Grace

by Deneane Clark

  He suckled at her breast with rough-tender strokes of his tongue, sinking his teeth gently into her soft flesh. She caught her breath as he lifted his mouth from one sensitive tip, then moved immediately to the other to give it equal attention.

  Nearly insensible from the incredible feelings that rushed through her, Grace ran her hands fitfully up and down the corded muscles of Trevor’s back, wanting to pull him as close to her as possible and just hold him there. He raised his head to look at her with passion-drugged eyes, and she felt a sudden, deep regret for the way she had initially treated him. She thought of all the wasted moments she could have had, simply spending time with this wonderful, incredible man. She laid a hand softly against his cheek and whispered with aching tenderness, “Trevor, I am so sorry.”

  Trevor jerked back as though slapped. He abruptly remembered why he had come, that the woman he held in his arms had proven herself nothing more than a conniving little liar. Deliberately he cupped a breast in each hand, rolling and teasing both nipples between his thumb and forefinger. He kissed the shadowed valley between. “Does that feel good, my lady?” he asked in a husky voice.

  Urgently Grace nodded, reaching for him, needing to hold him close to her.

  He eluded her touch. “There’s more,” he whispered. “Tell me you want it.”

  Grace opened her eyes to find his staring into hers, their centers dark and inscrutable. Her emotion-fogged mind spun in confusion. “I-I don’t understand,” she stammered, wondering why he would not let her touch him. She reached for him again.

  He pinched a nipple in his fingers. She arched her back, dropped her hands, and groaned. “Oh, Trevor,” she pleaded urgently.

  “Tell me.”

  “Yes . . . yes, I do,” she breathed, not knowing for what she asked. “I want it so very much.”

  Immediately Trevor lowered his head, his tongue flicking sensuously at the undersides of her breasts. He ran a hand down her silken stomach to the nest of soft curls that hid her secrets. At the convulsive tightening of her legs, Trevor raised his head and took her lips with a savage intensity. “Don’t close me out, love,” he murmured into her mouth, his fingers still splayed on her soft mound. “Open for me, darling.”

  Unable to resist him in her weakened and aroused state, Grace gave up and relaxed her legs. Trevor watched her face as he slid his hand between her thighs to cup her honeyed heat in the palm of his hand. His touch teased, light and aching, softly at first, his fingers gently seeking out her pleasure points. Grace reached for him again, but he caught both of her hands in one of his and held them above her head. His tongue thrust more insistently now, stroking and tasting hers as shock waves engulfed her body. She gasped against his mouth as he pressed the heel of his hand against the sensitive nubbin at the top of her slick folds and tenderly parted her with one probing finger.

  “Trevor!” Grace gasped and arched against him, fearing and reveling in the unbelievable sensations that had begun to thread through her. “More,” she begged without shame. Quickly he complied, urgently stroking her most sensitive places until she writhed beneath him. She took a deep, shuddering breath that announced her coming fulfillment. Swiftly he covered her lips with his, taking her keening cry of pleasure into his mouth as she convulsed around him.

  Then he waited.

  Slowly her world stopped spinning. Her breathing began to return to normal. As sanity dawned, she realized that Trevor simply rested atop her, his face carefully blank as he registered her reactions. She smiled tenderly and reached for him, her face aglow with her newfound knowledge.

  Trevor’s handsome face hardened into a mask of cynical contempt. Abruptly he pushed himself off her and stood silently next to the bed, looking down at the girl whom, just the day before, he had feared he might lose forever. She lay on the bed without moving, openly vulnerable to his now cold gaze, momentarily stunned at his sudden change from a sweetly tender lover into this man she scarcely recognized.

  “This,” he said in a bitter, mocking voice, “is exactly how I’ll remember you.”

  Plunged abruptly into horrified shock, Grace felt waves of humiliation wash over her. Suddenly ashamed of her nudity before the hard gaze of the man she had just allowed to remove her clothing, she quickly scrambled to cover herself. She knelt, trembling, in the center of the bed, holding the edges of her gown together with numb fingers, watching in dazed disbelief as Trevor turned coldly away and walked over to the window.

