My Fair Spinster

by Rebecca Connolly

  Still, he had been tasked with finding her faults, limited though they might be, and he had to make a good showing of it, if for no other reason than because her father would become insufferable without some sort of result. Perhaps he could convince Grace to pretend to practice on something they might have discovered in one of their sessions, something her father could use as proof of work and improvement…

  “Oh my, there is a quite determined face.”

  Hellfire and damnation…

  Aubrey turned with the politest smile he could drum up under the circumstances, cursing himself for indulging in a whim as stupid as walking about London during the Season. “Miranda, what a charming surprise!”

  Miranda Sterling strode towards him, her beloved bloodhound on a leash trotting along sleepily beside her. “You always say that, Aubrey, and I’m beginning to wonder.”

  “What?” he cried, sweeping into a dramatic bow. “How could you doubt me?”

  Miranda was not impressed. “Far too easily.”

  Her dog wore exactly the same expression.

  Aubrey straightened with a shrug. “Ah, well. I fear I cannot please everyone.”

  The dog seemed to harrumph at that, earning him a sardonic look from Aubrey.

  Miranda, however, chuckled warmly. “Rufus does not hide his opinions as well as he ought, I’m afraid.”

  “That makes two of us,” Aubrey muttered with a scowl at the animal. He returned his attention to Miranda with a smile, though he was straining to be away. If there was one thing he knew about Miranda Sterling, it was that she was far too intuitive for her own good, or his own good for that matter.

  She would sniff out a story better than Rufus if he was not careful.

  Sure enough, her mouth curved in a bemused, knowing smile. “Where are you off to, Aubrey, dear?”

  Honesty, he must use honesty. Just not full disclosure of said honesty.

  “Trenwick House,” he replied easily, “as I am sure you suspected.”

  Miranda fluttered her lashes in a way that resembled a shrug. “I might have done, but one does appreciate confirmation of suspicions all the same. What takes you there today?”

  Aubrey sighed and looked up the street for a moment, then stepped closer to her. “Another fault-finding session, I’m afraid.”

  She immediately sobered, and her lips puckered in an almost sour fashion. “I don’t approve of that.”

  “Nor do I, but we both know who’s to blame for this.”

  Miranda’s brow furrowed. “If you’re about to blame me again, Aubrey Flint…”

  He laughed softly, shaking his head. “No, my dear Miranda, I mean Trenwick himself. I cannot avoid these sessions, but I can be grateful that he is not present for any of them. This way, I can look for whatever indiscernible faults I’m supposed to find, and Grace won’t feel so exposed by the experience.”

  “Aww,” Miranda purred, patting Aubrey’s cheek fondly. “I knew you would be good for her in this farce.”

  Aubrey heaved a sigh and took Miranda’s hand from his face. “One can only hope. I fear I’m running out of things to pretend to examine, and I may grow tiresome to Grace in all this.”

  Miranda offered a sympathetic look, while Rufus licked his jowls loudly beside her. “I doubt you could ever be tiresome, Aubrey.”

  He cocked his head at her and sank to his haunches, reaching out a hand to Rufus, who began to sniff it casually. “And I thought you knew me well, Miranda. I’m a rather tiresome fellow quite often.”

  She hummed a moment, then turned it to a laugh. “So, don’t be so tiresome, my lad. Have you been serious with her?”

  Rufus, deciding Aubrey was safe enough, moved to him and flopped his backside down, nuzzling against his hand in a blatant suggestion of scratching his head. Aubrey complied with his wishes, smiling to himself. “I have, actually. Once or twice. It went over well enough, but my natural reaction is to turn to comedic joviality and sharp wit. So much safer there.”

  He scratched the dog absently, some of his tension easing in this strange confessional to Miranda. Or perhaps he was confessing to Rufus, he couldn’t be quite sure. But he found comfort and clarity in confiding, strangely enough, and there was no way he could do so with Francis or Henshaw. He was sure they would sympathize, but that was an exercise in trust and vulnerability he wasn’t prepared for.

