‘It must have been painful for you to know that.’ Spencer broke the quiet between them, distracting Grace from her concern. ‘To think of him with another.’
‘Yes.’ Grace’s voice was small. Pain did indeed still flicker within her, but not born of jealousy. It was the effortless way she had been disregarded that stung, bolstering her knowledge of just how far she had fallen and what she had lost.
‘You must have cared for him.’
‘I did.’ She nodded, although Spencer didn’t look down to see it. They were almost at Nevin Place, just in time to close the door on the first frost of nightfall. ‘He was the first man who made me feel desired—even if it was all an act. I don’t know if any woman would forget her first love, especially when her notoriety makes it so unlikely she will ever have another.’
Or her own sensible thinking, Grace finished privately. I won’t make that mistake again.
They drew into the close of imposing houses with quiet steps, the only other sound those of a couple behind them. As the elderly man and wife moved to pass by they stared at Spencer with disapproval so clear Grace risked a swift glance up at his face, although what she saw there she couldn’t quite tell.
It was no wonder Dorothea worried for him, Grace mused sadly. There was so much going on behind that blank façade, so much suffering he must be keeping inside. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him why he felt he must live a life of such determined loneliness, so set on fulfilling the rumours of his unfriendliness as he had that very evening, when a pounding of feet on the pavement in front of them signalled the approach of Thorne, her face pale and eyes stretched wide with wordless horror it took both only a split second to understand.
* * *
As soon as he entered Dorothea’s bedchamber, Spencer knew.
A sheen of sweat across his mother’s brow gleamed dimly in the firelight, the reflection of the flames flickering in the dulled curve of her eyes. They turned towards him as he approached, crinkled slightly at the corners as she tried to smile, but the sparkle had left them and in a moment of pure, crystal realisation Spencer knew he would never see it again.
Dorothea’s fingers found his hand, snaking into his palm with shocking coldness. ‘I think the time draws near.’
No. It can’t be. Not yet.
Time seemed to have slowed, each second stretching into an eternity as he looked at her, his throat too dry for any words and his chest squeezed in breathless agony as though held in an unrelenting iron grip.
‘Is Grace with you? Come forward. I would like to see you both clearly.’
He only dimly heard the swish of Grace’s skirts as she moved to kneel at the other side of the bed, reaching immediately to take hold of Dorothea’s other hand. Her face contained a complex mix of powerful gentleness and such sweet sorrow it would have taken Spencer’s breath away, had his lungs not already burned within the prison of his ribs.
It was the strangest of comforts to know he was not alone, that it wasn’t just he who heard Dorothea’s rattling breaths or saw how her chest rose and fell with visible effort. Grace was with him in the terrible silence that he was unable to fill, radiating compassion he actually felt deep inside him as well as saw, but he pushed that consolation aside in confusion as he shook his head. There had never been a time when his weakness for Grace’s disturbing presence was less appropriate and the touch of agitation helped him find his tongue.
‘Don’t speak like that. Doctor Sharp told me only yesterday how pleased he was with your progress. I’ve sent for him. He will be here within a half hour.’
A short, painful sound escaped Dorothea’s dry lips that it took Spencer a moment to realise was a laugh. ‘Spencer, you have never been a fool. Don’t start now.’ She squeezed his fingers gently. ‘I think we all knew there would never be any way back for me.’
The urge to deny her words rose within Spencer like a boiling tide, tempting him to argue despite the truth he knew he was powerless to change. She was right. Of course, she always was, damn it. His mother was dying, her time on earth growing shorter by the moment, and there was nothing he could do to stop her from slipping away to join William and his father and leave him alone in the silent house that would feel so empty without her.
Dorothea’s dim eyes met his and it was as though she could read his thoughts as easily as the pages of a book.
‘I wish I didn’t have to leave you. I’d do anything to spare you the sorrow I can see already in your face.’
He almost flinched away from the pain in her voice. ‘Think nothing of me. Is there anything I can bring to you? Anything I can do that might make you more comfortable while we wait for the doctor?’
Even as he spoke Spencer knew his questions were pointless, the steady chill of dread growing ever colder in his gut. Out of the corner of his eye he could just make out the vaguest blur of Grace’s slender figure kneeling breathlessly a few steps away, one hand never leaving Dorothea’s and the other softly stroking the thin hair back from his mother’s forehead in a movement so tender it brought a lump to his throat. If there was anything they could do to ease her passing, he knew with sudden certainty, Grace would help him without a moment’s hesitation. Her affection for Dorothea was plain for anybody to see, and Spencer knew it was only with great determination that her obvious emotion was held in check.
‘There’s only one thing I would ask of you. Just one thing, if I thought I dared.’ Mrs Dauntsey’s mouth attempted to curve into a hesitant smile and Spencer felt his own lips twist in a wordless grimace as he bent closer to hear the low-spoken words. ‘I fear it would not please you, however, and I would so hate for us to quarrel at this pass.’
Redoubling his grip on her hand, Spencer gritted his teeth. Grace’s careful fingers still smoothed the lank curls, her cool touch no doubt blissful against burning skin, and Spencer felt the muscles of his jaw tighten with sudden force.
