Something Wonderful Read online

  He had changed for the trip, and Alex quietly admired the way his tight-fitting biscuit breeches and shiny brown boots emphasized his long, muscular legs. His cream shirt was open at the neck, displaying a glimpse of tanned throat, and his coffee-colored jacket set off his powerful shoulders to wonderful advantage. She uttered a silent prayer that someday he might find her as pleasing to look at as she found him, then she decided that some form of pleasant conversation might be in order.

  “Your mother’s wedding gown was very beautiful,” she ventured softly. “I was worried that some harm might come to it, but nothing happened.”

  He flicked a glance in her direction. “You needn’t have worried,” he said dryly. “I’m certain you are far more worthy of that symbol of chaste purity than my mother was when she wore it.”

  “Oh,” Alexandra said, aware that she had just been complimented, though in the context the compliment was given, “thank you” seemed highly inappropriate.

  When he made no attempt to converse further with her, Alexandra sensed that he was grappling with some sort of weighty problem, and she let the silence continue, content to watch the lush, rolling landscape pass the windows.

  At three o’clock in the afternoon, they finally stopped for dinner at a large, rambling inn with ivy covering its mellowed brick exterior and a neat, white fence enclosing its huge yard.

  One of the outriders had obviously been sent ahead, because both the innkeeper and his wife greeted them and then promptly ushered them through the common rooms, into a cozy private dining parlor where a sumptuous meal in covered trays was already laid out.

  “You were hungry,” her husband remarked later, as she laid her knife and fork down and sighed with relief.

  “Starved,” Alexandra agreed. “My stomach is not yet accustomed to the town hours you keep at Rosemeade. When you are eating your supper at ten o’clock, I am normally in bed.”

  “We’ll be stopping for the night about eight o’clock, so you won’t have to wait as long as that for your next meal,” he volunteered politely.

  When he seemed to want to linger over his wine, Alexandra asked, “Would you mind very much if I waited for you outside? I’d love to walk around a bit before we get into the coach again.”

  “Fine. I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

  Alexandra strolled outside, enjoying the sunshine beneath the steady, watchful eye of Jordan’s coachman. Two more coaches pulled into the innyard, both of them handsome and shiny, but not nearly so magnificent as her husband’s wonderful traveling chaise with its silver seal and shiny silver harnesses on the horses. Hostlers ran forward to take charge of the horses, and for a few moments Alexandra simply watched, savoring each sight.

  Jordan’s horses were being put to when Alexandra noticed a young boy crouched on his haunches near the corner of the fence, apparently speaking to the ground. Curious, she wandered over, then smiled when she saw that he was talking to a litter of frolicking, long-haired puppies.

  “How cute they are!” she exclaimed. The puppies’ heads and front legs were white, their hindquarters brown.

  “Would yer like t’buy one?” the boy said eagerly. “I could let yer have th’ pick o’ the litter fer a good price. They be pure bred.”

  “What kind are they?” Alexandra asked, laughing delightedly when the smallest of the balls of white and brown fluff detached itself from the others, scampered over to her, and clamped its tiny teeth onto the hem of her skirt, tugging playfully at it.

  “Fine English sheepdogs,” the boy provided, as Alexandra bent down to separate the puppy from her hem. “Very smart, they be.”

  The moment her hands touched the thick, silky fur, Alexandra was enchanted. Long ago she’d had a collie, but after her father died, food had been too precious to waste on any animal that didn’t earn its keep, and she’d given her collie to Mary Ellen’s brother. Scooping the puppy up, she held it at eye level while its tiny legs flailed the air and a small pink tongue eagerly licked her hand. She was still holding the puppy, discussing its merits with its enthusiastic owner when her husband came up behind her and said, “It’s time to leave.”

  Alexandra never considered asking her new husband to let her have the puppy, but the unconscious appeal was there in the large eyes and soft smile she turned up to him. “I had a collie once, a long time ago.”

  “Did you?” he asked noncommittally.

  Alexandra nodded, put the puppy on the ground, patted it, and smiled at the boy. “Good luck finding homes for them,” she said.

  She had not taken three steps before she felt a tug on the back hem of her skirt. She turned, and the puppy she’d been holding let go of her skirt and sat down, its pink tongue lolling, its expression comically worshipful.

  “She likes me,” Alexandra explained helplessly, laughing. Bending down, she turned the puppy back toward the litter and patted its backside, urging it to go back to the boy. The puppy stubbornly refused to budge. Left with no other choice, Alexandra cast an affectionate, apologetic smile at the small ball of fur, then she turned her back on it, and let Jordan escort her to the coach.

  After pausing to issue instructions to his driver, he climbed in and sat down beside her. A few minutes later they were off.

  “This stretch of road must be much less smooth than it was to the north,” she remarked a little nervously an hour later as the heavy traveling chaise again swayed sharply, pitched to the left, then righted itself and continued on.

  Sitting across from her with his arms folded imperturbably across his chest and his legs stretched out, Jordan said, “It isn’t.”

  “Then why is the coach lurching and swaying like this?” she asked a few minutes later when it happened again. Before Jordan could answer, she heard their coachman shout “Whoa” to the team and pull over to the side of the road.

  Alexandra peered out the window into the woods alongside the road. A moment later the door of the coach was pulled open and a harassed, apologetic coachman’s face appeared. “Your grace,” he said contritely, “I can’t handle the horses and keep control of this perpetual-motion machine at the same time. I nearly put us into a ditch back there.”

  The “perpetual-motion machine,” which he was holding in the crook of his right arm, was a squirming ball of brown-and-white fur.

  Jordan sighed and nodded. “Very well, Grimm, put the animal in here. No, take it for a walk first.”

  “I’ll do it,” Alexandra volunteered, and Jordan climbed out of the coach, too, walking with her into a little clearing in the woods beside the road. Turning, Alexandra lifted her shining eyes to her husband’s amused grey ones. “I think you must be the very kindest of men,” she whispered.

  “Happy birthday,” he said with a resigned sigh.

  “Thank you—so much,” she said, her heart swelling with gratitude because it was perfectly obvious he had a low opinion of the gift she’d wanted so much. “The puppy won’t be a bit of trouble, you’ll see.”

  Jordan directed a dubious look at the puppy, who was now sniffing every inch of ground it could put its nose to, its stubby tail wagging excitedly. Abruptly it seized a twig and began tearing at it.

  “The boy told me she’s very smart.”

  “Mongrels frequently are.”

  “Oh, but she isn’t a mongrel,” Alexandra said, bending down to pluck some of the pink wildflowers blooming at her feet. “She’s an English sheepdog.”

  “A what!” Jordan demanded, thunderstruck.

  “An English sheepdog,” Alexandra explained, thinking his surprise sprang from a lack of knowledge about the breed. “They’re very smart and they don’t grow very large.” When he stared at her as if she’d taken complete leave of her senses, Alexandra added, “That nice young boy told me all that about her.”

  “That nice, young honest boy?” Jordan asked sardonically. “The same one who told you this is a pureblood?”

  “Yes, of course,” Alexandra said, tipping her head to the side and wondering about his