  He glanced back at her once more, firmly pushing to the back of his mind the unwelcome thought that she looked like a heartbroken angel sitting there in defeated misery. “I release you from our bargain, Miss Ackerly.” With cruel and deliberate harshness, he looked straight into her eyes and said, “I don’t want you anymore.” He opened the window, stepped out onto the ledge, and disappeared into the quiet of the predawn London mist.

  For several long moments Grace sat motionless, her blind gaze rooted to the spot where she had last seen him. Slowly the numbness that had engulfed her began to recede, replaced with a screaming, paralyzing pain beyond anything she had ever known. With a deep, shuddering gasp, she wrapped both arms tightly around her stomach and began to rock back and forth in silence against the strange, horrible emptiness that slowly spread from within and surrounded her. Finally, unable to hold back any longer, she collapsed in a heap against her pillows and gave in to the flood of tears she had held back from the moment the man she loved had left her arms.

  Chapter Twenty

  Trevor dropped lightly onto the terrace from the tree and moved grimly through the shadowy garden. The sky had just begun to lighten in the east. He found himself loathing the day to come. He already knew the cold light of day would bring nothing but torturous recrimination.

  He headed purposefully toward the wall at the back of the garden, the same wall he had helped Grace scale the night of the card party. He stopped and placed a hand on the smooth surface. That night now felt like it had occurred an eternity ago, although it had, in reality, happened only a few days before. He took a step back, intending to jump to the top of the wall, but something held him in place. He cursed inwardly and clenched his hands into fists, angry with himself for his inability to leave, furious that he even cared. Unbidden images flashed through his mind: Grace laughing in his arms the first time they danced; Grace holding herself tauntingly aloof, then melting in his arms; Grace, her expressive face wreathed in wonder at the pleasure he made her feel; Grace, adoration shining in her eyes.

  Grace, fragile and lost, clutching her gown to her naked body.

  Trevor flattened both hands against the wall and closed his eyes, wishing he could stop the images, seeking to quell the tide of overwhelming regret washing through him. My God, he thought, what have I done? He lowered his head to the cold marble, waging an internal war with himself.

  Logically, his mind told him he should let it go. He and Grace had found themselves at cross purposes from the moment they met, hurtling inexorably down the road toward this moment from the very beginning. His reactions to her had caught him up in their intensity, enthralled him, rendered him incapable of listening to his reasonable side.

  He had listened to his heart.

  Even now, after what had happened between them, his heart compelled him to go to her. His back stiffened with the effort it took to keep himself from turning and climbing back into her room. His arms ached to hold her, to comfort her, to beg her forgiveness.

  Trevor’s internal battle raged for some moments. When he finally opened his eyes, the sky had lightened considerably. He knew he could not leave things this way. He took a deep breath and turned resolutely back toward the house. Fixing his gaze on the second-story window through which he had just exited, he took a step toward the house, then stopped abruptly. A gas lamp had just flared to life in the room next to Grace’s. He saw a shadowy figure moving around behind the gauzy curtains.

  He stared at the dark window beside the lit one for a moment longer, then became aw
are that the morning birds were stirring. The pleasant sound of their song grated on his ears, and a shuttered expression came over his face. His chance had passed. Abruptly he turned and leaped to the top of the wall. He glanced back only once, then dropped down and disappeared on the other side.

  His chance had passed.

  The day dawned bright and cheerful, filling the spacious room with warm sunshine and vibrant color. The earliest birds had awakened and sang sweetly in the garden. Their happy sounds drifted into the house through the open window where Grace stood, already fully dressed in a simple, unadorned cream muslin gown.

  She had not gone back to sleep after Trevor left, although she felt physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. She had cried for over an hour, the first time she could remember crying like that since her childhood, until finally she realized she had no tears left to shed. In the strange calm that often follows such an outpouring of emotion, Grace began to examine what had happened, began searching within herself for the reasons why.

