“There is crowfoot,” Alex said. “It is prolific here in the summer.”
“How charming,” Joanna said. “Look, Lottie!”
“Darling,” Lottie said, “I really cannot get excited over a plant that is so small and green.”
They saw no one all day. Joanna was at first talkative, exclaiming over the view, asking questions, but as the day went on she fell silent and as the afternoon progressed Alex could see that she was swaying with tiredness in the saddle. He tried to persuade her to ride in the provisions cart, but she set her lips mulishly and said she would carry on. Alex admired her determination, but wanted to shake her for her stubbornness.
“You have nothing to prove,” he argued when they stopped to water the horses. “Devil take it, you have already bested me at chess and shown that you have the stamina to ride across rough terrain for hours!” He gestured toward the cart, where Lottie was sitting looking bad-tempered amidst the packing cases. “For pity’s sake, take a rest!”
“It would not be a rest if I was obliged to listen to Lottie’s complaints,” Joanna said, hauling herself up into the saddle again. “Nor is a cart a mode of transport I could bring myself to use.” She smiled suddenly. “Lottie’s reputation for style would never recover, you know, if it were noised about the ton that she had traveled alongside a sack of dry biscuits.”
By the time Alex called a halt to the day’s journey, on the edge of a small inlet, he could see that Joanna was almost asleep in the saddle. He lifted her down, holding her gently, feeling tenderness and compassion for her, mixed with exasperation. She was white with fatigue by now.
“You have only yourself to blame,” he said more roughly than he had intended, strangely moved by her spirit and determination.
“I know.” She smiled at him. “You are right, as always.”
Alex’s lips twitched. “I suppose you think I am being judgmental again.”
“You can safely leave me to make my own mistakes,” Joanna said, “though I appreciate your concern.” She looked around. “Where are we to stay tonight?”
Alex nodded in the direction of the shore. “We stay in that trappers’ hut.”
It was a long, low building, scarcely more than a box that looked as though it had been tossed onto the beach by an angry sea. Around it were scattered bones bleached white by the sun and the tides. Seeing them, Lottie gave a theatrical shriek and threw herself into Owen Purchase’s arms.
“Darling, where on earth have you brought us?”
The guide was laughing and Alex translated for them.
“He says it was the home of a Norwegian trapper who hunted bears and Arctic foxes and eider duck last winter.”
“He left enough bits of them behind,” Lottie grumbled.
“Oh…” Joanna’s gasp was a half laugh, half groan. “I suppose there is no hot water?”
“Not until we find some and heat it up,” Alex said.
“Food?”
Alex nodded toward the cart. “We will make some porridge and cocoa once the fire is lit.”
Joanna pulled a face. Alex waited for her to complain at the paucity of their supplies, but she was silent. Lottie, on the other hand, was voicing sufficient grumbles for two.
“What can I do to help?” Joanna asked after a moment.
“You can collect birch wood for the fire,” Alex said. “It burns well. You’ll find some washed up on the beach. But don’t venture out of sight,” he added. “There is always a danger from the bears.”
Joanna nodded. Alex watched her walk over to Lottie. He saw Lottie shake her head, saw Joanna say something to her and saw Lottie shake her head again.
“Darling.” Lottie’s voice floated to him across the still Arctic air. “What is the point of being surrounded by so many strapping young men if we have to lift a finger ourselves? No, indeed, I intend to wait here until someone fetches me food and drink. I have paid for this trip, you know.”
“Remind me,” Owen Purchase said a little grimly in Alex’s ear, “why I allowed that woman to join us on this trip.”
“Because she is rich and Dev wanted to sleep with her,” Alex said, equally grimly.
Purchase laughed. “She is behaving exactly as I imagined she would,” he said. He shook his head. “It’s the devil of a thing to be proved right.”
“Whereas Joanna,” Alex said, his eyes following the slim figure of his wife as she walked along the beach, bending every so often to pick up pieces of flotsam, “is the reverse.”
