Wicked Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (27 page)

      
Barbara's smile was tinged with sardonic amusement. "From this paean of praise, I can certainly see why you fell in love with him, but I know there is another side to Alexander David Blackthorne. He was not sent to London as a reward for his sterling nobility," she said dryly. "His reputation for brawling, drinking, gambling and ... baldly put, wenching, was legendary across the Georgia backcountry all the way to the Muskogee towns. Indeed it was his Grandmother Charity's suggestion that we pack him off to his English family to mend his ways."

      
"I'm afraid Alex did not find London to be a penance," Joss said in monumental understatement.

      
Barbara's expression was droll as she chuckled at the irony. "Knowing my brother as he did, Devon was dubious about the plan. Truth be told, so was I, but we had visited Monty and Octavia when Alex was a small boy, and his uncle was quite taken with the lad. Monty had settled down and seemed to be meeting his responsibilities. Quite frankly, I could come up with no other solution which would not have caused Alex to walk away from us."

      
" 'Tis true, he's developed a bit of a reputation as a rake about the ton, but he's also been working quite successfully at the warehouse," Joss hastened to add. "Mr. Therlow has praised his diligence and industry." A bit of an exaggeration about sour old Bertie, but Joss figured she was already deep in the suds with Alex as things stood.

      
"So, you and Alex became fast—if unlikely—friends. But you must explain this 'arrangement,' " Barbara said, directing the conversation back to their relationship once more.

      
Joss bit her lip, trying to gather her thoughts. Strange, but her uncle's threats had never unnerved her the way Barbara's shrewd, gentle questioning did. "It all began when my father was killed ..." She outlined the events leading up to her desperate appeal to Alex in the warehouse office. "So, you see, I was in need of protection and we could contrive no other way to prevent the earl from forcing me to wed Yardley."

      
"And Alex nobly offered to sacrifice his freedom to save you?" Barbara asked with one slim eyebrow raised dubiously. At that moment the resemblance between mother and son was quite unmistakable.

      
"Well, he did agree to marry me," Joss equivocated.

      
Barbara had a pretty fair idea of what had transpired. "A marriage of convenience in which he was free to continue his libertine life while you returned to your work among the poor. You are not sleeping together, are you, Jocelyn?"

      
One time, one glorious time,
was on the tip of her tongue, but the shameful way it had occurred made her unwilling to speak of it. "No, we are not. My quarters are abovestairs, his in the master suite down the hall," she said in a subdued voice.

      
"I see." Barbara's fingertips tapped on the arm of the shield-back chair.

      
"Please do not blame Alex... or hate me too much. I know I will never be able to give him heirs—but...the marriage can be annulled when he finds a suitable wife." God forgive her, she would lie to set him free. Alex, having no inkling that the marriage had indeed been consummated, would not perjure himself.
But how can I give him up?

      
Barbara moved to Joss's side and startled her with a swift embrace. Hugging her protectively, she said, "Jocelyn, my daughter, of course I do not hate you, although I do blame Alex for being so blind that he cannot see he already has a most suitable wife. The problem is not you—it is his aversion to being well and truly married."

      
To her utter mortification, Joss felt the tears trickling down her cheeks and blinked them back, struggling to speak. "But... but I am not suitable, not suitable at all. I am tall and plain and clumsy. I—"

      
'Twaddle. You are tall, but considering Alex's size, that's an asset. As to the rest, we can easily enough remedy your appearance. Hmm ... let me see."

      
She stood up and walked around Joss's chair, then removed her glasses and studied the girl's face from several angles. "You have excellent features, strong and cleanly molded. Don't squint your eyes. They're quite a lovely shade of clear light blue with good thick lashes."

      
"But I can't see a thing without my glasses."

      
"We shall decide what to do about that later. For now..." She began to unpin Joss's hair, exclaiming over its thickness and length. "Why ever have you concealed so much hair in such an unflattering braided bun?"

      
"As you say, there is so much of it. I just wanted to get it out of my way," Joss said practically.

      
Barbara held one long strand out to the morning light streaming in the window. "The color is a bit dull. I have just the thing, an aloe wash to make it shine, and we shall rinse it in lemon juice to lighten it and bring out more bronze and gold. Stand up," she commanded, pulling Joss from the chair.

      
"What are you—" Joss's protest was cut short when Barbara began to tug at her oversize, heavy brown dress.

      
"I warrant this is large enough to make blankets for every bed in your hospital—about the right weight and color too," she added. "A trip to the dressmaker shall be first on our list."

      
"Barbara, you are acting as if you can make me over into someone else," Joss said sadly. This was all quite hopeless.

      
"No, my dear. You already are a bright, witty, good- hearted and firm-willed young woman. I would not change your personality one whit. That is why you and Alex suit so well—he needs a strong and intelligent wife to stand up to him. All I am going to do is tinker a bit with the outer wrapping."

      
"One cannot make mutton into lamb," Joss said as she once more attached her spectacles to her face.

      
"Ah, but one can help a duckling become a swan. Leave it all to me."

* * * *

      
Alex scarcely saw his wife or mother in the following week. The two had become quite inseparable friends, laughing and talking as if they had known each other for years. They embarked upon a perpetual round of shopping excursions and spent hours mysteriously closeted in Joss's upstairs "sitting room" as they had dubbed her quarters for his mother's benefit, doing heaven knew what. Although he was happy that his mother was so taken with Joss and that she seemed unaware of the true nature of the marriage, he remained distinctly uneasy. Something was afoot. He could sense it in his bones.

      
But what the devil were they up to?

* * * *

      
While Alex fretted, Barbara spent what Joss considered a ghastly sum of money on the complete new wardrobe Alex had told her to buy when they first were wed. She had not done it then, because she had not the faintest idea about what to buy or whom to buy it from, even if she had been inclined to spend anything on herself.