  The fact that Trevor had come to her room with the sole intention of hurting her went without question. The reasons he had done so puzzled her. The act defied logic, went against everything she had come to know about Trevor’s nature. The more she thought about it, the less sense it made. Trying to reconcile his actions, however, forced Grace to face an unsettling truth: she had fallen in love with him.

  Certainly nobody had ever made her feel the way he did. Every emotion she had experienced since she met him felt magnified, whether it was anger or sadness, happiness or longing. He had evoked extreme reactions in her from the outset, and she had fought each feeling fiercely, frightened of that which she could not control.

  She sank down on the chintz-covered settee beneath the window, drew her knees up under her skirt, and rested her chin lightly upon them. She furrowed her brow, still thinking about the man she now realized she had somehow lost. He had cared about her, too. She knew that now.

  Until last night.

  Before last night he had reacted to each outburst of her temper, each ill-tempered verbal jab, each scathing rebuff with patience, gentleness, and humor. So why now, she wondered, when she had just begun to return his caring, did he do this terrible thing? She had asked herself that question at least a dozen times since he left, and still it made no sense to her. He had seemed so angry, so very bitter. Almost . . .

  Hurt.

  Grace heard the door to her room open softly. She fixed a bright smile on her face and turned away from the window to see Faith standing quietly by the door. “Good morning,” she said as cheerfully as she could, beckoning her sister to come and sit beside her.

  “You should be in bed,” Faith admonished in a quiet voice as she crossed the room. Her troubled gray eyes searched her sister’s placid face.

  Grace let that remark go. She kept the frozen little smile fixed to her lips and turned back to the window, pretending a sudden consuming interest in watching a fat gray squirrel scamper across the terrace.

  Faith looked at her sister’s pale profile. She noted the bluish shadows under her luminous eyes, the cheekbones that had always been delicate made more prominent by her recent illness, the glow missing from her usually animated face. Grace turned suddenly from watching the squirrel, and Faith averted her eyes lest her sister catch her staring.

  “What a pretty day it’s going to be,” Grace said with hollow enthusiasm. “I think I’d really like to spend some time outdoors. You can’t imagine how terribly boring it is being cooped up in this room all day, waited upon hand and foot while the world goes on without me.” She paused a moment to take a breath, her numb mind searching for topics to distract her sister from how miserable she felt.

  “I know Lord Caldwell was here last night.”

  As though Faith had not spoken, Grace continued her haphazard, one-sided conversation. “I know that Dr. Wyatt said that I might go downstairs for a bit tomorrow, but I’m really feeling so much better today than I’m sure he thought I would be. . . .”

  “Grace.”

  Faith spoke with quiet firmness. Grace subsided. She closed her mouth and looked at her sister with eyes so vulnerable it almost broke Faith’s heart. She reached out and clasped both of Grace’s hands in her own. “I don’t know why his lordship was here, or what you said to each other, but I do know that I’ve never heard you cry like you did this morning after he left.” Her eyes were filled with solemn sympathy, her voice full of gentle compassion.

  Grace felt her resolve to remain strong crumble against the love and soft understanding on her sister’s face. Slowly, in stops and starts, she told Faith what had happened, leaving nothing out, blushing only a bit as she described in a small, trembling voice the intimacies she had shared with Trevor. When she finished, she looked helplessly at her bemused younger sister.

  Faith was silent for a long moment, staring out the window in deep thought before turning back to face Grace. “Why aren’t you angry with him?” she asked.

  Grace gave her a blank look.

  “After all, he’s treated you abominably, and with no apparent reason. It just isn’t like you to simply accept—” She broke off. She looked into her sister’s eyes in sudden comprehension, for the answer was there for all the world to see. Faith caught her breath. “Oh, Grace.” She sighed. “You’ve only just realized you’re in love with him.”

  Grace closed her eyes and nodded miserably.

