by Lyn Stone
“I haven’t a habit yet anyway, but I need my borrowed boots!” she said, holding up a slipper-clad foot.
Caine noted the smallness of it. How dainty she was all over and how thin. He could scarcely believe she’d had enough strength in that tiny foot to unman a killer. “Meet you at the stables then,” he said as she hurried inside.
When she arrived, he had the horses saddled and ready, his own gelding and the gentlest mare for her. Grace still wore the serviceable gray gown, but had topped it with a bright scarlet spencer. “Most becoming,” he commented, delighted to see her in bright color for a change. “Puts roses in your cheeks.”
“Thank you, kind sir! My one completed garment from the materials you purchased. As for the pink face, I but needed the fresh air and sunshine your garden has supplied. It is such a gorgeous day, isn’t it?” She handed him a small cloth bag with a strap. “Hang this over your shoulder, if you please.”
He took it. “What’s in it?”
She grinned, helped him adjust the strap. “Bread, cheese and wine. My contribution to the outing.”
“Brilliant.” He grasped her waist and lifted her onto the worn sidesaddle no one had used for years. “I’ll order you a new saddle when I get back to Town,” he said.
She laughed. “I’d rather have that than the curricle you offered. See how frugal I can be?”
He mounted his gelding. “Aha, then perhaps a young mare instead of the matched team?”
“Definitely preferable! However, I’ve grown quite fond of Betsy here. I have spoiled her with apples already, haven’t I, old girl? Yes, I brought you one for later!” She patted the mare’s neck and was rewarded with a loud neigh.
Caine laughed with her at Betsy’s unexpected response and felt a release of tension he hadn’t realized was there. They would get on well, he thought with relief. They both loved horses, riding and the country air. He might look forward to future visits. If he found he had the time to spare.
They set out across the meadow at a gallop. She sat a horse as though born to it and didn’t appear to suffer at all from lack of practice. With the wind tearing at her hair and her face alight with joy, Grace looked incredibly young and almost beautiful.
Her small-breasted, thin-waisted, narrow-hipped figure appeared that of an adolescent only just crossing the threshold into womanhood. She wore no cosmetics to enhance her features and her silky hair flew freely, undone by the wind and set free of hairpins.
Caine wished for boyhood again and the chance to have known her in early youth before grief and war had turned their lives grim. Perhaps, just for today, he could dismiss all worry and pretend it was so.
“Race you to the water’s edge!” he called out.
With a shout of laughter, she urged Betsy to full speed. Caine held back a bit in order to let her win.
He had not felt so happy in years. Surely the fabric of his life would hold together if he abandoned responsibility and stole a few days of pleasure for himself. He looked at Grace, a vision of total abandonment, and envied her precious ability to live in the moment. Perhaps she could show him how to do that, if only for today.
Chapter Eight
Caine dismounted at river’s edge and went to assist Grace. He reached up and grasped her waist. She felt so slender and so soft. The fact that she wore no corset registered immediately. Both her hands rested on his shoulders as he lifted her. He couldn’t seem to help holding her entirely too close, sliding her down his front until her feet rested on the grass.
He told himself it was just to see what she would do, how she would react to his nearness. She never once protested or braced herself away. Instead, her direct blue gaze never left his.
She didn’t smile, but neither did she frown. Her lips were slightly open and her expression was…well, the best he could describe it was inquisitive.
Caine had to remind himself to release her, and only then did she step back. And smile up at him, a knowing smile, as if she was fully aware that he suddenly saw her not as a girl, but a woman.
“I like this,” she said in a breathless voice. Then she looked around and pointed. “There is the perfect place.” Without a pause, she scampered over to sit on a large flat stone, removed her boots and stockings and dangled her feet in the water. “Come on,” she urged, patting the space beside her. “It feels wonderful!”
She was right. Neither even mentioned the impropriety of exposing bare feet and ankles. Hers were narrow, dainty and rather pretty. She lifted them out of the water and wiggled her toes when she saw he had noticed. Caine laughed at her childlike impulse, doubting there was another in the world as unaffected and natural as Grace.
“Tell me about your parents,” she said, idly watching as she swirled her feet in the lapping waves, accidentally brushing his foot now and then. Or perhaps she meant to, as a small gesture of comfort or something. “Did they die when you were very young?”
The topic was painful, but Grace certainly had a right to ask questions about his family. “Mother contracted scarlet fever when I was ten. It weakened her heart and she died soon after. My father, as well as my older brother, were still living when I bought my commission six years ago.”
“What happened to them? Do you mind my asking?” Her gaze fastened on him then, rife with apology or concern. Caine realized it felt good to have someone really care how he felt.
“No, of course I don’t mind. You have every right to ask.” What woman wouldn’t want to know? For all she knew now, they might have succumbed to some inherited malady that her children could fall victim to in future. “They were caught in a sudden storm as they were sailing off the coast, a pastime they shared often.” He looked out over the river.
