A Stolen Heart (2 page)

London, 1811

A
LEXANDRA
W
ARD GLANCED AT HER
companion in the carriage. He looked as if he were about to fall into a swoon. His face was a pasty white, and sweat dotted his upper lip. Alexandra suppressed a sigh. Englishmen, she was discovering, seemed to be a curiously poor-spirited lot, always gaping and staring and sputtering about how something could not be done. It was a wonder that the country had ever achieved its place in the world, either politically or financially.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Jones,” she said in a pleasant tone, trying to ease the man’s fears. “I am sure that your employer will be quite amenable to seeing us.”

Lyman Jones closed his eyes as he let out a small moan. “You don’t know Lord Thorpe. He is a…a very private sort of man.”

“So are many men, but that doesn’t make them poor businessmen. I cannot imagine why a man would not be interested in meeting someone who had just signed a quite lucrative contract to ship his company’s tea to America.” Frankly, Alexandra had been amazed that Thorpe had not been at the office to meet her and sign the contract this morning. He had not even attended any of her meetings with his agent, Lyman Jones. It seemed foolish in the extreme to turn over so much of one’s business to another without supervising him. She herself had many employees on whom she depended, but she would never think of not joining them in an important meeting with a client. However, she refrained from pointing this fact out to Mr. Jones, who seemed too upset as it was.

“I—I don’t know how it is in America, Miss Ward,” Mr. Jones said carefully, “but here, well, gentlemen don’t generally engage actively in business affairs.”

“How do they get any business done, then?” Alexandra asked in amazement. “Someone must be engaging in business affairs. How else can England be so prosperous?”

“Well, of course, men engage in business affairs. It is
gentlemen,
men like Lord Thorpe, that I’m talking about.”

“Oh. You’re talking about the nobility?” She appeared to consider the idea.

“Yes.” Mr. Jones looked relieved. He had had a rather difficult time talking to Miss Ward through the negotiations. It had seemed most bizarre to even be discussing business dealings with a woman, much less bargaining with one—especially one who looked like Alexandra Ward. Lyman Jones would never have imagined a woman running a business, as Miss Ward seemed to, so he would have been hard put to say exactly what he thought such a woman would look like. But he knew that she would not have been a tall, statuesque woman with a cloud of thick black hair. Nor would she have had Alexandra’s strawberries-and-cream complexion and large, expressive brown eyes, eyes so dark that they were almost black.

But then, Alexandra Ward was unlike any other woman Lyman Jones had ever met. Perhaps it came from her being American; he wasn’t sure. But she spoke in a blunt, decisive manner and left no room for disagreement, sweeping everyone before her in a way that was almost impossible to resist. After a session with her, he usually found himself exhausted and unsure exactly how he had been talked into something. He was feeling that way now. He wondered sinkingly if Lord Thorpe would end his employment for this.

“I am afraid I’m not used to such distinctions,” Alexandra admitted. “In the United States, a gentleman is determined more on the basis of his actions, I believe, than on his birth.” She paused, then asked curiously, “This Thorpe is a feckless sort? I suppose he must have inherited his wealth. Still, one wonders how he has managed to hang on to it.”

“Oh, no, miss,” Jones protested hastily. “I didn’t mean that. It’s not that his lordship doesn’t know or care about the business. He does. What I meant was that a gentleman wouldn’t be, well,
seen
in the day-to-day running of it.”

“I see. It is a matter of appearance, then.” Alexandra thought that Thorpe sounded more and more foolish.

“I suppose.” Jones frowned. He didn’t like the way that sounded. “I mean, well, it just isn’t done.” He hastened to add, “Lord Thorpe is an excellent businessman. He made most of his money himself, actually, in India.”

“Ah.” Alexandra’s dark eyes sparkled with interest, all thoughts about Lord Thorpe’s business acumen fleeing. “That is precisely why I am so eager to meet the man. His collection of Indian treasures is well-known, and I am rather a devotee of the subject myself. I have even corresponded with Mr. Thorpe, I mean, Lord Thorpe, on the subject.”

