She bit into it sharply and with an oath he loosened his grip enough for Grace to pull away.
She turned, looking wildly for an escape, but Laurence was barring the doorway.
She was trapped. He would have her. Make her pay for belittling him. Then he would humiliate David by forcing himself upon her in this very room. She knew how he worked.
“What the hell!”
She jerked round. David had hurled himself upon the back of his unsuspecting cousin and the two now grappled on the floor, David on top. But a blind man would not hold the advantage for long.
Still, it would allow her time to escape.
Holding the silk dressing-gown about her, she ran towards the door. If she could just get back to Madame Chambon’s she would be safe.
Her hand was already upon the doorknob when she heard David’s cry.
Turning, she saw the determination with which he clung to Laurence, whose flailing fingernails had smeared bloody scratch marks across David’s face.
No, she could not leave him. Not like this.
But what about her? Grace? The hatred in Laurence’s eye should be enough to convince her that he would stop at nothing to satisfy his warped impulses. David was his cousin, his equal in rank. David would be all right.
But she wouldn’t. An inferior from the gutter. Grace had to think of her own safety and there was too much at stake if she stayed.
She registered her expensive ensemble: cuirass and skirt, crumpled beside the chair near where the two men fought, her little veiled hat nearby. A sparkle of silver twinkled in a ray of sun that slanted through the window. She stared at it, confused at first before realising that here lay the answer. Protruding neatly from the brim of her hat.
Rushing forward, she seized the hatpin at the same moment Laurence grasped her ankle.
Oh God, she was going to fall.
Yet even as she felt her balance going she plotted how she could use the force of her fall and the angle of her trajectory to her advantage.
Her aim was not perfect but good enough.
With a scream of pain Laurence released her as the point of the hatpin drove through the thin flesh between his thumb and forefinger.
“David, hold him!” Grace shrieked as she sprawled beside them, and with surprising agility David flung out an arm which found its mark, though Laurence would be only temporarily overcome.
Grace scrambled to her feet as she sought an escape for both of them, knowing Laurence’s wound was not debilitating and that once he tore the deadly point from his flesh he’d be like a mad dog.
She was still wearing her high-heeled half kid boots. Grasping the chair to balance herself she brought her right foot down sharply upon his hand, then bent quickly to snatch the hatpin from his grasp before brandishing it in line with his right eye.
“An eye for an eye,” she hissed above his screams, as if she really could carry out the gruesome threat.
“Stop the bitch! David, she’s mad!” Laurence shrieked. “She has a needle pointing at my eye!”
With shaking hands, Grace held the needle steady. Never had she felt so fuelled by venom. This man deserved everything he had coming to him. He’d destroyed her life. She drew in a breath and forced herself to speak evenly. “Tell David what you did to me. Tell him what you did and why you did it.”
Infuriatingly, the corners of Laurence’s mouth turned up. He’d stopped his shrieking. He drew out the pause while Grace’s trembling increased.
Mary, Mother of God, please make him admit the truth.
She’d believed herself forsaken years ago but if someone would just hear her prayer she’d never ask for anything again.
Laurence gave a little laugh and swivelled his eyes in David’s direction. “Would you believe what a whore will extract under duress?” he drawled. “David, I suggest it’s time to summon the full force of the law before your afternoon’s dalliance gets even more expensive and there’s blood everywhere.”
Tensely, Grace watched the play of emotions cross David’s face. To her relief there was no uncertainty.
David shifted position, as if to anchor his cousin more securely beneath him. “Answer her, Laurence.” There was a curious note to his voice.
Grace flicked her tongue over dry lips. “Tell David about the letter.” Her whisper was barely audible. “About where you found it.”
She registered David’s new awareness in the level, warning tone he used to repeat, quietly, “Yes, Laurence, tell me about the letter. Where did you find it?”
His request was greeted by silence. Grace lowered the needle menacingly, aware Laurence had the power to knock her off balance again but that he knew the risks he took to do so.
