Something Wonderful by Judith McNaught
On the afternoon of the third day, Alexandra asked the duchess if she had sent for Anthony, Lord Townsende.
“I sent word to him to join us here, but he was—” She broke off as Ramsey materialized in the doorway. “Yes, Ramsey?”
“Sir George Bradburn has arrived, your grace.”
Alexandra leapt anxiously to her feet, scattering the embroidery the duchess had pressed on her, but when the distinguished, white-haired man walked into the room a moment later, she took one look at his carefully expressionless face, and her whole body began to vibrate with terror.
Beside her, the duchess evidently drew the same conclusion from his features, because her face became drained of color and she slowly arose, leaning heavily on the cane she’d been using since they came to Grosvenor Square. “You have news, George. What is it?”
“The investigators have ascertained that a man meeting Hawthorne’s description was seen in a tavern on the wharf at approximately eleven on the night Hawthorne disappeared. With the assistance of a sizable bribe, the proprietor of the tavern also recalled that the man was unusually tall—well over six feet—and was dressed as a gentleman. The gentleman purchased several cigars and left. The tavern was located almost directly across the wharf from where the Fair Winds was docked and we are certain the man was Hawthorne.”
Bradburn paused and said miserably, “Would you ladies not prefer to be seated while you hear this?”
His dire suggestion made Alexandra grasp the side of her chair for support, but she shook her head.
“Continue,” the duchess ordered hoarsely.
“Two seamen aboard the Falcon, which was docked near the Fair Winds, witnessed a very tall, well-dressed man leaving the tavern, followed by two men who looked like ordinary rabble. The seamen aboard the Falcon were not paying particular attention, and they were already in their cups, but one of them thinks he saw the tall gentleman bludgeoned over the head by one of the rabble. The other seaman did not see that happen, but he did see the gentleman—whom he assumed had passed out from too much drink—being slung over one of the ruffians’ shoulders and carried off down the wharf.”
“And they didn’t do anything to help him?” Alexandra cried.
“Neither seaman was in a condition to offer aid, nor were they of a mind to interfere in a scene that is, unfortunately, all too common on the docks.”
“There’s more, isn’t there?” the duchess predicted, her eyes searching his grim face.
Sir George drew a long breath and slowly expelled it. “We’ve known all along that press gangs were very active on the night in question, and after further investigation, we discovered that one of the gangs purchased a man whose description was unmistakably that of Hawthorne. Believing he was passed out from drink, and finding no identification on him, they paid the rabble for Hawthorne and then delivered him on board one of His Majesty’s warships—the Lancaster.”
“Thank God!” Alexandra cried as joy exploded in her heart. Without thinking, she caught the duchess’ icy hand in her own and squeezed it tightly. But Bradburn’s next words sent Alexandra’s spirit plummeting into the depths of hell. “Four days ago,” he said grimly, “the Lancaster was engaged in battle by a French ship, the Versailles. Another of our ships, the Carlisle, was limping back to port under cover of the fog, crippled from an encounter with the Americans. Unable to go to the aid of his sister ship, the captain of the Carlisle witnessed the entire battle through his glass. When the battle was over, the Versailles was barely under sail . . .”
“And the Lancaster?” Alexandra burst out.
Sir George cleared his throat. “It is my sad duty to inform you that the Lancaster was sunk, and all on board were lost—including his grace, the Duke of Hawthorne.”
The room whirled before Alexandra’s vision; a scream rose in her chest and she pushed her hand against her mouth, her wild gaze flying to the duchess’ tormented face. She saw the duchess sway, and Alexandra automatically wrapped her arms around the weeping woman, rocking her back and forth as if she were a child, stroking her shaking back, whispering mindless reassurances to her, while torrents of tears raced down her own cheeks.
As if from a great distance, she heard Sir George Bradbum say he had brought a doctor with him, and she was dimly aware of someone gently but firmly pulling Jordan’s weeping grandmother from her embrace, while Ramsey took her arm and guided her upstairs.
