Whisper of Scandal

by Nicola Cornick

  “How did you get in here?” she asked foolishly, backing toward the door, her fingers rough against the hardness of the wood.

  “There is another entrance,” Alex said. He put out a negligent hand and pulled her down beside him, and because of her utter confusion she collapsed onto the bench beside him like a rag doll folding up. He steadied her. In the near dark she saw his teeth gleam in a smile.

  “Are you quite well, Joanna?”

  “I feel very odd,” Joanna admitted. “I fear these unusual customs are rather unfamiliar to me.”

  “Of course,” Alex said. He brushed the hair back from her face and she flinched from his touch, for it sent such awareness skittering across her skin that her entire body tingled.

  “Relax,” Alex murmured. “You feel very tense. I had hoped that the bath would refresh you. It is renowned for its medicinal properties, you know.”

  “Medicinal,” Joanna murmured. That sounded most reassuring.

  “Would you like me to tell you a little of the history of the baths?” Alex asked. “It might help you to feel a little more calm.”

  Well, Joanna thought, a little history seemed unexceptional. As a subject it had never particularly interested her, but anything that helped to distract her from the potency of Alex’s presence beside her must surely be a good thing. The heat was building now. Alex leaned forward and poured water on the pile of stones in the center of the room, and the steam rose hissing into the air and wreathed about them and it felt almost too hot to breathe. Then he tipped a bottle of clear liquid into the center of the column of steam, and the scent and the fumes made Jo’s head feel so heavy she wanted to lie down. The room was spinning slowly, pleasantly, and her blood beat hard in her veins.

  “Vodka,” Alex said. “A terrible waste, but it is part of the ritual.”

  “What is vodka?” Jo asked.

  “A spirit so strong it would make last night’s rum taste like lemonade at Gunter’s,” Alex said, smiling.

  “I do feel foxed again,” Joanna admitted.

  “It is merely the scents, and the intensity of the heat,” Alex said. He slid a little closer to her along the bench.

  “All the Scandinavians have a bathing custom.” Alex spoke softly after a moment. “It goes back many hundreds of years. In countries with climates as harsh as this the glowing heat relaxes the muscles and soothes the soul.”

  “Delightful,” Joanna murmured. She was starting to adjust to the intensity of the heat now. Her skin felt as though it was shimmering with it and a strange new consciousness of her body was creeping through her. It was as though every part of her was alive.

  “After they have experienced the heat of the sweat baths,” Alex continued, “they beat themselves with a birch switch to improve the circulation of the blood.”

  Joanna gave a little gasp. Her mind filled with deep, dark images. Her body burned. “Birch switch?” she said faintly. “Beating?”

  “It is the custom,” Alex said smoothly. “For medicinal purposes.”

  “Oh, of course.”

  How decadent was she, Joanna wondered, to have put quite a different emphasis on his words?

  “And then,” Alex finished, “they run outside completely naked and either roll in the snow or plunge into the waters of the fjord.”

  “How extraordinary.” Joanna shifted on the bench. Never had she felt so aware of her physical body. The wooden bench was so hot it stung her skin. She was rosy all over, the sweat rolling from her and the woolen gown intolerably sticky as it clung to her damp body. Her abdomen felt tight with pleasure, her nipples were hard where they rubbed against the wool of the gown.

  This, she reminded herself sternly, was supposed to be a relaxing but medicinal experience, not a sensual one.

  “You look most uncomfortable,” Alex said. There was amusement in his voice. “You would surely be more at ease if you removed that robe.”

  Joanna realized that she was clutching the neck of the gown very tightly at her throat. Alex rested his head against the wooden slats behind him and closed his eyes, for all the world, she thought crossly, as though he was as thoroughly relaxed as he claimed she should be. She eased her grip a little. It was true that to lose the robe would be a great deal more comfortable. And it was practically dark in the bathhouse. Alex would not be able to see anything if she did… And what did it matter anyway, for he was her husband…

  Stealthily, she eased the robe away from her body and dropped it to the floor with a sigh of relief. The swaths of steam curled up around her naked body and she felt hot and tight and excited and not one whit more relaxed.

