Lawrence reared back and stood up, pacing frantically back and forth in front of Alexandra's bed. Alexandra had heard of women who became so overwrought that they tore at their own hair, and her mother looked on the verge of doing just that.

Swiftly climbing out of bed, she put her hand out to stop her mother's aimless pacing. "Mama, please don't upset yourself like this. Please don't. The duke and I did nothing wrong."

Her mother almost ground her teeth in rage. "You may not understand that what you did was wrong, but that low, conniving, corrupt degenerate knew it.
He
knew. He waltzed in here as bold as brass, knowing you were too naive to understand what he'd done. God, how I hate men!"

Without warning, she pulled Alexandra into her arms in a fierce hug. "I'm not the blind fool I used to be. I let your father use us for his own amusement and then discard us, but I'll not let Hawthorne do that to us. He ruined you, and I'll make him pay, you'll see. Ill force him to do what's right."

"Mama, please!" Alexandra burst out, pulling free of her mother's suffocating embrace. "He did nothing wrong, not really. He only touched my limbs, looking for broken bones, and bade me farewell by kissing my forehead! That can't be wrong."

"He destroyed your reputation by taking you to a public inn. He's ruined any chance of your making a decent marriage. No other man will have you now. From this day forward, wherever you go in the village, scandal will follow you. For that he must pay, and dearly. When he returned to the inn last night, he gave the doctor his direction. We shall go after him and demand justice."

"No!" Alexandra cried, but her mother was deaf to all but her own inner voice that had been screaming for vengeance these three long years.

"I've no doubt he'll be expecting us to call," she continued bitterly, ignoring Alexandra's pleas, "now that we've learned the whole truth of last night's debacle."

«
^
»

T
he dowager
D
uchess
of Hawthorne regarded her grandson with a stern smile on her lips and an attentive expression in her hazel eyes. At seventy, she was still a handsome woman with white hair, regal bearing, and the aloof, unshakable confidence and poise that comes from living a thoroughly privileged life.

Despite the stony dignity that characterized her every gesture, she was no stranger to grief, having already outlived her husband and her sons. Yet so rigid was her self-control that not even her closest acquaintances were certain she had loved them in life or that she was aware they were dead—and so enormous was her consequence among the
ton
that none of them ever dared to ask.

She betrayed no sign of alarm now as she serenely listened to her eldest grandson, who was sitting on one of the sofas in her drawing room, a booted foot propped upon the opposite knee, casually explaining that he was delayed because two highwaymen had tried to kill him last night.

Her other grandson, however, made no effort whatsoever to conceal his feelings about his cousin's explanation. Lifting his brandy glass to his lips, Anthony grinned and said drolly, "Jordan, admit it—the truth is you wanted another blissful evening with your beautiful ballerina. Er, your pardon, Grandmama," Anthony added belatedly when the dowager duchess sent him a withering look. "But the truth is, there were no highwaymen, and no twelve-year-old girl came to your rescue. Right?"

"Wrong," Jordan said imperturbably.

The duchess watched the by-play between the two cousins. They were as close as brothers and as different as night and day, she thought: Jordan was more like her, reserved, cool, detached, while Anthony was easy to know and incurably good-natured. Anthony had two doting parents who loved him; Jordan had never known real affection from either of his. She approved wholeheartedly of Jordan's demeanor; she disapproved of Anthony's easygoing ways. Disapproval—in varying degrees—was the only emotion the dowager duchess permitted herself to display.

"It happened exactly as I said, although it wounds my pride to admit it," Jordan continued wryly as he stood up and walked to the sideboard to replenish the port in his glass. "One moment I was staring down the barrel of a pistol and the next moment there she was—charging straight into our midst atop a swaybacked nag, with her visor down, brandishing a lance in one hand and a rifle in the other."

He poured more of the Portuguese port he especially preferred into his glass and returned to his chair. In a voice that was matter-of-fact rather than critical, he continued, "Her armor was rusty and her house is straight out of a bad gothic novel—complete with cobwebs on the beams, faded tapestries, creaking doors and damp walls. She has a butler who's deaf as a post, a blind footman who walks into walls, an old sot of an uncle who calls himself Sir Montague Marsh…"

"Interesting family," Anthony murmured. "No wonder she's so… ah… unconventional."

