Sins and Scandals Collection: Whisper of Scandal / One Wicked Sin / Mistress by Midnight / Notorious / Desired / Forbidden. Nicola Cornick
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Joanna said. “I am not. I cannot deny our inconvenient attraction.” She made a helpless gesture. “But I do not wish for an affaire with you.”
Alex stepped closer to her.
“Yes, you do,” he said. “I can tell you do. Whatever is between us burns you as fiercely as it does me, Joanna.”
Overwhelmed by his physical proximity, Joanna could only shrug helplessly. “You see-we always disagree.” She tilted her face up to meet the intensity of his gaze. “I don’t deny that I want you,” she said honestly. “I do not like it, nor do I understand it, but—” She broke off. His hand was on her wrist again, his touch warm, compulsive, drawing her closer. She stepped away, swept by fragile, turbulent emotion. She did not for a moment believe that this man was like her late husband. Alex might be direct and even harsh, but he was never untrustworthy or dishonest. She felt it. She knew it instinctively. He would never physically hurt her. Yet indulging in an affaire with him would be madness. Once their desire burned out there would be nothing left but reproach and dislike.
“I will not do it,” she said. “You think me shallow, and as light with my reputation as many other ladies of the ton, but I am not, and even if I were, you are the very last man I would take as a lover. I would never give myself to a man who has no respect for me.”
Alex’s dark gaze was hooded. “You damn near did.”
“Which is why I do not intend to see you ever again,” Joanna said.
The temperature in the room fell as swiftly as though a door had opened to allow in the coldest winter night.
“You will see plenty of me,” Alex said. “I fully intend to be on that ship.”
“I don’t want you there,” Joanna said, holding fast to her temper.
“Your wishes count for nothing in this,” Alex said. “I cannot in all conscience as Nina’s guardian allow you to wander into danger through your own stupidity.”
Joanna gritted her teeth. “How arrogant you are! I do not need a hero to protect me. I can think of nothing worse.”
She broke from his grip, grabbed her cloak and bonnet from the chair and flung open the door.
“Brooke,” she said, throwing Alex a defiant look. “Lord Grant is leaving.”
“My lord.” The prizefighter bowed to Alex with an exquisite courtesy that barely masked his hostility and stood to one side to allow Alex to exit. Alex ignored him. He took Joanna’s hand and pressed a kiss on it. She felt the brush of his lips on her skin and repressed the response that flared through her.
Brooke rocked back on his heels, spoiling for a fight. “My lady?” he said, but Joanna shook her head. Alex stood back courteously for her to pass and they went out.
In the street the night was dark and hot. The pugilist club members were spilling out of the inn now that the bout was over, raucous and full of ale and good humor with the money they had won. When they saw Joanna, a ragged cheer broke over the crowd. They surrounded her, pressing close, bowing, wanting to kiss her hand. She saw Alex watching, his expression darkly disapproving in the glow of the lamplight and she felt reckless and defiant and blew kisses to all her admirers. The riotous mood of the crowd swelled; Alex’s frown correspondingly deepened. Two pinks of the ton made an elaborate leg to Joanna, competing to quote sonnets in her praise whilst the more disorderly elements in the throng booed so loudly that Joanna felt obliged to intervene before there was a breach of the peace.
“Go home and sleep it off, Lord Selsey,” she said when one sprig of nobility tried to kiss her and almost took a tumble in the gutter. “You are foxed.”
“Devil a bit, ma’am,” Selsey said. “Still sober enough to offer you my hand and my heart—”
“Again,” Joanna said, sighing. “Your guardian would never allow it, I fear.”
“We could elope,” Selsey said hopefully, rebounding off a lamppost and seeming only slightly cast down as Brooke picked him up by the scruff of the neck and deposited him in the road.
“I need hardly worry for your safety at present,” 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