  “Traditionally,” Alex said without opening his eyes, “the sweat of the bride is baked into the wedding bread and cakes when she is covered in milk and dough in the sweat baths.”

  “I know that I sound like Lottie,” Joanna said, “but it really does not sound very pleasant for everyone else to have to eat me.”

  Alex shifted and opened his eyes suddenly. His gaze swept down her body. He touched the curl that nestled in the hollow of her throat then leaned forward and licked up the drops of water there.

  “I will taste you,” he said. “That will suffice for us.”

  Joanna’s heart leaped and started to race with a deep, harsh beat that seemed to fill her whole body.

  “Hmm.” Alex’s voice was deep and rough. “Salty.”

  Joanna shivered despite the intense heat. Her senses were bewitched. The darkness, the scent, the warmth…She felt drowsy and languid yet somehow more awake and alive than she had ever felt before. She lay back on the hot wooden bench and felt Alex’s hands and his lips on her body, and she was so heated and so wet and so open to him that she cried out in longing. It was like a feverish dream as he sank inside her and her mind tumbled over and over into the dark and she gave herself up to him and felt as though he possessed her soul.

  Later Alex wrapped her in the woolen robe and carried her back to their hut and she dressed for the feast and they ate roast ptarmigan and freshly baked bread and fruit and honey. The villagers danced and sang the bridal songs of their homeland and gave Joanna a shirt, which they said was for her to wrap her firstborn child in for it would bring good luck. Joanna felt a pang of grief but folded the gift away carefully at the bottom of her trunk.

  The bridal feasting became wilder. Joanna saw Lottie slope off outside with a particularly well-set-up young Pomor hunter and wondered what Dev would think of that, but he was surrounded by three beautiful Pomor girls and did not even appear to notice. Later still, Alex took her back to their hut and made love to her again. Afterward Joanna lay awake and looked at the soft midnight light. Alex’s hand was resting lightly on her stomach as he slept and it felt like a gesture of possession. He would be asking soon when she would know if she was enceinte. Suddenly the pain ripped through her as viciously as it had done in the past and she knew she was grieving not only for the deceit that lay between them but also for the bitter truth that she would never be able to give Alex a child when it was becoming something she longed for very deeply.

  Chapter 14

  JOANNA WOKE WRAPPED in Alex’s arms. She felt cramped and stiff. The magic of the night before had gone and the morning was damp and gray and her heart felt cold and sad, too. Today it was not so easy to keep the world at bay. Today they would go to Bellsund to find Nina and she was afraid. And remembering Alex’s tenderness of the night before, she felt a fraud as well—a deceiver, the wife who had betrayed him. She despised herself.

  She felt the sting of tears in her throat and eased herself from Alex’s embrace. He made a soft sound of protest, but he did not wake, and after a moment she slipped from the hut and went out into the morning air. Max, yawning, jumped from his basket and followed her outside. She walked down to the inlet to wash her face and hands. The water was so cold and crisp that it stole her breath. She wondered what on earth it must be like to run from the intense heat of the bathhouse and plunge into the icy waters of the fjord. Surely
only the most mad and hardy could survive that. But then, she had thought herself a delicate lady, yet had done things on this trip that would send the matrons of the ton run screeching for their smelling salts.

  There was a crunch of shingle on the beach before her and she looked up from the stream and her heart almost froze in her chest. She had forgotten Alex’s strictures about safety, forgotten that in this land there was more than one way to meet a swift death. For there it was, not the pure white that she had always imagined but a sort of rich cream color, gleaming in the morning sun. The bear sniffed the air, turned its head and looked directly at her.

  It was beautiful. It was also enormous and terrifying—but somehow quite enchanting in its power and strength and grace.

  Joanna’s heart stuttered in her chest and then began to race. She straightened up and stood still, watching it come. It moved slowly, deliberately, without taking its gaze from her. She felt transfixed, her legs as weak as water, fascinated, terrified. She knew that she should move, run for cover and raise the alarm in the village, but her legs did not seem to want to obey her. She opened her mouth and no sound came except a dry gasp as her breath caught in her throat.

