Whisper of Scandal

by Nicola Cornick

  “They wanted to see you immediately, my lord,” Frazer had said, his mouth turning down at the corners. “I had to tell them you were out attending to some pressing business matters. That was two hours ago. I’m guessing they are not best pleased to be kept waiting.”

  ALEX HAD BEEN EXPECTING a frosty welcome for his tardiness and had been most taken aback to be greeted with great bonhomie. Contrarily, this was making him suspicious. He shifted surreptitiously in his chair and rubbed his bad leg, which was throbbing unpleasantly.

  “Good of you to join us, Grant! Splendid to see you, old fellow!” Charles Yorke, the First Lord of the Admiralty, shook him warmly by the hand. Yorke was not a man for whom Alex had ever had a great deal of respect. He disliked the fact that the First Sea Lord was a politician rather than a sailor. For how was a man like that ever to understand the challenges facing a serving officer, let alone the experiences of his men? Even worse was the fact that Yorke’s brother Joseph also sat on the Admiralty Board. At least Joseph Yorke had served in the navy, but his appointment looked unpleasantly like nepotism to Alex. He understood that that was the manner in which such business was often conducted, but that did not mean that he liked it. He took the chair that Charles Yorke indicated and tried not to let his antagonism show.

  Alex reminded himself that all he was here for was to discover what his next commission would be. Since Joanna Ware had summarily turned down his offer to accompany her to Bellsund he had no need to beg his masters to allow him to undertake another trip to the Pole. In fact, he had no responsibilities to keep him in London at all. He could be in and out of this office in moments and back to his ship where he belonged. He could escape from the stifling heat and airlessness of this room and be out in the fresh air again. He felt oppressed, as though all the monstrous piles of paper on the table before him might rise up and smother the life out of him. He had never been content to sit indoors. Ever since his boyhood on Speyside, he had lived to be out in the fresh air.

  “Delighted to have you back in London, Grant,” Charles Yorke was saying. “Delighted, what! His Grace of Clarence tells me you were a tremendous hit with the boxing crowd at Cribbs’s last night.”

  Alex tried not to grimace. He had spent the best part of the night trying to escape from an overexcited mob that had kept toasting him and buying him drinks until he had almost slid off his chair with excess.

  Fortunately Yorke did not appear to require an answer. “It will be a great pleasure to have you working here at the Admiralty for a space,” he continued. He waved an expansive hand around. “Promotion, don’t you know… Maybe a rear admiral’s position in a year or two—” Alex saw Joseph Yorke smile through gritted teeth and there were nods around the table. “You’re a hero, Grant, an idol of the people and no mistake.”

  Alex felt a pang of shock. Working at the Admiralty? He found his voice. “Gratified as I am, gentlemen,” he said, “I do not quite understand…”

  “Of course not, of course not!” Yorke boomed magnanimously. “Just a simple sailor, eh, Grant?” He inclined his head toward another of the navy board, James Buller, a career politician.

  “The government is pleased with you, Grant,” Buller said in his high-pitched voice, brushing snuff off his sleeve as he spoke. “Need a hero now Nelson’s gone. Cochrane’s too showy, don’t you know, and too insubordinate. Explorers are all the rage in society now—”

  “I see,” Alex said grimly. He caught the eye of Sir Richard Bickerton, onetime colleague of Nelson, who cast him the ghost of a wink.

  “You’re famous, Grant,” Bickerton said dryly. “I know how much you will relish that.”

  “Quite, sir,” Alex said. He took a deep breath. “Gentlemen, you do me too much honor. All I wish is to be assigned another commission and rejoin my ship.”

  There was a sudden hush about the table. Alex looked at Charles Yorke, who was fidgeting with his quill pen.

  “Sir?” he said very politely but with an undertone of steel.

  “That’s the thing, Grant,” Yorke said, tapping his fingers uncomfortably on the polished surface of the table. “No money for further exploration at the moment, y’see. Can’t be done.”

  “Government can’t afford it,” Buller confirmed with gloomy relish.

