To her terrified disbelief, he paused in that horrible announcement to reach out and take a glass of champagne from the tray on the pedestal beside them and then to blandly hand it to her—a gesture designed to keep up the charade of two people engaged in ordinary conversation. Continuing in that same deadly voice, he said, “Despite the fact that your public wager—and your flagrant disobedience in coming here tonight—more than deserve public retaliation, I am going to offer you two choices.” Silkily he said, “I want you to listen to them very carefully.”
To her angry shame, Alexandra was so terrified her chest was rising and falling like a frightened bird and she could only nod her head.
Unmoved by her obvious fright, he gave her the first choice: “You can either leave with me right now—quietly and ostensibly willingly, or kicking and screaming—it doesn’t matter to me. Either way, if we do leave now, everyone in this ballroom is going to know why I’m taking you out of here.”
When he paused, Alexandra swallowed convulsively, her voice a parched whisper. “What is the second choice?”
‘To salvage your pride,” he replied, giving her the second choice, “I am willing to walk onto that dance floor with you and try to make it appear that we both regard your wager as nothing more than a harmless little jest. But whichever choice you make,” he finished ominously, “I am still going to deal with you when we get home, do you understand that?”
His last sentence and the unmistakable threat of physical retribution it carried were dire enough to make Alexandra agree to anything—anything that would delay their leavetaking.
Somewhere in the tumult of her mind, it dimly occurred to her that, in offering her a chance to salvage her pride this way, he was treating her with more consideration than she had done when she placed a public bet against him. On the other hand, she could hardly find it in her heart to be very grateful to him for sparing her public humiliation—not when he was promising private, physical retribution later. With a supreme effort of will, she managed to steady her voice and arrange her features into a reasonably calm mask. “I would prefer to dance.”
Jordan stared down into her lovely pale face and had to stifle a spurt of admiration for her courage. Instead, he politely offered her his arm and she placed her trembling hand on it.
The moment Jordan stepped out of her way, Alexandra glimpsed the swift, guilty movements of heads turning away, and she realized that a great many people had been watching their little tête-à-tête. With an outward appearance of unhurried dignity, she strolled with Jordan through the fascinated crowd, which parted like the Red Sea to let them pass, then turned to watch their progress.
Alexandra’s control slipped a notch, however, when the couple in their path turned to let them pass and she found herself face to face with Elizabeth Grangerfield, whose elderly husband had recently died. The shock of encountering Jordan’s former paramour nearly sent Alexandra to her knees, though Jordan and Elizabeth seemed perfectly at ease as they greeted at each other.
“Welcome home, your grace,” Elizabeth said in her husky voice as she held out her hand.
“Thank you,” Jordan said with a polite smile and pressed a gallant kiss to the back of it.
Watching them, Alexandra felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. Somehow, she managed to keep her expression politely neutral as they walked away, but when they reached the dance floor and Jordan tried to put his hand on her waist, she jerked back, glaring at him.
“Would you prefer to leave now?” he asked silkily, while all around them dancers began to whirl and dip.
Too infuriated to notice that they’d become the object of six hundred pairs of fascinated eyes the instant they stepped onto the floor, Alexandra reluctantly put her hand on the sleeve of his black jacket—but her expression made it eloquently obvious that she found the contact with him quite revolting.
Jordan jerked her into his arms and they moved into the colorful whirl of waltzing couples. “If you have a shred of sense—or if you’ve learned anything about manners and behavior,” he said in an explosive underbreath, “you’ll wipe that martyred expression off your face and try to look congenial!”
That remark, with all its attendant arrogant superiority, made Alexandra long to slap his aristocratic face. “How dare you lecture me on manners and propriety, when you have just fawned over your precious paramour with your own wife standing there!”
“What the hell did you expect me to do?” Jordan demanded shortly. “Mow her down? She was standing right in our path!”
“You might have included me in your conversation,” Alexandra flung back, too overwrought to consider that such a thing would have been a worse embarrassment to her.