Chapter Thirteen
NIGHTMARES PURSUED ALEXANDRA all the way into wakefulness as she rolled onto her back, trying to escape from a dream where she stood in a churchyard, surrounded by hundreds of headstones, each one bearing the name of her father, or her grandfather, or her husband.
Her eyelids felt as if they were weighed down with iron when she made an effort to force them open, and when she finally succeeded, she wished she hadn’t. Her head felt as if someone had buried an ax in her skull, and the sunlight pouring in from the window made her eyes ache. Wincing, she turned away from the source of the sunlight, and her gaze riveted on a thin woman in a starched black uniform, white apron, and cap, who was dozing in an armchair beside her bed. The parlormaid, Alexandra realized dimly.
“Why are you here?” she whispered in a feeble, rasping voice she scarcely recognized as her own. The parlormaid slept on, snoring softly, and Alexandra tilted her throbbing head on the pillow. Her gaze settled blankly on the table beside her bed, where a spoon and glass lay beside a bottle.
“What is that?” she whispered, more loudly this time.
The exhausted servant jerked erect, saw that Alexandra’s eyes were open, and leapt from her chair. “Laudanum, my lady, and the doctor said you was to eat the very minute you came round. I’ll fix you a nice tray and be back in a trice.”
Too sleepy to sort that all out, Alexandra let her heavy lids slide closed. When she opened them again, there was a tray beside the bed, and the sun had angled much lower in the sky. It was afternoon, Alexandra realized, feeling disoriented and fuzzy, but rested.
The parlormaid was awake this time, peering anxiously at her. “Goodness, you’ve been sleeping like the dead!” she burst out, then clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.
Alexandra peered curiously at her, and awkwardly struggled into a sitting position so the maid could place the tray on her lap. On the laden breakfast tray, as was the custom, there was a red rose and a copy of the Times folded in half. “Why was I given laudanum?” Alexandra asked, annoyed with her slurred speech and inability to concentrate properly.
“Because the doctor said you should have it.”
Alexandra frowned in confusion, then automatically asked the same question she had asked each morning since she’d come to this house. “Has Sir George come to—” Pain shrieked through her body and erupted in a tortured moan as her mind snapped into focus and she remembered Bradburn’s last visit on Tuesday. She shook her pounding head, trying to blot out the images marching across her mind, the voices saying, “ . . . Sad duty to inform you that all hands on board were lost. . . . Quick, get the doctor. . . . Authorities duly notified. . . . Ramsey, get her to bed . . .”
“No!” Alexandra cried and jerked her face away from the maid, but the Times was lying on her lap. She stared at the bold print on the front page.
“What’s wrong, my lady? What do it say?” the horrified maid asked, staring uncomprehendingly at the words she’d never been taught to read.
Alexandra understood every agonizing one of them. They said that Jordan Addison Matthew Townsende—12th Duke of Hawthorne, Marquess of Landsdowne, Earl of Marlow, Baron of Richfield—was dead.
Alexandra’s head fell back on the pillows, and she closed her eyes, oblivious to everything but the torment searing her mind.
“Oh, Miss—your grace—I never meant to give you cause to be upset,” the maid whispered, wringing her hands. “I’ll get the doctor. Her grace has taken to her bed, so ill she be that he said he daren’t leave her—”
The last of that slowl
“Oh, no, your grace, you’ve been ill yerself, and it won’t do no good anyway. Craddock told Mr. Ramsey that her grace don’t talk. She can’t. She don’t recognize no one—she just stares . . .”
Alarm overcame Alexandra’s grief and, ignoring the maid’s protests, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, grasped the bedpost to steady her swaying senses, then pulled on her dressing robe.
In answer to Alexandra’s knock, the physician opened the door to the duchess’ bedchamber and stepped out into the hallway. “How is she?” Alexandra asked anxiously.
The physician shook his head. “She’s not good, not good at all. She is not a young woman and she has sustained a terrible shock. She will not eat or speak. She merely lies there, staring into the distance.”
