A Stolen Heart (15 page)

“She
is
Alexandra,” Thorpe pointed out. “That doesn’t mean she’s the Alexandra the Countess wishes she were. And it certainly doesn’t mean she is trying to convince the Countess that she is. Why, she denied it! She told the Countess that she was not her granddaughter.”

“Yes, that was very clever of her,” Ursula remarked acidly. “Pretending that she didn’t know who Simone was, that she didn’t know she’s the exact image of her. That she didn’t know who the Countess was, or Chilton.”

“How could she?” Thorpe asked. “She’s an American.”

“Hmph. That’s what she says.”

Thorpe sighed. “You’re saying that she is only pretending to be American? Why would she do that if she were trying to make us believe that she is Chilton’s daughter? Wouldn’t it make more sense to be English—or even French?”

“How should I know? I don’t know the workings of the criminal mind,” Ursula huffed.

“Ursula, you are not making any sense. Alexandra denied that she was the Countess’s granddaughter.”

“It makes her look good. It makes her appear innocent. You mark my words, she’ll come back later with some other proof that will convince Mother.”

“This is all supposition. You haven’t any facts to support what you’re saying. Alexandra made no effort to meet the Countess. I am the one who introduced Alexandra to her. It is mere happenstance that she even met her.”

“Is it?” Ursula asked, arching a brow. “An American comes to London and just happens to meet a man who is very close to the Countess and who is likely to introduce her to the Countess? How did you meet her, anyway?”

Thorpe hesitated. “Well, um, she was interested in seeing the things I brought back from India.”

Ursula gave him a significant look. “Of course she was. Men are so easily taken in by a pretty face. It’s a wonder they aren’t all robbed blind. So this American girl just shows up, wanting to see your Indian nonsense, and you think there’s nothing havey-cavey about it?”

Thorpe could feel his face reddening. “Some people have an appreciation for other cultures and for art in many forms. And she did not just show up. My agent brought her to see me because she was interested in my collection.” Thorpe chose not to add that Jones had brought her only because Alexandra had bullied him into it. “She owns a shipping company. They import our tea.”

“Really. A woman who owns a shipping company.” Ursula’s words dripped scorn.

“I presume she inherited it from her father. Or it may be her mother’s, for all I know, and she runs it for her.” He caught Ursula’s look and added defensively, “Americans are different.”

“Not
that
different. Men own businesses.”

“Women inherit property, including businesses.”

“Of course they do, but they have someone else run things for them. They don’t do the buying and selling themselves. Oh, Thorpe, can’t you see? She engineered meeting you so that she could meet Mother. She had obviously researched all of us and knew exactly what to do.”

“I think you have an excessively devious mind.”

“I’m just not a man and therefore not led astray by a curving figure and a fine set of eyes. I can see what’s really happening.”

“You’re being absurd,” Thorpe told her positively. “Alexandra is not capable of playing such a game. She is the most straightforward, honest woman I have ever met. She is downright blunt, in fact. She is not someone who plays games.”

“I did not say she was playing at anything. She’s deadly serious. She is trying to bilk my mother out of lots and lots of money. She obviously planned it out very carefully. She would be far less believable if she came up to my mother’s door and said, ‘Here I am—your granddaughter Alexandra.’ She would also have to come up with some sort of story as to what had happened to her, why she hadn’t been killed with the others, how she had found out who she was and so on. This way, she simply appears, lets the Countess see her and then artfully protests that she is not the Countess’s granddaughter while she slips in the fact that her name is Alexandra. Don’t you see? She made Mother trust her by pretending not to be Alexandra, all the while ensuring that Mother thinks she is.”

“How could she be sure that I would introduce her to the Countess?” Thorpe countered. “I might not have taken her with me to that ball. Or your mother might not have come to it.”

“She was counting on her appeal to get you interested in her. If you hadn’t taken her to the Duchess’s ball, it is quite likely you would have taken her some other place—the opera or a play, perhaps. She plays a genteel woman well enough. You wouldn’t have just given her a tumble as if she were a doxie.”

“You have a certain inelegance of expression, my lady.”

“Nonsense. I am speaking the truth, and you know it. And Mother didn’t have to see her at the ball. If anyone who knew Chilton and Simone had seen her, they would comment on it. It would have eventually gotten back to Mother, and she would have demanded to meet her. If you weren’t interested in her, the girl would have lost nothing. She would have found some other way to meet Mother.”

