Grace

by Deneane Clark

  Lady Egerton nodded happily. “She was awake for nearly an hour this afternoon, although she is still weak, of course, and unable to get out of bed.”

  “That’s wonderful news!” Trevor stood and smiled charmingly at both ladies. “I’ll just stick my head in and, if she’s awake, say hello before I take my leave.” He gave them a gallant little bow. “Thank you for the tea and the pleasure of your company, ladies.” Just as he turned to leave the room, Lady Egerton’s voice snapped out at him like an uncoiling whip.

  “Oh, no, you don’t, young man!”

  Trevor stopped in the doorway. He composed his features to conceal his impatience, his eyebrows raised in mute inquiry.

  “It was quite one thing to allow you to go up to Grace’s bedchamber when we weren’t . . .” Cleo paused momentarily, and when she continued her voice trembled slightly. “When we were unsure she would recover. Since she has begun to do so, however, I’m afraid that it would be nothing short of the height of impropriety for you to visit there now, my lord.”

  Trevor’s jaw tightened as his impatience swelled into annoyance. He sent a quick glance toward Faith, but she demurely kept her eyes on her embroidery. “I see,” he said shortly, bringing dangerously sparking eyes back to Lady Egerton, who bravely stared back, certain she was helping Grace further her suit with the earl by giving him a bit of a challenge. “When might be a better time for me to visit Miss Grace?” Faith looked up in alarm at the earl’s voice, which was, to her ears, ominous.

  Cleo’s quavering voice became firm again. “The doctor has told us that Grace could be up and about in a couple of weeks, perhaps as soon as one week, if we are careful.” Trevor watched as Faith leveled a direct look on her aunt, who raised her chin a defiant notch in a way that distinctly reminded Trevor of Grace. He narrowed his eyes at the older lady, but said only, in an even voice, “Please give her my best wishes for a speedy recovery, ma’am,” and bowed stiffly once more.

  “I’ll see you out, my lord.” Putting aside her embroidery, Faith gave her aunt a reproachful look and hastily stood to walk Trevor to the front door. She tried, in vain, to keep up with his long, ground-devouring strides as they went down the corridor to the foyer where Greaves stood. He smugly held out the earl’s hat and coat in a way that left no doubt he had listened to and enjoyed the conversation in the parlor.

  Trevor ignored Greaves completely. “Does Grace know I’ve been here to visit her during her illness?” he asked in a clipped voice. His stared at Faith.

  She hesitated only a second. “Yes, she does, my lord,” she answered softly.

  “And what was her reaction when she was told?”

  In a rare show of discomfort, Faith flushed and looked away, knowing how Grace’s words would sound to the angry man at her side.“She said . . .” Faith paused, trying to think of a way to make her sister’s thoughtless words sound kinder.

  “Yes?” Trevor prompted impatiently. Greaves shuffled closer and held out the coat and hat more insistently.

  Faith sighed in resignation. “She said to tell you that you have only a few days left, my lord.” She winced as Trevor’s jaw clenched and his eyes filled with cold rage, and she added hastily, “I’ll send word to you as soon as she can receive visitors.”

  He gave her a look of scathing disbelief. Without answering, he turned his back on her and walked out the front door, leaving the smirking Greaves still holding his garments. Faith looked after him sadly, wishing she could take back the words Grace had said so lightly.

  Trevor stood for a moment on the steps after the door had closed behind him. That Grace had come up with the idea to put him off for another week he had no doubt. Though he knew she had not planned on her illness, he also knew she would have no qualms about using it as leverage in order to win their wager. She would not balk, either, at enlisting her aunt and sister into helping her to pull off the ploy in the process. She had admitted to him herself that she would cheat if she felt she had to do so in order to win, but after the conversation they had shared in the salon the night of the Corwins’ ball, he found her methods unpalatable. Poor Faith could barely bring herself to speak, the farce in which Grace had compelled her to participate troubled her so.