Alexandra nodded, remembering her mother’s behavior when, shortly after her father’s death, his mistress had called upon them. Her mother had also retired to her bed, where she would neither eat nor speak, nor let anyone console her. When her mother had eventually emerged from her self-imposed confinement, she never was herself again. It was as if all the grief and bitterness were still bottled up inside of her, eating away at her mind.
“Has she cried?” Alexandra said, knowing that it was dangerous to keep grief bottled up inside.
“Certainly not! Women of her station and constitution do not indulge in weeping. As Craddock and I have repeatedly told her, she must be strong and look on the bright side. After all, she has another grandson, so it’s not as if the title will pass out of the family.”
Alexandra’s opinion of leeches, which had never been high, plummeted to an irretrievable low as she stared at the insensitive, pompous man before her. “I would like to see her, if you please.”
“Try to cheer her up,” he said, oblivious to Alexandra’s look of unwavering scorn. “Don’t talk about Hawthorne.”
Alexandra walked into the darkened room, and her heart leapt in pity and alarm to behold the formerly brisk, robust woman who was propped up against the pillows, looking like a ghost of her former self. Beneath her crown of white hair, the dowager’s face was chalky and her pale eyes were glazed with pain and sunken into deep, dark hollows. No sign of recognition registered in her eyes as Alexandra crossed in front of her bed, then sat down on the edge of it beside her.
Frightened, Alexandra reached out and grasped the duchess’ blue-veined hand, which was lying limply upon the golden coverlet. “Oh, ma’am, you must not go on this way,” she said in a shaky, compassionate whisper, her eyes pleading with the elderly duchess to listen to her. “You must not Jordan would hate to see you like this.” When she got no reaction at all, Alexandra’s desperation grew and she squeezed the fragile hand tightly. “Have you any idea how proud he was of your strength and spirit? Have you? I know he was, because he boasted of those very things to me.”
The faded blue eyes never wavered. Not certain whether the duchess hadn’t heard her, hadn’t believed her, or simply didn’t care, Alexandra redoubled her efforts to convince her. “It’s true. I remember the occasion very well. After our wedding we were about to leave Rosemeade, and he asked where you’d gone. I told him you were upstairs and that I greatly feared you’d never recover from our marriage. He smiled when I said that—you know, one of his special smiles that made you feel like smiling in return? Then do you know what he said?”
The duchess didn’t move.
“He said,” Alexandra plowed on urgently, ‘ “It would take more than our marriage to send my grandmother into a decline. Why, my grandmother could take on Napoleon himself and when she was through with him, he’d be begging her pardon for his bad manners in making war on us.’ That is exactly what he—”
The duchess’ eyes closed and Alexandra’s heart missed a beat, but a moment later two tears rolled slowly down her pale cheeks. Tears were a good sign, Alexandra knew, and she plunged fiercely ahead: “He knew you were courageous and strong and—and loyal, too. From something he said to me, I don’t think he believed women were capable of loyalty, except for you.”
The duchess’ eyes opened and she looked at Alexandra with anguished pleading and doubt.
Laying her hand upon the heartbroken woman’s cheek, Alexandra tried harder to convince her she spoke the truth, but her own control was slipping so fast she could hardly speak. “It’s true. He was so certain of your loyalty to him, he told me that even though you detested our marriage, you would still flay anyone alive who dared to criticize me— simply because I bear his name.”
The faded blue eyes filled with tears that began to race down the duchess’ cheeks and over Alexandra’s fingers. Several silent minutes later, the duchess swallowed convulsively, and lifted her eyes to Alexandra’s face. In a broken voice she pleaded, “Did Hawthorne truly say that—about Napoleon?”
Alexandra nodded and tried to smile, but the duchess’ next words sent tears spilling from her eyes and dripping from her lashes: “I loved him better even than my sons, you know,” she wept. Reaching up, the duchess put her arms around the weeping girl who was trying valiantly to comfort her, and drew Alexandra close. “Alexandra,” she sobbed, “I—I never told him I loved him. And now it’s too late.”