If nothing else, I will always be grateful for Grace’s kindness during this terrible night. How many people would know how to tend a dying woman with such instinctive care?
It was only more proof of the good heart he already knew lay beneath her quiet surface, but fresh admiration flared inside him and would not be repressed. There was nobody else he would have chosen to be with him in that moment and the knowledge rocked him to his foundation.
‘Surely you know you can ask anything of me. Name it. Whatever you wish for, name it, and I swear it will be done.’
A beat of silence descended that none of the three people in the warm, candlelit room broke with anything other than the sound of slow, laboured breathing.
‘Are you quite certain you ought to make that promise before you hear my request?’
Spencer nodded gravely, too full of a wild tumult of feelings to think any further than granting his mother the final favour she would ever ask. ‘Completely. If it is in my power, I will do whatever you ask.’
‘Even if it means putting aside your own wishes? Taking a path for my sake you would not have chosen for yourself?’
‘Even then.’
Dorothea sighed, the tiniest sound so bizarrely like relief it made Spencer’s frown deepen further.
‘And you, Grace?’ The dim gaze shifted to look to the other side. ‘You said once if there was anything you could do to help me all I would have to do is ask. Is that still true?’
Grace’s voice came as a thin thread, the anguish in it forcing a shard of glass between Spencer’s ribs.
‘Yes. Anything.’
‘Your word is still mine to use as I believe best?’
‘Always.’
His mother’s cracked lips stretched into another painful smile.
‘Then I have a request to make of you, Grace. A task I’d charge you with, if you would accept it.’
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Grace’s resolute nod, absolute determination in e
very line of her delicate profile. ‘I’ll accept, Dorothea. Whatever it is, whatever you ask of me, I swear now I will do anything to ease your mind.’
‘Very well.’ Dorothea’s eyes fluttered closed, for all the world as though steeling herself to take a leap of faith into the unknown. There was another moment of perfect quiet. Then:
‘Spencer—I wish for you to marry Grace. Here, tonight, in my rooms. I ask you be a good husband to her as she has been a friend to me in my last weeks, making my life so much sweeter. Grace, in return I ask you would guide Spencer from the darkness he has chosen and back into the light, towards the life both of you ought to be living.’
A sharp intake of breath came from opposite him and Spencer’s head snapped up to look at the woman who sounded as though she struggled to breathe. Her eyes flashed wide and one hand leapt up to press against her chest as though she could scarcely comprehend what she had heard, just as he himself was filled with horrified confusion, and he turned back to his mother with a hundred questions roaring up within him. He stared at her for a long moment, hardly trusting himself to reply.
‘You want me to—what?’
‘You heard me perfectly well. It is my senses that grow dim, not yours.’ Dorothea swallowed painfully, eyes still firmly shut. ‘It is my dearest wish you marry Grace, Spencer, for the good of both of you. I don’t know what happened on the day Will passed, but you have never been the same since. I would die with a smile on my lips if I knew for certain you wouldn’t spend the rest of your years alone with your grief and regrets.’
She broke off, evidently tired by the effort of speaking. Spencer sensed Grace’s frozen form now standing immovably beside the bed, one hand still twined around Dorothea’s, but the other clutched at the bodice of her gown. She must have leapt to her feet in shock—hardly surprising, given the turn of events neither one of them could have predicted.
He didn’t raise his head to look at her directly; with a flicker of shame he realised he didn’t dare. What expression of dismay, disgust, abject horror would be etched on to the pallor of her face? Surely she was as shocked by his mother’s request as he was, the very idea of marrying him one she might have laughed at had the notion not been so jarring. She would never entertain the idea, he was certain, and besides, he baulked at the suggestion of allowing her—or anyone—into the silent misery his life had become two years before, the mention of Will’s name only adding to the roiling swirl of emotion Spencer was not sure he could endure. He’d entertained the idea of marriage only once before and it had led to a catastrophe that woke him each night to bathe him in cooling sweat.
It was absurd, impossible—
And yet we swore we would grant any request. How could we have been so foolish?
Still refusing to lock eyes with the woman who stood mere feet away, her tense frame close enough for him to caress with wondering fingertips should he stretch out one arm, he took a breath. The strange desires Grace roused in him were exactly what made her more dangerous than any other woman, her gentle nature and determined spirit an intoxicating combination that called to the last vestiges of vulnerability suffering had yet to rip from him.
‘It never crossed my mind to marry.’ He could barely utter the words, so tightly had his jaw frozen in dismay, choking him with every syllable.
‘I know. You thought to live alone with only a bottle for company, slowly drinking yourself into an early grave.’ There was an edge to Dorothea’s thin voice. ‘I can’t allow it.’
Damn it all. Spencer swore beneath his breath and ran a hand distractedly through the riot of his hair. Had he truly been so transparent? If his mother possessed a crystal ball, it wouldn’t have surprised him—her summation of his plans for the future was uncannily accurate.
He forced himself at last to turn to Grace in desperation.
‘Surely you have some opinion of all this? How can you stand so quietly?’