  “Home!” He flung the command at his startled coachman as he boarded the shining carriage and slammed the door almost before the footman had a chance to put up the steps. He stretched his long legs across the limited space between the velvet seats and scowled out the window at the beautiful mansions of the social elite.

  He was tired of playing Grace’s games. He had demonstrated endless patience, nauseating charm, and deep accommodation for much too long, he decided. For his troubles, he had received only blatant disrespect and thankless deception. On top of that, all of London knew he had finally set his cap for someone, and would now also know that she had turned him down flat, although that, admittedly, he could blame only upon himself.

  Well, he decided grimly, it would not happen again. There would be no more game playing.

  The watcher stared as Trevor stormed out of the house. Something did not feel right. Grace had not left the house in days, and the Earl of Huntwick came and went, looking like a thundercloud. Paranoia flooded through him, settling a knot of fear in the pit of his stomach. Faith Ackerly must have seen him that day in the street, he thought. Suddenly alarmed, he waited for Trevor’s carriage to roll out of sight, then slunk away to his shabby rented rooms. He would have to find another place from which to watch her after dark. This one no longer felt safe.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Trevor walked on silent feet across the dim room from the window through which he had just climbed. He stopped quietly by the bed to look down at Grace where she lay in peaceful slumber. Her beautiful burnished hair glowed as though lit from within wherever the moonlight streaming through the window touched it, the tousled curls scattered across her pillow and about her face. She looked so fragile and angelic in sleep, so utterly without guile. Trevor almost managed to convince himself that she could not possibly be the treacherous liar he had come to know.

  Almost.

  Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. Trevor automatically tensed. He held his breath as she moved restlessly in her sleep, then let it out slowly when she settled once again on her side, her long legs drawn up to her chest, one hand curled beneath her cheek. Quietly Trevor moved to the window he had left open when he entered the room.

  He had found it ridiculously easy to gain access to Grace’s room. For the third time since he had known her, he had simply climbed the garden wall. From there all he had to do was walk up the shallow terrace steps, step on the stone railing, and climb into the lower branches of a conveniently placed elm. That gave him access to a narrow ledge that ran the length of the house beneath all of the second-floor windows. He found Grace’s room behind the first window on his right and had, to his surprise, discovered it unlocked. The window pushed easily inward at only a light touch.

  Now, as he closed that window with a gentle click, Trevor ruefully reflected that, between the garden wall and the tree he had just scaled, he had done more climbing since meeting Grace than he had done as a lad of ten. He turned away from the window and approached the bed again. She looked so beautiful as she slept, her curly lashes splayed in dark fans against her cheeks, her full lips parted slightly. A ghost of a smile played around their corners, indicating that her dreams were pleasant. He remembered the feel of those soft lips on his, and his jaw clenched. This time he directed his anger at himself. Although he now knew of her treacherous and false nature, the passion she had shown in their few stolen kisses had seemed achingly real.

  He still wanted her.

  Visions paraded through his mind, taunting him as he considered the enormity of what he would do tonight, sweet memories of Grace indelibly stamped in his head. He had thought himself intrigued by her when he had first seen her portrait, but she’d positively captivated him when they met, this blue-eyed spitfire with the face of an
angel. What possessed him to want so very badly the one woman immune to his charm, who cared nothing for his money, and even scoffed at the title he could offer? She scorned with such passion the very things most women in England would have sold their souls to acquire. In the end, she had stooped to trickery and deceit simply because she could not abide him long enough to adhere to their bargain, and she was not honorable enough to tell him, face-to-face, that she wanted out.

  So he had decided to give her what she wanted. He would release her from the wager.

  As he felt his anger begin to mount again, he tore his gaze from the girl on the bed to look around the softly feminine room she occupied, not knowing exactly for what he searched. A clue, perhaps, to the woman he knew as Grace, something, anything, that might help him gain insight into the girl he had read so inaccurately. He had felt instinctively drawn to her from the start, sensing a strong streak of conviction in her, a streak he had mistaken for loyalty and honor, but which had instead proven to be callous selfishness, stubborn will, and cowardly artifice. Trevor despised one thing above all else: cowardice.