" 'Conventionality,' " Jordan quoted dryly," 'is the refuge of a stagnant mind.' "

The dowager, whose entire life had been religiously and scrupulously dedicated to the precepts of convention, glowered. "Who said such a ridiculous thing?"

"Alexandra Lawrence."

"
Very
unconventional." Anthony chuckled, studying the almost fond smile upon his cousin's rugged face as he spoke of the girl. Jordan seldom smiled, Anthony knew—unless the smile was seductive or cynical—and he rarely laughed. He had been brought up by a father who believed sentimentality was "soft," and anything that was soft was abhorrent, forbidden. So was anything that made a man vulnerable. Including love. "What does this extraordinary female look like?" Anthony asked, anxious to discover more about the girl who'd had such an unusual effect on his cousin.

"Small," Jordan said as a picture of Alexandra's laughing face danced across his mind. "And too thin. But she has a smile that could melt rock and a pair of the most extraordinary eyes. They're the color of aquamarines and, when you look at her, they're all you see. Her speech is as cultured as yours or mine, and despite that morbid house of hers, she's a cheerful little thing."

"And brave, apparently," Anthony added.

Nodding, Jordan said, "I'm going to send her a bank draft—a reward for saving my life. God knows they can use the money. Based on things she said—and things she was careful not to say—I gathered that the responsibility for the entire outlandish household rests on her shoulders. Alexandra will undoubtedly be offended by the money, which is why I didn't offer it last night, but it will ease her plight."

The duchess sniffed disdainfully, still irked by Miss Lawrence's definition of conventionality. "The lower classes are always eager for coin, Jordan, regardless of the reason it's given. I'm surprised she didn't try to wheedle some sort of monetary reward last night."

"You've become a cynic," Jordan teased blandly. "But you're wrong about this girl. She's without guile or greed."

Startled by this announcement from Jordan, whose opinion of the female character was notoriously low, Tony suggested helpfully, "In a few years, why don't you have another look at her and set her up as—"

"
Anthony
!" the duchess warned in tones of direst disapprobation. "Not in my presence,
if
you please!"

"I wouldn't dream of taking her from where she is," Jordan said, completely inured to his grandmother's ferocious scowl. "Alexandra is a rare jewel, but she wouldn't last a day in London. She's not hard enough or brittle enough or ambitious enough. She—" He broke off and looked inquiringly at the butler, who had coughed politely to obtain recognition. "Yes, Ramsey, what is it?"

Ramsey drew himself up ramrod straight, his face contorted with distaste, his eyebrows positively levitating with ire. Directing his remarks to Jordan, he said, "There are three persons here, your grace, who insist upon seeing you. They arrived in a cart that defies description, drawn by a horse which is unworthy of the name, wearing clothing which no person of any merit would be seen in—"

"Who are they?" Jordan interrupted impatiently.

"The man claims to be Sir Montague Marsh, and the two ladies with him are his sister-in-law Mrs. Lawrence and his niece Miss Alexandra Lawrence. They say they've come to collect upon a debt owed by you."

The word "debt" caused Jordan's eyebrows to snap together into a frown. "Show them in," he said shortly.

In an uncharacteristic lapse from her normal hauteur, the duchess permitted herself a satisfied, I-told-you-so glance at Jordan. "Miss Lawrence is not only greedy, she's pushing and encroaching. Imagine, calling upon you here and claiming you owe a debt."

Without replying to his grandmother's undeniable assessment of the situation, Jordan walked over and sat down at the carved oaken desk at the far end of the room. "There's no reason for either of you to sit through this. I'll handle it."

"On the contrary," said the duchess in a glacial voice. "Anthony and I shall be present as witnesses in case these persons should resort to extortion."

Keeping her eyes focused on the back of the butler, Alexandra followed reluctantly in the wake of her mother and Uncle Monty, her entire being engulfed in mortification, her misery increased a thousandfold by the magnificence of Rosemeade.

She'd expected a duke's grandmother to occupy a grand home, but nothing in her imagination or experience had prepared her for the sight of this gigantic, brooding place set amid acres of gardens and lawns. Until they arrived here, she'd clung to the vision of the duke as he had seemed the other night—friendly and accessible. Rosemeade, however, had banished that absurd notion from her mind. He was from another world. To him, Rosemeade was "a small country home." Instead, it was a
palace
, she thought miserably, as her feet sank into thick Aubusson carpet, a palace that made her feel even smaller and more insignificant than she already felt.