“Please take me to the Villa Raven,” Joanna said, and saw Karl’s smile fade. He muttered something, crossed himself and spat on the ground for good measure.
“He says that place is haunted by bad spirits,” Purchase said helpfully.
“Please tell him he does not need to accompany me all the way, only show me where it is,” Joanna said.
A brief, tense interchange took place between the men and then Karl nodded with clear reluctance.
Purchase turned back to her. “All right,” he said. “He’ll take you down to the strand and watch to make sure you reach the hut safely and then he’ll leave you.” He shook his head. “I wish to hell you’d let me come with you, Lady Grant. I don’t like this at all.”
“I need to see Alex alone,” Joanna said. “Captain Purchase—Owen—surely you understand—”
She saw a flash of something in Owen Purchase’s eyes. “Oh, I understand, all right,” Purchase said. He straightened. “And Devlin was right,” he added reluctantly. “Grant is a fine man. I only said what I did because I was angry.”
Joanna felt the prickle of tears at the back of her throat. “Thank you,” she said.
She remembered the fierce objections Alex had made back in London when she had first outlined her plan to travel to Spitsbergen. She thought of Lottie’s idle speculation that Amelia Grant’s death had been the cause of Alex’s determination to prevent her from taking the journey and she shivered.
“I failed,” Alex had said, “I could not protect you…”
She put her foot in the stirrup and pulled herself up into the saddle. “Let’s go,” she said.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”
Alex had known someone would come after him. He had assumed that it would be either Dev or Owen Purchase and he would have had absolutely no compunction about telling them to go to hell.
He had not for a moment imagined that it would be Joanna.
He watched her dismount, tie her horse to the post outside the Villa Raven and come up the rotting wooden steps toward him. She was looking around with the greatest of distaste as her gaze took in the desolate spit of land and the rickety hut, one wall of which was almost flattened by drifting sand.
The anger seethed inside him. He knew that it was not fair to vent it on Joanna, but he was beyond fairness now. All the memories he had repressed for so long, all the guilt, all the horror, had come rushing back like a poisoned tide. He had loved Amelia and he had failed her. He had started to care for Joanna against all sense and against all reason—and he had failed her, too. The bitterness twisted in his gut like a rusted knife.
“Were you not content with almost getting yourself eaten by a bear?” he inquired with deadly politeness. “Did you really feel the need to venture abroad again so soon with no one to protect you?”
Joanna swung the rifle over her shoulder and placed it carefully against the wall.
“I can shoot,” she said.
From the look in her blue eyes Alex thought she would very much like to shoot him. Excellent. It would put him out of his misery.
“I don’t want you here,” he said brutally. The guilt and grief lashed him again, as it had been doing from the moment he had walked away from her. Anger, with her, with him, pain, blame, hideous remorse… He felt sick with it. He grabbed her shoulders and felt her flinch.
“Why are you here?” he repeated.
She looked up at him and her eyes were that same clear candid blue that he remembered from the meeting in Churchward’s office. It seemed so long ago.
“I came to find you,” she said simply. She held his gaze fearlessly. “I thought that you might need me.”
He squeezed his eyes tight shut. Her words hurt and it was his turn to flinch.
“I don’t. I do not need you.”
“Yes, you do.” She spoke very calmly.
He shook his head. “Blame me. Argue with me.” He ran a hand over his hair. “We always argue.”
“Not this time.” She moved from beneath his hands and went to sit down on the villa steps.
He had wanted to see the real Joanna Ware, the woman he had glimpsed beneath the facade of dashing society hostess. Here she was. And he realized that he had made a fundamental mistake; there was no facade. The darling of the ton, the Lady of the Fancy and this woman were one and the same. The style, the clothes, the balls and parties were simply aspects of a character that could also embrace a warmth and generosity toward those she cared for. He had not seen it before because he had been determined to believe her to be fickle and shallow. Ware’s hatred of her and his own obstinacy had blinded him.
I thought you might need me…
She had cared about him, about how he might be feeling, putting aside her own pride and anger to offer him comfort. He felt humbled. He looked at Joanna. She was staring out across the bay with a fierce concentration and a very stubborn set to her chin. Alex felt a pang of emotion so poignant and powerful that he rocked back on his heels.
His wife. With a shock he realized that that had been what he had thought of as Amelia’s role, not Joanna’s. Although Amelia had died five years before, she had still been enshrined in his heart as his wife. It did not matter that he had married Joanna, that he had made love to her, that he wanted her to be the mother of his heir. Somehow he had still thought of Amelia as his real wife.
Until now…
He sat down next to Joanna. She cast him a sideways glance but she did not speak. After a moment he took her hand. He saw a little smile touch her lips. He wanted to kiss her.
“I want to tell you about Amelia,” he said abruptly.
He heard the tiny catch of her breath and thought he saw a fleeting look of fear in her eyes.
“You never speak of her,” she said.
“Well, I am doing so now.”
She avoided his eyes. “You loved her?”
“Yes,” Alex said. “Yes, I did. I loved her very much. We had known one another since we were young. I wanted her to travel with me where and when she could. She was not anxious to do so, but I insisted. I thought, in my arrogance, that it was a wife’s place always to be by her husband’s side.”