This hostile exchange between the Duke of Hawthorne and his errant wife did not go unnoticed by the occupants of the ballroom. Dancers were colliding with one another in their efforts to eavesdrop; the musicians were leaning from side to side, trying for a better view; and quizzing glasses were focused in unison upon the pair.
“Include you,” Jordan blazed in disbelief. “Include you with a woman who—” At the last instant he cut off the words he’d been about to use, but Alexandra provided them for him—“who shared your bed?” she hissed.
“You’re scarcely in a position to lecture me on manners, madam. From all accounts, your behavior in the last weeks has been anything but that which befits my wife!”
“My behavior!” Alexandra exploded. “For your information,” she informed him with blazing sarcasm, “if I behaved in a way that befits your wife, I would have to try to seduce every member of the opposite sex who crosses my path!”
That outburst so stunned Jordan that for a split second he felt like shaking her for her insolence and, at the same time, he was suddenly struck with the realization that she was jealous. His temper slightly mollified, he glanced up and realized that half the dancers had moved off the floor to better observe the unprecedented altercation between him and his infuriating wife, and the rest were openly staring at them.
Jerking his gaze from their audience, he clenched his teeth in an artificial smile aimed at Alexandra’s head and snapped, “Smile at me, dammit! The whole ballroom is watching us.”
“I most certainly will not,” she blazed irrationally, but she managed to smooth her features into a semblance of calm. “I’m still engaged to your cousin!”
That excuse was so inane, so unexpected, that Jordan swallowed a stunned laugh. “What a peculiar code of ethics you have, my love. You happen to be married to me at the moment.”
“Don’t you dare call me your love, and the least you could do is consider Anthony’s position in all this,” Alexandra cried. “Think how humbling it will be to him if everyone thinks I’ve fallen straight into your arms. Have you no loyalty at all to your cousin?”
“A difficult moral dilemma for me,” Jordan agreed mendaciously, “but in this case, I find my loyalties are entirely with-myself.”
“Damn you!”
Jordan stared down at the tempestuous young beauty in the provocative lemon-yellow gown, her face both delicate and vivid with her stormy Aegean-blue eyes and rose-petal lips, and he suddenly saw her as she’d looked the last time she’d worn light yellow—standing in his grandmother’s garden, her enchanting face turned up to the sky, while she explained to him in her soft, sweet voice: “Every season of the year comes with a promise that something wonderful is going to happen to me someday. In winter, the promise comes with the smell of snow. . . . In summer, I hear it in the boom of thunder and the lightning that streaks across the sky. . . . Most of all, I feel it now, in springtime, when everything is green and black—”
She’d been hoping for something wonderful, and all she’d gotten was a four-day marriage followed by fifteen months of widowhood, along with what appeared to be a great deal of disillusioning information about the life he had led before he married her.
The fury within him died abruptly and, as he looked down into her glorious eyes, his stoma
ch clenched at the thought of taking her home and making her cry.
“Tell me something,” he asked softly. “Do you still think dirt smells like perfume?”
“Do I what?” she said, warily studying his slightly softened features, a bewildered frown creasing her smooth forehead. “Oh—now I remember, and no I don’t,” she hastily added, reminded that he had found her pitiful “I’ve grown up now.”
“So I see.” Jordan said with a mixture of tenderness and budding desire.
Alexandra saw his expression gentle and hastily looked away, but her own anger had begun to drain. Her conscience reminded her that her public wager and her hostile conduct on this dance floor—where he had taken her to salvage her pride—had been inexcusable. No longer feeling entirely the innocent and injured party, she bit her lip and raised her eyes to his.
“Truce?” he offered with a lazy smile.
“Until we’re out of here,” Alexandra instantly agreed, and when she gave him a tentative smile, she could have sworn she glimpsed approval in those inscrutable grey eyes.
“What happened to the puppy I bought you?” he asked, his smile deepening.
