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JOHN
CAMDEN
When
Fairfax and Hastings were gone, Jordan walked over to the
side table and refilled his glass. The anger he had
carefully concealed from the others was evident now in the
tautness of his clenched jaw as he glanced at his closest
friend, John Camden. “I sincerely hope,” he drawled with
biting irony, “that you haven’t remained here because you,
too, know of some further indiscretion of Alexandra’s.
which you perhaps feel compelled to repeat to me
privately?”
Lord
Camden gave a sharp bark of laugher. “Hardly. When
Carstairs was speaking of your wife’s race in Hyde Park
and her duel with Mayberry, he indicated that Melanie was
cheering your duchess on to victory in both cases.”
Jordan
took a swallow of his drink. “So?”
“Melanie,” John declared, “is my wife.”
The
glass in Jordan’s hand stopped en route to his mouth.
“What?”
“I’m
married.”
“Really?” Jordan dourly replied. “Why?”
Lord
Camden grinned. “I couldn’t seem to help myself.”
“In that
case, permit me to offer my belated congratulations.”
Jordan said sardonically. He lifted his glass in a mockery
of a toast, then checked himself as years of good breeding
came to the surface. “I apologize for my rudeness, John.
At the moment, marriage is not high on my list of reasons
for celebration. Is your Melanie anyone I know? Have I met
her?”
“I
should hope not!” John declared with laughing
exaggeration. “She made her bow just as you left town,
which is all to the good. You’d have found her
irresistible, and I’d have had to call you out now that
you’ve returned.”
“Your
reputation was not a great deal better than mine.”
“I was
never even in your league,” John joked, making an obvious
attempt to lighten his friend’s spirits. “If I cast an
appraising eye over an appealing Miss, her mama summoned
an additional chaperone. When you did it, every mama in
fight fell into spasms of terror and violent hope. Of
course, I didn’t have a dukedom to offer, which accounts
for part of their anxiety and eagerness.”
“I cant
recall that I ever dallied with virtuous innocents,”
Jordan said, sitting down and staring into his glass.
“You
didn’t. But if your wife and mine have enough in common to
become friends, I can only assume they’re much alike. In
which case, you’re in for a life of torment.”
“Why?”
Jordan asked politely.
“Because
you won’t know from one day to the next what she’s going
to take it into her head to do – and when you do find out,
it will scare the hell out of you. Melanie told me this
afternoon that she’s with child, and I already have the
liveliest fear she’ll misplace the babe when he’s born.”
“She’s
forgetful?” Jordan asked, trying without success to be
interested in his best friend’s new wife.
John
raised his brows and shrugged. “She must be. How else
could she have forgotten to mention, when I returned from
Scotland late today, that she and my best friend’s wife –
whom I haven’t yet met – have been involved in several
imbroglios together?’
Realizing his attempt to make light of Jordan’s
predicament was less than successful, John hesitated and
then he said gravely, “What do you intend to do about your
wife?”
“I have
several choices and right now they’re all appealing.”
Jordan said curtly. “I can wring her neck, put her under
guard, or send her to Devon tomorrow and keep her there,
out of the public eye.”
“Good God,
Hawk, you can’t do that.
After what happened in church today, people will think – “
“I don’t
give a damn what people think,” Jordan interrupted, but in
his case, it was not the truth and both men knew it.
Jordan was becoming increasingly furious at the idea of
being made to look like a public laughingstock who
couldn’t control his wife.
“Perhaps
she is merely high-spirited,” Lord Camden ventured.
“Melanie knows her and likes her very well.” Standing up
to leave, he said, “If you’re in a mood for it, join us at
a toast to my impending fatherhood.”
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