The silence lengthened. Grace made a small movement he was obviously unwilling to see translated into action, for finally he muttered, “I found it in Grace’s room.”
“Grace’s room?” repeated David.
Clearly David had been expecting some momentous disclosure yet his tone registered shocked disbelief. “In the attic? What were you doing there?”
After a reluctant pause Laurence muttered, “Waiting for her. I had a proposition to make. While I was waiting I went through her drawers.”
“How dare you?” David’s voice dripped disgust. He gripped a handful of his cousin’s hair and yanked.
Laurence screamed and jerked. Not too vigorously, though, for Grace kept the needle positioned within a few inches of his eye. His tone was whining, self-justifying, as he replied, “Your mother was concerned at the inappropriate friendship between the two of you. She sanctioned me.”
Grace drew in a shuddering breath then whispered, “She didn’t sanction you to do what you did two days later.” Hatred filled her, making her voice hoarse and unsteady as she demanded, “Tell David what your proposition was!”
Laurence twisted his head away from the point of the needle and Grace moved accordingly. He muttered, “I wanted Grace to be my photographic model. She was so willing to give you hours of her time to paint her I assumed she’d be just as happy to oblige me with a few moments to photograph her.”
Grace lowered the needle a fraction. “Yes, but what did you propose … exactly?”
Silence.
Furiously, Grace stabbed the needle into his shoulder, raising it above his eye once again as he yelled with pain.
“All right, I threatened I’d show your mother the letter I’d found in Grace’s drawer.”
“Which letter?”
“The letter about going to Florence.”
Grace saw cognition register in David’s unseeing gaze as he asked, slowly, “So Grace agreed to let you photograph her provided you kept my secret?”
Laurence nodded but David couldn’t see. “Answer me!” he said harshly and Laurence burst out angrily, “Grace came to my studio and I arranged her as I would any other model.”
David obviously saw where this was going. Angrily he said, “Only you coerced her to remove her clothes.” The bitterness in his tone grew. “And she did because she thought it was the only way to keep my letter … my secret … my hopes safe from my mother.”
Laurence’s silence was answer enough.
Holding her breath, Grace watched David battle the silent fury within before he screamed, “And then you raped her!” Seizing his cousin by the shoulders he raised him with unnatural force and slammed his head into the floor.
Grace watched the violence with grim satisfaction, Laurence crying out with pain as David shouted, “You raped her and made her pregnant! Mama dismissed her. She had nowhere to go. Her life was destroyed because of you! All our plans were destroyed because of you!”
“David, stop!” Suddenly Grace was frightened by the extent of his rage as he continued to pound Laurence’s head upon the floor. His strength was being channelled from forces greater than any of them could control and Laurence’s life was in danger unless David could be calmed.
The sound of the door grinding open and Mrs Willowbank’s shock
ed cry made David drop his hands.
“My God, what is happening?” Mrs Willowbank rushed forward as David rose from Laurence’s chest. With a cursory glance at Grace she spat, “And you … Miss Fortune or whoever you are, get out! You’re the cause of this, aren’t you? I paid for a high-class prostitute, not a common whore.”
“How dare you, mother?” David warned in a low voice.
Mrs Willowbank spun round. “I want the slut out of here.”
“She’s not going anywhere.” David had risen. He stood, tall and straight. Confident. He took a challenging step forward and reached out for Grace, who stepped thankfully into his embrace. “This is not Miss Fortune and you will treat her with respect.” A flicker of emotion crossed his face. There was a fraction of a second’s uncertainty as he glanced across at Grace, almost as if she might object, before he pushed back his shoulders and said, “Miss Fortune is going to be my wife.”
“Your wife?” Mrs Willowbank gave a shout of hysterical laughter. “Have you taken leave of your senses? She’s addled your brain. Why, this creature has walked off the streets—”
“Where you and Laurence condemned her.” David’s voice shook but there was a hard, threatening edge that made even his mother flinch. “Laurence raped her then you dismissed her. I hope you’re ashamed. Yes, this is Grace who used to work at Barton Manor, and as today I came into my majority and can do what I like, I’m going to marry her.”