“Henry is at Hawthorne. Oh, and you were wrong,” she added mischievously. “The boy who sold him to you didn’t lie—he’s a purebred.”
“Huge?” Jordan asked. “With paws the size of saucers?”
She shook her head. “Dinner plates.”
Jordan laughed and she smiled. The couples on the dance floor renewed their interest in the music, quizzing glasses were lowered, and conversations resumed. When the dance ended, Jordan put his hand under her elbow and guided her forward into the crowd, but their departure was immediately delayed by groups of Jordan’s friends who pressed around them, anxious to welcome him home.
Alexandra, who already had a reasonably viable plan to ensure he would not find her in her rooms tonight, expected him to rush her off, but instead he spent the next half hour talking to the people who sought his attention, his hand covering her fingers where they rested on his arm.
Left with no other choice, Alexandra stood reluctantly by his side, trying to appear calm and to look as if standing by Jordan were no different than standing by Tony had been.
But if she tried to treat Jordan as she had treated Tony, she noticed at once that the ton certainly didn’t. They had treated Tony cordially, and with the respect due his rank, but never with the near-reverence they were showing to Hawk tonight. As she watched bejeweled ladies curtsy to him and elegant gentlemen bow respectfully and shake his hand, Alexandra realized that, to them, Tony had been merely the custodian of a title, but Jordan was the title.
He was Hawthorne, as he had been born to be.
Standing at his side, she began to fear she might have overestimated her ability to manipulate him into letting her go back to Morsham once she had money. After being amongst the ton for all these weeks, she’d erroneously equated Jordan with the other aristocrats she’d come to know—polished, fastidious, and urbane. But also soft. Placid.
Now, as she watched Jordan interact with the other men, she was miserably aware that beneath his civilized, urbane facade, he was nothing like them.
Beside her, Jordan bent his head to her and spoke in a polite, but forceful voice. “If you’ll give me your word to go straight home, you can leave now. That way, it will appear that you’re going on with your evening and I with mine. I’ll follow you in a quarter hour.”
Amazed by his thoughtful gesture and relieved beyond words because it made her plan even easier to execute, Alexandra nodded and started to step away, but his hand clamped down on her arm. “Your word, Alexandra,” he demanded shortly.
“I give you my word to go straight home,” she said with a dazzling smile born of relief, and hastily left.
Jordan watched her, his eyes slightly narrowed as he contemplated the reason for that suspiciously bright smile of hers, as well as the wisdom of trusting her. It was not so much his faith in her word that had led him to make his offer, but rather that he could not honestly believe she would defy him again, now that she understood the lengths to which he would go to ensure her obedience to his will. Besides, he decided philosophically, turning his attention back to his friends and acquaintances, where else could she possibly go but home? No one, not even his grandmother, would shelter her from her husband.
Jordan was not the only one who watched Alexandra leave; a great many other guests did so as well, and they were not at all fooled by her apparently harmonious departure from her husband.
“Hawk means to deal with her when he gets home,” Lord Ogilvie assured the large group of people around him. “You can be sure he won’t let her behavior go unpunished a single night. What’s more, he’ll wear her ribbon on Queen’s Race day.”
“To be sure!” agreed young Sir Billowby.
“Indubitably!” seconded the Earl of Thurston.
“No doubt about it,” declared Lord Carleton stoutly.
Lady Carleton looked at the Duchess of Hawthorne, who was ascending the staircase, and bravely declared, “I hope all of you are wrong. Hawthorne has broken hearts from all over England. It’s time a woman broke his!”
Sir Billowby’s shy young wife put up her chin and seconded that opinion. “I hope she gives her ribbon to someone else to wear!”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Honor,” said her husband. “I’m going to wager £100 that she’ll give it to Hawk.”
The two ladies looked at each other and then at the gentlemen. “My lord,” Lady Honor informed her scandalized husband as she withdrew £100 from her reticule, “I’ll take that wager.”
“So will I!” Lady Carleton declared.
