Something Wonderful

by Judith McNaught

  Alex would have died rather than let him believe he’d been the only man to kiss her on the lips in the last fifteen months, and she could see he’d already sensed that was true.

  “No,” she said shakily. His parted lips came down on hers again, in another long, searching kiss. “Kiss me, princess,” he urged hoarsely, kissing her temple, her ear, her cheek. “I want to see if it’s as good as I remembered it.”

  The achingly poignant discovery that he, too, had dwelt on their few kisses was more than Alexandra could withstand. With a silent moan of despair, she turned her head and met his lips with her own while her hands crept up his chest. Jordan’s mouth slanted fiercely over hers, and this time her lips yielded to his rough, tender kiss, parting beneath the sensual pressure and, at that moment, his tongue slid between them, invading her mouth and taking possession of her.

  Lost in a stormy sea of desire, confusion, and yearning, Alexandra felt his hand splay across her lower spine, forcing her closer to him, but instead of resisting she slid her hands up over his shoulders, unwittingly molding her melting body to the hardening contours of his. A shudder racked his muscular body as she fitted herself to him and Jordan’s arms tightened, crushing her to him, while his hand lifted, cupping her breast, his thumb brushing back and forth across her sensitized nipple while his tongue plunged into her mouth and withdrew, then plunged again and again in a wildly exciting, ever-increasing rhythm that drove her half mad with forbidden yearnings. The endless, drugging kiss, the provocative warmth of his hands moving ceaselessly over her back, then possessively cupping her breasts, the taut strength of his legs and thighs pressing intimately against hers worked their pagan magic on Alexandra; she kissed him back with all the helpless ardor she had felt so long ago, only this time her shy uncertainty was overwhelmed by the desire to clasp him to her, to pretend for a little while that he was all the things she had wanted him to be.

  Jordan knew only that the woman in his arms was responding to his kiss with more ardor than ever before, and the effect was devastating on his starved body. When her tongue darted out to touch his lips, he crushed her to him, drawing her tongue into his mouth, while desire surged through his bloodstream like wildfire, pounding in his loins. Fighting back the wild urge to lay her down on the carpet and take her then and there, he dragged his lips from hers and drew a long, unsteady breath, slowly expelling it. Evidently, his wife had learned a great deal about kissing while he was rotting in prison, he realized grimly.

  Surfacing slowly from the mists of desire, Alexandra stared into his hypnotic eyes, dazedly watching their color and mood change from the smoky darkness of passion to their usual enigmatic light silver, while she felt reality slowly return. Her hand still lay curved around his neck and it finally dawned on her that, beneath her fingers, his skin was fiery hot Make me burn, he had coaxed . . .

  Pride and satisfaction drifted through her as she realized she apparently had done exactly that, and her soft lips curved into an unconsciously provocative smile. Jordan’s eyes narrowed on that satisfied smile, then lifted to her knowing blue eyes. His jaw tightened and he dropped his arms, stepping back from her.

  “My compliments,” he said curtly, and Alexandra watched his mercurial mood take an obvious, abrupt, bewildering turn for the worse. “You’ve learned a great deal in the past year.”

  A year ago, her sluggish mind reminded her, he had thought her a naive, pitiful nuisance. Fixing a bright, artificial smile on her face, she said lightly, “A year ago you found me excruciatingly naive. Now you’re complaining because I’m not. There’s simply no pleasing you.”

  To Alex’s mortification, Jordan didn’t deny he’d found her naive. “We can discuss how you can ‘please’ me when we’re in bed tonight, after I return from White’s. In the meantime,” he continued in the implacable, authoritative tone of one issuing an edict, “I want a few things understood: First of all, an annulment is out of the question. So is divorce. Secondly, there will be no more mock duels, no more parading around in those trousers you are wearing, no racing in the parks, and no public appearances made by you with any man but me. Is that clear? You will not go out in company with any man but me.”

  Outrage exploded in Alexandra’s brain. “Who do you think you are!” she demanded, her color rising with indignation. He hadn’t changed one bit in two years. He still wanted to lock her away out of sight. No doubt he still had every intention of packing her off to Devon as well.

  “I know who I am, Alexandra,” he snapped cryptically. “I do not know who you are, however. Not anymore.”

  “I’m certain you do not,” she bit out, wisely controlling the urge to warn him in advance that she intended to defy him. “You thought you married a complaisant, adoring female who would rush to do your tiniest bidding, didn’t you?”

  “Something like that.” he admitted tightly.

  “You didn’t get one.”

  “I will.”

  Alexandra tossed her head and turned, pointedly refusing to curtsy to him. “You are wrong, your grace,” she said, and started for the door.

  “My name,” he informed her bitingly, “is Jordan.”

  Alexandra stopped and half turned, her delicate brows arched in feigned surprise, her color gloriously high. Once, she had longed to have him ask her to use his given name, now she took greater pleasure in refusing. “I’m aware of that,” she said and with calm defiance she added, “your grace.” Having thus clearly informed him that she did not wish for the intimacy of using his given name, she turned and walked across the room, feeling his eyes boring holes through her shoulder blades, praying that her shaking knees would not buckle with the nervousness she was struggling to hide.