  He found the fact that she hid in her room to avoid the conditions of their bargain an act of sublime cravenness, one of which he had not thought her capable. Worse, she had used her aunt and her sister as go-betweens, thus eliminating any chance for Trevor to discuss the situation with her, effectively removing any possibility for him to try to change her mind. That, he found, he could not tolerate. He expected loyalty, honesty, and integrity from his friends. He would require those same traits in his wife.

  Seating himself next to the bed in an ecru velvet–upholstered chair, Trevor watched Grace sleep for nearly an hour. Somewhere within the house a clock struck the hour of four. The distant sound reminded him that, sometime soon, the servants would wake and begin moving around, going about the business of making the lives of their employers easier and more comfortable than their own. He sat up straighter and leaned over Grace, gently smoothing back a lock of hair that had fallen across her cheek. God, she was beautiful. He almost could not bear the knowledge that he would never again have a chance to watch her sleep like this, not in his bed or in any other. Abruptly, before he could change his mind, he pulled his hand away and sat back in the chair.

  “Grace.”

  His ominous, quiet voice broke the stillness. He spoke her name only once, but somehow the sound pierced her consciousness. She dragged herself up from the depths of sleep, certain she had dreamed of hearing Trevor call to her. When her bleary eyes finally focused on the motionless figure sitting in the darkness next to her bed, she gave a start of surprise and sat bolt upright, protectively pulling the covers up to her chin.

  Trevor smiled at her, a chilling, forbidding smile that did not quite reach his eyes, eyes that glittered a cold emerald in the subdued light. “You seem worried I might ravish you as you lie in your bed,” he said. His voice dripped with disdain.

  Grace looked a little frantically at the door that led to the hall and then to the one that led to the connecting dressing room between her bedchamber and Faith’s, more worried that someone would discover Trevor in her chamber than for her safety. “What are you doing here?” she hissed at him.

  “I came to see how you were feeling, my dear.” His voice sounded strangely flat, lacking the customary warmth and resonance she loved.

  “I-I’m feeling somewhat weak, my lord,” she stammered in confusion. A look of cold revulsion crossed his face.“But the doctor says I am improving,” she hastened to add, vaguely wondering how her illness could possibly anger him.

  A muscle leaped in his jaw. “Yes, I can see that.”

  “Could you please tell me why you’re here, my lord?” Her voice was small and bewildered. Again, Trevor marveled at her acting skills.

  He stood. “I am now willing to release you from our bargain, Grace,” he stated in the brisk tone of someone conducting a business transaction—as if he were not standing in her bedchamber in the middle of the night.

  Already Grace’s confusion had begun to diminish. She felt a growing sense of irritation at the way Trevor had rudely startled her from a comfortable sleep to subject her to this bizarre conversation in the small hours of the morning. Both the earl’s tone and his brusque manner were uncalledfor. “Why?” she asked in a much stronger tone, her alert eyes narrowing on his shuttered face.

  Trevor looked back at her with raised eyebrows. “Why, Grace, I can almost see your former good health returning, even as we speak,” he said. His voice took on a taunting edge. The silence held for a long moment as she looked back at him steadily. “In answer to your question, as you will recall, you did not wish to be a part of our little experiment from the outset. I simply begin to think that you were right.” He took a step closer to the bed and watched as Grace lifted her stubborn little chin, refusing to allow his towering presence to intimidate her. “There’s only one thing about which I’m still uncertain.”

  Grace’s eyes sparked at him out of the darkness. “And what, my lord, might that be?”

  He leaned down to look her directly in the eye, placing a hand on each side of her hips, effectively pinning her beneath the covers. “This,” he replied harshly. He took her lips in a crushing kiss that stole her breath and forced her back into the pillows. Her hands lifted to push weakly at his shoulders until he braced one knee on the bed for support and buried a hand in the tumbled mass of red-gold curls to cradle the back of her head. He raised his head a fraction of an inch to look deeply into her stormy blue eyes.