  There was a noise behind her, the rattle of stones on the scree slope and she turned her head. Alex was standing above her on the hillside and he had a rifle in his hands. His face was white and his eyes burned dark. Max was with him, running in circles, barking and barking, the sound bouncing off the high walls of the mountains and echoing back.

  And still the bear came on.

  Alex did not move. The bear was a mere two hundred feet away now. It looked enormous. It raised its head and seemed to dance for a moment on the balls of its feet like a boxer.

  Terror swept through Joanna in a hot tide. She tried to scramble away, up the slope, slipping and sliding as the stones ran beneath her boots. The bear was so close now that she could almost feel its breath on her face. She was shaking so hard that she felt faint and sick.

  Alex was not going to help her.

  A scream trapped in her throat. Her mind tumbled with despair. And then Alex raised the rifle and fired over the bear’s head.

  The smack of the shot echoed around the mountain like the roar of a cannon. The bear stopped and stared at Joanna for what seemed like forever and then it turned and ambled slowly away.

  Joanna lay still for a moment, shaking, her hair in her eyes, her pulse drumming in her ears so loudly that for a moment it was all she could hear. She rolled over, sat up and looked at Alex. He was stark white. He put the rifle down and she could see he was shaking.

  “I couldn’t kill it,” Alex said. His voice sounded strange, remote. “I should have shot it down much sooner.”

  Joanna looked at him, arrested by the note in his voice. “Alex—” she said uncertainly. Reaction was setting in now, making her shiver and shiver with shock. She wanted to rail at him for risking her life, but she could not find her voice. She wanted to shake him for leaving it so late; she wanted to cry. Yet there was something in Alex’s stillness and the stunned way in which he stood staring in the direction that the bear had gone that held her quiet.

  “I failed,” Alex said quietly. His gaze came back and focused on her hard and fast. “I failed again.” He dropped to his knees beside her and grabbed her shoulders, his fingers biting into her flesh. Joanna gave a gasp.

  “You should never have come,” Alex said. “I knew you should never have come. I could not protect you properly when it mattered.” He released her abruptly, stood up and walked away.

  “Where are you going?” Joanna demanded. But he did not answer. He did not even turn.

  The others, alerted by Max’s barking and the sound of the shot, were coming out to meet her now, Dev running faster than Joanna had ever seen a man move, Owen Purchase with a rifle, Lottie grabbing her cloak about her. Behind them the villagers crowded from their huts.

  Joanna scrambled stiffly to her feet and started to brush the dirt from her skirts with hands that shook.

  “Jo!” Lottie’s voice had lost all its usual assurance. She grabbed Joanna’s hands. “We heard the shot. What happened?”

  “I came out on my own,” Joanna said. “So stupid, when we were told to be careful. I forgot…” She gave a convulsive shudder. “There was a bear, Lottie. It…it was so beautiful. Alex said he couldn’t kill it and truly I would not have wished him to, but I was so terrified—” Her voice broke.

  Dev, who was bending to pick up the rifle, gave her a sharp look. “Alex did not shoot it?”

  “He fired over its head,” Joanna said. She shuddered again and Lottie put an arm about her, steering her back toward the hut.

  “Where’s Grant now?” Purchase demanded. There was a white line about his mouth and a hard look in his eyes.

  “He’s gone.” Joanna’s teeth were chattering so much she could barely form the words. “I don’t know where—”

  “Don’t say any more,” Lottie scolded. “Not until we get you inside.”

  They wrapped her in blankets and gave her brandy to drink even though Joanna protested that she would rather have something hot. Lottie knelt before her, rubbing her cold hands. Owen Purchase had a poker face on, as though he should have been there to protect her, as though he wanted to kill Alex for failing in his duty.

  “Nobody died,” Joanna pointed out as she swallowed the spirit and felt it make its fiery way down her throat and curl into her stomach.

  “I don’t understand,” Lottie said. She still looked shocked, as real as Joanna had ever seen her, all her shallow pretense stripped away. “Why didn’t Alex fire sooner? Why didn’t he kill it?”