“Not at all,” Purchase said. His eyes met Alex’s and held them for a long moment. “Lady Grant is behaving exactly as I knew she would,” Purchase said. “You are the one whose expectations were all wrong, Grant.” He nodded briskly and walked away, leaving Alex staring after him.
JOANNA LAY BACK AGAINST the soft furs of the dogsled, Max curled up by her side. Alex had been quite right; it was a deal more comfortable than riding. She had ached all over last night. Waking up in the morning had been worse, though. She was covered in dust, her skin felt gritty and rough and her hair was dull and lifeless. She had found a tin plate and had peered at her appearance in it and then she had wished she had not bothered, for she looked appalling, worse even than she had when she was sick on the ship. She had not thought that possible. Now she could see it was.
Breakfast consisted of strips of the most disgusting meat that Joanna had ever tasted washed down with cold water. The weather had changed and in the thick damp mist the fire had refused to light, spitting and hissing, so there had been no cocoa.
“This is salted seal meat,” Dev had confided in her as he passed her a plate of what had looked like boiled leather. “Pray do not tell Mrs. Cummings, though. She thinks it is salt beef.”
They ate largely in silence, even Lottie, who, extraordinarily, seemed to have run out of things to complain about. But at least today, Joanna thought, stretching luxuriously against the rich warmth of the fur-lined sledge, with Max’s little body pressed cozily against her, they were crossing the mountain passes and so would be traveling over snow not the rocky terrain that lay lower down the mountains.
There was absolutely nothing to see. The mist pressed closer than a smothering blanket, lifting only occasionally to reveal mountains as black as coal. The snow hissed beneath the blades of the sledge. Joanna could not believe that a country that had looked so beautiful the day before could now seem so comfortless, pewter from horizon to horizon, dark, stony and disheartening.
“Everything is so gray,” she had complained when they set out.
“Most quelling,” Lottie had agreed as she had scrambled in beside Joanna into the fur-lined interior of the sledge. She had at first refused to ride in it, claiming that she had never seen dogs with such mad blue eyes and that she did not trust them not to overturn the sled. “Gray has never been one of my favorite colors,” she had added. “It is too draining for my complexion.”
“Alex tells me that this is good weather and that sometimes it can rain for twenty days on end,” Joanna said glumly. “That is when it is not snowing. So perhaps we should count ourselves lucky.”
“Darling,” Lottie said, “there is nothing in the least to be grateful for in this godforsaken country. Are you regretting coming?” she added, fixing Joanna with her bright dark gaze. “I cannot believe that David’s little bastard can possibly be worth all this trouble when we could be strolling in the park now or trying hats at Mrs. Piggott’s shop.” She did not wait for a reply but chattered on: “Did you hear that the Parisian bonnet will be all the rage this winter? It is Lady Cholmondeley who sponsors the trend and says that it should be decorated with flowers, but I have in mind to thwart her by announcing that I prefer fruit on mine. I intend to have the sweetest little beaver hat made especially and adorned with plums and apricots. What do you think?”
Joanna, whose mind had drifted away to fret over her first meeting with Nina, jumped.
“I beg your pardon, Lottie,” she said. “I was not attending.”
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“Why on earth not?” Lottie looked affronted.
“I was thinking about Nina,” Joanna confessed, “and whether she will like the toys that I have brought for her.”
“Darling!” Lottie’s face cleared. “Of course she will! They are from Hamleys! She will love them! She has probably never even seen a toy before, locked up in that ghastly place with a bunch of monks!”
Joanna frowned. “I suppose not. It is true that I can give her plenty of things that she will never have had before—”
“Toys, and pretty clothes.” Lottie nodded sagely. “Only think what fun we will have back in London, darling, dressing a little girl in miniature versions of all the latest fashions. Why, she will be just like a doll!” Lottie’s face fell. “At least she will be if she is pretty. I am not sure what we shall do with her if she is not.”
“Lottie,” Joanna said, “Nina is not a toy herself.”
