“I met your mother once. I think it was during my come out. She kindly rescued me from an over-ardent suitor.”
He gave a soft laugh. “Must run in the family.”
Grace nodded and sighed. He wanted to touch her so badly his heart ached. He did reach for her hand in the darkness of the carriage and laid his hand lightly over it. “I’m afraid she is too frail to go out anymore.” He wondered if milking his mother’s infirmity was morally decrepit of him.
Grace turned her small hand over and laced her fingers between his. “May I call on her? I promise not to tire her.”
“I’m sure she would like that.”
“Perhaps tomorrow afternoon. I have work to do in the morning.”
“Work? What work could Grace Montrose possibly have?”
Her hand twitched under the weight of his. “Shopping and errands. If you time things right and are never at home during the day you can manage to miss most of the people who would normally call and waste your time.”
He laughed. “Shall we look for you at three o’clock? I can arrange to take tea with you as well.”
“Yes, Maria will come too and promise not to say anything distressing.”
This drew no response from the other side of the carriage, so Brand assumed the older lady was asleep. His thumb moved up and down Grace’s delicate thumb and when the carriage drew to a stop he raised her hand in the darkness and kissed the back of it letting it go with the greatest reluctance.
“We are here. Thank you for the ride, ladies.”
“We shall see you tomorrow afternoon then.”
“Perhaps we will meet while riding.” He waved to them as the carriage started forward.
Grace sank back in her seat with a sigh.
“Did you hear that?” Maria asked. “He has met Marlowe and is keeping him to himself.”
“Marlowe?”
“Yes, your playwright. The one you were just in raptures over.”
“Oh but he means to convey my views. That is something. Besides I think Lord Morewood is as good a man as Marlowe and perhaps more interesting. Marlowe would probably be full of himself and his work. Whereas Morewood can discuss Marlowe with great authority and objectivity.”
“I was trying to make a point. You now have the handsomest man in London at your feet and are like to lose him if you insist in discussing great literature instead of paying attention to him. Why did you think I was feigning sleep if not to give you the chance to kiss him.”
Grace laughed then opened her mouth to argue but was in too good a mood. “Point taken,” she said instead.
* * * * *
It was only when Brand was undressing for bed that he found the pieces of card that he had conspired to hide for Grace. They were two halves of a duce of hearts. He felt sorry for the card and wondered why it meant anything to him. Two of hearts. Two Hearts. Was she thinking of his play when she mangled it? He hoped rather she had chosen it from her hand at random. She must have selected it at the end of the game or someone would have noticed it was missing.
He held the pieces and positioned them back together finding them rather symbolic. That was what a writer of romance strove to do, tear his characters apart but then bring them back together. When he recalled his promise to Grace about a change to the play that he had not even discussed yet with Stone he stopped undressing and went back downstairs to the library.
Brand opened the new bottle of ink and jotted down all those pregnant phrases she had gifted him with. Then he began his rewrite of the last scene. Surely it was more noble to admit a fault than to die well and be mourned.
* * * * *
Grace fell into a restful if brief sleep. One where she felt comforted and not alone. Some all-embracing warmth held her through the night. She was disappointed when she awoke at the crack of dawn to discover that it was a quilt rather than Lord Morewood. She got up and read but did not get tired enough to close her eyes again. Finally she put on her green riding habit and went to the stable.
Lightning turned a sleepy eye on her and moved around to face the back of the stall too tired or too much in need of his breakfast to be interested in an early morning excursion. It was just as well. She bridled the mare with only slight discomfort to her hand but tightening the cinch was more difficult to do one-handed. She finally thought she had it well enough and led the mare out to the mounting block. Once on she felt confident of the saddle and moved Dawn out to the street. At this early hour with the houses shrouded in fog and the cart men making their rounds it seemed like an older London and Hyde Park like some great common or heath. She should have a groom with her but the excitement of an early morning ride was in going alone. She had slipped away often like this and no one had even noticed her since most of the nobility slept till noon
Someday when she had gotten tired of London she would move her whole household to the country and it would be nowhere near Greenbrier. Bad enough Wallace was always checking up on her in London. She would never have him for a neighbor. If it were not for Ellen and the children she might never set foot on the estate again.
She loosened the reins and gave Dawn the office to trot. She never met anyone at this hour of the day except an occasional army officer. Hoofbeats behind her caused her to glance over her shoulder but the curtain of fog revealed noting. In fact it magnified the hoof thuds into a fearful sound. She kicked Dawn up to a gallop. The following horse also picked up speed and Grace began to believe she was indeed being pursued and by a highwayman and on a horse with a longer stride than her little mare. She squeezed Dawn’s left side and reined her tightly to push through a hedgerow. It had been a risky request but the lithe animal could turn on a dot and pulled up on the other side blowing lightly. The following horseman passed them but stopped and came pounding back the other way as Grace walked the mare quietly on the turf, not the gravel. The horseman galloped by again. Then just when she thought she was safe he leaped the hedge with a swoosh and landed in front of them like some avenging spirit thrusting itself out of the murk.