  Not until she put her hand on the handle of the door did his low, ominous voice slash through the silence. “Alexandra!”

  Despite herself she jumped. “Yes?” she said, looking at him over her shoulder.

  “Think carefully before you make the mistake of defying my orders. You’ll regret it, I promise you.”

  Despite the icy tingle of alarm his silken voice caused in her, Alexandra lifted her chin. “Are you finished?”

  “Yes. Send Higgins in here when you leave.”

  The mention of the butler reminded Alex of her own servants’ plight and she swung around, prepared to launch a final skirmish. “The next time you want to retaliate against me for some imagined slight against you, kindly leave my servants out of it. Those two gentle old men whom you banished to the kitchens this morning are the closest thing to a father I ever had. Penrose taught me to fish and swim. Filbert made a dolls’ house for me with his own hands and later he built a raft for me and taught me how to sail it I won’t allow you to abuse them or humiliate—”

  “Tell Higgins,” he interrupted coolly, “to put them to work wherever it suits you—so long as it isn’t in the front hall.”

  When the door closed behind her, Jordan sat down in his chair, dark brows pulled together in a black frown. He had accomplished what he had set out to do, which was to make her understand the rules she would have to live by from now on, and he was certain she would obey those rules. The idea of being defied by a woman, particularly a young one who had once openly idolized him, was unthinkable. Moreover, his body’s almost uncontrollable desire for her a few minutes ago had amazed, unnerved, and thoroughly displeased him—even though he realized his year of enforced abstinence was partially the cause.

  Alexandra would never be the complaisant wife of his dreams, he realized, but in her fiery spirit he would find ample compensation. She would never bore him and she was not a liar or a coward. In the last half hour alone she had presented him with a list of his mistresses and openly admitted her behavior during the past two years; she had also angered, amused, and sexually aroused him. No, he would not be bored with her.

  Picking up the quill from his desk, he rolled it absently between his fingers, a reluctant smile replacing his frown. God, she was lovely, with those stormy eyes flashing like ang
ry green flames and her alabaster cheeks tinted with angry pink.

  So long as she behaved herself, he was willing to let her enjoy the full benefits of her position as the Duchess of Hawthorne. So long as she behaved . . .

  Higgins appeared in the doorway with John Camden in tow. “I gather,” John said, grinning, “that you’re making satisfactory progress with your wife?”

  “She’ll behave herself,” Jordan replied with supreme confidence.

  “In that case, perhaps you’ll be in a mood to join us at White’s tonight?”

  “Fine,” Jordan agreed, and the men began to discuss their joint venture with a mining company.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ALEXANDRA WENT DIRECTLY from Jordan’s study to the front hall, where she informed the butler that Penrose and Filbert were not to be restricted to the kitchens, then she asked Higgins to send both men to her in the morning room, and, with a fixed smile on her face, headed down the hall.

  Normally the morning room with its sunny yellow appointments and view of the garden brightened her spirits, but today as she walked inside and closed the doors behind her, the smile she had pasted on her face for the sake of the servants abruptly deserted her. The energy she had forced into her steps vanished as she walked slowly over to the windows and stood, staring blindly into the garden. She felt as if she had just done physical battle with an army of giants. And lost.

  Shame and terror surged through her as she covered her face with her hands and bitterly faced the awful truth: Physically, she was no more immune to Jordan Townsende now than she had been a year ago. Oh, she could withstand his anger, but not his smile, not his kiss. The sweet violence of his kiss had wreaked havoc on her body, her soul, and her heart. Despite the experience and sophistication she had acquired during the last few months, despite everything she knew of him, Jordan Townsende could still twist her insides into hot, tight knots of yearning, exactly as he had done when she was a green girl of seventeen.

  After all this time, his smile could still make her melt and his kisses could make her burn with longing to surrender her will to his. A dismal sigh escaped her as she leaned her forehead against the smooth, cool glass of the windowpane. From the moment they left the church yesterday, she’d been completely confident that he could never make her feel anything for him again. And all it had taken to prove her wrong was one of his lazy smiles, a kiss, a touch. Where he was concerned, she was still as susceptible as she had ever been.

  “Dear God,” she breathed aloud, what sort of diabolical sorcery did the man employ that he could have this effect on women? On her, when she harbored no illusions about any tender feelings he might have for her.

  What was it about the man that made her feel that she had accomplished something rare whenever she made him smile or laugh. And why did she still have to struggle against this stupid, naive feeling that if she tried very hard, she might mean something special to him someday—she might be the one to soften and gentle him, to melt the core of cynicism in his eyes? No doubt he made all women feel that way—that if they tried very hard, they might mean something to him that no other woman had; no doubt that was why even experienced, sophisticated flirts turned themselves inside out to please him. They, however, were not in the same danger she was, for they were not married to him. And tonight Jordan had more in mind for his wife than kisses. “We can discuss how you can please me in bed tonight.”

  In bed tonight . . . in bed . . . Her traitorous mind began replaying tantalizing memories of their night at the inn, and Alexandra angrily shook her head, trying to deny the warmth already seeping through her. She could not, would not, let him take her to bed this night or any other. How dare he presume to walk back into her life and climb into her bed, and without even pretending to court her, as she now knew gentlemen of the ton were expected to do. Jordan had never bothered to court her, she thought wrathfully and inconsequentially.