Her head was aching. Suddenly she wanted to cry and she was not entirely certain why. Surely Nina would be delighted to have so many gifts and presents showered on her. What child would not? And yet… Joanna thought of the box of balls and spinning tops and dolls that was bouncing about in the provisions cart and anxiety clutched at her and she was not quite sure why. She wanted to talk to Alex, draw comfort somehow from sharing her fears with him, but he was riding with Dev and Owen and their guide up ahead.
Late in the afternoon they drove into a tiny settlement of huts on the edge of another wide fjord. Karl, the Pomor guide, was bursting with pride.
“This is his home, is it not?” Joanna said as Alex helped them out of the sleigh. “That much Russian I do understand.”
She looked about her. The village was no more than a bunch of cabins grouped along the edge of the strand, but it looked sturdy and was built of brick rather than the driftwood of the trappers’ hut the previous night. There was a forge and a couple of storage barns and a long low building that looked like a hall. On a little hill overlooking the ocean stood a large wooden cross.
“The Pomors are a very spiritual people,” Alex said. “They use the crosses for navigation as well as worship. The monastery at Bellsund is only a day’s ride from here and there have always been strong links between the village and the abbey.”
The villagers were coming out to greet them now, hunters in leather jerkins and women in white aprons with children hiding behind their skirts.
“I did not realize that people lived her all year round,” Joanna said. “Merryn’s book implied that the settlements were mainly used for overwintering.”
“So you did read it!” Alex said, smiling at her. “I thought that books bored you.”
“I flicked through a few chapters,” Joanna murmured.
“It is the Norwegians who tend to visit just for the hunting and trapping,” Alex said. “Some of the Pomors have lived here for many years and as you see, they bring their families with them.”
“They must be very hardy,” Joanna said.
Lottie, she saw, was looking about her with her customary disdain.
“What a primitive and ghastly place—” she started to say, but Joanna kicked her firmly in the ankle.
“What a delightful village,” Joanna said, smiling at Karl. “We are very grateful to be staying here.”
“They are holding a feast in our honor tonight,” Alex said. He nodded toward Owen Purchase, who was shouldering his rifle and chatting to a couple of the Pomor hunters. “Purchase is going to shoot some ptarmigan for us.”
“Ptarmigan?” Lottie wrinkled up her nose. “Isn’t that a bird? What are we to do, gnaw on the bones? This isn’t the Middle Ages, you know.”
“A pity,” Alex whispered to Joanna, “for if it were we could duck her for being a witch.” He raised his voice. “I am sure,” he said smoothly, “that you will feel a great deal better after you have had a hot bath, Mrs. Cummings.” He gestured to the women who were crowding about them. “They are waiting to show you to the sweat baths so that you may wash and relax.”
“A sweat bath!” Lottie exclaimed. “How utterly disgusting! You will not tempt me into sweating!” She snatched the skirts of her gown away from the fingers of one small child, who started to wail.
Alex turned to Joanna. “Then it would appear,” he said, “that it is just you and I, my lady.”
The idea of a bath, sweat or otherwise, sounded extraordinarily tempting to Joanna. The idea of a bath with Alex in it as well, however, was rather more disturbing. She eyed him cautiously.
“You are to accompany me?”
Alex’s expression was suspiciously bland. “It is the custom here in the North.”
“Is it indeed?” Joanna challenged.
He took her hand. “It is perfectly respectable for a married couple to bathe together, Joanna. I assure you that I would do nothing to offend the sensibilities of our hosts, and anyway—” he lowered his voice “—we have been very intimate these past few days. There is no need to be shy now.”
Joanna’s face flamed. “I am not shy!”
“Yes, you are.” Alex’s smile said that he knew better. “You have been shy with me from the start.” He touched her cheek. “I like it—but you don’t have to feel like that anymore.”
Joanna closed her eyes for a moment. She felt hot and stirred up by the expression in his eyes but at the same time helplessly adrift. The feelings that Alex was starting to conjure in her seemed too complex and difficult to control. At the beginning it had been about claiming Nina, but when she had started to fall in love with him that had all changed. She remembered once telling Merryn that adventurers were the worst type of man to fall in love with because they would always care more for traveling and exploring than for any woman. She thought of those words with a shiver.