      
After Joss had been pinned, poked, draped and shod, Barbara began experimenting secretly with hair and skin treatments, various new hairstyles and a few subtle cosmetics, the latter being scandalously wicked indulgences to Joss.

      
Since Barbara's arrival they had dined out every evening either at the Caruthers's city house or elsewhere, but during that time Alex noticed no change in his wife's appearance. Indeed, there was little. The only thing discernable was a slight lightening of her hair, still well concealed in its usual tightly braided bun. Barbara was as eager to unveil her makeover as Joss was to forestall it. They decided to wait until her wardrobe arrived from the dressmaker before dazzling Alex with the "new" Joss. She and Alex had no time to talk privately, which suited Joss just as well, for she was growing increasingly nervous about Barbara's plan.

      
Finally the big night arrived.

      
"There is no reason to be so tense, Jocelyn. 'Tis only a small dinner party in your own home. The four of us and Alex's friend. Octavia won't even be here."

      
"But Alex's friend Drum will," Joss said tartly.

      
"I take it the two of you do not get on?"

      
Joss sighed. "He and Alex are fast friends and he has saved Alex's very life. I do owe him much. I am learning to feel... charitable toward him."

      
Barbara chuckled as she finished arranging Joss's hair in a soft poof of curls piled high atop her head. "There. You look all the crack if I do say so myself." Barbara stood back to admire her handiwork as Joss stood up uncertainly in new slippers with fashionable pointy heels.

      
The gown was so sheer and low cut she felt nearly naked. She inspected the tall, slender figure in the mirror with awe. Her dress molded tightly around her breasts and clung provocatively to her hips. Could those curves possibly belong to her—tall, gawky, shapeless Joss?

      
Seeing the way Joss's hands plucked at the delicate sky- blue mull, Barbara said, "See, Madam Fabre told you your figure was extraordinary. I especially like the shade your hair turned out—not too light at first. Perhaps we shall lighten it a bit more later, gradually."

      
As if to speak his piece, Poc looked at his newly tricked out mistress and gave a tail-wagging bark of approval.

      
Glancing down at him Joss said, "I want no shrieking cooks and stolen meat courses tonight, not to mention any more remonstrances from Fitch, that overbearing butler Uncle Monty has foisted upon us. You, rascal, shall be confined upstairs for the rest of the night."

      
But what would happen when the party was over? Would Alex ask her to spend the night in his bed? A deep shiver of excitement snaked down her spine at the thought. Her palms grew damp and her heart thrummed frantically when she heard his voice downstairs calling up, "Joss, Mama, our guests have arrived."

      
"I shall greet them and usher everyone into the sitting room for a libation before dinner. Then you shall make your entrance. But you must forgo these," she said, removing Joss's spectacles. "They quite spoil the effect. Thursday next we have an appointment with Doctor Torres to see about correcting your vision a bit. Remember, do not at any cost squint. Just hold on to things as we practiced earlier."

      
J
ust hold on to things. Hah! Easy for someone with normal vision to say
, Joss thought, focusing on the issue of her eyeglasses to keep from considering what she would say to Alex—and how he would react to her. "Don't squint," she repeated like a mantra as she crossed the room slowly and made her way to the stairs. As a talisman, she placed her glasses in the tiny reticule she carried on her wrist. Very carefully she began to descend the long flight of steps, hearing the jovial banter between Alex, Monty and Drum. Then she heard Alex inquire about her absence.

      
"I do believe you shall consider her tardiness well worth the wait," Barbara replied as she stood in the sitting room doorway looking into the foyer as Joss approached the bottom of the stairs. "Come, Alex. Greet your wife."

      
Joss's depth perception had never been good even with her eyeglasses. Without them it was nonexistent. When she glanced down to take the last step, her high-heeled slipper caught in the hem at the back of her gown. In reflex, her foot kicked out, further unsettling her balance. She jerked backward and both her feet slipped on the carpeted stairs, flying out in front of her. Before she could do more than utter a horrified yelp, she went clumsily down in a bone-jarring thunk while her sheer muslin gown ballooned gracefully up in a soft swish. She landed on the edge of the bottom step, with sufficient force to loose the pins from her elaborate hairdo. Her legs were splayed straight out on the floor and the perverse skirts settled high on her thighs, revealing an exceedingly unladylike amount of ankles and undergarments.

      
Desperate to pull herself up, Joss floundered, grasping for something to hold on to, clawing frantically for the railing. In her blind groping she missed the rail and clutched a large Meissen vase filled with fresh peonies, bringing it crashing down against the polished walnut newel post. Peonies, shards of porcelain and a cloudburst of water rained directly over her head.

      
The magnificent cluster of curls Barbara had labored to create was the first casualty. The sodden mass of hair fell across her face and tangled around her shoulders. She bit back a welling sob of humiliation as she heard Alex's voice from across the foyer, exclaiming, "My God, Joss!"

      
Alex could not for the life of him imagine what had happened. Joss lay sprawled out across the stairs, soaking wet, decorated with bright red and gold pieces of porcelain, foliage and flowers. One pale pink peony jutted garishly from the bodice of her dress. Another was tangled in her hair. "Are you hurt?" he asked, striding across the foyer as she sat up, clawing at the long strands of sopping hair plastered to her face.

      
"Nooo," she wailed, blinking her eyes and scrunching up her face.

      
Something sooty—he would have thought kohl, but in Joss's case surely it could not have been—was running in dark streaks down her cheeks as he extended his hand, saying, "Here, let me help you up."

      
Poc, having heard his mistress's cries of distress, came cannonballing down the stairs to the rescue. As he reached the bottom, his momentum would have slammed him directly into Joss's back—if he had not leaped agilely over her head and landed with a solid whack against Alex's chest.