Page 45 of A Stolen Heart

“I am so sorry.” Alexandra was seething inside, but she forced herself to put on a pleasant face. “I can see that Mr. Jones’s questions have upset you. There is nothing to worry about, I assure you. As you said, my credentials are in order. I am most definitely Alexandra Ward. Lord Thorpe seems to have become somewhat…disturbed.”

Mr. Merriman’s mouth formed an O of amazement, and he leaned forward confidentially, saying, “You mean he’s touched in the upper works? I’ve heard some of those noblemen are mad as hatters.”

For one gleeful instant Alexandra was tempted to let loose the rumor that Thorpe was indeed mad, but she did not. She was far too sensitive to the charge of madness to put it on anyone, even someone she disliked as thoroughly as she did Lord Thorpe at the moment.

“No,” she said reluctantly. “He is not insane. He has an odd suspicion that I am an imposter.”

Her agent looked at her expectantly, and Alexandra knew that he would like a full explanation. However, she was not about to plunge into the long, confused and highly personal story.

“It is far too silly to give credence to,” she told the man. “I am sure you can tell that I am far too knowledgeable about every aspect of Ward Shipping to be anything but the woman you have dealt with in the past. As you mentioned, my company has done business with you for several years. I would certainly hate for this matter to end our business relationship.”

Merriman blanched at the thought of losing his lucrative share of the Ward business dealings. “No, Miss Ward, of course not. I have every confidence in you, of course. I trust that we will continue to do business for a good many years.”

“Good. Now, if you will excuse me, I should like to put off discussions of these other matters until another time. I think that I had better visit Lord Thorpe and put an end to this.”

She went first to Lyman Jones’s office, which was just down the street from Merriman’s, and rang a peal over his head that left him pale and shaken and babbling incoherent apologies. Next, she hailed a hackney to Thorpe’s house. Thorpe’s Indian servant opened the door, but before he could begin to speak, Alexandra sailed past him.

“No, Mr. Punwati, don’t even bother to lie that he is not here. I intend to see Lord Thorpe, even if I have to wait on the doorstep until he comes home.”

Punwati looked distressed at the thought. “Oh, no, Miss Ward, he is here. He is in his study. Let me—”

“Never mind.” Alexandra strode past him. “I know where it is.”

“Miss Ward!” He came after her agitatedly. “You must let me announce you.”

But at that moment Lord Thorpe himself walked out of the study, his face set in lines of aristocratic disdain. “Miss Ward. I thought I heard your dulcet tones.”

Alexandra ignored the skip her heart took when she saw him. She strode forward, letting her anger sweep through her. “How dare you? How dare you send Mr. Jones to my business agent and plant doubts in his mind about me?”

“I think I have a right to ask questions about someone with whom I am doing business.”

“You implied to him that I was not Alexandra Ward. You shook his faith in me and damaged our relationship.” Her dark eyes flashed, and her cheeks were high with color. She was aware of an intense desire to fly at him, claws out.

“If you are who you say you are, it should be no problem.”

“Please! Don’t pretend to be any more foolish than you are! We both know that confidence is at the basis of business dealings, especially when an ocean separates you. Since I am sure that an appeal to your human decency would fall on deaf ears, I will address your pocketbook. If I hear of your spreading another word of slander or innuendo about me, I will go straight to a solicitor. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly.”

“Good.” Alexandra whirled and started to walk away, then turned abruptly. Tears glimmered in her eyes. “And to think that I actually liked you! How could you turn out to be such a…such a snake?”

She left, Punwati scurrying to open the door for her. Lord Thorpe stood looking after her, his face bleak.

TO ALEXANDRA’S SURPRISE, SHE burst into tears in the hackney on the way home, and it took her a good two hours alone in her room to return to some semblance of normalcy. Finally, when she judged herself calm enough, she went down the hallway to her mother’s bedroom to see how she was doing.

Nancy drew Alexandra into the hallway. “If you could sit with her a spell, Miss Alexandra, I could get a bite to eat.” She glanced at Rhea’s sleeping form on the bed. “She shouldn’t be any trouble.” She touched the bandage on her head unconsciously.

“I know.” Rhea was never any trouble when she was sunk in one of her glooms, though Alexandra found them almost more painful to watch than some of her other odd starts.

“She’s just been holding on to that box,” Nancy went on, shaking her head. “And looking inside it and crying, all silent like.”

Alexandra nodded. “I will sit with her. Take your time.”

Nancy left, and Alexandra went into the room. She stood beside her mother’s bed and gazed down on her. Rhea was sleeping as peacefully as a baby, curled on her side. Alexandra’s gaze went to the box beside her on the bed.

She had always wondered what was in that box. Her thoughts went to the time when she was nine or ten years old and had tried to look inside it. Rhea had come into the room and seen her. Rhea had grabbed the box from her and started shrieking like a virago. For the first time Alexandra had seen a glimpse in her mother’s eyes of something mad, and it had frightened her to the very core of her being. She had never tried to get into the box again.

She looked at it, inches away from her mother’s grasp. The key lay on its ribbon on the bedspread beside it. Nancy had said Rhea had been opening it and looking inside. What was in there? What had her mother been hiding all these years? Alexandra looked at her mother. It would be a violation of her privacy, she knew, to look inside the box. Normally she would not have considered opening it.