her being, hugging the hope to her like a secret. Yet even then her instinct had told her that there would be no baby. She tried to ignore the stubborn feeling, but over time it grew stronger and stronger. She started to believe that the hatred she felt for David was a canker that had killed all chance of a child. Superstitious as her aunt, she thought she had ill wished the baby and driven out all hope. And when her courses had started again a few months later, almost as though nothing had happened, she had felt empty and bereft, different in some way, as barren as David had taunted her she was. The doctors had shaken their heads and said that nothing was certain, but Joanna had known.
She opened her eyes. The sky, a little blurred but a beautiful clear, sweet blue, swam back into focus. She felt the breeze. Heard the sound of voices carry to her, saw the richness of spring color all around. She drew a deep breath.
She had told herself that it did not matter that she would always be childless, David’s grass widow, abandoned as he sailed the world. She had carved out a life of her own in ton society. She loved her beautiful, stylish existence in her beautiful, stylish house. She had her work; she had her friends. And she had told herself that it was all she wanted. She had lied.
David had known that she had lied to herself and to everyone else. He had exposed that falsehood in searing detail in his letter:
I am aware that my wife will detest the strictures that I have placed upon her but that her desire for a child is so strong that she will have no choice other than to put herself into the greatest danger and discomfort imaginable in order to rescue my daughter …
Such cruel, heartless words revealing the true nature of her desperation and lonely desire to be a mother! She felt a tight, painful lump in the back of her throat. David had stripped away the pretense that had protected her and shown her weakness and her vulnerability. She wondered if Alex Grant had picked up on the implication of David’s words, if he had realized that her husband had detested her for her childless state. Her insides curled up at the thought of his scorn.
So now she could lie to herself no longer. She could not pretend that her life gave her everything she wanted. The truth hurt very much. It was more painful than anything she had allowed herself to feel ever before. But she had also been given a chance. She had to save this child, little Nina Tatiana Ware, alone, unloved, an orphan abandoned in a monastery somewhere in the Arctic wastes. Her mind, her heart, fastened on to the necessity of claiming the child with a tenacity that she knew instantly could not, would not, be shifted. Come hell or high water, she was rescuing Nina, bringing her back and raising her as her own. The giving part of her, the part that had been thwarted time and again because she had never been able to find enough people or animals or causes to love, almost exploded within her, making her shake with longing and fear and newness and excitement. “Lady Joanna!”
It was not the moment that she wanted to be interrupted. Stifling a most unladylike curse and hastily rubbing the tears from her cheeks, Joanna turned to see that Alex Grant was approaching her along the gravel path. She might have known that he would not accept his dismissal. He was not the sort of man to go tamely away when he wanted something. She found she could not speak. Her throat was stiff and dry. The words would not form. If he tells me all this is my own fault because I drove David into the arms of another woman, she thought viciously, or if he demands to know again in that high-handed manner of his what I did to make David hate me, I think it very likely I will box his ears in public and damn the scandal of it.
Alex Grant said nothing. He settled himself on the bench beside her and allowed his gaze to wander across the green swath of parkland to the buildings beyond. The silence fell between them. It felt strangely comforting. The breeze rustled the thick green leaves above their heads and cooled Joanna’s hot cheeks. The sounds of the city were muted as though the heavy cares of the world were suddenly far away.
Joanna looked at Alex. His body was relaxed, long and lean and elegant in a casual jacket, breeches and boots. He looked comfortable inside his skin. She realized that she had not noticed earlier in Mr. Churchward’s office. She had noticed him with the prickly sense of awareness and distrust that characterized their encounters, but she had not looked at him properly. When he had come to call on her in his dress uniform he had looked authoritative, powerful. Now the power was still there, but it was banked down. She felt a prickle of apprehension, the legacy of David’s cruelty. Like David, Alex Grant was a very physical man, a man of great strength and force. Yet there was a difference and she struggled to define it. Perhaps it was that her instinct told her that Alex, unlike his late comrade, would never misuse that power. But instinct, she reminded herself, was a notoriously unreliable guide.
Nevertheless it felt oddly reassuring and peaceful to have him sitting beside her, his elbows resting casually on his knees, as his thoughtful dark gaze dwelled not on her for a change but on the far horizon.
“I will find which navy ships are traveling to the Arctic and will arrange with the Admiralty to go to Bellsund Monastery to bring Miss Ware back for you,” Alex said.
Joanna’s feeling of peacefulness fled. How typical of a man that he should be thinking of solutions to problems she had not even articulated when she had simply been sitting and feeling. She felt a quick flash of antagonism flare back into life.
“On the contrary,” she said coldly, “I shall charter a ship and travel to Bellsund to bring Miss Ware home.”
“That’s impossible.” Alex spoke flatly, but Joanna sensed some emotion behind the words. Was it shock, disapproval or something more complex? She could not be sure. His expression was unrevealing, but she was certain he was not as calm as he sounded.
“How so?” She could think of at least ten reasons why it was difficult-if not impossible-for her to travel to Spitsbergen, but she wanted to hear his.
“Ships do not sail regularly to the Arctic,” Alex said. “You will not find anyone to take you.”
“They will if I pay them enough.”
Again she saw emotion flicker in his eyes. “You must make a great deal of money selling fashionable baubles and trifles to the ton if you can afford to charter a ship.” He sounded contemptuous and again her skin prickled with antagonism. “Although I am sure that you have no real idea of the costs involved.”
Joanna did not, but she was damned if she was going to admit it. “I am touched by your concern,” she said, “but you need have no fears. I mentioned that in addition to the income from my bauble selling I also inherited a considerable legacy from my aunt a year ago.”
It was not precisely true-the sum was adequate rather than enormous and this trip would take all of it and more-but Alex Grant did not need to know that.
Their eyes met, hers bright with defiant challenge, his dark and stormy.
“You cannot sail off to the Arctic on your own.” Alex sounded angry now. “The idea is absurd. I have already offered to escort Miss Ware back to London.”
“No!” Joanna could not explain to him that as soon as she had heard about David’s daughter she had had an overwhelming, tenacious urge to claim the child as her own. She only knew that the thought of the child, orphaned in a monastery so far away, had kindled in her an emotion fiercer than any she had experienced before-the urge to claim and defend and protect, to take something for herself from the wreckage that David had left behind and to shield that child against all adversity.
“David laid that requirement on me,” she argued. “I must fulfill it.”
“You have never before done what your husband required of you,” Alex said, making her catch her breath in outrage.
