The School for Heiresses

by Sabrina Jeffries

  “The truth is?” Ava prompted her.

  Grace looked at her friend and groaned unhappily. “Heaven help me, Ava, but I don’t know the truth! On the one hand, Sir William is everything for which my family has hoped. He’s kind, he’s a gentleman, and soon he will be made a lord. Yet on the other hand, there is Mr. Adlaine, who is…is witty,” she said hesitantly. “And handsome. Andquite strong, and really, he’s very skilled with textile mills.”

  “Mills?”Ava repeated.

  “Yes, mills! He’s built one practically from the floor up, and it’s very successful!”

  “I’m certain that it is,” Ava said with a frown. “But it is amill, dearest.”

  At Grace’s look of surprise, Ava sighed and shook her head. “Please don’t misunderstand me, Grace. I think it a perfectly fine occupation…but your family has desired a match with a titled man who has no need of work to provide his living. Your Mr. Adlaine is the very opposite of that.”

  “I hardly need reminding,” Grace said morosely. Honestly, there wasn’t a day that passed she didn’t think of it. She’d lost sleep from thinking of it.

  “You are being unfair to both men,” Ava continued.

  With a roll of her eyes, Grace plucked at the upholstery and asked, “What is fair about making a match?”

  But she understood Ava’s point, and in fact, Ava had only spoken aloud a dilemma that had been playing deep in Grace’s heart and mind.

  That dilemma was not eased as Christmas neared. Sir William became more attentive and solicitous, and one afternoon, in her parlor with Mrs. Wells close by, pretending not to hang on every word—but almost falling off her seat as she strained to hear what was being said—Sir William said low, “There is something I should like to give you when we next meet.”

  “Oh?” Grace asked, raising a brow.

  He smiled, put his hand over hers and squeezed affectionately. He never took liberties with her, never touched more than her hand. Barrett, however, touched her far more than was decent, but God help her, she enjoyed the caress of that man’s hand—it stoked a fire in her, one that always seemed to burn dangerously out of control.

  “It is a surprise. Would you allow me to call the day after the morrow before Montgomery’s Christmas assembly?” Sir William asked, referring to the annual assembly Lord and Lady Montgomery hosted to usher in the Christmas season.

  From the corner of her eye, Grace caught sight of Mrs. Wells turning partially toward them, the smile on her face bright with anticipation.

  But a knot was forming in Grace’s belly. “The Montgomery assembly?”

  Sir William chuckled. “You are toying with me, Miss Holcomb. I know very well you have been invited. If you will allow it, I should be very pleased to escort you.”

  Something to give her? He desired to escort her? Why, that would certainly give the entireton the impression that he intended to offer for her. Grace should have been elated. But she wasn’t. She was mortified. Panicked. Feeling like a cornered fox with no place to run. “Oh,” she said, trying very hard not to squirm. “How very kind.”

  Sir William looked a little surprised by her vague response. Mrs. Wells, however, turned fully toward Sir William with her ridiculous beaming grin and said, “She would bedelighted, sir.”

  Sir William looked questioningly at Grace. “Of course, I am,” she said instantly, forcing a smile. She hated herself for being so weak, for allowing her father, through Mrs. Wells, to dictate the course of her life for even a moment, much less for all the days to come. Yet she remained perfectly polite and docile, just as she had been trained from the cradle to do.

  But inside, she was churning—her mind was racing, plotting how she might escape this room and these two smiling faces, how she might run as far and as fast as she could from what had been destined to be her fate since she could remember: marrying a man of wealth and title, all to legitimize her father’s status.

  Sir William seemed to notice her discomfort, because he politely squeezed her hand again. “Miss Holcomb?”

  “I should be delighted,” she said again. “But if you will excuse me, sir…I have a bit of a headache.”

  “Of course,” he said instantly, and gained his feet. He was a gentleman and perfect for her, absolutely perfect. But as Grace walked out of the room, nothing felt even remotely perfect.