By the time Alexandra climbed into her carriage, enough money had already been wagered in that ballroom to fatten Prinny’s coffers for years, and the odds had soared to 25 to 1 in Jordan’s favor. Only the younger ladies held out any hope that Alexandra would be the first female to resist the “irresistible” Duke of Hawthorne.
Chapter Twenty-Three
MOONLIGHT SPILLED ACROSS the mansions that marched along Upper Brook Street as Alexandra waved her coachman off and stealthily slid her key into the lock of No. 3. Pushing the door open a scant inch, she peered into the front hall. As she’d hoped, Higgins and the rest of the servants had retired for the night.
She slipped inside, silently closed the door behind her, and tiptoed up the long staircase. At the doorway to her bedchamber, she hesitated, wondering if her devoted maid had decided to await her return despite Alexandra’s instructions. Deciding she dare not risk opening the door to find out, Alexandra hurried down the long hall, which was bordered on both sides with guest bedrooms. At the end of the hall a staircase led up to the next story; and she tiptoed up the steps and along the hall, stopping at the last door on the right. Silently, she turned the handle and peered into the dark, empty room that had been used long ago by the family governess, then slipped inside.
Smiling with delight at her own ingenuity, she pulled off her gloves and tossed them onto a shadowy object she identified as a small chest of drawers. She had not broken her word; she had come directly home.
Except when her husband marched into her bedchamber tonight, intending to mete out whatever punishment he had in mind, she would not be there.
A chill crept up her spine as she imagined how angry he was going to be, but the alternative of presenting herself to suffer God-knew-what fate tonight was too repugnant to consider.
Tomorrow, she decided, she would take whatever money Penrose had obtained for her grandfather’s watch, and as soon as Jordan left the house, she and her two faithful old friends would leave London.
Stripping off her gown, Alexandra stretched out on the narrow bed, which had no linen on it, and closed her eyes. Weariness and confusion closed over her as she went over Jordan’s behavior tonight. How could he be so murderously angry with her, and at the same time try to spare her public embarrassment, she wondered. She would never understand him. All she w
as sure of at that moment was that she was reduced to hiding from him in his own house—hiding in fear and anger from the same man whose disappearance had once made her want to die in order to be with him.
* * *
Lord Camden had arrived at the ball just as Jordan was leaving, only to discover that Melanie had already left. Politely refraining from showing the slightest surprise when Jordan suddenly recalled that he’d sent his own carriage home an hour earlier because he’d intended to ride home with Alexandra, Lord Camden obligingly offered him a ride home. The Camden carriage drew up before the house at No. 3, and Jordan bounded down. His mind on Alexandra, who would by now be awaiting him in her room, Jordan paid scant attention to the lone horseman who waited in the shadow of a house across the street, hat pulled low over his face, but his presence registered somewhere on the perimeter of Jordan’s preoccupied mind. As if he scented danger, he turned on the second step to say goodbye to John Camden, but his gaze flicked to the slender horseman just as the shadowy figure raised his arm.
Jordan dove down and to the left just as the pistol fired, then came up in a running crouch, charging across the street in a futile attempt to give chase to the assassin who was already galloping away, wending deftly between the bulky carriages making their decorous way along Brook Street— the same crowd of carriages that prevented John Camden from giving chase in his own.
* * *
Edward Fawkes, a ruggedly built gentleman who specialized in handling delicate matters for a group of very select clients who did not want the authorities involved, glanced at his watch. It was nearly one o’clock in the morning as he sat across from the Duke of Hawthorne, who had employed him yesterday to investigate the two attempts on the duke’s life and to learn who was behind them.
“My wife and I will depart for Hawthorne in the morning after we arise,” the duke was saying. “An assassin can melt into the streets and alleys of London far easier than he can conceal himself in the country. If it were only my own life that is in jeopardy, I’d stay in the city. But if my cousin is behind this, he won’t be able to risk my producing an heir, therefore my wife is now also endangered.”