“You haven’t a shred of proof.”

“Proof! This isn’t a court of law. We are talking about saving Mother from being swindled by this imposter, not about sending the girl to jail.”

“I see. So for vilifying someone’s character, you need no proof at all.”

“Anyone who hadn’t had his head turned by the woman could see that it makes sense!” Ursula made an exasperated noise. “Honestly, Thorpe, I gave you credit for more wit. You’ve made a fool of yourself for a woman before. I would have thought you had learned your lesson.”

Thorpe’s eyes narrowed. “If you think that this is the way to convince me of what you say, you are dead wrong. Miss Ward has done nothing except deny that she was the Countess’s granddaughter. She has made no claims and has tried to get nothing from the Countess.”

“You intend to wait until she has cheated Mother, then? Worse than that, she will have broken her heart, as well!” Ursula surged to her feet. “Well, I can see that it is useless talking to you. I only hope that you don’t live to regret refusing to help Mother.”

“I am not refusing to help the Countess,” Thorpe told her grimly, rising also. “However, I have no intention of accusing Miss Ward without any evidence that what you say is true.” He hesitated, then went on, “I will, however, set someone to investigate the matter.”

He had already charged his valet with finding out all he could about the attack upon Alexandra last night, as well as the rat incident this afternoon. He could easily expand that search to learn whatever he could about Alexandra.

“You will?”

“Don’t look so astonished, my lady. I am sure my agent has already checked out her business credentials. If she is, indeed, the owner of a shipping business in the United States, will that satisfy you that she is innocent of any wrongdoing in the matter?”

Ursula’s eyes turned shrewd. “So you’re hoping to persuade me that I am wrong.”

“It seems the easiest way to get to the truth of the matter. Then we can cease to argue over it.”

“As long as you make a complete investigation, I suppose that will have to do.”

“I promise you, my agent is a very thorough man.”

Lady Ursula left, still looking a trifle uncertain, and Thorpe turned to his study with a sigh. Trust Lady Ursula to stir up a controversy—as if the thing weren’t enough of a mess. She had a way of making everyone’s actions seem suspicious.

He sat behind his desk but found himself unable to work or read or do much of anything. Lady Ursula’s accusations nagged at him. He could not stop remembering the way Alexandra had managed to meet him. She had written to him, and when he had turned down her proposal, she had found another way to meet him. Her eagerness to look at his Indian treasures was unusual.

But then, he reminded himself, Alexandra was unusual. The fact that she had been as bold and decisive as she had been was proof of nothing except that that was the sort of nature she had. And that nature intrigued him, even while it irritated him. Could she possibly have known that he would react that way to such a woman?

Grinding his teeth, he jumped from his chair and started to pace. It was absurd to think that Alexandra was anything other than exactly what she appeared to be. He had never met a woman of less artifice.

On the other hand, he remembered bitterly, he had been easily taken in before. His heart had played him false with Barbara, blinding him to her faults, deceiving him into thinking that she loved him as he loved her, when all the time she had merely been bored. Still, he argued, he was not the boy he had been then. He was far wiser—more cynical, the Countess would have it. No woman since Barbara had been able to play him for a fool. If there had been any falsity to Alexandra, he would have realized it. Yet he had to admit that no other woman had stirred such passion within him since Barbara. Perhaps it had not been that he was so wise, but that there had not been a woman desirable enough.

He cursed Lady Ursula for coming here and sowing doubt within him. It occurred to him that if he went to see Alexandra, it would resolve his doubts. A few minutes with her, he was sure, and he would once again be certain of her. He would see her bluntness, her honesty, and Ursula’s accusations would crumble.

He glanced at the clock. It was growing a trifle late to call, perhaps. However, he could not convince himself to wait until the next day. He rang for his carriage and ran up to dress in proper evening attire. Thirty minutes later he was in his carriage, rumbling toward the Wards’ house, anticipation rising in him.

As they neared the house, he caught sight of a figure of a woman walking briskly toward it. To his astonishment, he realized that it was Alexandra. Irritation flooded him. Hadn’t the woman learned her lesson the other night? What was she doing out walking along the street alone in the dark? He tapped his cane once on the ceiling of the carriage, his command to stop, and started to open the door and climb out so that he could give this stubborn woman a piece of his mind.

