by Lyn Stone
“You believe I would lie to you about it?”
He stalked over and sat down heavily on her bed again, rubbing his face with his hand. “No, of course not. This upsets me, that’s all. I want to throttle the man and he’s not here. I never meant to direct any anger at you. So he didn’t hurt you?”
“No. He confined me to the house, to my room for the most part. He only allowed walks in the garden. Supervised walks. And he seemed particularly concerned about halting any correspondence. I was cut off from the world. There were veiled threats of poison. I became afraid to eat.”
Caine shifted restlessly. “You were so thin.”
“I was required to join him for supper. Meager fare, that. I ate only what I saw him eat. He would glare at me down the table, sometimes add an evil smile and trail one finger along the edge of his knife. I suppose that was meant to interfere with my digestion.”
“I’m sure it did,” Caine said, his voice tight with fury. “Why on earth did you stay, Grace? Why not run?”
“I did, twice, even though I had nowhere to go and no means to get there if I had. He had me brought back and informed me yet again that he had the legal right to do as he would with me. Such is the law.”
“And a bad one that needs to be remedied!” Caine exclaimed.
She confirmed that with a nod. “As it is now, a woman cannot go running off on her own unless she intends to take to the streets. I am reluctant to admit it, but I became desperate enough to do that.” She paused. “Without proper training, references or recommendation for employment, none of which I had, acceptance or ruination are the only choices for a female. Unless she seeks the protection of another man, one with honorable intentions. Such as you,” she added.
“I was your only means of escape. Small wonder you agreed so readily to marry a perfect stranger.”
Grace couldn’t deny it. “A perfect stranger, yes,” she said with a smile. He either missed or ignored her small jest.
“I don’t like the laws regarding women any more than you do and once I have a say in the House of Lords, my first order of business will be to take up this issue. But for now, I need a full understanding of your ordeal. So when the rumors went round that you might be dead, he produced you at that late season ball to prove you were not.”
She made a face, thinking of her uncle’s orders that evening. “Thank God he did. I was near the end of my patience with that man. I might have done him harm.”
Caine laughed without humor. “I daresay you might.” He reached over and took her hand. “I will resolve this.” He sighed wearily. “But you should not have to marry to escape him, Grace. Once this is over, you will be free. I’ll see to that.”
She snatched her hand from his. “You offer it so often, it must be you who wishes freedom. I have stated time and again and have shown you clearly how willing I am. Now I am losing patience with you!”
He reared back his head. “Should I be afraid?” She heard the smile in his voice.
“Perhaps you should. I never meant to embroil you in this sort of fix.” Grace felt the sting of tears and looked away from him.
“We’ll sort this out, I promise. The main thing is to keep you safe until we do.”
He was so kind, she felt the need to weep. But she would not. He already saw her as a weakling, failing to stand up to her uncle and falling in a faint after the proposal. Little question as to why he felt he must coddle her as he did. And very likely why he wanted to set her aside.
“I am stronger than you think!” she declared as she lifted her chin and faced him squarely.
“Have you any idea how exquisite you are?”
Grace simply stared at him, wondering what had prompted that.
“I’ll wake Trent and my cousin now,” he said. “Where are they?”
“The green and blue rooms just down the hall,” she murmured, holding his gaze.
“I will see you in the morning. Try to sleep again.” He rose, walked over and picked up the lamp, replacing it on the table beside its glass globe.
The candle beside it flickered. The flame caused shadows to dance on his rugged features, highlighting the scars, giving him a saturnine appearance.
“Devilishly lucky for me you didn’t bring the highwayman’s pistol to bed with you,” he said.
She swallowed hard, imagining what might have happened if she had.
He turned as he reached the door and opened it. “I promise never to underestimate you again, Grace. And I admire you more than you will ever know.”
She stared at the door as it closed behind him. He thought her exquisite? He admired her? Well, then.
Chapter Fifteen
Caine felt so proud of Grace. What a resilient spirit she had, what a practical nature and inner strength. He remembered the waif of the ugly yellow dress and how she had sparred with him even then. And now she could add beauty and good health to that self-confident nature. She was damned amazing and full of fire.
If she had intrigued him that first night, he now found himself absolutely fascinated. He was either in love or in lust with her, perhaps both, and he certainly had never bargained for either.
Trent and Neville joined him in the library, interrupting his ruminations. He had wakened them a good deal more carefully than he had done with Grace.
Gingerly, he touched the aching knot on the back of his head. If one small woman could inflict that much damage with a lamp, he could only imagine how those two would have reacted to their doors opening quietly in the middle of the night.
“You have a headache?” Trent asked as he flopped down in a chair beside the grate. He had thrown on his clothes, shirt open at the neck, not having bothered with either neckcloth or coat at such an hour.
“Nothing significant,” Caine replied. Damned if he would relate what Grace had done to him. He would never hear the end of it.