  “Tide might turn in a few years, of course,” Yorke continued, “but for now we need you here in London, Grant, pressing the flesh, you know. You’re famous, like Bickerton says. You’ll be the most splendid ambassador for the navy in ton society. Guest of honor, what! Dinners, balls, marvelous stuff!”

  Alex expelled his breath very slowly. This was starting to look very, very bad. He could see his future stretching ahead, desk-bound in some pointless Admiralty job during the day, his evenings an endless whirl of dinners and social events until society tired of him or some new sensation came along to displace him. He felt the walls close in on him, felt trapped, felt his blood turn cold at the prospect of never being given another command.

  He could see Joseph Yorke looking at him with dislike and a spurt of powerful envy. Ironic, Alex thought, to be envied for something he had not even sought in the first place, for fame and popularity and the love of the people, when all he wanted was to escape from all that celebrity.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, setting his jaw, aware of anger and a strange sense of desperation jetting up within him, “might I ask you to reconsider? I am a sailor. I am not cut out to be some sort of ambassador in society.”

  “Exactly what I said, Grant,” Joseph Yorke agreed. “You have no social graces at all.”

  “Nonsense, Grant!” Charles Yorke interrupted his brother. “Society adores you!”

  “I do not adore society,” Alex said, sitting forward urgently, trying to find a way through this thicket of unwanted approval. “Please—I beg you to give me another role.” He was aware that diplomacy was not his strong suit. He had never been a politician nor had he cultivated the connections needed to prosper. Until now it had not mattered. He had been a sailor, an explorer. His men were like Devlin and Purchase, young, anxious for adventure and promotion, efficient and daring. They had charm and courage. The Admiralty had wanted them at sea—until now. Now it seemed that the politicians and financiers were in charge, there was no money for exploration anymore and he was about to be promoted to some role he was woefully inadequate to fulfill, his only duties charming the ton and acting the role of heroic explorer in the ballrooms of London. The thought revolted him. He knew that he would rather resign than have this job. He swallowed hard. He was older and wiser than Devlin—he could not simply turn in his commission on a whim. Yet what choice would he have if the only alternative was being chained to a desk, London’s least enthusiastic celebrity, paraded about like a lion at the Tower of London menagerie for the entertainment of the crowd?

  Most members of the Admiralty Board were looking at him with baffled incomprehension. Joseph Yorke looked mulish and envious. Only Bickerton had a spark of sympathy in his eyes.

  “Understand your need to be at sea, old fellow,” Bickerton said, “but…” His shrug indicated that he was in a minority of one and that the argument was already lost.

  “Gentlemen,” Alex repeated, suddenly seeing a glimmer of light and grasping after it, “I wonder if you would consider an alternative?”

  Charles Yorke was frowning now, displeased that his largesse had not received the response he had been expecting. “An alternative, Grant? An alternative to cultivating the support and approval of the Prince Regent and the leaders of society?”

  “I think,” Alex said gravely, “that you will like this.”

  There was silence. Everyone was staring at him.

  “There is a mission of mercy,” Alex said, “that I feel I simply must fulfill.”

  Charles Yorke sat forward, his frown easing a little. “Go on, Grant. A mission of mercy, eh? I do like the sound of this.”

  “When David Ware died,” Alex said carefully, “he left behind an illegitimate daughter. The
matter came to light only a couple of days ago. I am named one of the child’s guardians, along with Ware’s widow, Lady Joanna.”

  There was a rustle of speculation and comment about the table.

  “Disgraceful,” whispered one of the board members. “What could Ware have been thinking?”

  “How very ramshackle of Ware to put his wife in such a situation,” Joseph Yorke said coldly. “And how very out of character.”

  “Indeed,” Alex agreed smoothly. “Ware was… an original. He left the child in the care of an Eastern Orthodox monastery in Spitsbergen, scarcely ideal for a baby girl. I feel it my duty to assist Lady Joanna Ware by accompanying her on her journey to rescue the child and bring her back to London. So you see, gentlemen—” he spread his hands in a gesture of appeal “—this is why I feel I must return to the Arctic as soon as possible…”

  He saw Bickerton’s lips twist into an appreciative smile at his strategy. “Nice work, Grant,” he said.