Their hosts were helping to unload their baggage from the cart now and taking it toward one of the living huts. The women swept Joanna up in a laughing, chattering group and carried her away toward the nearest cabin.
“They will fetch me when they have made you ready,” Alex said, smiling at her as she cast him a look of apprehension. “I have told them that we are but recently wed,” he added. “They wish to give us the bridal bania, the bridal bath.”
It seemed to Joanna that the news of her wedding had indeed sent the village women into a fever of excitement. As they drew her into the warm shadowy interior of the bathing hut they plucked at her clothes and at her hair, exclaiming and smiling. Her meager words of Russian seemed totally inadequate now. All she could do was smile and nod as they gestured to her to sit on a cushioned bench and started to unpin her plait, which felt stiff with dust.
The hut was extraordinarily hot after the clinging chill of the mist outside and it smelled absolutely wonderful with the scent of birch and pine. What light there was filtered in through one small window and the tiny gaps between the wooden logs that made up the wall. Joanna started to relax as the warmth seeped into her veins. One of the girls brought her a cup of wine spiced with nutmeg. It was strong and delicious. They were brushing out her hair now, exclaiming over the length and the thickness of it. The long strokes of the brush were very soothing, as was the sweet tide of wine. Joanna, who had spent most of the day warding off frightened thoughts about meeting Nina on the morrow and how she might start to build the foundations of a relationship with a little girl who must be lonely and abandoned, allowed her mind to rest for a while. In the sweet-scented darkness of the bathing hut her fears were lulled, her anxieties about the future banished. Even when the women started to ease her from her riding habit, she barely noticed. There was a great deal of hilarity about the boots, which needed three of them to pull off.
It was only when they started to peel away her underclothes that Joanna realized with a rush of astonishment that they intended her to be completely naked. She sat up abruptly and her head spun with the wine and the heat. The women were around her like a flock of birds, chattering and plucking and seemingly taking no notice of her puny efforts to resist
them. One of the girls, who could not have been more than sixteen, smiled at her and put a reassuring hand on her arm.
“Please do not worry, my lady. It is part of the bridal preparations.”
“You speak English!” Joanna said. She felt hugely relieved, less alone. “What is your name?”
“I am Anya and I learned your language at the monastery school at Bellsund,” the girl said. She had laughing brown eyes and the widest smile that Joanna had ever seen. “The bridal bania is very special,” she confided. “We were all so happy when we learned that you and the stern lord were newly wed.”
“The stern lord.” Joanna laughed. “Yes, that is a good description of Alex.”
“So we make you beautiful for him,” the girl said as someone else whipped away Joanna’s last shreds of underwear before she could even protest. “There is soap here to wash, and almond oils for your hair—”
“Thank you,” Joanna said hastily, gesturing them to step back. “If you please, I shall do the washing myself and…um…do you have a robe I could borrow?”
There was some grumbling at this. Clearly, her British reserve puzzled her hosts. However, they backed away good-naturedly, leaving her with cool springwater to wash and, more important to Joanna, her privacy. She lathered her hair slowly, enjoying the rich scent of the almond oil after so many weeks on the ship and the past few days of rough traveling. The soap was gentle and smelled of herbs and she reveled in washing herself all over. After what seemed like a very long time, Anya knocked gently at the door and brought her a robe of the softest wool to wrap about herself, and then gestured to her that she should enter the inner baths. Joanna stood up and felt so dizzy and disorientated in the heat and darkness that she almost fell.
Her head spun even more when she went into the inner room and Anya shut the door softly behind her. Here it was fiendishly hot, like the fires of hell. She had never experienced anything like it. There were no windows and one long wooden bench along the wall—and Alex was sitting on it. He was, as far as Joanna could see, utterly naked apart from a cloth across his lap. His chest already gleamed with sweat.
Whisper of Scandal Page 23