“But you have no love of that, do you?” she guessed.
He smiled. “No sea legs and no stomach for it. Getting from here to the Continent with my company proved a problem. Trent’s ever-present flask was a godsend, I can tell you.”
She laughed softly. “We all have our embarrassments. What of your friend Trent? What does he do now that he’s no longer your lieutenant?”
Caine wondered whether her interest in Trent could be personal. His best friend was rather handsome and the thought stirred a small worry that Grace had noticed that. “Oh, well, Trent does a bit of everything and next to nothing since he sold his commission. His father, the marquis, kicked up quite a fuss when Trent followed my lead into the army. Trent’s an only child.”
“Ah, the heir,” Grace said with a nod. “So one day both you and he will sit together in the Lords, all pompous and stodgy in your wigs and robes.”
“Now, there’s a picture.” Though it would more than likely happen, it was hard to imagine. “The pair of us, as we were at our schools and on our belated grand tour with the army.”
“Aha, Bonaparte’s wars kept you from the usual acquiring of continental polish, so you two joined the fight to pay him back!”
“That, plus an equal part of rebellion against our fathers’ expectations. Then there were the uniforms, of course.” He turned and winked at Grace. “Drew the ladies like lodestones.” Speaking of those times now, even considering how his engagement turned out, he decided the years hadn’t been a total waste.
“Dashing comrades-at-arms,” she said with a chuckle.
“We really were comrades, y’know. Still are that. He’s been more of a brother to me than my own ever was.” Caine looked up at the clouds, lost in the past. “In fact, I hardly knew Trevor at all. He was already away at school when I was born and on his visits home, he and my father were usually out sailing or busy in Town.”
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“Poor little left-behind,” she said. “At least you had your boon companion. Denied that grand tour to sow your oats, you and he must have set London on its ear when you came of age.” She cut him a sly glance and grinned. “Didn’t you?”
“We certainly tried.” Caine appreciated her way of lightening a conversation. “Sorry, but I refuse to bore you with details of my misspent youth.”
“And I have no business asking,” she said. “It’s only that my past is so boring. I thought to live vicariously in hearing of yours.”
“Boring?” he asked, curious to know what her life had been like. “You assisted your father, which must have proved exciting at times. And you met someone dashing to love very early on. Were you happy before your great losses and these past two years?”
She looked off into the distance. “Yes,” she said simply with no further explanation of what might have made her so.
After a few moments lost in her thoughts, she looked at him and smiled. “I am happy at this moment and I believe one should relish that where one finds it, however small the measure.” She nudged his elbow with hers. “Now you are meant to say how profound you find that observation and declare that you agree completely. Go on…”
“I do agree and it was profound.” Caine noticed that she liked to touch and was in no way reticent about it. That nudge, for instance, an occasional hand on his sleeve or the soft bat of her palm on his hand, the touch of her foot. It seemed so natural, as if she were totally unaware she was doing it. He was unused to touches that were not deliberate and a means to an end.
“You’re very unusual,” he said. “And that is a compliment, by the way.”
“What a kind way of putting it. I suppose I must thank you.”
Only moments later, in the silence that ensued, did it occur to him that Grace might have thought he meant her appearance unusual. And he didn’t know how to explain what he had said without making it sound worse.
“Ah, this is heaven,” she crooned, leaning back, propped on her hands, her face lifted to the sun. She turned to him and opened one eye. “Tell me, do you fish?”
So she had forgiven him. “Not for a long time. Have you ever?”
“Of course! Many were the days I provided dinner.” She sighed theatrically and faked a sad frown. “Life was hard for a poor doctor’s family, you see. I was forced to fish for variety in the diet. Father was paid with chickens so many times, I thought I should grow up clucking!”
Caine threw back his head and laughed.
“Bring me fishing tomorrow!” she exclaimed, pressing her hand on his. “Please, please?”
“We have a holding pond behind the gardens, Grace. Full of fish, unless Harrell’s a slackard.”
“Not the same,” she declared, giving his hand a slap and resuming her position of soaking up the sunshine. “Nothing tastes better than a trout that made you work for him. You’ll see.”
“So I shall. Maybe Harrell can scare up poles and hooks.”
“In the back of the tack room,” she said immediately. “Along with flies and a bucket for worms.”
“Which you will dig yourself, no doubt,” he said with a chuckle. “This I must see.”
“Oh, you will see and assist me, too. I shan’t be the only one with grubby fingernails and dirty knees. Your soft life is over, Morleigh.”
So, of course, the next day found them at water’s edge again. Her patience with fishing surprised him a little, as did her willingness to bait her own hook. There were moments when he suspected the activity brought back memories she had hidden away for a while. Perhaps she had sat on a bank before in this same way with another.