“Morewood! What the devil do you mean by scaring me like that?”
He cantered his black beast back to meet her and the young stud caracoled in front of the mare, making her lay back her ears and show her teeth.
“Me scaring you? I was picturing finding you in a heap in one of these foggy hollows. Where is your groom?”
“Probably still in bed. Hanson must be sixty years old and needs his sleep.”
“Unlike you who never seems to sleep. This was very dangerous, Grace.”
“Grace?” she asked as he brought the stud under control and made it walk along beside Dawn.
“Very well, Miss Montrose. Don’t you know there are highwaymen still about?”
“I know it very well. I thought you were one of them.”
“But why did you not scream?”
“It isn’t the first thing I think to do.”
“For that matter why didn’t you scream the night you were attacked at the theater?”
“I have been thinking about that night. I wonder if I was anticipating some such event something dangerous and exciting.”
“You are not saying you enjoyed it?” He glanced sideways at her, the dew that had beaded on his hat spraying off in fine droplets.
“It was something out of my experience, something new.”
“Is there nothing you fear?” He rode with a relaxed posture but a firm rein.
She thought for a moment, passing her life under review. It did not take very long. “Yes, I think there is one thing.”
“And what is that? A fire-breathing dragon. I would really like to know.”
“Nothing.” She enjoyed watching him trying to match his charger’s stride to the dainty steps of her mare.
“What is this? A riddle?”
“No, I am afraid that nothing may happen to me my whole life and I will live out my years as a mere observer of life and die never having done anything.”
Morewood stared
at her, then wet his lips. “So, these solitary rides, they are your release, your freedom.”
“Yes, they are the most exciting thing I do all day. It’s not the same when a groom is with me. For one thing he disapproves of anything beyond a dignified trot.”
“I had thought that you of all women were free to do anything you wished.”
“No, it is not our circumstances that keep us prisoner but ourselves. Because of what society may think or say we are afraid to let things happen to us or even make things happen to us. But riding at dawn in Hyde Park is not much of an adventure. It is unlikely anything dangerous will happen.”
“If you are looking for adventure, lady, I can think of safer occupations than riding hell-for-leather over a foggy park or standing about in Covent Garden at night.”
“How odd. And I do not think of my life as dangerous at all.”
“You have some strange standards. Promise me you will not do this again.”
“Gallop through a foggy landscape? I cannot promise and you have no right to ask. This is my one joy. When it is foggy like this, I imagine I am on the heath and that I can just keep going.”
“What do you mean? Just ride off?” His brows made dark lines of concern over his eyes.
“Yes, I wish I could just set out on an adventure with no notion of where I am going or how it will end.”
He stared at her and a slow smile spread across his face. “I wish I could go with you.”
Grace looked back at him in surprise. “That is not what I expected you to say. I thought you would chide me for my irresponsibility.”
Perhaps we have both been too responsible all our lives,” Brand said. “Let’s do it!”
“What?” Grace reined her mare to a halt. “Are you mad? What would people think?”
“Why, that I had carried you off.” He gestured theatrically toward the west and she scowled at him.
“You’re making fun of my fantasy. I should never have confided in you.” She told her mare to trot on.
“Believe me, you have all my sympathies. I find myself shouldered about by expectant servants who get their noses out of joint if I do anything off-key or out of schedule. It must be worse for you since riding is your only outlet.”
“Other than the theater,” Grace said before she realized what she was revealing.
“But that is someone else’s fantasy.”
“Yes, of course.” She slowed her mare to a walk again and patted its neck.
“I would never expect you to give up this one freedom you have but promise me you will wait for me. I want to be with you when you finally do ride off on an adventure.”
She laughed. “Really? Will you come every morning except when it rains.”
“Every morning.”
“Won’t this curtail your…other activities?” She nudged the mare into a trot as though this ended the conversation but he was at her side in an instant.
“Sometimes I am only coming home at this hour.”
“Oh, I see. Very well, I promise not to ride alone.” She glanced at him and found him smiling. “Do you go to the Montclare ball?”
“No reply was required, so I have not ruled it out. Do you go?”
“Yes, I believe I shall.”
“Would you like me to escort you, keeping in mind that we have by now shared closed carriages so many times another ride together can scarcely increase the gossip. And now that you are renewing your acquaintance with my mother I am sure she will charge me with the task of conveying you.”
“You make me sound like a barrel of beer. Won’t I cramp your style?”
“No, if I decide to retire to the card room, you may take my carriage home and send it back for me.”
“How then can I refuse you? But I accept only for the sake of my even more aged coachman.”
“Speaking of cards, do you go to Lady Oxley’s loo party?”
“I have not been invited,” Grace said.
“I’m surprised, for you are an excellent card player when no one is holding you back.”
“I am not well acquainted with Lady Oxley.”
“Ah that explains it.”
They finished a circuit of the park at a gallop, then she led them through the quiet streets toward her house, walking the mare to cool her. His horse was still jibbing at its bit ready for more action.