  Eleven

  Barrett paced the floor of Dewar’s salon the morning of the Montgomery assembly, anxiously awaiting a reply to the note he’d sent to Grace. Dewar, who had earlier proclaimed he’d never known Adlaine to be the sort easily smitten, laughed at his old friend behind the newspaper he was reading.

  “What?” Barrett demanded.

  Dewar lowered the paper. “Nothing at all…other than you quite remind me of a colt who can scarcely wait to be let out of his pen and given his head.”

  Barrett scowled and walked to the window, peering down the street for any sign of Betty, their courier of choice.

  “One would think a man as anxious as you appear to be might give in to his feelings and ask for the woman’s hand,” Dewar added.

  Barrett shot a look over his shoulder at Dewar, but he’d raised the paper again…although Barrett guessed, from the way the paper shook, that he was enjoying another laugh at his expense.

  Damn Dewar. Damn the world. He couldn’t help how he felt about Grace Holcomb. He couldn’t help that he thought of nothing but her, went to sleep with her smile in his mind’s eye and spent most of his waking moments remembering her scent, the satin feel of her skin, the way she laughed and walked and spoke.

  Dewar was right, of course—a man this besotted should certainly offer, and there was nothing Barrett wanted more. Yet there was something that held him back, nothing more than a feeling, really—but a general malaise, a disquiet in him that arose from an uncertainty he could not seem to put down. He and Grace had not spoken of his intention. Her reason for being in London was quite clear to him, but surely, he thought, she had since changed her mind. How could she not? How could she not feel and want the same thing he did?

  He caught sight of Betty trudging down the lane. He quit the room and his chuckling friend to meet her.

  It was a cold and blustery afternoon, but nonetheless, Barrett strode through Cumberland Gate at Hyde Park, where Grace had agreed to meet him, and saw her standing to one side. He instantly felt his heart lift.

  “You are blue,” he said with alarm. “I should see you home.”

  “No, no,” she said, smiling. “Let us walk. That shall warm me.”

  As they walked, they talked like old friends—sometimes it seemed to Barrett that he’d always known Grace, perhaps as well as he’d known himself. They took a path that wound around to a small rose garden, built around an old observatory tower that had been closed off to the public. There were no roses to admire—it was too cold for the blooms. But neither of them minded the chill or the lack of foliage, as long as they had one another’s company.

  As they wandered around, they came to the door of the old observation tower. Grace paused, tilted her head back, and looked up to the top, about five stories high. “Why is it closed, do you suppose?”

  “A precaution, I would assume. It is an old structure and perhaps it is not sound.”

  Grace gave him a sidelong look. “Would you like to see London from the top of the world?”

  He smiled conspiratorially. “Miss Holcomb, do you entice me to lawlessness?”

  “Why, Mr. Adlaine, surely that is notall to which I entice you,” she said, and with a saucy smile, she moved to the tower’s door.

  The door was locked, but Barrett was able to jiggle the lock with a stick and open it. Laughing like two mischievous children, they stepped inside the dark entry to the tower and closed the door. It was musty; cobwebs stretched between the stair bracings. The only light filtered in the small portal windows that followed the curving staircase up to the observation platform. At each floor, there was a small landing and two side-by-side portal w
indows. After Barrett had tested the stairs and proclaimed them sound, they walked up, pausing at each portal, their heads together, peering out.

  At the second floor, Grace rose up on her toes and pressed her nose to the dingy window and looked out at the rose garden. “I think I see my house!” she exclaimed.

  Barrett chuckled. “All of London can see your house. I have no doubt the masses frequently mistake it for the king’s palace.”

  Grace laughed, turned around, and pressed her back up against the wall.

  Her smile was so alluring that Barrett felt in danger of losing his head completely. After weeks of skirting about the fringes of his desire, he could no longer hold it in check. He impulsively put his palm to her cheek; his gaze dipped to her lips.

  Grace took a quick breath and smiled.

  He slipped a hand around her waist and pulled her against his body. Grace sighed and closed her eyes, and Barrett lost his reason.