Joanna’s bright blue gaze was fixed on his face now. “What happened?” she said softly.
“We had been married five years when I was posted to India,” Alex said. “The ship came under attack from a French squadron under Admiral Linois. We were escorting a couple of merchant ships that were anchored out of Vizagapatam.” He paused. “There was an accident with some loose gunpowder in the magazine. It had not been doused down. There was a spark—” Alex stopped. He could still hear the explosion echo through his head, still taste the smoke and gunpowder gritty on his tongue, still smell the blood. He shuddered. Joanna’s fingers tightened on his, her hand, small and warm, lying within his.
“There was a terrible fire that ravaged the ship,” he said tonelessly. “I fought my way below to find Amelia. I found her, but…” He hesitated. “She was horribly burned. I knew she was going to die. With almost her last breath she asked me to forgive her for failing me.” His voice roughened. “She kept apologizing to me, over and over again, because she had not been able to escape the flames. But I was the one who failed. I had insisted that she come with me. If she had stayed at home in England she would not have died.”
There was silence. The wind was starting to rise, whistling through the spars of the ancient hut.
“She was pregnant with my child,” Alex finished. “And I never wanted another wife nor another child until you came to me that night in London to make your bargain.”
For a moment he saw vivid emotion in Joanna’s face. Her fingers trembled in his. A moment later she bent her head and her bright hair fell forward, shielding her expression.
“You lost a child as well,” she said. “Oh, Alex…” Her voice was so soft he had to strain to hear it. “I am so sorry. So very sorry.”
“I never told anyone about the child,” Alex said. The memor
y of Amelia had always been strong within him. He had clung to it, he realized, because he had felt in some way that if he started to forget her that would mean that he had started to feel less guilty, less responsible for her death. For years he had not wanted anyone else in her place. Balvenie could not have an heir because he had lost the wife and the child who should have stood beside him. But then Joanna had come to him and everything had started to change.
“Amelia was very gentle and sweet,” he said. “She had no core of steel. She was not like you.” He realized that until very recently he would have thought Joanna to be the weak one. He had been very mistaken in her.
“She would never have ridden all the way here to find me,” he said. “She would have waited until I came back to her.”
“She sounds like a woman of great good sense,” Joanna said. She glanced down at her Esquimaux boots. “What sane woman would choose to ride out here, ruining her boots and her riding habit in the process?”
Alex heard the briskness in her words but underneath it some strong emotion. He put a hand against her cheek and tilted her face up to his. Her skin was warm beneath his touch and so soft he wanted to kiss her. Suddenly, fiercely, the impulse gripped him. He wanted to reassure her, to tell her that he admired her for what she had done.
“I am glad you came,” he said gently.
Her gaze clung to his. He pulled her close, his arms going around her. She felt so warm and so strong that again he was startled. How could Joanna Ware, who had seemed so brittle, instead prove to be so resilient? He rested his chin against her hair. It smelled of earth and felt dusty against his lips.
“Today,” he said slowly, “when I saw the bear coming, I could not move. It was the most damnable thing.” His hands tightened on her, she winced, and he eased back a little. He did not want to let her go completely, though. The need to keep her very close to him was strong.
“I knew what I had to do,” he said. “I wanted to fire, but somehow I could not seem to move. I cannot explain it. All I seemed to be able to think was that I had failed before and now it was going to happen again in a different way…”
Joanna turned her face against his jacket in a little caress. “You did not fail Amelia, Alex,” she said quietly. “You did your very best to save her. Dev said that you almost died, yourself, as a result. And today, well, you did not fail me either.”
“I left it too late,” Alex said. “I should have killed it.” The anger swept through him again, but the hot, shaming tide seemed less powerful than it had before. Something was easing inside him, loosening its grip, starting to let go.
“Then I would have been really angry with you,” Joanna said. “How could you kill something so magnificent?” She sighed, shivering a little in the wind from the sea. “We should go back. The others will be worried about us.”
“Soon,” Alex said. “I just want you to myself a little longer. Not only is there no privacy on the ship, there is no privacy on this expedition.”
Joanna gave him a smile. “We managed well enough yesterday,” she said demurely. Then, as he moved to kiss her: “However, I do draw the line at making love in this disgusting villa. I am certain it must be infected with fleas.”
“It is too cold for them,” Alex said. He kissed her again. Her lips clung to his for a brief moment, soft and sweet, and then she pushed him away.
“No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”
“Oh, very well,” Alex said. He stood up and helped her to her feet. He stood still, looking down into her face for a moment.
“Joanna Grant,” he said slowly, “you are the most surprising woman I have ever met.”
Once again, for a fleeting second, he saw that shadow touch her eyes again and then she smiled. “I am glad that you realize it,” she said lightly. She looked down at her feet, where the sole of the Esquimaux boot flapped. “You mentioned before that sailors were talented at shoe-making,” she said. “Do you think any of them could fix my boot?”