He wondered if she had been very much in love with young Barkley and if she missed and mourned him still. What would it be like to lose to death someone you greatly loved? He had suffered over the loss of Belinda, of course, but that was not the same thing at all. The woman he had loved was still very much alive and he’d had pride and anger to sustain him while recovering from losing her. The love he had felt for Belinda must not have been very deep and it had certainly been misplaced. His recovery felt quite complete now. He wondered if Grace’s was.
Caine hesitated to broach the subject, but he so wanted to know. “Grace, are you still in love with young Barkley?”
She sighed and inclined her head. “Well, I loved him but I’m not certain I was ever in love with him, if you know what I mean. We were childhood friends. He was great fun, quite the clown as a boy.” Her eyes took on a dreamy look. “Then when he came home from school at last and was commissioned, he looked very dashing.” She laughed. “I was sixteen, mad for the uniform, fascinated that he actually had grown side whiskers.”
Caine smiled. “In love with love, then?”
“Oh, most assuredly. I confess I was curious, too. He proposed because I let him kiss me, you see,” she admitted with a grin.
“Were you…intimate?” Caine asked before he could catch back the question.
She gave an elegant little snort. “Not quite that curious!”
Caine had to laugh, both at her words and with surprise that she had taken no offense at his asking.
She set down her fishing pole. “And what of you?” she demanded, tossing a stick into the water. “Did that Thoren-Snipes girl entrap you as shamelessly I did my beau?”
“No such excuse,” he answered. “She seemed…well, more than she actually was and I asked for her hand with all the eagerness of green youth and wild expectations.”
“You fell in love with her.”
“With the girl I thought she was, yes. Her brother objected, so there was a challenge for me, as well. Belinda promised to wait for me until the war was over. And so she did. You have heard the rest, I’m certain.”
“To parrot your question to me, do you love her still?” Grace asked him, head cocked to one side in that probing way she had that made one feel compelled to answer.
Caine pursed his lips for a moment as he put his cane pole down and tossed a rock in the water where her stick now floated. He looked directly into Grace’s questioning eyes and answered truthfully, “No. Absolutely not.”
She grinned. “Older and wiser now, are you? But you should know, sir, no one of our gender is precisely what she seems. Ever.” Her face contorted and her fingers formed into claws as she pretended to threaten him. “So best beware!”
Caine huffed a laugh. “An admitted shrew, I believe I can handle. Taming her with food should work! Are you hungry?”
“Famished!” she exclaimed, scrambling to her feet and brushing off her skirts. “Let’s eat.”
She helped him spread the blanket and arrange their small feast. “This is a lovely way to spend a day, isn’t it!”
“Even if the fish aren’t biting,” he replied.
For some reason, he became obsessed with giving Grace more than a few days of well-deserved happiness if he could. He knew that, in doing so, he would find more than a little joy himself. He already had.
And so it went. Three lovely days of nothing but sport and sweetness, laughter and lolling about. By some unspoken agreement, neither of them mentioned Wardfelton, the attack on the road or their future as man and wife.
There were so many times he felt fascinated by her mobile lips, the way they pursed in that little moue when she was puzzled, or how they could stretch into a wide gleeful smile in an instant, lighting her whole face from within.
He thought about kissing her more than once, but it was too soon. It might make her think he was one of those men who had nothing else on his mind when he was around a woman. She might also believe he did it only
because she had admitted kissing Barkley and withdraw from him completely. So he refrained. It would only have been a test anyway, he told himself, and she deserved more than that when he did kiss her.
The day would come when he would, of course. He would be her husband. But for now, for these few days, he simply wanted to be Grace’s friend. To know her as a person. She had warned him that no woman was precisely what she seemed to be. But Grace was so open and honest, how could she not be?
Caine would always think of the time as the halcyon days, surpassing any other he had ever known, even as a boy. Grace had restored something in his soul that he had lost and forgotten. He only hoped he could hold on to it.
*
Reality intruded on the morning of the fourth day when Trent returned and Grace prepared herself for Caine’s departure to London.
After the three of them shared the midday meal, Caine asked Grace to accompany him through the garden to the stables so that they could speak privately.
Trent had said his farewell and gone on ahead to have the horses saddled for their ride.
“This has been a poor attempt at courting,” Caine said.
“No, no, it was wonderful, if far too brief,” she said.
“I wish I had a longer time to visit, but I did promise you your time alone to adjust.” He looked down at her, directly into her eyes, as if searching for something.
She was first to look away. “So you did.” Now she wished she had never asked for that.
Their lovely time out of time was over and he seemed to regret that as much as she did. That was some consolation.
All the matters they had forgone discussing for the duration should be addressed at some point. Grace decided to begin with what was most important to her. “Tell me, will we bide here after the wedding or return to Town?” She reached out and plucked a dead head off a rosebush, watching the last of the petals drift to the ground.
“You may do as you like, of course. I promised you could. But I must remain with my uncle as often as possible. He believes his time is near and he has affairs that should be put in order.”