Whisper of Scandal Read online

  This paper hears the startling news that the beautiful widow Lady JW and the dashing Lord G are to embark on their very own scandalous adventure to the Arctic wastes. Readers of this publication will already know that Lord G is a man who first came to fame when he charted a route single-handedly across the outer reaches of Mongolia. Most recently he has returned to London in a cloud of acclaim for his courageous exploits in the frozen north. If any man can escort Lady JW safely on her perilous voyage to claim her late husband’s love child then Lord G is surely that man.

  Lady JW is, of course, a society hostess renowned for her elegance and style. Can it be that having wed one daring buccaneer she now desires another adventurer in her bed? If so, whether she will succeed with Lord G is a matter for conjecture, for it is said his heart is as cold as the Arctic snow….

  The Gentleman’s Athenian Mercury,

  London, June 3, 1811

  On sale soon in the Scandalous Women of the Ton trilogy

  One Wicked Sin

  Mistress by Midnight

  Also available from

  NICOLA CORNICK

  and HQN Books

  Deceived

  Christmas Keepsakes

  “A Season for Suitors”

  Lord of Scandal

  Unmasked

  The Confessions of a Duchess

  The Scandals of an Innocent

  The Undoing of a Lady

  Browse www.eHarlequin.com for Nicola’s full backlist.

  NICOLA CORNICK

  WHISPER OF SCANDAL

  For Martha, Mary and Anne, and for all who sailed with us around Spitsbergen on the Professor Molchanov. Thank you for an inspirational voyage!

  Praise for Nicola’s previous HQN titles

  “Ms. Cornick is first-class, queen of her game.”

  —Romance Junkies

  “A rising star of the Regency arena.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Nicola Cornick creates a glittering, sensual world of historical romance that I never want to leave.”

  —Anna Campbell, author of Untouched

  “A wonderfully original, sinfully amusing and sexy Regency historical by the always entertaining Cornick.”

  —Booklist on The Confessions of a Duchess

  “Fast-paced, enchanting and wildly romantic!”

  —SingleTitles.com on The Scandals of an Innocent

  “Witty banter, lively action and sizzling passion.”

  —Library Journal on The Undoing of a Lady

  “RITA® Award–nominated Cornick deftly steeps her latest intriguingly complex Regency historical in a beguiling blend of danger and desire.”

  —Booklist on Unmasked

  “If you’ve liked Nicola Cornick’s other books, you are sure to like this one as well. If you’ve never read one—what are you waiting for?”

  —Rakehell on Lord of Scandal

  “Cornick masterfully blends misconceptions, vengeance, powerful emotions and the realization of great love into a touching story.”

  —RT Book Reviews, 4½ stars, on Deceived

  Author Note

  A couple of years ago I went on holiday to Spitsbergen, an island within the Arctic Circle off the north coast of Norway. It was not the sort of place that I imagined would inspire a historical romance, but when I started to read about the history of Spitsbergen, I was fascinated. Not only is it a stunningly beautiful place, but it also had a hugely important role in the history of science and exploration. The result of my reading and of that memorable cruise is Whisper of Scandal, which I loved writing. It combines some of the elements of the history of Spitsbergen with a rich and romantic love story.

  There is much more about the historical background to Whisper of Scandal on my Web site at www.nicolacornick.co.uk, and I hope you enjoy exploring it. In the meantime I must own up to one liberty I took with the history and the geography. There was no monastery on Spitsbergen in the early nineteenth century, nor was there any permanent, year-round settlement, because the climate is too harsh. The monastery of Bellsund in the book is modeled on the Solovetsky Monastery on an island in the White Sea.

  With a host of furious fancies

  Whereof I am commander,

  With a burning spear and a horse of air,

  To the wilderness I wander.

  By a knight of ghostes and shadowes

  I summon’d am to tourney

  Ten leagues beyond the wild world’s end.

  Methinks it is no journey.

  —From Tom O’Bedlam’s Song, anonymous, circa 1600

  Contents

  Part 1

  The Grass Widow

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part 2

  Spitsbergen, The Arctic, June 1811

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part 1

  The Grass Widow

  Chapter 1

  Definition: A Grasswidow (or Grass-widow, grass widow) is a wife whose husband will return after a limited period of time away, usually after a voyage. The “grass” refers to the mattress which used to be filled with grass. The “widow” is left back on the grass/mattress. It might express the idea that the abandoned lover has been “put out to grass.” The term is applied “with a shade of malignancy,” a tantalisingly opaque comment.

  London—May 1811

  HE WAS LATE. Eighteen months late.

  Alex Grant paused on the steps of Lady Joanna Ware’s London town house in Half Moon Street. If he had expected to see any signs of mourning then he was sorely disappointed. No black drapes shuttered the windows and the presence of a large silver knocker on the door indicated that visitors were welcome. Lady Joanna, it seemed, had already thrown off her widow’s weeds a bare twelve months after word of her husband’s death must have reached her.

  Alex raised the silver knocker and the front door opened smoothly, silently. A butler, saturnine in black, stood in the aperture. It was well before the acceptable hour for calling. The butler somehow managed to convey this information—and his disapproval—with the mere twitch of an eyebrow.