But then he noticed a man in livery hurrying toward her. The two of them conferred for a moment, then the man scurried off, and Alexandra followed him at a rapid pace. Thorpe frowned, watching her stride away down the street. She was hatless and cloakless and still dressed in the gown she had worn earlier, not at all the sort of way a woman went abroad in London at night. His curiosity aroused, he leaned out of the window and instructed his driver to follow her—at a discreet pace.

He saw that the footman had hailed her a hackney. She climbed into it, and the conveyance pulled away, Thorpe’s carriage following. After only a few moments, his carriage came to a halt, and Thorpe flipped aside the curtain to look out. The hackney had stopped halfway down the block in front of them, and Alexandra was climbing out. She glanced up and down the street, focusing on the large house across the way. Thorpe followed her gaze.

They had stopped in front of Exmoor House.

Something cold and hard formed in Thorpe’s stomach. Why had Alexandra come to the house of the Earl of Exmoor—she who had seemed not to know either the Countess or Richard, the present Earl? He waited, his fingers clenched around the carriage curtain, watching as she started across the street toward the house, her steps quick and determined.

He saw then that she was headed toward the figure of a woman, darkly dressed and head shrouded with a shawl. The two of them talked, and Alexandra turned, taking the other woman by the elbow and leading her toward the waiting hackney.

Something fierce and hot stabbed Thorpe through the chest. It was suddenly difficult to breathe. He could think of no reason this American, this girl who seemed so unknowledgeable about the Countess, would be meeting anyone secretively outside the home of the Earl of Exmoor. No reason—except, of course, that she was gathering information from some maid or other who worked at Exmoor House, someone who could tell her all about the family and its history.

Dear God! Could Ursula be right? Had Alexandra deceived him? Had he played the fool again, stumbling like a naïve boy into Alexandra’s web—and pulling the Countess into it, too?

A
LEXANDRA HELPED HER MOTHER FROM
the hackney and into the house. She felt bone weary. All the way home she had tried to get her mother to tell her why she had called her Simone, but Rhea had refused to say anything, just shaking her head and looking pitiful, until Alexandra had ground her teeth in frustration, wanting to shake her. Finally her mother had ended the interrogation by bursting into tears, crying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Why are you badgering me?”

When they stepped in the front door, they found Aunt Hortense waiting for them anxiously. “Oh, thank God!” She gave Alexandra a significant look. “I sent the servants to bed.”

“Good.” She knew that Aunt Hortense had wanted to avoid the servants seeing Rhea return, not knowing what she might do or say or what condition she would be in. It was better not to give them any extra fuel for gossip. As it was, their servants were probably the most popular guests in the servants’ quarters for blocks around for the stories they could tell about the crazy Americans.

“Hortense!” Rhea threw herself into the other woman’s arms. “I’m so glad to see you! She’s been asking me all these questions, and I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

Aunt Hortense glanced at Alexandra, who grimaced. “I’m sorry, Mother. I was…upset.”

Rhea drew herself to her full height, such as it was, and said with a great deal of dignity, “Young lady, I cannot imagine why you keep calling me that. I am childless.”

Aunt Hortense and Alexandra stared at her, rendered speechless by her pronouncement. Rhea turned and started toward the stairs, saying, “Come, Hortense. It’s time we went to bed.”

“Yes. I’ll be right there.” Hortense looked at Alexandra. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry.”

Alexandra shook her head. “Don’t worry. I realize she’s not herself. She’s been drinking. I could smell it. How did she get hold of liquor again?”

“I don’t know. I will question the servants tomorrow.” Hortense sighed. “I better follow her and make sure she goes to her room and stays there.” Her face clouded. “I’m afraid that we may have to start locking her room. We cannot have her running all over London like this. Something’s bound to happen to her.”

Aunt Hortense turned to go up the stairs just as there was a heavy pounding on the door. Alexandra jumped and whirled, and Aunt Hortense stopped. Since the footmen were all in bed, Alexandra went to answer the door herself, opening it narrowly and looking out the crack.

“Lord Thorpe!” Alexandra opened the door wide, joy surging through her at the sight of him. Swift on its heels came the realization that Thorpe’s face was set in cold, hard lines, and that his gray eyes were like granite. She took a step backward.

“What were you doing at Exmoor House?” he asked abruptly, stepping into the entry without waiting for an invitation.