  “Safer for whom?” Miranda mused almost to herself.

  Aubrey glanced up at her, squinting.

  Whatever he had just thought about confiding, he took it all back. Confiding was highly overrated.

  He looked back to Rufus and met the dog’s doleful, dark eyes. “I feel for you, old chap. God be with you.”

  “Oh, please,” Miranda huffed with a merry laugh as Aubrey rose. “Go on to Grace, then, and enjoy your challenge. Try her at music. That should be safe enough.” She clicked her tongue at Rufus, who immediately got to his feet and resumed his place at her side. She nodded at Aubrey with a wink and continued on her way.

  Aubrey watched her go, unable to keep from smiling with a genuine fondness. There was just something about Miranda, and he could not deny it.

  But Miranda was not his object for the day. Grace was.

  Well, nothing for it then.

  He turned to continue down the street towards Trenwick House, arriving only a few minutes later.

  Bennett seemed only slightly more pleased to see him than any other time he’d arrived, but he showed him in without a word, unless one counted a disgruntled huff as a word.

  “How’s the day going, Bennett?” Aubrey thought to ask as they proceeded to the usual drawing room he and Grace used.

  To his amazement, Bennett gave him a direct look. “Not particularly well, my lord.”

  Aubrey blinked at that. “No?”

  Bennett shook his head gravely. “Miss Morledge had a visitor that left only moments ago, and I fear it has left her in a less than optimal temper.”

  Swearing under his breath, Aubrey glanced towards the room, then back to the normally stodgy butler quickly. “Who was it?”

  “Her aunt, my lord. Lady Trenwick’s sister. My lady just led her out, but Miss Morledge…” He looked towards the drawing room, his expression rife with concern.

  Aubrey felt the urge to pat the older man on the arm, which would have broken at least seventy-two items of the code of butlers, so he chose instead to nod as he moved towards the room himself. There was no telling what he would encounter with Grace, but he couldn’t exactly leave her to her misery, whatever the cause. Especially not when his own temper was bordering on the indignant without any context.

  Entering the room, he scanned quickly for Grace, only to find her pacing with her fists tight by her sides, her face equally tight with emotion.

  He closed the door tightly behind him, keeping his back to it. “Grace…”

  She didn’t even look in his direction, her long legs pushing the skirts of her grey striped day dress out again and again in a rapid pattern. He watched her, seeing how her thumbs ran over her clenched fingers, and, when he looked closely enough, how her jaw trembled despite being as taut as the rest of her. Her color was high, and for whatever reason, her hair seemed bound more loosely than normal, giving her a less composed appearance than what he was used to.

  It was quite possibly the most beautiful he had ever seen her.

  But this was not the time for that either, so he forced his reactions back as he stepped more fully into the room. “Grace.”

  She held out a warning hand, her eyes finally moving in his direction. “Aubrey, I can’t…”

  “Tell me,” he said simply, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets. “Whatever is burning you up, let it out.”

  Grace stopped her frantic pacing then, swallowed twice, then turned to him with military precision. “My cousin is getting married.”

  Aubrey blinked, wondering what in the world that had to do with anything. Then he recollected their session with the letters, and compr
ehension dawned belatedly. “The cousin you wrote to warn off?”

  Grace nodded once, sniffing, though he couldn’t see a trace of tears. “Felicity. She decided to give in to her mother’s bullying. The man proposed purely from my aunt’s meddling, and Felicity accepted him. She doesn’t even know him, Aubrey. They’ve met on five occasions. Five. This is exactly what the Spinster Chronicles is supposed to alleviate, and now, within my own family…” She stopped and smiled without any sort of warmth. “And do you know why she accepted, Aubrey? Why she gave in?”

  He didn’t dare hazard a guess, so he dipped his chin in encouragement.

  “Because she was actually afraid of becoming me. Despite what I said, despite our closeness, she actually feared turning out like me.” Grace exhaled a humorless laugh. “I was her reason, Aubrey. Me.”