  He nipped and licked at her lips, but when he slid his tongue into her mouth, a harder desire began to possess him. She was warm and alive beneath his hands, her body responding to his touch, her hands moving up his arms, to his neck, his face.

  He found the tie of her bonnet, and yanked it free, toppling the thing off her head at the same time he thrust his fingers into her auburn hair. She smelled like lilacs; her skin felt like rose petals. He moved his mouth to the lobe of her ear, then her neck, and the soft indentation of her throat, where he could feel her pulse beating wildly beneath his lips.

  He continued to move, sliding down her bosom as his hand found her hip and his fingers dug into the flesh there. With his free hand, he dipped into her décolletage and lifted a breast to his mouth. Above him, Grace gasped with pleasure, fanning the flames that were beginning to engulf them.

  Barrett rose up again, covered her mouth with his, her breast with his hand. Grace melted against him and cupped his face. He groaned with the ache to be inside her, the desire to own her, and the strength it took to restrain himself from doing just that. But he grabbed her by the waist and twirled her around, seating her on one of the steps leading up to the third floor, and going down on his knee, took her breast in his mouth again.

  Above him, Grace plunged her fingers into his hair, then dropped her hands to his shoulders, gripping them. “You drive me mad with want,” he said against her skin, his calloused fingers holding her breast reverently. “Would that you were mine, Grace.” He caressed her leg, sliding his hand down to her ankle, and then carelessly flipping off her shoe.

  Grace laughed. “I pray you, sir, do not lose my shoe! I’d have a devil of a time explaining that to Mrs. Wells.”

  “I shall buy you all the shoes in London,” he said, as he moved his hand to her ankle and up, to her calf.

  She was watching him, drawing a breath when he slid his hand up her calf, her eyelids fluttering when he moved his hand to the soft skin on the inside of her knee. “Dare I ask what you intend to do?”

  He said nothing, just kept his gaze steady on hers as he moved his hand to her thigh. Grace’s smile faded; she drew another, shaky breath, but she did not speak or look away.

  Emboldened by her silence, Barrett moved his hand up further still, to the apex of her legs, his fingers on the slit of her drawers. Now Grace drew her bottom lip between her teeth.

  “Do I frighten you?” he asked.

  Grace slowly leaned back, bracing her elbows on the step at her back. “The only thing that frightens me is how easily I submit to your touch.”

  Oh God—nothing could stop him. He withdrew his hand and gathered the yards of wool that made her gown and pushed it up, over her knees, so that her drawers and stockings were revealed to him.

  Her breathing began to come much faster, her chest lifting with each breath.

  “I cannot bear to be near you and not touch you,” he said, and with his gaze steady on hers, he slipped his fingers into the slit of her drawers to feel the springy curls that covered her sex.

  “Oh,”she gasped.

  He moved his fingers deeper, slipping into the wet folds. Her eyes widened, and then closed, and she let her head drop back, revealing her long neck to him. “I will surely go to hell,” she muttered.

  “Never.” She was warm and wet; he stroked her dauntlessly, his fingers glancing against a most sensitive tip, sliding slow and long and back again. He could scarcely bear it, could feel his lust straining at his trousers, could feel the need in him throbbing through every vein.

  When he could stand it no longer, he removed his hand from between her legs and reached for her waist at the same moment he grabbed for her drawers, wrenching them from her body, pushing them down to her knees.

  “No,” Grace said, weakly putting out her hand. “Icannot —”

  “I want to give you pleasure,” he said sternly, and pushed her drawers to her ankles. He lifted her foot and freed her of the drawers, the only barrier between his mouth and her sex.

  Grace knew it, too—as Barrett moved her legs wider apart, she gave a small whimper, but his mind was intent on her body sprawled before him, the sight of her female flesh, the earthy scent that aroused him to madness. He stroked her bare thighs, delighting in her little hiss of breath as he did. Then he lowered his head.

