A Stolen Heart

Mr. Jones returned to his office soon after tea was finished, assured by Lord Thorpe that he would see Miss Ward home in his own carriage. Thorpe offered his arm to Alexandra, a faint, almost challenging smile on his lips. Alexandra slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and tilted up her chin, tossing back the challenge, although she was not entirely sure what it was.

“You know,” Thorpe said in a low, conversational tone, “your staying and walking through these rooms with me by yourself is not recommended behavior for a young lady.”

“Oh?” Alexandra rounded her eyes into a look of great innocence. “Are you in the habit, then, of attacking defenseless young women in your home?”

“Of course not. Although I would hardly call you defenseless.”

“Then I have nothing to fear, have I?” Alexandra went on coolly, “You, being a gentleman and so concerned about protecting women, will doubtless see that no harm comes to me.”

“You’ve the tongue of an adder, my dear Miss Ward.”

“Why, what have I said, my lord?”

He cast her a look heavy with irony and abruptly turned into a room, pulling her in with him. Gripping her upper arms, he looked into her eyes, so close to her that his face filled her startled vision. His bright silvery eyes bored into hers, and she could feel the heat of his body, the power of his hands on her arms. She was intensely aware of his mobile mouth hovering only inches above hers. She could not move.

“You know, sometimes even a gentleman can be pushed beyond his control by a beautiful young woman.”

Alexandra had the wild thought that he was going to kiss her right there, and she realized with a start of amazement that the thought was more exciting than scary. “But I am sure that you never lose control,” she replied, annoyed at the shakiness of her voice.

“It would be foolish to count on that. If you had talked to the good ladies of London, you would know that I am considered capable of almost anything. I am, my dear naïve Miss Ward, the black sheep of my family. Not one to be trusted alone around young ladies.”

“Then it is a good thing that I am not a young English lady, but an American woman who learned early on how to discourage unwelcome attentions, is it not?”

“Indeed.” He leaned a little closer. “And would my attentions be unwelcome?”

Alexandra drew in her breath sharply, her heart hammering within her chest. She found it difficult to think, with his eyes staring into hers.

“No.” The word came out breathily as she swayed toward him.

CHAPTER TWO

“NO!” ALEXANDRA REPEATED, HORRIFIED at what she had been about to do. She jerked away from Lord Thorpe, moving farther into the room as she tried to bring her rapid breathing back to normal. “What—what nonsense you talk!”

Thorpe followed her into the room, but he did not touch her again, as she had feared. She felt curiously let down. Sternly, she tried to focus on the room. It was large and furnished entirely in teak. From the desk and the shelves of books behind it, Alexandra identified it as Lord Thorpe’s study. An ornately engraved rifle hung on one wall, and below it hung a sword with a wide hilt made of ebony and steel, also engraved. In one corner stood an unusual shirt of chain mail armor with metal plates across the chest and a long mail neck guard hanging down around the helmet on three sides. The edge of the neck guard was bordered in red velvet, and gold inlay was worked across the chest plates.

“Indian armor?” Alexandra asked with real interest, going over to study it. She tried not to think about how his hands had felt on her arms or the way she had yearned to press herself against him.

“Yes. It belonged to a Mogul officer from the last century.” Lord Thorpe’s voice was as calm as if the moment in the doorway had never happened. “The rifle was a present to me from a rajah.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “I happened to be with him on a hunt and shot a tiger that had him targeted for lunch. He gave me the rifle and several trinkets in gratitude. The trinkets turned out to be sapphires and rubies.”

“You’re joking.”

“No. I sold them and bought my first piece of land.”

“A tea plantation?”

Thorpe nodded, somewhat surprised to find himself telling Alexandra the story of his early years in India. He had told very few people anything about what happened to him there. But, somehow, looking into Alexandra’s huge brown eyes, alive with interest, he felt little hesitation. She might know as little about the place or people as any of the other young ladies he knew, but one thing he was certain of was that her interest was genuine. It occurred to him that perhaps there was something to be said for Miss Ward’s policy of frankness. “I spent every bit of profit I made investing in land. Eventually I bought a piece that connected the rest of my plantation to the sea. It had a lovely white beach. I was walking along it one day and stepped on this dull round stone, but when I lifted it up, I saw that it wasn’t like other stones. It was an unpolished ruby.”

“On the sand?” Alexandra asked in astonishment.

He nodded. “Yes. About the size of a gold sovereign. I’ve never been so shocked in my life.” He smiled faintly, remembering the heat of the sun on his shoulders, the sound of the surf crashing nearby, the pounding excitement in his heart as he had stared at the stone. “A stream ran through there, joining the sea, and it had washed the ruby and several other stones down, depositing them on the beach. I found some other small rubies and a number of sapphires. So I started mining the stream and the area around it. And that is how the tea plantation became my secondary business.”

“So you own a ruby mine?”

“Mostly sapphires. But I sold it before I moved back to England. I kept the plantation because I had a very good manager, but the mine—well, I find, like you, that things don’t run very well without one’s personal effort.” He shot her an amused glance.

“You have lived a very exciting life.” It was no wonder, she thought, that a dangerous air clung to him.

Thorpe shrugged. “I have done what I had to do.”

Alexandra raised a brow. “You have to admit that you have done things few of the rest of us have—lived in exotic lands, shot tigers, found gemstones littering the sands….”

He chuckled. “It sounds more exciting than it seemed at the time. Then it mostly seemed like heat and sweat and trying to escape death.”

“That is what my uncle says about the War. He says everyone always wants to think of it as romantic and brave and daring, but mostly it was dirt and sweat and fear.”

“The War?”

“Yes. You know. That small war thirty-odd years ago in America…”

“Ah, yes.” He quirked a smile. “The conflict in the colonies. Fortunately, I wasn’t in the tea business at the time.”

Alexandra chuckled. “You take, I see, a large view of world affairs.”

Thorpe went to his safe, unlocked it and took out two packets of soft cloth. He laid them on his desk and unwrapped the first one. On the velvet lay an old necklace. Seven separate pieces of enameled gold dangled from the circlet by separate strings of emerald beads.

“It’s beautiful. It looks quite old.” Alexandra leaned closer.

“It is. It’s called a satratana. Each of these sections represents a planet in the Indian astrological system.”

“Fascinating,” Alexandra murmured. “It is such beautiful workmanship.”

He unrolled the other cloth, revealing a necklace of startling beauty made of sapphires and diamonds, with a large sapphire pendant hanging from the center.

“Are these from your mine?” Alexandra asked.

Thorpe suppressed a smile. Every other woman who had seen the necklace had practically salivated over it, caressing the jewels and holding it up to her throat. He supposed it should not surprise him that Miss Ward seemed more interested in the background of the jewels.

“Yes.” Perversely, he found himself wanting to see the jewels around her neck, though she had not asked.

“Was this a gift to your wife?”

“I have no wife. I intended this piece for no one,” he answered harshly, pushing aside the memory of the woman whose neck he had envisioned it on, knowing even as he did so that he would never see it.

He began to roll the necklace up in its velvet, then paused and looked at her consideringly. “Did you think I had a wife and yet was—” He glanced toward the doorway.