When he dismounted in her stable yard his muscular thighs flexed inside his breeches and she found herself staring again. She waited for him to lift her down. With his capable hands about her waist she felt like a fairy alighting on a dew drenched leaf not the cobbled courtyard of her house.
Hanson came out to take the mare, casting Grace a condemning look. The glance he spared for Morewood and the black stud, said that he approved the latter but reserved judgment on the man.
“Until this afternoon, then,” she said as he released her.
“Yes, you don’t plan to fall out a window or anything in the meantime just for the excitement, do you?”
“No, my curiosity scarcely goes that far.”
Brand mounted and left her in a clatter of hooves, the wisp of his horse’s sweat still in the air. Hanson grumbled as he walked her already cool mare. And Grace sprinted up the steps into the house full of hope and joy. Every day they would be together. And he thought she was foolishly brave. Wallace had called her a damned dangerous girl but she had never thought so. She could not imagine that all women did not take some chances. Life would be so dull without.
Even her patronage of the theater would be a ruinous thing to have known—her purchasing of costumes and designing of sets. It suddenly occurred to her that if she were ever to marry her adventures at the Pantheon would have to come to an end. No proper husband would countenance the kind of assistance she gave Mr. Stone. She wondered what Lord Morewood would think of that and decided to save the revelation for if he got bored with her.
She tossed her garments about the room in her eagerness to dress and get to the breakfast table. The day awaited, even more exciting than before. She would see him again in his own setting. And no one could condemn a visit to his mother.
Chapter Five
Brand tugged at his fresh neckcloth as he paced the library. He had prepared his mother for the visit and she seemed to show an avid interest in this young lady he was bringing, ordering her maid to tidy her sitting room and get out her best shawl. Of course she thought Brand was introducing his future wife but it was no such thing. He stopped with a jerk and felt a longing and unutterable sadness that he had not met Grace Montrose before. Was it possible that she could be his future wife, a woman with no apparent intention to marry. That was one of the things he meant to ask her about but he always felt like such a dullard in her presence. Grace controlled the course of their conversation and he was just along for the ride. He should be more bothered by such an uncontrollable woman but he was not.
Her carriage arrived at the front door and it was all he could do to keep from rushing out to meet her. He should not appear too eager. The hell with it. He came into the hall and took her hands before the butler could announce her. Stoddard glared at Brand, his mouth working in a fulminating fashion.
“Are we late?” she asked because of his eager greeting.
“No, I saw you from the library.”
She smiled up at him, her hazel eyes set off by her bronze walking dress.
“May I see it? Your library?”
“Of course. Step this way.” He led her up the stairs to the large room at the front of the house, leaving Stoddard to conduct Maria to his mother.
“Wonderful,” she said as she passed along the shelves scanning the titles.
Normally he paid no attention to how much of a mess he left on his desk but this time he felt grateful that someone, possibly Stoddard, had cleaned up after him and that the large piece of furniture sat in polished splendor. Brand rocked on his heels proudly as she examined his complete collections of Marlowe and Shakespeare. “If you ever want to borrow
anything, just let me know.”
“That is more than generous. I do not like to borrow books but I wanted to know what you read.”
He stared at her, thinking it a strange way to size up a man but grateful that he had passed muster. “Would you like to visit with my mother now?”
“Yes, I have brought her flowers from the market. Maria gave them to a footman.”
They went into the hall prepared to mount the stairs and encountered the butler.
“Stoddard, the tea tray,” Brandon said.
When he led Grace into his mother’s sitting room, Maria was already chatting with her. Grace smiled brightly and went to take his mother’s hand. “You probably don’t remember me,” she said.
“Yes, I do. You were being pursued by that Henley boy at some ball.”
“Yes and you rescued me.” She released his mother’s papery hand and took a seat beside her.
“I broke my fan over his head. Must have driven some sense into him. I hear he is a captain now.”
“Let us hope so,” Grace said and looked around the room littered with the artifacts of a long life in society.
The tea arrived on a cart with a confusing selection of cakes and pastries plus Grace’s beautiful vase of flowers. Brand served the tea and was glad that neither Grace nor Maria thought that was odd. He sat back and half listened to the happy play of conversation and reminiscences. His mother had met Grace’s mother and that topic carried them on for twenty minutes during which he gleaned she had only one brother, somewhat older, who was a managing sort. She was a late child and her parents had lived into their seventies. Except for the unfortunate incident with Henley it seemed that nothing bad had ever happened to Grace. Nothing interesting either. No wonder she craved excitement.
The door cracked open and Thomas Pierce peeked inside. “Can anyone get a cup of tea or must one be invited?”
“Thomas, come in, you scamp,” Lady Morewood said. “Brand, pour our good doctor some tea.”
Brand saw Grace smiling with surprise and said, “Thomas was a schoolmate of mine and now serves as Mother’s physician.”
“Thomas is like a second son to me and doesn’t neglect me the way Brand does.”
Two Hearts Page 5