Neville wore a dressing gown over his trousers, quite the fashion plate. He raked Caine with an assessing gaze. “There’s blood on his shirtfront,” he remarked to Trent. “Been fighting, coz?”
“A small accident. Now to the purpose of my coming,” Caine said, determined to change the topic. He immediately began relating what he knew of the solicitor’s death in much the same brief fashion that he had with Grace. He included his own conclusions as well as hers.
“So you’ve already spoken with Grace tonight,” Trent said.
“He has,” Grace announced, sweeping into the room. “I hope you gentlemen won’t mind if I join you.”
They all stood immediately. Trent straightened his shirt and ran a hand through his tousled hair. Neville smiled and bowed.
She, too, wore a dressing gown, one of dark green silk trimmed with gold gimp. She had pinned up her hair in a casual way that flattered her features enormously.
Caine tried without success to banish the candlelit vision of her earlier, hair mussed, slumberous blue eyes at half-mast, her breath coming in fits and starts after he kissed her. His hands tingled with the memory of the silken pliancy of her body beneath that modest nightrail. Even the subtle scent of her stirred him so he could hardly think straight.
He shook his head to clear it. The woman played havoc with his senses without even trying. Now was not the time to have his faculties disturbed. Lives were at stake. Did she know what a distraction she was?
“You should be abed,” he told her, but tried to couch it in the form of a suggestion instead of a command.
“So should we all, but circumstances demand we settle on a plan, don’t you think?” She went to the carved oak cabinet, opened it and removed a decanter of brandy and four
glasses. “Shall we?”
Trent went to assist. “You see? This is why I love your lady, Caine. She keeps spirits in every room! And best of all, she’s so eager to share. Allow me to pour, Sweeting.”
“My, my,” Neville said with a lighthearted chuckle. “You do like to live dangerously, Trent.” He accepted the glass, swirled his brandy and took a sip. “I recall from childhood how jealous Caine was of his toys.”
Grace raised her chin and looked down her small, straight nose at Neville. “A greater danger is to those who consider me a toy, sir.”
Caine smiled and held his tongue. No reason to upbraid Trent for flirting. The man would cut his own throat before betraying a friend. And there was certainly no need to chastise Neville. Grace had taken care of that.
“So, what shall we do about Wardfelton?” Trent asked.
Caine set down his glass. “The men are assembling and remanning their posts. If Wardfelton comes here or sends anyone, they will be apprehended and dealt with.”
Neville gave a wordless sound of approval. “I’ll leave for Town tomorrow. It’s time to approach the banks, twist a few arms and dig more deeply into Wardfelton’s finances. This business of Sorensen’s murder leaves little doubt the earl is our man. We must find him.”
Caine agreed. “Trent, will you be going, too?”
“I’ll stay. There’s still the wedding,” he said. “Or do you intend to postpone it yet again?”
Grace preempted quickly before Caine could answer. “Yes, we must delay it, perhaps indefinitely. Caine believes it will do nothing to change my uncle’s plans to be rid of one or the other of us.”
“Indefinitely?” Caine asked.
Her nod was defiant. And resolute. Her expression was pensive as she regarded the three of them in turn, settling last on Caine.
Obviously she had been rethinking their earlier conversation about freedom, Caine decided. Though he had suggested it himself, her belated agreement struck him like another bullet. With this strike, there was no delay in the pain.
His heart sank as he thought of not having her. Ever. And knowing he had caused this himself made it worse. Could she really have changed her mind so completely in less than an hour? He picked up his glass, tossed back the brandy in one draught and winced at the burn.
“Well, I’m off to bed,” Neville said with another slight bow to Grace. He left in haste.
Grace followed him out of the library without another word. Caine watched through the open doorway as she glided to the stairs and started up.
“Rather downcast, isn’t she?” Trent remarked. “She has to be worried Wardfelton will strike again soon.” He poured himself another shot of brandy. “As we all are. Or is it further delay on the marriage that bothers her?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Caine admitted. “This has become so much more complicated than I expected. She’s more complicated, too. Certainly not the same girl I proposed to at the ball.”
“Not biddable, not retiring and definitely not weak-minded,” Trent agreed. “Not ugly, either, though she never really filled that requirement.”
Caine shook his head. “No, yet her appearance has changed so drastically, it stuns me every time I look at her. She’s so lovely now her health has improved, she could have her choice of men.”
“So why stick with you, eh?”
Caine scoffed. “I’m not the man I used to be, my friend. I only wish I had known her then.”
“Ah well, truth to tell, you weren’t all that pretty before the scars, old friend. You only thought you were. Women are attracted to confidence, y’see. You did, and still do, have that in abundance.”
“Grace has never minded my scars, not even at first. They are not the problem. I simply believe she should have a say in her future and not have to accept me as a husband just because she promised in order to save herself.”