  “I’ll scream,” she threatened against his lips, her chest heaving with the effort to drag air into her constricted lungs.

  “Go ahead, my dear,” he taunted. “Scream the house down. You’ll get me out of here, if that’s what you want. But you have to remember that the servants, as well as your aunt and your sister, will come running to see what could be wrong. Servants gossip. Your reputation will be in tatters.”

  “I could care less about my reputation,” she flung at back at him. She managed, somehow, to square her slim shoulders in the meager space he had allotted her between the pillows and his body.

  Trevor almost smiled at her bravado. “Ah, but you do care about the reputations of your precious sisters. A scandal of this magnitude would ruin their chances for making a good marriage, now, wouldn’t it? Poor little Mercy would never get her duke. And only think of what this could do to your aunt. Why, she’d never be accepted in polite drawing rooms again.”

  “You’re the vilest person alive,” she hissed at him between her teeth.

  “Well, then, I’m in good company,” he countered.

  Suddenly Grace could no longer fight him. Her hands fell to her sides in an uncharacteristic show of defeat. She wearily turned her head away from him, closing her eyes against the overwhelming weakness that threatened to overtake her. “Could you just go away now, please?” Her voice, small and hurt, barely reached his ears.

  “No, my dear, I’m afraid I cannot. Not without saying good-bye.” Trevor cupped her chin in his hand and brought her mouth to his again, gently this time, slowly stretching himself out full-length on the bed beside her. His lips moved insistently over hers, evoking, demanding her complete response. When she felt his tongue trace the full contours of her lower lip, she groaned in spite of herself, and gave in to the feelings already consuming her. She turned her body toward his in mindless surrender.

  Automatically, Trevor deepened the kiss, filling her mouth with his tongue, pulling her more closely against him. His hand slipped down from her face to cover one small breast. Grace gasped as jolts of pure pleasure shot through her at his touch. Her nipple rose proudly against his palm as Trevor’s lips moved along her jawbone to kiss the sensitive spot just behind her ear.

  “Trevor,” she moaned, a whispered plea.

  He stopped long enough to whisper back, “If you want me to, I’ll stay.” When she did not reply, he began retracing the path his lips had taken before, his thumb gently teasin
g her nipple through the thin muslin of her nightdress.

  Somewhere, far in the back of Grace’s mind, warning bells had begun to ring, but they faded with each second she remained in his arms, with each melting kiss she returned with one of her own. He lifted his hand from her breast. Her eyes flew open at the sudden loss of warmth; then she gasped in shock as she felt him unbuttoning the front of her gown. At the small sound, Trevor stopped. He raised his eyes to hers, his voice unintentionally harsh. “Do you want me to stop?”

  His hands had stilled in their action, but Grace could feel the trembling tension that coursed through them as they rested against the bodice of her nightdress. The knowledge that he was as affected as she by their nearness filled her with awe and a sweet sense of discovery at the great power all women shared. She closed her eyes. Even as her mind screamed at her to tell him to stop, that this was wrong, her body and her heart compelled her to allow him to continue what felt so right. In the end, her heart emerged the victor.

  When she stirred beneath him, Trevor knew she would answer his question. Suddenly the answer meant so much to him that he found himself holding his breath. He watched as she slowly opened her eyes and looked into his. What he saw made his heart momentarily constrict, then begin wildly hammering.

  Grace was looking up at him with such aching warmth, such tender, melting promise, that he felt rocked to the very core of his being. With a tortured groan he tore his eyes from her luminous blue ones, and quickly unbut-toned the rest of her gown. Impatiently he pushed it aside.

  Her body was sheer perfection, glowing a dusky peach in the pale moonlight. Her nipples rose proudly, blushing pink on small breasts shaped to perfectly fit his cupped hand, begging without shame for his kiss. He bent to take one into his mouth. When he did, she arched against him with a gasp of pleasure.