Alexandra gaped at him. “How did you—”

“Lord Thorpe,” Aunt Hortense interrupted crisply, “I believe that even in London it is considered a trifle late to be calling on a lady.”

He cast a glance at Aunt Hortense. “I am sorry, Miss Ward. However, I believe my business here is sufficiently important to warrant the late hour.”

“Indeed?” Aunt Hortense came down the few steps she had climbed and started across the hall. “Perhaps I had better hear this business.”

“It’s all right, Aunt Hortense,” Alexandra told her, her gaze not wavering from Thorpe’s face, her own face polite and impersonal. A cold, hard knot was growing in her stomach, but she wasn’t about to let Thorpe get a glimpse of her emotions—not the way he looked right now. “You go see about Mother. I can take care of Lord Thorpe’s problem.”

“It’s hardly proper,” the older woman began, scowling at Thorpe.

“It’s all right. Really.”

Grumbling, Aunt Hortense turned and went up the stairs. Alexandra gestured toward the drawing room.

“Would you care to sit down?” She crossed the hall into the room without waiting for an answer from him.

She sat on a chair, indicating the sofa across from her, but Thorpe remained standing.

“I asked you a question,” he reminded her bluntly.

“Yes, and very rudely, too,” Alexandra replied. “I am unaware of any reason I have to answer to you, Lord Thorpe.”

“Do you have something to hide, Miss Ward?”

Alexandra hesitated. The truth was, of course, that she
did
have something to hide. She certainly wasn’t going to tell Thorpe that she had chased her mother to Exmoor House, where the woman had fled after knocking her companion in the head. But offhand, Alexandra could think of no plausible excuse for her to have been there.

Thorpe saw her hesitation, and his face grew grimmer. “Obviously you do.”

“Tell me, Lord Thorpe, do you feel that you have to answer every insolent question a stranger asks you about your whereabouts or your business?”

If possible, his gray eyes turned even colder. She wondered why she had ever thought them warm; they reminded her of nothing so much as a cold, storm-tossed sea. “I am a stranger to you?”

“I think you are more a stranger every moment,” Alexandra retorted. “I would have called you a friend earlier today, despite our short acquaintance, but friends do not spy on one another.”

“I was not spying on you!”

“Then perhaps you would care to explain how you knew where I went just now.”

“I had come over here to see you, to talk about…something. As my carriage pulled up, I saw you leaving in a hurried way. So I followed you.”

“In what way does that differ from spying on me?”

He hesitated. “I was concerned.”

“About me? Why did you not call out to me, then, when you saw me? Why did you hide in your carriage and furtively follow me?”

“I was concerned for the Countess.”

“The Countess! How does spying on me help the Countess?”

“I must protect her from those who would take advantage of her,” Thorpe replied stiffly, irritated that she was turning the tables on him and implying that he had been in the wrong.

It took a moment for the meaning of his words to register on Alexandra. When they did, fury flashed through her, flooding her cheeks with color. She jumped to her feet, her arms stiff at her sides. “You are saying that I would take advantage of the Countess?”

She looked beautiful in her rage, Thorpe thought, her skin luminous, her eyes sparkling. He was aware of an intense urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her. The fact that he could want to do so even when he felt so angry and betrayed made him furious.

“It is a possibility I have to consider,” he said in a clipped voice. “You acted as though you had never heard of Exmoor before now. As if you did not know the Countess or anything about her family.”

“I don’t—or, at least, I did not until she told me!”

“Then what were you doing going to Exmoor House?”

“I don’t even know what Exmoor House is! Who lives there? It isn’t the Countess’s house.”

Thorpe grimaced. “You know very well that it belongs to the Earl of Exmoor.”

“Do you mean that man I met last night? The one Nicola disliked? What does that have to do with the Countess?”

“It is the seat of the family. It is where the Countess lived before the death of her husband, who was then Earl—and exactly where you could find a servant who would remember details about the family, about Chilton and his wife and their children. The very sort of facts you need to convince the Countess that you are her granddaughter.”

“What!” Hurt mingled with anger, and Alexandra trembled under the force of her emotions. “You dare to accuse me of—of pretending to be the Countess’s dead granddaughter? To what purpose? Why?”

“For money. Isn’t that always the reason?” Thorpe’s mouth twisted.

“Money!”