Trent glanced at the doorway as if he could still see Grace. “She has nothing but her good looks at present. Perhaps with a dowry, she’d have excellent prospects, but whatever her uncle had of hers is likely gone. As it stands now, you are probably her best bet. Were I you, I’d close this deal while you have the chance. You’ll never do better.”
Caine laughed wryly. “Trust you to lift my self-esteem.”
“You want her. You know you do,” Trent said.
“As I said, I’d like to be fair to her. Conscience demands I must be fair.”
“Fair? Life’s never fair, Caine.” Trent sighed. “Not being a widow of means, she must belong to some man. Better you than the man who wants her dead, or some other man we don’t know.”
“Yes, but I wonder how we would get on once she realizes I have no intention of doing the social whirl each season with house parties interspersed? She has missed that, losing her fiancé when she was so young, being companion to his mother in their grief, then suffering virtual imprisonment by Wardfelton. She has had hardly any social life and she’ll surely want that now.”
“Only natural she should, and she deserves it,” Trent agreed.
“I know that. I just wonder how am I to provide that if I’m to do the earldom justice? I have more work than I can handle and haven’t even inherited yet. Imagine how that will increase once I must sit in the Lords and help govern. You and I have talked of this before. There seems no solution, so we might as well let it be.”
Even as he said the words, Caine realized that other nobles managed to juggle duty and social obligations well enough. He would not be righting all the wrongs in government by himself. And who would he be governing for anyway if not the people of Britain, the families, his own included? Grace in particular.
“Best call off the wedding, then,” Trent said with a smile. “Shall I take her off your hands?”
“Oh, stop.” Caine glared at him. “You push me too far, Trent. Why do you do that?”
He toasted Caine with his empty glass. “Just driving home a point. You want her. You don’t want anyone else to have her. So do her justice, for your sake and hers.”
“I never thought to do otherwise, however this goes.”
Trent set down the glass with a thunk. “Remember that your cousin is not the wastrel your uncle painted him. Don’t marry Grace and Neville can be responsible for the earl’s wealth and investments. All you’d have then is the title, the entailed manse and the Lords to contend with. Tons of free time to do your duty to the country. And to miss what you might have had with Grace.” He looked unusually serious. “But if you do give her up, I will step in. That, my friend, is no joke. Jilt her and, I swear, it will happen.”
“Jilting her never occurred to me and you know it. Go to bed,” Caine ordered, impatient to end the discussion. “And stop coveting Grace. Unless she throws me over of her own accord, she will be mine.”
He wasn’t really angry with Trent and they both knew it. The man did have a way of resetting Caine’s priorities and that was his sole intention. Wasn’t it? He had not been smiling with that last warning.
The very idea of Trent wooing Grace for real disturbed him to the core, even though he was certain that would never happen. Fairly certain.
Trent might not stoop to that, but some man would step in sooner or later if she broke the betrothal. Grace would be obliged to find a husband quickly to avoid her former situation with Wardfelton. Unless they found evidence against him, she would have to go back to her uncle or marry someone.
Was she considering crying off after all? Perhaps the argument they’d had convinced her she should. She hadn’t seemed to mind the delay of the wedding just now and, in fact, had agreed to it all too readily.
The word indefinitely disturbed him no end. He had to know exactly what she meant by that, and there was no way to find out unless he asked her to explain it. Now he could demand that explanation in private.
Caine hurried to the stairs, hoping she hadn’t fallen asleep yet.
This time, he knocked.
*
Grace heard the rap on her door and knew it had to be Caine again. “Come,” she said just loudly enough for him to hear. She was sitting in the chair beside her window, looking out at the moon-shadowed stables. Figures came and went as she watched.
“The men are assembling and arming to return to their guard posts,” she said as Caine joined her. “There are so many, seeing them all at once.”
“Every one that we and Harrell could muster.”
“I’ve been thinking.” She looked up at him. “You must be wishing you had never spoken to me that night at Cavanaugh’s.”
He blinked as if she had surprised him. “You can’t believe that, surely. Is this why you seemed so eager for another postponement when Trent asked about it?”
She looked back out the window. “I don’t believe this marriage will ever happen, Caine. Perhaps it shouldn’t.”
“So you’ve thought about what I said earlier, about your having a choice.”
She stood and faced him. “No, it’s because I have made my feelings for you all too clear and still you draw away. I am not what you want.”
When he would have spoken, she silenced him with a gesture. “Please make no declarations of concern for me, of your duty or keeping to your word as a gentleman. That insults me, Caine. You are honorable and we both know that. But I am not what you want in a wife.”
“You are all that I want!” he protested, his words soft, yet adamant.
“No. Your voices carried and I stopped to listen, Caine. You were right in what you said to Trent. It’s true I would require more of you than you could ever give.”
“I would give you everything I have,” he declared.