Alex said, forcing his way through the mob to her side, “since I perceive you have more than a hundred men devoted to your service.”
Joanna smiled. “Yes. Are they not delightful?”
“They are drunk and rough,” Alex said.
“And totally dedicated to me,” Joanna pointed out. “I love them.”
“We love you, too, ma’am!” one pugilist shouted, whilst the crowd whooped and cheered.
Selsey, who was being steadied by his almost equally drunk friend, was blinking at Alex like an owl. “I say!” he exclaimed. “But surely. My God, it is you! Lord Grant, a tremendous honor to meet you, sir!” He attempted another bow and almost overbalanced. “I say, chaps.” He addressed the crowd at large, “It’s Alex Grant, the explorer, you know, the one who wrestled a puma to the ground to save the life of his friend and discovered the ruins of Azer … Azerban … Discovered some ruins in the desert anyway, and—”
Within seconds, it seemed to Joanna, Alex was besieged by well-wishers. The boxing crowd, full of bonhomie, were ready to laud this latest hero who had crossed their path.
“A kiss!” someone shouted. “A kiss from our Lady of the Fancy for Lord Grant!”
Alex turned, the wicked challenge flaring in his eyes. “Lady Joanna? Surely you would not disappoint your admirers.”
“Of course not,” Joanna said recklessly. She stood on tiptoe, intending to give him a peck on the cheek, but Alex cupped her face in his hands and brought his mouth down on hers and the night faded away and the sound of the excited crowd rang in her ears and the stars wheeled and spun overhead.
“I thought,” she said as Alex released her and steadied her with a hand on her arm, “that you had no desire for celebrity, Lord Grant?”
“I do not,” Alex said, “but I did have a great desire to kiss you again.”
“Hypocrite,” Joanna said and heard him laugh.
She watched the crowd submerge him and carry him off. “Totally eclipsed, I fear,” she said, smoothing her gloves. “I have lost all my admirers to Lord Grant and he does not even want them!”
“He shows well to advantage,” Brooke said with a sly sideways glance at her. “I’d like to see him in a fight.”
“You almost did tonight,” Joanna said. “I thought you were going to start a mill earlier.”
Brooke shrugged. “Wouldn’t do that, milady, not when you have a fancy for him.”
“I do not!” Joanna said. She blushed. “Brooke—”
“Just let me know when you don’t like him anymore,” Brooke said, “and I’ll plant him a facer.” He held the door of a hackney carriage for her. “Here you are, milady. It’s Tom Finn—” He nodded to the driver. “He’ll see you home all right and tight.”
As Joanna glanced back, she could see the Duke of Clarence wading his way through the crowd about Alex and clapping him on the back. The two of them were practically being carried along the pavement by a riotous mob in search of the next alehouse. And it served Alex Grant right, she thought, if he had become the unwilling hero of the boxing fraternity. He needed to lose some of that stern disapproval.
She shut the door of the carriage with a decisive click and sat back with a sigh. She knew that Alex had not conceded on the matter of escorting her to Spitsbergen. He was like a burr against her skin, an irritation that she wanted to be free of but which also fascinated her. Joanna shifted uncomfortably on the seat of the hackney carriage. She could not explain her attraction to him. She wanted to break it. Yet if she was honest, she had to admit that she also wanted him.
“I would never give myself to a man who has no respect for me.”
“You damn near did …”
David Ware had ridden roughshod over her feelings and her self-respect and she had learned the hard way never to let that happen to her ever again. She would not give herself to another adventurer, to a man who would stay only long enough to enjoy the pleasures of her bed and would then be gone on the next expedition, the next challenge, the next adventure. No woman would ever be able to hold Alex Grant because his first love would always be to travel and explore. With Alex it would be a brief taste of delicious pleasure-and she was sure it would be utter bliss to take him as a lover-and then it would be the bitter taste of loss and that would last a lot longer. And Alex could never trust her, never like her, for David’s shadow would always come between them. Even if she told him the whole truth of David’s cruelty, she doubted that he would believe her. He had been David’s friend since childhood, David had saved his life, she could see that it was a point of honor for Alex to keep faith with his friend’s memory.
She reminded herself of that as she went upstairs to try to sleep.
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