saw that his face had set into its customary stern lines. “It is true,” Alex said, “that I prefer women to stay at home.”
“In their place,” Joanna said. “Of course.”
There was a cold silence between them whilst Brooke delivered Alex’s glass of brandy and slipped out of the room again as discreetly as the best-trained butler. Joanna could feel Alex’s gaze on her face, intense and thoughtful. Despite the friction between them it made her feel prickly and hot. There was something about Alex’s quiet appraisal that stripped away all pretense and defense and left her emotions naked. She wished it were not so. Alex Grant was a man who distrusted and disliked her and as such he was the last person for whom she wanted to feel this disturbing current of attraction. It pulled and pushed her in contrary directions, provoking her, arousing her against her will.
“You have not answered my question,” she said abruptly, breaking the sharp sense of awareness between them. “Why are you here?”
“To beg you to allow me to accompany you to Spitsbergen,” Alex said. His tone was ironic. “Purchase tells me you have the final word. If you turn me down I shall have to work my passage as a cabin boy.”
Joanna gave a spontaneous burst of laughter. “A cabin boy? You?”
“Indeed. Even Devlin would be giving me orders.”
“That would be a terrible waste of your experience and expertise.” Joanna considered him. “You offered to pay Captain Purchase for your passage?”
“I did. He still maintained that it was your decision.”
“How very gratifying that he cannot be bought,” Joanna said. “The answer is no.”
She saw a faint smile touch Alex’s lips and knew he had been expecting her blunt refusal.
“Let me try to persuade you to change your mind,” Alex said. He shifted. “It is not too late.”
“Change my mind about going to Spitsbergen?” Joanna said.
“About the entire business,” Alex said. His dark gaze slid over her thoughtfully. “You live very much at the whim of society, Lady Joanna. There will be those who not only disapprove of you going to Spitsbergen but of you rearing your husband’s bastard child. I suspect that John Hagan, for example, will be appalled. What happens to you if the ton withdraws its favor from you?”
There was a hush in the room. Outside the door the tumultuous roar of the boxing crowd swelled and fell like the flowing tide.
“Then I starve,” Joanna said lightly. She had confronted those fears earlier. She refused to let him frighten her. “But fortunately, Nina will not, will she, Lord Grant? I assume that David has left you the means to support his child since you are to be our trustee?”
There was a rather odd silence. Joanna raised a questioning brow. For once, she thought, Alex Grant was actually looking a little. What was it? Embarrassed? Discomfited?
“Ware left a treasure map,” he said gruffly.
Joanna blinked. “I beg your pardon? A treasure map?”
Alex put a hand into his jacket and extracted a flimsy piece of paper, yellow with age. He unfolded it and handed it to her. Joanna gaped. It was a very rough drawing of an island with inlets, bays and coves, crudely executed but with a large X marking a spot close to a beach on a long peninsula. There was, for good measure, the sign of the skull and crossbones.
“Well, really,” Joanna said. “Why could David not deposit money in a bank like normal people?”
There was a hint of color along Alex’s cheekbones. She wondered if he had thought the same thing. He did not strike her as the sort of man to have much truck with buried treasure. She found that she was smiling. It was so gratifying to see Alex Grant at a disadvantage for once.
“Did you bring this back from Spitsbergen along with the letter?” she queried.
“No!” Alex practically snapped the word. “Churchward gave it to me. It was with Ware’s will.”
“It looks all a hum to me,” Joanna said. She shook her head. “How typical of David to be so mysterious.”
“It is all rather unsatisfactory,” Alex said stiffly.
“Well, that was David all over,” Joanna said. “He was most unsatisfactory in so many ways.” She glanced at Alex. His dark gaze was fathomless. “But I forget,” she said, unable to erase the bitterness from her voice. “David could do no wrong in your eyes, could he, Lord Grant? He was above reproach even if he expected you to dig up Nina’s fortune as well as everything else.” She shifted in her chair. “And for that reason I repeat that I cannot permit you to accompany me to Spitsbergen. You neither like me nor trust me and the journey will be uncomfortable enough without turning around and falling over your disapproval at every turn. If you wish to take ship to find this so-called treasure then that is your choice-and your responsibility, but you are not coming with us.”
Alex’s frown had deepened. “It makes absolutely no sense to sail separately, Lady Joanna.”
Privately, Joanna acknowledged that. It did not, however, change her feeling that the last person she wanted on her ship was this disapproving stranger.
“We need not be enemies,” Alex continued. “For the sake of the child we could try to be friends.”
“You aim too high,” Joanna said. “Let us keep our expectations within reason. We could try to be civil.” She shook her head. “The answer is still no. You are forceful by nature. You would be forever trying to tell me what to do and then we would quarrel. Simply being near you makes me feel—”
“Makes you feel what?” Alex raised one dark, quizzical brow.
“Makes me feel infuriated!” Joanna exclaimed, jumping to her feet. It was true. The room felt too small, airless and close, dominated by Alex’s presence, the antagonism simmering between them like a kettle coming to the boil.
Alex got to his feet, too. “So,” he said, “you swore that you would do everything in your power to bring Nina safely home and even in that you lied.”
Joanna stared at him, flayed by his contemptuous tone. “What do you mean by that?”
“Only that anyone with any sense would see that it is in Nina’s interests for you to accept my escort,” Alex said. “But you are so headstrong that you will not agree to it.”
“Don’t speak of me as though you are referring to a horse,” Joanna said furiously. “I am not headstrong, I am the one with sense here! We have been talking for all of ten minutes and already we are arguing. What Nina will need is reassurance and stability, not a pair of guardians who fight like cat and dog!”
She turned away from him and wiped away the errant tears that insisted on escaping from the corners of her eyes. She did not want to cry in front of Alex Grant. He already made her feel so vulnerable, so emotionally exposed. Her feelings felt as though they had been rubbed raw, stinging. David, she thought bitterly, had chosen well when he had sent this man to torment her.
“You must excuse me,”