“Yes. The Countess is a wealthy woman. Even though the title and the estates passed to Richard when the Earl and his son both died, her husband left her a great deal of money. A woman who was the granddaughter she had long believed dead would likely get things showered on her by her wealthy grandmother—and a good portion of her estate when she died.”

“But I don’t need money from the Countess, or anyone. I have plenty of money of my own.”

“So you say.”

“Oh. Of course. Nothing I say can be held as truth. Exactly why is that? Because I am not British? Or because by some strange quirk of fate I resemble the Countess’s daughter-in-law? I suppose you think that somehow I managed to make myself a replica of this Simone person, too.”

“Hair has been known to change color and can be curled. The likeness could be emphasized.”

“Her portrait was enough like me to be my twin!” Alexandra cried. “You can’t explain that away with talk of dyeing and curling.”

Thorpe was silent for a moment, looking at her. “So now you are claiming a connection with Simone?” His mouth twisted. “And to think that I was fool enough to believe you, to think that you were interested in my collection or in me, when all you really wanted was entrée to the Countess.”

“I didn’t even know the Countess. What did I care about meeting her?” Alexandra cried. “
You
were the one who introduced me to her.
You
were the one who invited me to that ball.”

“Ah, but that was part of your scheme, wasn’t it?”

Alexandra looked at him for a long moment, almost breathless from the pain of his words. She would never have guessed that it could hurt so much to have a man look at her the way Thorpe was looking at her, as if she were dirt beneath his feet.

“I would hate to be you,” she said finally. “To see the world the way you see it. You know me, you talked to me, you even acted as though you were attracted to me.”

“I
was
attracted to you, dammit! My folly, obviously!”

“It makes me ill to think that I kissed you, that I let you put your arms around me—”

“You did much more than that!” Thorpe retorted hotly, surprised at the knife that twisted through his gut at her words.

“Get out of my house,” Alexandra said, her voice level and cold, each word dropping like a stone.

“If you are innocent, tell me why you went to Exmoor House this evening. Tell me who that woman was!”

“I do not have to prove myself to you or anyone.” Alexandra refused to tell him for any reason. Bile rose in her. She was afraid that she might burst into tears at any moment. “Please leave my house, or I will have to call one of the footmen.”

“Gladly.” The word sounded ripped from him.

Thorpe strode out of the room. He stopped just outside the doorway and turned, saying coldly, “Stay away from the Countess. I’ll do whatever I have to to keep you from hurting her.”

He turned and left, closing the front door behind him with a quiet, final click. Alexandra remained staring at the empty doorway for a moment. Then she reached down and grabbed the closest thing to her—a book, it turned out—and threw it after him. It hit the side of the doorway with a satisfying crash and fell to the floor. Alexandra liked the sound of it so much that she followed it with a vase of roses, and after that a couple of cushions that decorated the couch, a small statue, a paperweight and a set of bookends.

How dare he? How dare he imply that she was a criminal? A swindler! An adventuress out to get money from a sad old woman! How could he have kissed her the way he had and then think such a thing of her?

Rage and hurt churned in her. She realized how foolish she had been, how she had allowed her passion to take control of her usually level head. “I hate him!”

“Child, what is going on?”

Alexandra looked up at the sound of her aunt’s voice. Aunt Hortense was standing in the hall outside the drawing room, looking in amazement at the variety of objects strewn over the floor, some intact, many broken.

Alexandra sighed. “A fit of temper. I’m sorry, Aunt. Did I disturb you?”

“Somewhat. I decided I should leave Rhea in Nan’s care and come down here to see about you.”

“I’m all right.”

“Really?”

Alexandra shrugged. “I have been a fool.”

“Mm. About the Englishman?”

Alexandra nodded. “I thought he—”

“Cared for you?” Aunt Hortense asked gently.

“Yes. But he had no real interest in me. He
desired
me, but he had no liking for me, no understanding of me.” She raised her eyes to her aunt’s with a sigh. “He accused me tonight of being an imposter.”

“An imposter? Whatever do you mean?”

“He said that I had pretended to be interested in his Indian collection in order to wangle a way to meet the Countess. He said that I was after her money.”

“Good Lord.” Aunt Hortense goggled at the thought. “Whatever made him think that?”

“He saw me follow Mother to Exmoor House. Apparently that is where the Countess used to live with her family. He saw me with Mother outside the house, and he assumed that I was bribing a servant to tell me all sorts of things I could use to convince the Countess that I am her granddaughter.”