barely an acknowledgment that she had lost so eminent and respected a husband as David Ware, had made Alex’s hackles rise and his wish to renew his acquaintance with Lady Joanna dwindle still further.
The butler, too well trained to keeping him standing on the step like a tradesman, had stepped back to allow him access to the hall, although his expression still showed considerable doubt. The black-and-white marble-and-stone checkerboard floor stretched elegantly to a curving stair. Two liveried footmen, identical twins, Alex observed, over six feet tall, stood like statues on either side of a doorway. And from the room behind them carried the sound of a raised feminine voice that completely spoiled this scene of aristocratic elegance:
“Cousin John! Kindly stand up and cease plaguing me with these ridiculous proposals of marriage! In addition to boring me you are obscuring my new rug. I bought it to admire, not to have it knelt upon by importunate suitors.”
“Lady Joanna is engaged,” the butler informed Alex.
“On the contrary,” Alex said. “She has just announced that she is not.” He strode across the hall and threw open the door, ignoring the butler’s scandalized gasp and enjoying the look of consternation on the woodenly handsome visages of the matching footmen.
The room he entered was a library, bright with sunshine and fresh with lemon and white paint. A fire burned in the grate even though the May morning was warm. A dog, small, gray and fluffy with a blue ribbon in a fetching topknot, lay on a rug before the fire. The dog was as handsome in its own way as the footmen were in theirs and it raised its head and fixed Alex with an inquisitive brown gaze. There was the scent of lilies and beeswax in the air. The room felt warm and welcoming. Alex, who had had no settled home for over seven years and who had never felt the need for one, never wanted one, was brought up short. To relax in such a room, to take a book from those shelves and a glass of brandy from the decanter, to sink into a deep armchair before the fire, suddenly seemed the greatest temptation.
But perhaps not …
The greatest temptation must surely be the woman who was standing by the long library windows with the sunlight threading her rich chestnut hair with sparks of gold and copper. Her face was oval. Her violet eyes were set wide apart above a small, straight nose and a luscious mouth that was so full it was almost indecently sensuous. She was not conventionally beautiful in any way: too tall, too slender, too angular and her face too striking, but it did not matter one whit. In a cherry-red morning gown with a matching bandeau in her hair, she was dazzling. There were no widow’s weeds here, not even the lavender of half mourning, to drain the life and vibrancy from her.
Alex had little time to do more than notice just how appealing Lady Joanna Ware was, and to register that appeal at a very deep, masculine and primitive level before she had seen him and had flown across the room to his side.
“Darling! Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you for hours!” She threw herself into his arms. “Was the traffic in Piccadilly utterly dire?”
Her body felt warm and yielding in Alex’s arms, as though she had been made specifically to match him. Shock ripped through him at the sense of deep recognition. She smelled of summer flowers. For a brief moment her face was upturned to his, her violet eyes wide and surely holding fear, of all things, as well as some wordless appeal, and then she had put one hand on the nape of his neck and brought his mouth down to hers and was kissing him as though she really, really meant it.
It was astonishingly, instantaneously arousing. Alex’s entire body responded to the impossible seduction of her lips, so cool, so soft, so tempting. On mature reflection he thought that perhaps kissing Lady Joanna Ware was a somewhat incendiary way in which to end over two years of celibacy, but in the moment he thought of nothing other than the press of her body against his and the absolute need to take her to his bed-or her bed since it was, presumably, closer.
Heat coursed through his body, and flagrant desire, wickedly strong. But already Lady Joanna was stepping back and freeing herself, leaving him with no more than a promise of heaven and an uncomfortable arousal. Her lips clung to his for a second and he almost groaned aloud. There was a spark of mischief in her violet eyes now as she cast a fleeting glance down at his trousers.
“Darling, you are pleased to see me!”
She was calling him darling because she had no idea who he was, Alex realized, taking strategic refuge behind a rosewood desk piled high with books in order to hide his body’s all too obvious discomfort. He smiled at her, throwing down a challenge. If she could be outrageous then he could match her. She deserved it for using him when she had no idea of his identity and cared even less.
“What man would not be, my sweet?” he said. “Surely my impatience is entirely forgivable. It seems days since I left your bed rather than hours …” He ignored her audible gasp and turned to the other occupant of the room, a rather florid man of middle age who had been watching them with his eyes popping out and his mouth hanging open a full two inches.
“I am sorry that I did not catch your name, sir,” Alex drawled, “but I fear you are too late with your protestations of love. Lady Joanna and I.” He let the sentence hang suggestively.
“Darling!” There was reproach in Joanna’s voice now but under it Alex detected more than a spark of anger. “You are no gentleman to make our association public.”
Alex crossed to her side, taking her hand in his, turning it over and pressing a kiss to her palm. “Forgive me,” he murmured, “but I rather thought you had already demonstrated how intimate we are with that entirely delightful kiss?” Her skin felt deliciously soft against his lips. Hunger stirred in him, ruthless in its demand. He had never been indiscriminate in his love affaires, but after the death of his wife he had not lacked female companionship, pleasant, uncomplicated arrangements requiring absolutely no emotional involvement at all. This woman, though, David Ware’s less-than-grieving widow, could not be one of his amours. She was the widow of his best friend; a wife whom Ware had warned him not to trust. Even as Alex acknowledged all the reasons why he should keep Joanna Ware a great deal farther away than arm’s length, his body made it very clear that he might not like her very much but he did want her. He wanted her badly.
How inconvenient. How impossible.
It seemed that Lady Joanna liked him even less than he liked her, for she snatched her hand away from him. A hint of color touched her cheekbones and a steely light came into her eyes.
“I am not sure that I do forgive you.” There was warning in her tone. “I am exceptionally angry with you, darling.” This last word was hissed through her teeth.
“I don’t doubt that you are, darling,” Alex returned smoothly.
Wrapped in the intense mixture of desire and antagonism, he had almost forgotten the man, who now sketched a stiff bow. “It seems I am very much de trop. Madam.” He glared at Joanna, nodded stiffly to Alex and stalked out, slamming the library door behind him.
There was silence, but for the fluttering of a few pages of a book that had been dislodged from the rosewood desk, and the hiss and crackle of the fire in the grate. Then Joanna turned to him and once again Alex felt her gaze search his face. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully as she looked him up and down, appraising him, hands on hips, head tilted to one side, all pretense of pleasure in his company gone now that they were alone. Anger and awareness simmered between them so strong it was almost tangible. Then:
“Who the hell are you?” she said.
ACTUALLY, SHE KNEW perfectly
