Whisper of Scandal by Nicola Cornick Page A

rakes.”
    Alex laughed. “You could not be more mistaken, Lady Joanna. Your husband intimated to me that you were well able to take care of yourself and I am inclined to believe him.”
    Joanna felt a stab of sensation that felt curiously like misery. So David had made her sound like a brass-faced bitch and Alex had believed him. Of course he had. Why would he not? Everyone believed David Ware to be the most complete hero, and Alex had been David’s closest friend. She gave herself a little shake. What had she expected? David was never going to sing her praises; they had been estranged for years, locked in mutual loathing. How could it be otherwise when David had felt that she had failed him in the only thing he had required of her? Within five years of their marriage they had quarreled violently, terminally, and after that they had barely spoken to one another again.
    Joanna drew a deep breath to compose herself. David was dead and it should not matter now. Yet Alex Grant’s poor opinion of her seemed to count for more than it ought.
    She stopped dead next to the life-size ice model ofAlex himself. “Indeed?” she said scathingly. “It ill becomes you to step in at this eleventh hour to protect your cousin from some imaginary danger, Lord Grant. You have left him to fend for himself in the past, have you not, and his sister, too, so I hear, whilst you traipse about the globe in search of glory—”
    Alex’s gloved hand closed about her wrist tightly enough to make her gasp and break off. The look in his eyes was feral though he kept his tone soft. “Is this your attempt to jilt me in full public view?” he asked. There was an edge of steel to his voice. “I confess I had hoped for something more original than a list of all the ways in which I had failed my family.”
    “Do not be so hasty,” Joanna said. She held his gaze with hers. “You will not be disappointed by your dismissal, I assure you.” She shook him off, rubbing her wrist where he had held her. His grip had not hurt, but there had been something in his touch and in his eyes, something primitive and fierce, that had shaken her. The tone of their encounter had shifted in the space of a second from enmity sheathed in courtesy to all-out antagonism. Joanna could see that in the heat of the moment she had invested in Alex all the faults she had detested in David, and perhaps that was unfair, but she was in no mood to be generous. He had not extended any generosity to her, after all. He had disliked her from the start.
    “You may rest easy for your cousin’s virtue,” she said. “I am not interested in callow youths, whatever you may think.” She looked him up and down. “Nor in adventurers, for that matter, however romantic and mysterious others may find them.” She squared her shoulders. “Lord Grant, I do not know what my husband said aboutme to make you have such an aversion to me, but I do not care for either your disapproval or your judgmental attitudes.”
    “David never spoke of you to me,” Alex said. “Other than just before he died.”
    Joanna was gripping her fan so tightly between her gloved hands now that she heard the struts creak. She could see a most indiscreet crowd of guests jostling in the doorway of the room, eager to witness the scene playing out between Lady Joanna and her supposed lover.
    “Well,” she said sarcastically, “if David was on his deathbed then whatever he said must be true.”
    “Perhaps,” Alex said. His mouth was set in a thin, angry line. “You may tell me if it was true or not. David told me never to trust you, Lady Joanna. He said that you were deceitful and manipulative. Can you tell me what you had done to incur such hatred from your husband?”
    Their eyes met and locked and Joanna could feel the burn all the way through her body. Alex’s gaze was narrowed on her face with dark intensity and suddenly she hated him, too, for believing her faithless, feckless husband, for taking David’s word