  Faith sat quietly for a moment, staring with heavy eyes at the rumpled bed in which her sister had cried out her heart only hours before. She glanced at Grace out of the corner of her eye, taking in the dejected air so foreign to her feisty older sister. She knew she had to do something.

  Briskly she stood up. “All right, so you love Lord Caldwell. What do you plan to do about it?” She kept her voice deliberately offhand and light.

  “Do?” Grace repeated numbly, her eyes widening.

  Faith nodded decisively. “Of course. You want to get him back, don’t you?”

  That alarming statement brought Grace surging to her feet. “No!” Her voice rang out, shrill with alarm. “I don’t ever want to see him again!”

  “You’re giving up?” Faith scoffed. “You’ll simply allow him to waltz in here in the middle of the night, treat you that . . . that way, and then just let him walk off?” She peered intently into Grace’s face with mock concern. “I guess that fever took more out of you than we thought,” she said. “Why, the Grace Ackerly I thought I knew would never stand for that sort of treatment. At the very least, he owes you an explanation.”

  “But he doesn’t want me,” said Grace, exasperation and pain on her face.

  Faith shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said. She walked over to the door, where she paused with her hand on the knob. “But if you ask me . . .”

  “I didn’t,” said Grace crossly.

  “. . . I’d say that Trevor Caldwell probably loves you, too, and with an intensity that would astound you.” She opened the door and started to leave, but turned back again at Grace’s flat, misery-filled voice.

  “You’re wrong, Faith,” she said. “It was all just a game to him. He doesn’t care for me at all.” She looked dully across the room at her sister.

  Faith felt her heart break again, but her voice remained firm. “Of course he does, Grace. Only someone very much in love could hurt deeply enough to do what he did to you last night.” With a final encouraging smile, Faith left the room, closing the door on her sister’s stunned expression.

  The object of their conversation was ensconced in his library at the house in Upper Brook Street, methodically imbibing fine French brandy from an ornate crystal decanter that had once belonged to a Russian prince. A matching bottle lay ignominiously on its side beneath his chair, already emptied of the whiskey it had contained. He sat precariously perched on the edge of the red leather armchair, his feet widely spaced, his elbows propped upon his knees, and his spinning head buried in his hands. He tried, unsuccessfully, to block the
image of a shattered, red-haired angel, her sapphire eyes brimming with anguished tears, silently beseeching him not to leave her. He had begun to think that nothing short of death itself would ever wipe that image from his mind. As soon as that thought left his mind, he realized that even death might not bring respite, for he was perfectly certain he would spend eternity in his own personal hell, forced to relive, over and over, each moment he had ever spent with Grace. He groaned and slumped back in the chair with a muffled curse.

  Gareth Lloyd, the Earl of Seth’s brother, found him like that when Wilson showed him into the library at half past ten. All of the curtains were drawn, casting the room in a gloomy semidarkness. The only light emanated from a stubby candle that sputtered on the table beside Trevor’s chair. Gareth looked at his friend in amazement, then walked to the nearest window and reached for the curtains, intending to open them and let in some light.

  “Don’t!” Trevor’s voice rang out, harsh and unnaturally loud in the oppressive air of the still room. Gareth turned in surprise. Trevor straightened in his seat and reached for the decanter. He refilled his glass unsteadily, sloshing a bit of the amber liquid over the rim and onto the shining surface of the polished mahogany tabletop. “Care for a drink?” he slurred, holding the decanter toward Gareth, who shook his head. Trevor shrugged and put the bottle back on the table with a clumsy thud. “Fine,” he said. “More for me.”

  Gareth calmly seated himself in the red leather chair opposite Trevor’s. “May I ask why you seem bent on self-destruction at such an early hour, my lord?”

  Trevor closed his eyes and leaned his head back, his face a mask of bitter remorse. “My God, I hurt her!” His voice was harsh with self-recrimination.

  Gareth looked curiously around the dim room, half expecting to see a sobbing, huddled female form in some shadowy corner. He had never seen his friend so distraught, especially over a woman. “Who did you hurt, Hunt?” he finally asked.