  Buller was looking cautious. “There’s no money to sponsor such an expedition,” he began.

  “But what a marvelous, marvelous venture!” Charles Yorke threw up his hands, a broad smile splitting his face. “I can see the news sheets now—dashing naval adventurer in Arctic rescue! Polar hero comes to the aid of grieving widow and orphaned child… Absolutely splendid, Grant! The prince will love it. The papers will love it! The people will love it!”

  The rustle of comment about the table swelled to a roar of approval once the First Lord of the Admiralty had given his agreement. Alex sat back in his chair feeling a rush of relief.

  “Splendid!” Buller echoed, rubbing his hands. “I must go at once to acquaint the prime minister with the news!”

  “I’ll tell the prime minister,” Joseph Yorke said, glaring at him. “And the Prince Regent.”

  “Those were fine tactics, Grant,” Sir Richard Bickerton said as he and Alex strode out of the Admiralty and Alex drew in a deep, appreciative breath of fresh air. “Used the Admiralty’s desire for a hero to work in your favor, eh? Didn’t think you could pull it off, old fellow, but I have to hand it to you—masterly stratagem.” He laughed. “And by the time you return they will probably have changed their minds and decided to post you somewhere exciting, like the South Americas, especially if you cover yourself with glory on this trip.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Alex said. “That is exactly what I was hoping.”

  “Rum business about David Ware’s sideslip,” Bickerton said, rubbing his chin doubtfully. “You do realize that the story will be all round the ton within the hour? It’ll be the on dit in every ballroom in London. Yorke will lose no time in turning it to his advantage.” He looked at Alex. “Dashed bad form of Ware to leave Lady Joanna in such a situation. I’m surprised at him.”

  “Indeed,” Alex agreed.

  “What does Lady Joanna think of your plan to escort her to Spitsbergen?” Bickerton pursued.

  “She does not wish for my escort,” Alex said, “but now she will have no choice in the matter.”

  Bickerton pursed his lips on a soundless whistle. “Well, rather you than me, Grant. I would not choose to incur Lady Joanna’s disapproval.” He frowned. “Mind you, I do not think this escapade of hers will play well in society. All very well for you to go off to the Arctic on some mission of mercy—you’re a damned explorer, a hero, it’s what you do! But for a woman alone, a widow, to go to the ends of the earth to rescue her husband’s bastard child…” He shook his head. “Some will consider it eccentric and others a downright disgrace.”

  Alex drove his hands into his pockets. “Lady Joanna is stubborn,” he said. “She will not change her mind about going.”

  “Then it is good that she has you to protect her,” Bickerton said gruffly. “Damned fine woman. Plenty of mettle.”

  “So everyone keeps telling me,” Alex said. He hesitated. “Did you know David Ware, sir?”

  Bickerton gave him a shrewd look from his blue eyes. “Not well,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

  “I wondered what you thought of him,” Alex admitted. He was not really sure why he was asking. Perhaps, he thought wryly, he wanted to reassure himself that David Ware had been a good man so that the disloyal doubts that he was starting to harbor could be put to flight.

  “Splendid fellow, by all accounts,” Bickerton said. “Absolute hero, which makes this business with the bastard brat all the more surprising. But then—” He shrugged. “Great men must be allowed their weaknesses and Ware’s was most certainly women.”

  He shook Alex’s hand and went back inside Somerset House, and Alex walked along the Strand, and turned down Adam Street toward the Thames. The fresh breeze from the river was cold and clean and cutting even in the warmth of a London spring. Alex watched the ships on the river and felt relief and pleasure to be out in the open air and to have escaped the gilded trap the Admiralty had prepared for him. He wondered what would happen when Lady Joanna Ware learned that he had set himself up as Nina’s savior, the dashing explorer who had selflessly offered to travel back to Spitsbergen to rescue Ware’s baby daughter. Bickerton was right; Yorke would milk this for all it was worth and use it to boost both Alex’s popularity and that of the navy itself.

  Alex’s lips twisted into a parody of a smile. He had done it to save himself from the disaster of the Admiralty grounding him in London. He had done it out of a need to escape the impossible, unbearable role of celebrity explorer, lionized by society, fawned over by the Prince Regent himself.

