Sins and Scandals Collection: Whisper of Scandal / One Wicked Sin / Mistress by Midnight / Notorious / Desired / Forbidden. Nicola Cornick
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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 well who he was. It was simply that she had been shaken out of her habitual poise by the kiss. Joanna had not kissed anyone for longer than she could remember and then it had been her husband and it had not felt anywhere near as sweet, as thrilling, as downright wicked as kissing this man had done. She had only intended it to be a brief peck on the lips, light and superficial, signifying nothing. Yet as soon as his lips had claimed her she had wanted to run her fingers over the hard planes and taut lines of his face and body, learning him, reveling in the texture of his skin, the scent and the taste of him. She had wanted it so much that it made her weak at the knees to think about it. A hot spiral of lust curled tight in her stomach, she who had never ever expected to feel desire in her life again.
But this was Alex Grant, her errant husband’s best friend-even in her mind she invested the words with scorn-and fellow explorer, who, like David, was forever sailing off around the world in search of war or glory or adventure, trying to find some obscure trade route to China or something equally pointless. She remembered him very well now. Alex Grant had been David’s groomsman when they had married ten years before.
Even now it gave her a pang to remember how happy, how hopeful, she had been on that day. High expectations and bad judgment had been a recipe for an unhappy marriage. But on that sunny May morning all that disillusionment had been in the future. She remembered Alex Grant from that day. He had been as improbably handsome then as he was now, though with a softer edge to him. And he had had a wife in tow, a pretty little blonde creature, all giggles and flounces. Annabel, Amelia? Something beginning with A. Joanna could not quite recall her name but she had looked at Alex adoringly and had been as charming and as superficial as thistledown.
Guilt stirred within her. Generally she did not make a habit of kissing other women’s husbands since she detested the fact that so many other women had kissed hers. David’s infidelities had been no secret, but she had no intention of emulating him. Kissing Alex had been a mistake in more ways than one, it seemed. Already reeling from her startling physical reaction to his touch, she now felt angry with him for being just another philandering bastard.
Alex bowed. He did it elegantly for all that she had tried to dismiss him as no more than an uncouth sailor in his faded navy captain’s uniform. No matter that the uniform suited him rather too well, fitting his broad shoulders most flatteringly and emphasizing his muscular physique. He was a man of great physical presence with strength and authority in every line of his bearing.
Just as David had been … She shivered.
“Alexander, Lord Grant, at your service, Lady Joanna,” he said.
“More at my service than I require, I think,” Joanna said coldly. “I have no desire for a lover, Lord Grant.”
He smiled, a flash of white teeth in his tanned face. “I am desolate.”
Liar. She knew that he disliked her as much as she disliked him.
“I doubt it,” she said. “Whatever made you suggest such an outrageous thing?”
“Whatever made you kiss me as though you meant it if you did not?”
Once again the air between them hummed with tension as taut as a spun thread. Ah, the kiss. He had a point. She had never before kissed a stranger with such a degree of enthusiasm. She gave a little flick of her fingers, dismissing the question.
“Had you been a gentleman, you would have pretended that we were betrothed rather than lovers.” She stopped, glared. “Though I suppose that having a wife already made such a course of action an impossibility for you.”
For a moment he looked puzzled and then his face cleared. “I am a widower,” he said.
He was succinct, Joanna conceded. Unlike David, who had always tried to buy popularity with wordy compliments, this man seemed brief to the point of abruptness. Clearly he did not care for anyone else’s opinion, good or bad.
“I am sorry.” She uttered the formal condolence. “I remember your wife. She was charming.”
His expression snapped shut like a door slamming. Cold, forbidding … Clearly he did not wish to discuss Annabel … Amelia or whatever her name had been.
“Thank you.” He sounded brusque. “But I thought that I was here to condole with you rather than the reverse.”
“If you wish to be conventional.” Joanna could be succinct, too, especially when she was angry.
“You do not mourn him?” His voice held both censure and anger.
“David died over a year ago,” Joanna said. “As you know. You were there.”
Alex Grant had written to her from the Arctic, where David’s final naval mission to find a northeast trade route via the Pole had-literally-died in the endless frozen wastes. The letter had been as short and to the point as the man himself, though she had been able to discern through the words his deep sorrow at the loss of so noble a comrade. It was not a sorrow she could share and Joanna had made no pretense of it.
Alex’s dark gaze flickered over her. She could feel how tightly he was holding his temper in check now. The air was alive with his contempt.
“David Ware was a great man,” he said through his teeth. “He deserved more than this—” His gesture encompassed the bright room, devoid of any gesture of mourning.
He deserved better than