  As far as she was concerned, tonight he could take his amorous self off to one of dozens of other beds right here in London, occupied by dozens of other women, all of whom —according to gossip—had always been eager for his “affections.” No doubt he had done exactly that last night. He had probably gone to his mistress. Tonight, he would probably be engaged in another liaison before he came to her bed.

  That thought made her so angry she felt physically sick. Pulling her hands from her face, she looked around the cheerful room as if she were searching for some way to escape. Somehow, some way, she decided desperately, for the sake of sanity and serenity, she had to get away from here. From him. She did not want to face yet another emotional holocaust. Peace was what she wanted. Peace and quiet and reality for the rest of her life.

  At the thought of leaving London and her newfound friends, she felt a pang of loss, but it was offset by the thought of finding peace and tranquillity somewhere else. He’d only been home one day, and already jealousy was beginning to torment her. The idea of returning to Morsham, which she’d conceived on the spur of the moment yesterday when she was talking to Melanie, took on new and greater appeal now, looming on the horizon of her mind like a sweet haven waiting for her.

  But if she was going to find her way back to her old life, she knew there was no point in waiting idly for fate to lend a hand. Fate, she decided, had never been a reliable ally of hers. Fate had forced her into marriage with a man who didn’t want her and who was, moreover, a cad. Fate had brought him back and now she was expected to meekly submit to the whims of a man who still didn’t want her and who was not only a cad, but an arrogant, unfeeling, dictatorial one, to boot!

  Women, she had learned to her pain, were nothing but chattel, particularly in the upper classes, where they were selected like mares for their bloodlines by men who mated with them for the sake of obtaining a suitably aristocratic heir, and then they were turned out to pasture. She, however, was not a helpless, highborn female, Alexandra reminded herself bracingly. She had taken care of herself, her mother, her house, and two elderly servants quite satisfactorily from the time she was fourteen.

  Surely, as a grown woman now, she could return to her former life and continue to manage even better than she had. She would do what her grandfather had hoped she would—she would take up where he had left off, teaching children to read and write. She was a respectably married woman now, and Alexandra felt quite certain the villagers would not ostracize her for her single long-ago lapse in propriety. And even if they did, Alexandra rather thought she would prefer to live like an outcast until they forgave her than continue to be what she was now—a feather blown about by the whims of fate and of one rude, indomitable man.

  It was now time, she decided staunchly, to take charge of her own life and to choose its direction. The latter was easy enough—she had only one direction open to her and that was back. She would go back home and be mistress of her own life. But in order to accomplish that, she had to dissuade her unwanted husband from his absurd decision to keep her as his wife. And she needed money.

  The second part of that worried her the most. The only money she had was from the last quarterly allowance Tony had given her, but that wouldn’t be enough to rent a cottage, buy wood for the winter, and purchase the things she and Filbert and Penrose would require until they could get a vegetable garden started. For that she would need ten times what she had. She couldn’t sell the jewels that the duchess and Tony had given her; they were family heirlooms and not truly hers. The only thing of value she owned was her grandfather’s watch. She would sell it, Alexandra decided with an awful, wrenching pain. She would have to sell it and quickly, without wasting precious time. Time, she had learned to her mortification, was Jordan’s ally and her enemy. Given enough time and proximity, she was terrified that Jordan could and would have her melting in his arms.

  Feeling slightly better, now that she had a plan, Alexandra walked over to the table where she always had tea after her fencing matches with Tony and sat down. She was pouring herself a cup from the tray that had been set
out for her in advance, when her two faithful, elderly friends presented themselves.

  “Lawd, Miss Alexandra, you’ve gotten yerself into the devil of a coil this time,” Filbert exclaimed without tact, formality, or preamble, his nearsighted eyes searching her face through the spectacles she’d bought for him, which enabled him to see a great deal better than before. Almost wringing his hands with anxiety, he sat down across from her at the table—as he had always done when they were a “family” in Morsham. Penrose sat down across from him and leaned forward, straining to hear, as Filbert continued: “I heared what the duke said to you yesterday when the two of you were alone and I told Penrose. Yer husband’s a hard man, and that’s the simple truth, or he’d not’ve ripped up at you th’ way he done. What,” he demanded with anxious concern for her, “are we goin’ to do?”

  Alexandra looked at the two old men who had cared for her, cheered her, and borne her company for all of her life and smiled wanly. There was no point in lying to them, she knew; although they were slightly impaired physically, they were anything but mentally impaired. They were, in fact, nearly as sharp now as they were in the old days when she could never get by with a trick they didn’t anticipate. “I want to take us back to Morsham,” she declared, wearily raking her hair back off her forehead.

  “Morsham!” Penrose whispered reverently, as if the name were “Heaven.”

  “But I need money to do it, and all I have is what’s left of my last quarter’s allowance.”

  “Money!” said Filbert grimly. “It’s always been a lack of money for you, Miss Alexandra. Even when your papa was alive, curse his treacherous—”