Alexandra thought it prudent not to mention that she had asked Lord Thorpe about seeing his collection when she was in England this year and had been turned down flat. That was, actually, why she had settled on the Burchings Tea Company with which to negotiate a contract. The company had an excellent reputation, of course; Alexandra would never have made a bad business decision just to satisfy a personal whim. However, the fact that the Burchings Tea Company was owned by the same Lord Thorpe whose collection she so wished to see was a very pleasant bonus. She had been sure that she would meet the man—who, she presumed from the tone of his letter, was a crotchety old fellow—during her business dealings with his company.

“I understand that his collection is quite impressive,” Mr. Jones replied. “I, of course, have never seen it.”

“Never? None of it?” Alexandra looked at him in surprise.

Jones gazed at her with a slightly puzzled expression. “No. I mean, I have, of course, sometimes brought something to his lordship at his home, and I have seen some objects in his foyer, but generally, Lord Thorpe comes to the office to discuss his business.”

It seemed odd to Alexandra, whose family had always held open house every year at Christmas for their employees, that one’s highest-ranking employee would not have spent time inside one’s house. She felt a close, almost familial bond with many of her employees. Indeed, some of them were related to her. But, she supposed, it was simply another example of how the British—or perhaps it was just the nobility—were different.

The carriage pulled up in front of an impressive white stone edifice and stopped. Lyman Jones looked out the window and said in a stifled voice, “We’re here.”

He turned to Alexandra with an almost pleading look on his face. “Are you sure you wish to do this, Miss Ward? Lord Thorpe is—he’s a bit of a recluse. He truly does not appreciate visitors. I—it’s quite likely that he will refuse even to see us.”

“Then we shall have to leave, won’t we?” Alexandra returned lightly.

“On the other hand, he might very well agree to see us just to tell us what he thinks of such impertinence.” Jones felt slightly sick at the thought.

“Buck up, Mr. Jones,” Alexandra said, trying to instill some spirit in the poor man. “I promise you I have dealt with many an old grump, and I generally handle them rather well.”

“But he’s not an—”

“Whatever he is, I feel sure that I shall be able to deal with him.”

Mr. Jones subsided, reflecting that perhaps she
would
be able to sweep Lord Thorpe before her, just as she had him.

“Don’t worry,” Alexandra went on. “If he rings a peal over your head, I shall tell him that it was all my fault.”

Jones doubted that such a statement would change his employer’s opinion about his intruding on him this way, but he said nothing. He was almost resigned to the berating he would doubtless receive. He opened the door and stepped from the carriage, turning and reaching to help Alexandra.

Alexandra politely took his hand and stepped down, turning to look at the graceful white stone house in the Georgian style. It was built close to the street, as so many houses in London were, with a black wrought-iron fence stretching the length of it to separate it from the traffic. A set of six steps led from the street to the imposing front door, centered by a rather fierce-looking door knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. Her companion, gazing in the same direction, faltered, and Alexandra took his arm, gently pushing him in the direction of the door. She felt a little guilty at using the poor fellow so. However, she was determined to see Lord Thorpe’s collection of Indian treasures. She had read much about it in her correspondence with other aficionados of the style. Lord Thorpe’s collection was generally considered to be the finest in the world, and it had been one of the things she had been most looking forward to on her first trip to England. She was not about to let this man’s faint heart keep her from seeing it. Lord Thorpe himself would have to bar her from the door.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Jones,” she said, to soothe the prickings of her conscience, “if Lord Thorpe lets you go for bringing me here, I shall employ you myself.”

Jones gave her a small smile. Miss Ward, for all her odd ways and bossy nature, was a kindhearted person. “Thank you, miss. I am sure that won’t be necessary.”

He wished he felt as confident as his words sounded. Though Lord Thorpe was a fair employer, there was a hard, implacable quality to him that made one leery about crossing him. He had made the bulk of his fortune in India, and there were many rumors, some of them unsavory, about how he had gone about doing so. Mr. Jones discounted most of them, but there were times, when Lord Thorpe’s face hardened and his eyes turned that flat, almost silvery color, that Jones wondered if at least some of the rumors were true.