  He knew that Lady Joanna Ware would despise him for using her.

  IT WAS A PERFECT AFTERNOON for a drive in Hyde Park.

  “Shopping is such an exhausting business.” Lottie sighed, flinging herself back in abandoned pose on the plush green cushions of her landau and smiling flirtatiously at the footmen in their livery. “I would go home to rest before the ball tonight were it not for the fact that I simply cannot miss being here to see and be seen!” A tiny frown marred her brow as she looked from them to Joanna, who was sitting opposite her, a frothy pink parasol tilted against the sun. “Darling Joanna, are you sure I cannot buy your twin footmen from you? These two are all very fine, but they do not look the same and I have asked and asked at the employment agency but they cannot seem to find twins for me.” Her mouth turned down at the corners. “It is most disappointing.”

  “I am sorry, Lottie,” Joanna said, smiling. “I don’t want to sell. It gives me too much pleasure to excite so much envy over them!”

  “Oh, well, I can understand that.” Lottie pouted. She smoothed her fingers over the heraldic embroidery on the hammer cloth. “I thought I might try to persuade you, for what else is there for me to do in life? You know that I live to spend!”

  Joanna sighed. She knew that Lottie was bored, bored by her life in the ton with its emptiness and extravagance, bored with the entertainments and events even as she grasped greedily after some new experience to fulfill her. Joanna loved the social whirl of the season—it was familiar, distracting, safe in some odd way because it occupied her and kept her thoughts from dwelling too much on the failure of her marriage and her failure to have a family of her own—but deep down she also knew that life in the ton was shallow and empty. Unlike Lottie, though, she had her work, her drawings and designs. Alex Grant might disparage them, but they gave her a purpose as well as an income. Though whether she would still have a clientele when she returned from Spitsbergen remained to be seen. Already that morning she had had to tell Lady Ansell that the redecoration of her dining room would be delayed by at least six months. Her ladyship had not been pleased and had scurried away to complain to her bosom bows in the ton.

  “My dears!” Lady O’Hara, an inveterate society gossip, brought her barouche alongside them. “I have just heard the news!” She put one gloved hand on the edge of Lottie’s landau in a confiding gesture. “How noble you are, Lady Joanna, how truly courageous to rescue your husband’s bastard child and bring her home!” She leaned closer to Jo, he
r gray eyes sharp and not in the least friendly. “Of course, it is difficult to travel abroad—especially to so far-flung a place as the Pole—and to maintain your reputation as a lady of quality.”

  “I shall do my poor best,” Joanna said. She glanced at Lottie. “Word has spread fast,” she added dryly. “I only heard the news of David’s daughter myself yesterday morning.”

  “Well, you cannot blame me,” Lottie said with a toss of the head. “You have been shopping in my company the entire day today, so you know I have not had the chance to gossip about you! More is the pity,” she added, “for I love to be first with the on dit and I see I have been pipped to the post now. Perhaps the servants were listening at the keyhole when we talked yesterday, or Mr. Jackman has passed on word that we have ordered very special Esquimaux boots for our trip—”

  Lady O’Hara, whose carriage was now being jostled out of the way by those of Mrs. Milton and Lord and Lady Ayres, gave a little shriek. “Esquimaux boots? Oh, how marvelous! They will be all the rage this winter!”

  “How gratifying it will be to bring them into fashion,” Joanna agreed, “for they are the most elegantly cozy footwear imaginable.”

  “I shall tell everyone to order some,” Lady O’Hara promised.

  Lottie’s dark eyes were sparkling as she looked around the park. “No wonder there is such a crush today,” she said. “Evidently we are the talk of the town, Jo darling! How splendid this is!”

  “I am not sure that everyone approves,” Joanna murmured. A little shiver ran down her spine as she remembered Lottie’s prophetic words the day before:

  “You are the darling of society, but I wonder if even you can carry this off… Think of the whispers of scandal…”

  How infuriating it was that the qualities of daredevil risk taking, of adventure and exploration, were lauded in men like Alex Grant and yet were considered utterly unbecoming in a woman.