  There was no air in his lungs, nothing resembling a heart anywhere in his chest, and his jaw went slack. How in hell could anyone think…?

  Grace nodded repeatedly at his obvious disbelief. “She did. And my aunt, who came to London immediately to procure a trousseau, since the banns have already been read once in Leighton, stopped by today to share the good news and invite us to the fastest wedding without a special license in the history of the institution. And do you know what that condescending shrew said to me as we sat at tea with my mother?”

  He didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to hear. Couldn’t see or hear clearly for the seething rage burning within him.

  “She said what a pity it was to be so flawed as to not be suitable for marriage to any man of any state at all.”

  The floor fell out beneath him, and he felt completely suspended in the air, though he keenly felt a massive weight pulling at him.

  Not his Grace. Not his Grace.

  “Flawed,” she repeated. Her throat worked once, and her jaw quivered. “Flawed is it, for a woman to not be married? Trust me, there is nothing anyone can say or find that will rival what we already say and think and feel about ourselves. You think we don’t feel flawed? And ugly, unworthy, and a hundred other things not worth mentioning? We feel it every single day, moment after moment. But we cannot speak of such things because we must also be patient, demure, and enduring, pain or no pain. So perhaps Felicity has it right. Why turn into someone who must endure all of this when an alternative is before you? Why risk being so very flawed in the eyes of everyone who knows you?”

  He couldn’t bear this, couldn’t take it for one moment more. Her vitriol wasn’t even directed at him, and he felt defensive, felt the need to shut her up, to fight her on this. Except he needed to defend her. To fight her for herself. To stop herself before she viewed herself as something worse than damaged based on the abuse of one unforgivable relation.

  This was beyond words for the present.

  Aubrey marched over to her and hauled her against his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around her and pressing her against his shoulder. She struggled against him, fury whipping at every point of contact, but he held firm.

  “Grace,” he said firmly, one hand clamping the back of her head. “Grace…”

  She inhaled sharply, then exhaled in a loud rush that nearly knocked him over. Her arms snaked around him and loosely clung to his jacket, the tremors in her ebbing away with every breath. He touched his head to hers, leaning against her ever so slightly, his heart thudding with a wide blend of emotions, and impossibly, his own tension began to fade the longer he held her.

  Blessed goddess.

  When she was still, Aubrey wet his lips and shifted his mouth to her ear. “Grace, listen to me.”

  He felt her nod against him, and he smiled, pulling back just far enough to take her face in his hands. “Grace, I don’t find you flawed. Or ugly. Or unwanted. Or anything else in any way lacking. I’m so sorry for the pain you feel, and even more sorry if I have ever added anything to it. You amaze me, Grace. Beyond words. Any time you want to express how you feel, unseemly or shocking or whatever else, please do so with me. I don’t find any flaw in that, and you deserve to be free in that regard. Understand?”

  She exhaled, which he felt as much as he heard, and nodded against his hands.

  Inevitably, helplessly, his gaze was drawn to her lips. Full and parted and tempting him beyond all unholy temptations. He wanted to trace them, to pull at them, to taste them…

  Grace’s breath caught, and he felt a surge of satisfaction at his attention being noticed. His eyes darted to hers, only to find her gaze locked on his lips, and a strange keening sensation gnawed at the base of his spine and down his legs. A silent howl of heated agony began to brew somewhere behind his heart, and he swayed towards her.

  Then, he jerked and swayed away, clearing the blockage in his throat, moving his hands to her arms. He rubbed a bit as he swallowed weakly. “Good. Glad we cleared that up.” He cleared his throat again, not at all obviously, and patted her arms once. “Now, shall we see how you do in a duet? I have it on good authority that I must test your musical abilities.”

  If Grace noticed his blatantly awkward recovery, she gave no indication. She raised a curious brow at him, those blasted perfect lips tilting to one side. “You don’t play.”

  A delightful smugness filled the remaining sensibilities he possessed, and he grinned as he led her to the piano. “You don’t know everything. Sit down.”