***
The silence that followed the eventual departure of Mrs Willowbank and Laurence was a welcome contrast to the earlier shouting and shrieking. David’s mama was not one to be crossed but, as he’d reminded everyone as he’d thrust the message Grace had written under his direction into the hands of one of the goggle-eyed servants, he was no longer a minor.
Now, with the tyrants gone, Grace and David clung to each other in the window embrasure, dazed but only too conscious of their fragile togetherness.
Too fragile to risk or take for granted.
“There was something about you that felt so right from the moment I touched your hair,” David whispered, nuzzling her neck.
She was respectably dressed. It had taken a while but he’d laced her back into her corset and helped her into her clothes and now she could pass for any of the fine ladies Mrs Willowbank might have introduced to her son.
A powerful joy took hold of Grace which even after her hard years she was not jaded enough to dismiss as ridiculous and ephemeral, though she still felt she was inhabiting a dream.
“Where would you like to go for your wedding tour?” David asked. “Your wish is my desire. You can be my eyes. My muse.” His excitement was infectious. “I will mould every delectable curve of yours in clay and through you I will realise my dreams of being an artist.”
“I want to go to Florence,” she whispered.
She drew in her breath at the sound of footsteps, doubt warring with hope that her future was more than empty promises.
“The magistrate is here.” David kissed the top of her head, dismissing her earlier concerns as he added with a laugh, “Vengeance is not to be feared from your excellent procuress Madame Chambon once I generously settle her bill.”
“For the prime article your mama procured,” Grace murmured, suddenly as conscious as she’d ever been of what she was.
What she had been.
His expression was suddenly serious as he cupped her chin and brought his face level with hers, as if he really could see her.
Grace could barely breathe for the hope, fear, shame and need to be respected that roiled through her.
“You are a prime article, my lovely Grace,” David agreed, softly, caressing the sides of her face with gentle fingertips as the magistrate’s footsteps grew louder. The silence preparatory to the inevitable knock made their legal union suddenly more than just another foolish pipedream.
David’s expression shone. Just as it had when enthusiasm fired him for his art, and for his love for Grace, the parlourmaid.
She closed her eyes in rapture at his touch, at the feel of his sweet breath upon her cheek as he whispered, “And I use the term in its purest sense with no ironic reference to your previous calling. Forget the past. This is the moment our lives begin.”
Pulling her hard against him, he brought his mouth down full upon hers, coming up for air after what seemed a glorious eternity to promise, “Now that I know the worst about you, Grace darling, I look forward to a lifetime discovering the best.”
About Beverley Oakley
Beverley Oakley wrote her first romance when she was seventeen. However, drowning the heroine on the last page (p550!) was, she discovered, not in the spirit of the genre so her romance-writing career ground to a halt and she became a journalist.
After throwing in her secure job on South Australia’s metropolitan daily The Advertiser to manage a luxury safari lodge in the Okavango Delta, in Botswana, Beverley discovered a new world of romance and adventure in a thatched cottage in the middle of a mopane forest with the handsome Norwegian bush pilot she met around a camp fire.
Eighteen years later, after exploring the world in the back of Cessna 404s and CASA 212s as an airborne geophysical survey operator during low-level sorties over the French Guyanese jungle and Greenland's ice cap, Beverley is back in Australia living a more conventional life with her husband and two daughters in a pretty country town an hour north of Melbourne.
She writes traditional Regency Romance as Beverley Eikli and sensual and erotic historical romance as Beverley Oakley.
First published by Momentum in 2013
This edition published in 2013 by Momentum
Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
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Copyright © Beverley Oakley 2013
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
A CIP record for this book is available at the National Library of Australia
Saving Grace: Hot Down Under
EPUB format: 9781743341094
Mobi format: 9781743341100
Cover design by Carrie Kabak
Edited by Elizabeth Cowell
Proofread by Sam Cooney
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