Drawing a steadying breath, he took the ring of the knocker and brought it down heavily, sending a resounding thud through the house. A moment later, a liveried footman opened the door. He looked from Jones to Alexandra, then reluctantly stepped back and let them into the house.

“I am here to see Lord Thorpe,” Lyman said.

“Wait here,” the footman said shortly and left them standing in the foyer.

It was, Alexandra thought, rather rude behavior for a footman, but she did not dwell on it. She was too busy looking around her. At her feet the parquet floor was overlaid with a plush woven carpet of wine red depicting a hunting scene, with a turbanned man spearing a tiger. On one wall hung an elephant mask of beaten silver, and below it stood a wooden trunk, the top of which was intricately carved into a garden scene of two Indian maidens standing amidst drooping trees.

She was bent over, examining the trunk more closely, when there was a soft shuffle of footsteps and a man entered the foyer, followed by the footman. Alexandra raised her head and barely suppressed a gasp of pleasure. The man whom the footman had brought in was swarthy-skinned, with large, liquid dark eyes, and he was dressed all in white from the top of his turbanned head to the bottom of his soft-shoed feet. As Alexandra stared in fascination, he placed his hands together at chest level and bowed to them politely.

“Mr. Jones?” he said in a soft, accented voice. “Was Lord Thorpe expecting you today? I am most sorry. I have no knowledge of your visit.”

“No, uh…” Lyman Jones had spoken to Lord Thorpe’s butler many times, but he always found the event unnerving. He invariably stumbled over the man’s name, and his unswerving dark gaze made Jones uncomfortable. “Lord Thorpe does not know about it. I—it was quite unexpected. I had hoped to introduce Miss Ward to his lordship, although of course if this is an inopportune moment, we can—”

The butler’s eyes moved consideringly to Alexandra. She, seeing that Jones was making a mess of things, took over in her usual way. “I am Alexandra Ward, Mr….”

“Punwati is my name, miss.”

“Mr. Punwati. I have business dealings with the Burchings Tea Company, and I had hoped to meet Lord Thorpe while I was in London. I think it is very important to know exactly with whom one is dealing. Don’t you agree?”

There was a flicker of something—humor, perhaps—in Punwati’s dark eyes as he said, “Oh, yes, miss.”

“So Mr. Jones kindly agreed to introduce me to Lord Thorpe. I do hope it is not too much of an inconvenience.”

“I am sure that Lord Thorpe will be most interested to hear of your visit, Miss Ward,” the servant said, bowing slightly. “I shall tell him that you are here and see if he is receiving guests this afternoon.”

“Thank you.” Alexandra rewarded the man with a smile that had dazzled more than one man into doing what she wanted.

After Punwati had left the foyer in the same quiet way in which he had entered, Mr. Jones smiled a little awkwardly. “As I told you, Lord Thorpe is a…trifle different. His servants are somewhat odd. The butler, as you saw, is foreign, and some of the servants look, frankly, as if they would be more at home among the criminal class. I am sorry if you were, um, taken aback.”

Alexandra cast him a puzzled glance. “What do you mean? There’s nothing to apologize for. This is wonderful! I have never before met a person from India. I have a thousand questions I would love to ask him, but I am sure it would be much too impolite. And did you see this exquisite elephant mask? And the rug…the chest!”

Alexandra’s eyes glowed with excitement, and her cheeks were delicately flushed. Jones, looking at her, realized that she was even more lovely than he had originally thought. He wondered if her beauty would soften Lord Thorpe, one of the most dedicated bachelors in London. But then, he doubted that Thorpe would ever even see Miss Ward. No doubt his Indian servant would reappear in a few moments with the news that his lordship was unable to receive them, and that would be that—except, of course, for whatever Thorpe decided to do because of Jones’s presumption in coming to his door unannounced, a visitor in tow.