  “Gads, this is a dull event. I don’t know why we’ve even come.”

  Grace bit the inside of her lip, trying not to show her despair of her brother, currently leading her into the drawing room of the Perry family, wondering just how the idiot could have deduced the dullness of an event they had only just arrived at. Then again, James had never been a creature of any great sense or taste, so it did not follow that his pronouncement was much of a surprise.

  “Well, take yourself off to billiards with the other bored fellows, then,” she said, removing her hand from his arm. “I’ll find my own way about.”

  Needing no further encouragement, James released her arm and strode towards the room to one side where other gentlemen his age were headed.

  She watched him go, shaking her head. He had spent the entire ride over complaining about their father not taking him into his confidence and instructing him in the finer business affairs of the family, which Grace did not care about in the least. She thought it best not to inform him that she quite agreed with their father’s avoidance of involving James at all, as it would have been a perfectly useless experience.

  Freed from him at last, she sighed and let herself smile, taking a moment to appreciate some of the finest rooms in a private London home she had ever seen. The Perrys were a fine and well-respected family, not the least because they did not flaunt any of their refinery. Miraculously, the Perry children were intelligent, respectful, remarkably kind individuals, which was quite the aberration in society these days.

  Amelia saw her first and changed direction to come to her, beaming with all of her usual sincerity. “Miss Morledge! I am so pleased you’ve come. I hope you don’t mind our informality in not greeting everyone as they come in. We wanted our guests to feel as warm and cozy as possible.”

  Grace lifted a bemused brow. “With fifty people in attendance?”

  “Well, we can try, at any rate,” Amelia replied with a wink. “Mr. Andrews seems to think it a ridiculous idea, but you know how he can be.”

  No, actually, Grace didn’t know, but she certainly liked Mr. Andrews and would trust his judgment. Nothing about that statement was surprising in the least.

  Amelia gasped suddenly, seizing her hands. “You’ll never guess! Lady Edith came!”

  Now that took Grace by surprise, and her jaw dropped. “She did?” She immediately began scanning the room for her. “Are you sure?”

  “Quite!” Amelia quipped, directing her towards some card tables to one side. “She’s partnering with Mrs. Morton at the present. Mr. Morton is around here somewhere with Kitty, but can you believe it? I am so pleased!”

  So was G
race, and she couldn’t deny it. Edith had become somehow even more of a recluse of late, only going out for Spinster meetings or evenings at their homes. To venture out to the Perrys was monumental, even with Amelia being a friend to them all.

  “Oh! The Vales are here! Excuse me, won’t you?” Amelia squeezed her arm quickly before vanishing off.

  Grace moved to the card tables, her smile spreading with each step as she approached the dark-haired Scottish beauty. Edith said something that made Izzy and the others at the table laugh, as Edith was more than capable of doing, when she was of a mind to.

  Tonight, she apparently was.

  Edith looked at Grace when she reached them and smiled, her cheeks tinged with a healthy color, her emerald eyes dancing. “Good evening, Grace. Fancy a round of cards?”

  “You seem to be in the middle of one, dear,” Grace told her with a laugh. She nodded at two of the Wilton sisters, also sitting at the table with Edith and Izzy. “Who’s winning?”

  Jane Wilton laughed once. “Lady Edith and Izzy are, of course!”

  “Oh, don’t tell me Edith is proficient at cards,” the voice of Camden Vale moaned somewhere nearby. “I’d be honor bound to test that claim, and she’d never forgive me for beating her.”

  Edith took on the most superior look possible in human expression. “You’re welcome to try, Cam, if you dinna think it would be too much for your sensibilities.”

  Prue snickered as she and Cam drew up beside them. Cam grinned at Edith proudly, and with not a little mischief. “I don’t have any sensibilities and you know it.”

  “I can vouch for that,” Prue broke in, patting her husband’s chest gently.

  Cam coughed as the rest of them howled with laughter. “You, my love, were supposed to adamantly deny such a claim and defend me!”