  “Oh no—no,” Grace said, sitting up as he neared her, but when he touched his mouth to her, she moaned. “Oh God. Dear God.”

  He flicked his tongue against her; she gasped and moved forward, widening her legs. With a growl of pleasure, he began to explore her body intimately with his tongue and lips, feasting on her flesh.

  When he drew the small pearl that was at the core of her desire in between his teeth and lips, her fingers sank into his hair and she writhed beneath him, her body surging up to meet his mouth, then away, as if she feared the climax that would come. He had no intention of letting her escape it and greedily pushed her to the brink, almost losing himself as she fell headlong into it, crying out, her hands scraping the old stone walls, her legs squeezing him, her body bucking with pleasure.

  And then she lay still, completely spent, her breathing labored. Barrett sat back on his heels, dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, then used her drawers to wipe her clean. Only then did Grace open her eyes and sit up. Her hair was a tangled mess. She stared at him for a long moment, her affection for him plain.

  She smiled, a lazy, lopsided smile full of satisfaction. “You arewicked, Barrett Adlaine. However shall I explain myself to the world?”

  He grinned. “I haven’t yet begun to show you wicked, Grace Holcomb. And I don’t give a damn how you explain yourself to the world.” He sat on a step, his erection aching…but he was happy, as happy as he’d ever been in his life. Beside him, Grace was busy repairing herself, her cheeks pink with lustful delight.

  “Grace,” he said, taking her hand. “I have something for you.”

  She glanced up with a sheepish smile. “I think you have given me quite enough,” she said with a little laugh, and playfully nudged him with her shoulder.

  He laughed, but withdrew the small box from his pocket and held it out to her.

  Instead of exclaiming with delight as he had supposed she might do, her face fell. She stopped in her attempt to repair her appearance and stared at the box. “I don’t…”

  “It is a Christmas gift,” he said, thinking that perhaps she had misunderstood.

  “A gift.”

  Barrett held it out to her, not understanding. “Foryou, Grace.”

  She tried to smile, but couldn’t quite seem to master it, and he felt the first of several stabs of pain to his heart. She reluctantly took the box and opened it.“Oh,” she breathed, her hand going to her throat where her cross had once hung. She looked up at him, her eyes wide with surprise. “How did you know?”

  “That you lost your cross? I see everything about you, don’t you know? Don’t you know that I cannot take my eyes from you, that I cannot think of anything but you?”

  She looked at the gold c
ross again, and tears welled in her eyes. “Barrett…it isbeautiful. ”

  He smiled, pleased that she liked it.

  But when she shifted her gaze to him, her eyes were full of sadness—not joy. “I cannot accept it.”

  His heart plummeted, crashing headlong to the ground. “What? Why not?” he demanded roughly.

  “Because,” she said sadly, and closed the box, thrusting it back at him as tears slipped down her cheek. “To accept a gift would imply…” She stopped, closed her eyes and swallowed.

  “Implywhat ?” he demanded.

  “That there is more to our friendship than there can be.”

  Dumbfounded, Barrett didn’t know which enraged him more—that she would call this a friendship after what had just happened between them? Or that, having spent the last few weeks courting her as earnestly as a dog courts his master for a walk, she would proclaim there to be nothing more?

  His anger catapulted him from his seat on the steps to his feet, and he stood at the portal window, one hand on his waist, one pushing through his hair.

  “Barrett, please don’t be cross,” she said behind him, but that small admonishment broke something inside of him.

  He whirled around; she recoiled at the expression on his face. “Don’t becross ?” he echoed angrily. “Will you at least do me the honor of telling mewhy there can be no more than ourfriendship ?”

  “You know why—”

  “No, I donot know why!” he bellowed. “Everything has changed, Grace! I know what your father wants for you, but do you really want that for yourself? I know you don’t—I know that you cannot have been so accepting of my affection and not understood my intent!”

  Grace quickly gained her feet, stooping down to pick up her bonnet. “I should go.”

  She started past him, but Barrett grabbed her arm.

  “Unhand me!” she gasped.