Chapter 15
IT WAS ON THE MORNING of the following day that they rode along the coast toward the settlement of Bellsund. Alex had insisted that Joanna rest when they returned to the village and given the soreness and bruising of her body she had not argued with him. She had sat in a sheltered spot in the sunshine and listened to the women chattering as they washed the clothes, and she had cradled the babies and played with the children and had thought about the tragedy of Alex losing not only Amelia but also his unborn child as well. She had not thought it possible to feel worse about her betrayal of Alex’s trust, but now the remorse hammered at her with no respite. He did not deserve such deceit.
He had asked her, the previous day, why she had come to find him and she had told him that it was because she had thought that he might need her and it had been true, but it had not been the whole truth. She had gone to him because instinct had driven her to do so. She had known that something terrible was paining him. She had wanted to ease that hurt because she loved him.
She was in love with him, utterly and completely.
She was in love with Alex Grant, the explorer, the adventurer, the man who wanted no ties and no responsibilities, who had offered her a bargain and whom she was cheating every step of the way.
“You can see now why Purchase could not bring the ship this far,” Alex said, breaking into her unhappy thoughts. They were cantering along the shingle toward Bellsund. The cart, with Lottie and the luggage, was lurching along behind, and Lottie’s squawks of complaint rose in the air to mingle with the cries of the seabirds.
“When the wind is from the east it blows the ice into the inlet and then it piles up and blocks the way through,” Alex said.
Joanna reined in for a moment to study the view, glad of the distraction. Huge blocks of ice were heaped up higgledy-piggledy against one another as though thrown there by monstrous hands. She had never seen anything like it, not even in the harshest English winters when the rivers sometimes froze. It was easy to see how a ship might be crushed, the timbers creaking with strain and eventually cracking under the enormous pressure. She shuddered.
“That is what would have happened to us if you had not cut the Sea Witch out of the ice, isn’t it?” she said. “We would have been trapped in the middle of something like that and crushed to death.”
“Either that or driven onto the rocks and broken up,” Alex said. “These are dangerous seas. The power of nature here is profound.”
Joanna nodded. “When will it clear?” she asked.
“It could be any time,” Alex said. “In the summer months the ice can shift and change within hours. You saw that yourself. When the wind veers, the current will sweep the ice away. You can see Bellsund Monastery now,” he added. “Over there, on the edge of the promontory.”
Joanna turned in the saddle. “It looks like a fortress rather than a monastery,” she whispered, staring across the bleak, barren ground. “I had no notion it would be like this.”
The sprawling monastery had gray walls built of huge boulders that looked to be at least forty feet high and ten feet thick. There were squat round towers with pointed roofs, massive gates and behind the wall a jumble of other roofs, spires and buildings. Stumbling over such an enormous community in so empty and desolate a land was breathtaking and extraordinary, and yet the forbidding dark walls seemed almost to spring from the landscape like the natural rock.
Joanna shivered. Now that she was almost at the end of her journey she felt sick and scared, exhausted with longing to see Nina at last, fearful of finally stepping up and claiming David’s daughter as her own. She straightened in the saddle and saw that Alex was watching her.
“Are you quite well?” His voice was soft. He put a hand over hers as they lay on the reins. “You do not have to do this, you know. I could go for you—”
“Thank you,” Joanna said, “but I do have to do this.” She dug her heels into the horse’s sides and set off at a gallop, suddenly desperate to reach their destination. After a
second she heard Alex follow her, the horses thundering along the strand toward the monastery gates. The cart and its outriders were left far behind.
The gates swung open onto a wide cobbled courtyard surrounded by buildings. A groom came forward to take their horses. Alex jumped down and held out his arms to help Joanna dismount. She slid down to the ground, suddenly aware of how stiff and tired she was, so grateful for his support that for a moment she clung to his arms before she dredged up the strength to release him and stand straight and alone.
Alex was talking in Russian to a young monk who had emerged from the gatehouse to greet them and Joanna stood by feeling both self-conscious and humble. She could see now how much Alex had smoothed this process for her, shepherding her safely across this empty and alien land, protecting her, guiding her and now dealing with the monks. Despite Merryn’s tutoring, she could speak so little Russian. Caught up in all the emotional turmoil of David’s legacy to her, she had overlooked so many matters—matters that Alex had made easy for her. For a moment her throat closed with tears as she realized how much she owed him.
“They are going to take us to see Father Starostin,” Alex said. “He is the archmandrite, the chief abbot, of the monastery. He is a great man and a great scholar. I believe he has lived here at Bellsund for almost forty years.”
Joanna nodded. “Thank you.” She could feel the monk’s gaze resting on her. Though he was young, he had an old man’s face, wise and contemplative. His scrutiny made her feel vulnerable. He seemed to see too much, all her hopes and her fears. But she was tired now, too tired to keep her feelings from showing.
The monk led them along a series of roofed and arched passageways between the buildings, past a magnificent church, a bell tower and a set of gates that opened onto a lush botanical garden.
“The climate is mild here because we are in a valley,” Alex murmured as he saw her gaze take in the verdant trees and plants. “They also have a most cunning system of hot-water pipes that run underground and heat the soil.”
Whisper of Scandal Page 25