  “I don’t know,” Joanna said. She shivered inside the rough blankets, feeling the scratch of them against her skin. “I don’t know,” she said again. “He said he had failed me in some way and then—” she made a slight gesture “—he just walked away.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Dev and Purchase exchange a glance. She looked up, wanting to defend Alex from their censure. For all her anger with him earlier, she could not bear for them to blame him.

  “I didn’t want him to kill it,” she said defiantly. “It was too beautiful to kill.”

  “And it would have made a terrible mess,” Lottie said, recovering some of her sangfroid.

  “But a good meal,” Dev said regretfully.

  Joanna edged toward the fire, trying to get warm. “Alex said that he had failed, Dev,” she repeated. “What did he mean by that?”

  She saw the two men exchange another look. “I don’t know,” Dev said slowly.

  “Yes, you do,” Owen Purchase said. He sounded grim. “We both know, Devlin. He meant that Amelia died because of him, and now—” he made a gesture that was full of repressed anger “—he fails to protect Joanna properly, too.”

  Dev’s mouth set in an ugly line. “Amelia’s death wasn’t Alex’s fault in any way,” he said. “He was badly injured trying to save her. Her loss almost destroyed him—”

  “Well, he almost lost a second wife just now,” Owen said contemptuously. “He took an appalling risk. He should have shot it at two hundred yards.”

  Dev’s hands balled into fists. “Don’t you dare accuse Alex of cowardice and failure, Purchase—”

  “Gentlemen.” Joanna scrambled up and placed herself between them. The atmosphere was as taut and ugly as at a dogfight. “This isn’t the time or the place for a mill,” she said. “We need to find Alex.” She looked appealingly at Dev. “Do you know where he will be, Devlin?”

  “He will probably have gone to Wijde Bay,” Dev murmured, turning away, his shoulders slumping. “There’s a place there he once told me about. It’s called the Villa Raven. It’s not far.”

  “A villa!” Lottie had brightened immeasurably, like the sun coming out. “Why did no one tell me there was a villa here? How marvelous! Let us all go!”

  “Mrs. Cummings,” Purchase said dryly, “this isn’t like the villas on the Thames in Lon
don. The Villa Raven is no better than this hut, indeed probably far worse. It is in the most beautiful setting, but is said to bring misfortune on all who stay there.”

  “One of Sprague’s crew lost his big toe to frostbite and left it there,” Dev agreed. “And then there was Fletcher, who died there from scurvy—”

  “It sounds charming,” Joanna said. She picked up her cloak. “I shall go. I need to talk to Alex.”

  “No!” Lottie caught her arm. “Jo darling, you’ve almost been eaten by a mad, rampant polar bear! How could you possibly even think of venturing out into the vast wastes of Spitsbergen alone?”

  “I’ll take a rifle,” Joanna said. “Papa showed me how to shoot when I was young. I used to hate the noise and the smell and everything about it, but I do know how to use it.”

  “I’ll come with you, ma’am.” Owen Purchase stepped forward. “There are a few things I want to say to Grant.”

  “No,” Joanna said firmly. All she knew was that it was imperative that she find Alex. The look she had seen in his eyes when he had walked away had shaken her to her soul. “Thank you,” she added, “but calling Alex out will not solve this particular problem, Captain Purchase.”

  Dev grinned and handed her his gun. “I won’t try to stop you,” he said. “I’ll just give you some advice. Take Karl as your guide and send him back when you find Alex. We will wait for you both here. Oh, and if you need to shoot anything, try lying down to do it. You won’t get as much recoil if you do.”

  “I’ll remember that when there’s a polar bear charging me,” Joanna said dryly. Lottie passed her a satchel. “I am told that there is something that passes for food and water in here,” she said. “Try to make sure that you are not the meal, Jo darling.”

  “Thank you,” Joanna said. She hugged Lottie and went out to where the horses were tethered. Karl was lounging in the sun, smoking some extremely potent and smelly tobacco, but he straightened up when he saw her and gave her a little bow and his gap-toothed smile.