Grace blinked at him, her eyes wide with unspoken bewilderment. No doubt a hundred thoughts ran through her sharp mind, he thought in reluctant admiration, but apparently none of them had made it as far as her mouth, for she said nothing before his mother nodded in Grace’s direction with firm finality.
‘Grace is an intelligent woman who will appreciate the merits of such a marriage. She will be well provided for. I do not intend to be cruel, dear Grace, when I say it is unlikely your circumstances will allow you to receive such an offer again.’ Dorothea spoke as gently as her dry throat would allow and Spencer saw Grace swallow painfully. ‘Take the chance in front of you, honour the promise you made me and see if between the two of you there might be some happiness to be found in life after all.’
The suggestion of any kind of happiness resulting from his mother’s scheme was so unlikely Spencer had to fight the urge to bark a grim laugh. That allowing Grace Linwood to share his house, his life—his bed, he thought with a sudden pang of that unnamed something she so often managed to make glimmer within him—could bring any improvement to his future was unthinkable. They had nothing in common, aside from the desire to spend as little time in each other’s company as possible—what kind of a basis was that for a marriage? If the sculpted curves of her cheekbones and jaw brought forward thoughts he hadn’t expected to ever have again it should mean nothing; surely no good could come of indulging them, history sure to repeat itself should he allow it the chance. And Grace herself—hadn’t she as good as told him she never intended to wed another after Henry had disappointed her so cruelly?
No woman forgets her first love. Those were the words she had spoken only this evening.
Despite the horror and bewildering agony of their current circumstances Spencer couldn’t suppress a sudden pinch of something uncomfortably close to jealousy at the memory, a sharp dig he could have done without. For a man so unworthy as Henry to be permitted a space in Grace’s heart was surely unfair when there might be other men more deserving, but that wasn’t something on which he should dwell, instead needing to consider the shocking proposal laid out before him.
Apparently, however, his mother hadn’t finished. ‘Grace has made my final weeks so much more comfortable. Would you repay her by allowing her to remain a costly worry to her mama and left with no real prospects of anything more? When you had the means to save her?’
Spencer rubbed his forehead with a rough hand.
She makes a good point on that score, at least.
The company of a lively young woman had brought such obvious respite to the darkness of his mother’s final weeks, meeting a need Spencer had been powerless to fill himself. Laughter had been heard coming from her formerly lonely chambers and nothing could have been more pleasing to him than the new brightness he had seen in the clouded eyes that matched the colour of his own.
And her actions tonight? Helping to comfort a woman in her last hours?
Another thrill of that appreciation crackled through his veins as he thought of the gentle sorrow on Grace’s countenance that very night, as she had stroked damp curls with such care it had made it difficult for him to breathe.
Surely she deserves your help now. More so than anybody.
‘You are the only one left.’ Dorothea’s voice was barely a murmur now. ‘My only son, the last of the Dauntseys. Don’t let our family fade because of the secrets I know you keep inside.’
The muscles of Spencer’s throat squeezed tighter, but he could find no words to reply.
She was right. The image of his father’s dying smile flashed before him, followed closely behind by the last memory he had of Will: stretched out on the muddy ground, eyes wide and staring and his red uniform shredded to blood-drenched ribbons. Soon those final pictures would be joined by one of his mother, lying still and white and leaving him entirely alone.
Grace’s low entreaty interrupted the dizzying train of his thoughts. ‘But, Dorothea, consider. Even if we were to marry—’ She broke off
for a moment. Spencer caught the swiftest of glances in his direction, a flick of storm-cloud grey that somehow managed to quicken the already racing pulse of his heart. ‘We cannot do it here. There must be banns, an arrangement made for a church service...’
‘Not so.’ Despite the tightly drawn set of her features Dorothea managed to look quietly triumphant. ‘I took the liberty of procuring a marriage certificate for just such an occasion. If you are married in the Quaker faith, we can perform the ceremony right here in my chamber. All you require is witnesses and it can be done this very night.’
Both watching faces slackened in surprise, neither able to immediately find a reply.
‘You’ve had this planned for some time.’ Spencer raised a wry eyebrow in something close to unwilling admiration. ‘Everything neatly taken care of.’
He turned his head to Grace, taking in the stiff arrangement of her limbs and the dusky hint of colour that flared across her cheeks. She was dignified in her silence, only the rapid flit of her pulse at the base of her slender neck a clue as to the whirling of her clever mind. Spencer watched her for a moment and then surrendered to his fate.
‘It would appear we have been outmanoeuvred.’
‘It certainly seems that way.’ Her reply was little more than a whisper, yet she didn’t flinch away. Instead she moved closer, standing so near to the edge of the bed on which he sat Spencer could see the delicate pattern on her dress in perfect detail and how the knuckles of the hand that gripped the other stood out like white pebbles beneath the skin.
He stood abruptly, tracking the upward movement of her eyes as he towered above her. She barely came up to his shoulder, but there was a determined angle to the set of her jaw that made him wonder, with a surprising lack of displeasure, if he might finally have met his match.
Scandalously Wed to the Captain Page 7