For the rest of that day and all of the next, Alexandra remained with the duchess, who seemed to need to talk about Jordan almost constantly, now that the dam of grief had been broken.
* * *
At eight o’clock the following evening, Alex left her elderly charge resting peacefully and went down to the blue salon rather than return to the depressing isolation of her own room. Trying to keep her aching sense of loss at bay, she picked up a book.
In the doorway, Ramsey cleared his throat to announce the arrival of a caller: “His grace, the Duke of Hawthorne—”
A cry of joy escaped Alexandra’s lips as she rose to her feet and rushed forward. Ramsey stepped aside, the Duke of Hawthorne appeared in the doorway, and Alexandra stopped dead. Anthony Townsende was coming toward her. Anthony Townsende was now the Duke of Hawthorne.
Fury, irrational and uncontrollable, flamed in her breast that this man should dare to call himself by Jordan’s title after such an indecently short time. Anthony Townsende had benefited from this tragedy, she realized, and he was probably glad . . .
Anthony abruptly stopped walking and stared at the blazing anger on Alexandra’s pale face. “You’re wrong, Alexandra,” he said quietly. “I would give anything to see him walk into this room right now. If I’d known Ramsey would announce me as he did, I’d have asked him not to do so.”
Alexandra’s anger abruptly dissolved at the unmistakable sincerity she heard in his quiet voice and the sadness she saw in his eyes. Too honest to deny what she had thought, she said contritely, “Please forgive me, your grace.”
“Tony,” he corrected, holding out his hand for hers in a gesture of greeting and friendship. “How is my grandmother?”
“Sleeping now, but she’s been up a little more each day.”
“Ramsey told me you’ve been a tremendous source of comfort and support to her. I thank you for that.”
“She’s been very brave, and she’s taking care of herself.”
“And you?” he asked, walking over to a side table and pouring some sherry into a glass. “Are you taking care of yourself? You look terrible.”
A flash of her old humor briefly lit her eyes. “Your memory is short, your grace. I was never more than passable-looking.”
“Tony,” he insisted, sitting down across from her and gazing into the flickering fire.
“Your grandmother does not wish to remain in London and be forced to endure the strain of hundreds of condolence calls,” Alexandra said after a few minutes. “She prefers to have a small memorial service and then to leave for Rosemeade immediately after.”
Anthony shook his head at the mention of Rosemeade. “I don’t think she ought to shut herself up
“That would be much better for her,” Alexandra agreed. To set his mind at rest about her own plans, Alexandra told him she intended to go home after the memorial service. “My mother meant to begin traveling and enjoying herself immediately after my wedding,” she explained. “She promised to write and let me know her direction, so if you will have her letters sent on to me at home, I’ll write to her wherever she is and tell her my husband is . . .” She tried to say “dead” and couldn’t. She could not believe the handsome, vital man she had married was no longer alive.
* * *
With a determined scowl upon her face and Ramsey trailing solicitously upon her heels, the duchess walked slowly into the yellow salon the next morning, where Anthony was reading the newspaper and Alexandra was sitting at a desk, staring pensively into space.
As the duchess gazed at the pale, courageous girl with the hollow cheekbones who had pulled her through her grief, her expression softened, then underwent an immediate, radical change as her glance fell on Henry, who was alternately chasing his own tail and tugging at the hem of Alexandra’s black mourning gown. “Be still!” she commanded the undisciplined beast.
Alexandra started, Anthony jumped, but Henry merely wagged his tail in greeting and renewed his gleeful play, undeterred. Caught off guard by this unprecedented case of flagrant defiance, the dowager attempted to stare the rambunctious puppy into submission and, when that had no effect, she rounded on the stately butler. “Ramsey,” she commanded imperiously, “see that this deplorable creature is taken for a long, exhausting walk.”