  “Good morning, my lord. How may I help you?”

  My lord. The man did not know him and yet had managed to place his social standing with some accuracy. It was impressive. It was exactly what Alex would have expected from the butler of so prominent and celebrated a society hostess as Lady Joanna Ware. The greeting was also less than welcoming, warning him, perhaps, that Lady Joanna was not accessible to any old member of the hoi polloi who sought her company.

  “I would like to see Lady Joanna, if you please,” Alex said.

  It was not strictly true. He had very little desire to see Lady Joanna Ware; only a strict sense of duty, the obligation owed to his dead colleague, had prompted him to come and pay his respects to the widow. And seeing the lack of mourning, barely an acknowledgment that she had lost so eminent and respected a husband as David Ware, had made Alex’s hackles rise and his wish to renew his acquaintance with Lady Joanna dwindle still further.

  The butler, too well trained to keeping him standing on the step like a tradesman, had stepped back to allow him access to the hall, although his expression still showed considerable doubt. The black-and-white marble-and-stone checkerboard floor stretched elegantly to a curving stair. Two liveried footmen, identical twins, Alex observed, over six feet tall, stood like statues on either side of a doorway. And from the
room behind them carried the sound of a raised feminine voice that completely spoiled this scene of aristocratic elegance:

  “Cousin John! Kindly stand up and cease plaguing me with these ridiculous proposals of marriage! In addition to boring me you are obscuring my new rug. I bought it to admire, not to have it knelt upon by importunate suitors.”

  “Lady Joanna is engaged,” the butler informed Alex.

  “On the contrary,” Alex said. “She has just announced that she is not.” He strode across the hall and threw open the door, ignoring the butler’s scandalized gasp and enjoying the look of consternation on the woodenly handsome visages of the matching footmen.

  The room he entered was a library, bright with sunshine and fresh with lemon and white paint. A fire burned in the grate even though the May morning was warm. A dog, small, gray and fluffy with a blue ribbon in a fetching topknot, lay on a rug before the fire. The dog was as handsome in its own way as the footmen were in theirs and it raised its head and fixed Alex with an inquisitive brown gaze. There was the scent of lilies and beeswax in the air. The room felt warm and welcoming. Alex, who had had no settled home for over seven years and who had never felt the need for one, never wanted one, was brought up short. To relax in such a room, to take a book from those shelves and a glass of brandy from the decanter, to sink into a deep armchair before the fire, suddenly seemed the greatest temptation.

  But perhaps not…

  The greatest temptation must surely be the woman who was standing by the long library windows with the sunlight threading her rich chestnut hair with sparks of gold and copper. Her face was oval. Her violet eyes were set wide apart above a small, straight nose and a luscious mouth that was so full it was almost indecently sensuous. She was not conventionally beautiful in any way: too tall, too slender, too angular and her face too striking, but it did not matter one whit. In a cherry-red morning gown with a matching bandeau in her hair, she was dazzling. There were no widow’s weeds here, not even the lavender of half mourning, to drain the life and vibrancy from her.

  Alex had little time to do more than notice just how appealing Lady Joanna Ware was, and to register that appeal at a very deep, masculine and primitive level before she had seen him and had flown across the room to his side.

  “Darling! Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you for hours!” She threw herself into his arms. “Was the traffic in Piccadilly utterly dire?”

  Her body felt warm and yielding in Alex’s arms, as though she had been made specifically to match him. Shock ripped through him at the sense of deep recognition. She smelled of summer flowers. For a brief moment her face was upturned to his, her violet eyes wide and surely holding fear, of all things, as well as some wordless appeal, and then she had put one hand on the nape of his neck and brought his mouth down to hers and was kissing him as though she really, really meant it.

  It was astonishingly, instantaneously arousing. Alex’s entire body responded to the impossible seduction of her lips, so cool, so soft, so tempting. On mature reflection he thought that perhaps kissing Lady Joanna Ware was a somewhat incendiary way in which to end over two years of celibacy, but in the moment he thought of nothing other than the press of her body against his and the absolute need to take her to his bed—or her bed since it was, presumably, closer.

  Heat coursed through his body, and flagrant desire, wickedly strong. But already Lady Joanna was stepping back and freeing herself, leaving him with no more than a promise of heaven and an uncomfortable arousal. Her lips clung to his for a second and he almost groaned aloud. There was a spark of mischief in her violet eyes now as she cast a fleeting glance down at his trousers. “Darling, you are pleased to see me!”

  She was calling him darling because she had no idea who he was, Alex realized, taking strategic refuge behind a rosewood desk piled high with books in order to hide his body’s all too obvious discomfort. He smiled at her, throwing down a challenge. If she could be outrageous then he could match her. She deserved it for using him when she had no idea of his identity and cared even less.

  “What man would not be, my sweet?” he said. “Surely my impatience is entirely forgivable. It seems days since I left your bed rather than hours…” He ignored her audible gasp and turned to the other occupant of the room, a rather florid man of middle age who had been watching them with his eyes popping out and his mouth hanging open a full two inches.

  “I 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.”