My Saving Grace

by Harmon, Danelle

  And doing something about it.

  That was no accident, he wanted to retort. It was deliberate sabotage and I’ll be paying a visit to that despicable lout before the day is ended, mark my words.

  She was watching him, innocent and unaware. Waiting.

  “Well?” she persisted. “Protecting me from what?”

  “Everything. It can be treacherous, getting out of an unstable boat and onto stairs such as those.”

  “And you had a firm grip on me.”

  “And still you came to mishap.”

  “So my gown got caught on the oarlock or something. It’s not such a big thing, is it?”

  Del looked away, drumming his fingers on his kneecap in rising agitation.

  “I didn’t trip, nor did l fall into the sea, and here we are, safely on our way to this horse farm of your brother’s.” She looked at him in that characteristic, bird-like way she had, of leaning her head to one side and regarding him with eyes as bright as a sparrow’s. “Is he very much like you, Captain Lord?”

  “Are you trying to take my thoughts off what happened back there?”

  She grinned. The coach tilted a bit as trunks were loaded, and he heard Jimmy Thorne loudly talking to the driver and volunteering his services against highwaymen, thieves and the like— no doubt for the sake of impressing Polly.

  “I might be,” she allowed. “Or, I might simply be wishing to learn more about your family, since we’ll be spending time with them. Aunt Maeve says that your brother keeps lots of animals. I like animals. Especially cats. Well, that’s not quite fair, because I like dogs, too. And horses. Your brother raises racehorses, does he not?”

  “Yes, purported to be the fastest horses in the world.”

  “Oh! I wonder if I might ride one!”

  Del shut his eyes and rubbed at his temple with two fingers.

  “What?” she asked playfully.

  “Given your propensity for mishap, I don’t think that’s a good idea. These are spirited animals, and—”

  “Pah! I’m a confident rider with an excellent seat. Perhaps you might join me, Captain? Take me for a tour of this estate?”

  “To be quite honest, Lady Grace, I’ve never been to my brother’s home, so I’m not sure I’m the best person to show you around it. I was at sea when he married and moved to Norfolk. I’ve not been back to England in some years. I haven’t even met his wife or children. It will be good to see Colin again, but I’d also like to visit my parents and sisters in Hampshire before we head back to Barbados.”

  At the mention of Barbados, something in her face fell. It was ever so slight, but Del noticed it.

  She gave him no time to ponder it. Immediately she was right back to her perky, chipper self. “Your parents live in Hampshire?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have they always?”

  “For the most part. My father is a retired admiral so he was off at sea a lot, but the family pile is near Hambledon, in the downs.”

  “Did you grow up there?”

  “I did. Partially at least, as I’ve reached an age where I can say that the first half of my life was spent at home and the second half at sea, in almost equal proportions.”

  “And how old are you?”

  Despite the righteous anger he felt on her behalf, he felt himself softening. It was impossible to be in a bad mood with Lady Grace around. Impossible to resist her attempts to pull him out of that bad mood. Now, a smile tugged at his mouth, and he was helpless to prevent it.

  “You’re asking my age?”

  Her eyes were sparkling. “I am.”

  “I’d be crucified if I asked that question of a lady.”

  “Well, you’re not a lady, so I can ask it. Besides, I don’t mind if you ask my age. In fact, I’ll spare you the trouble. I’ve recently celebrated my twenty-first birthday. Your turn.”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  “Oh!”

  “Oh?”

  “I, um, thought you were... older, that’s all.”

  “Milady!” Polly gasped.

  Older? “And why do you say that?” Del asked rather stiffly, trying to staunch the bleeding wound she had just rent in his vanity.

  “Because you are so very, very serious. As if you wear the weight of the world on your shoulders. It makes you seem much older, really.”

  He blinked, not quite expecting that.

  “Would you agree?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Polly, what do you think?”

  “Oh, milady, I couldn’t begin to offer an opinion.”

  Del tugged at his mouth, at the helpless grin that lurked there. “I will concede a victory,” he said slowly, “But do give me a bit of leeway. My father had certain expectations of his sons, and both he and the Navy were strict disciplinarians. When one has a large ship to oversee, and the safety and welfare of everyone aboard it including the admiral, rests on one’s shoulders, there’s not much room for frivolity.”

  “Oh, I’m not advocating for frivolity,” she said brightly and with a little flutter of her hand. “That would be most unbecoming in a man, let alone a naval officer. But I might have to find some ways to get you to... well, to relax, just a bit,” she mused, tapping a finger against her mouth while allowing her eyes to sparkle with a sudden impishness as her gaze lifted to his. Her voice gentled. “It’s not good to take yourself so seriously, you know. Life becomes much more interesting and fun when you do not.”

  He pondered that, still oddly relieved that it was his demeanor that had aged him in her eyes, not his looks.

  “Well,” he said, “That is good to hear, then. I was about to start checking for gray hairs.”

  She laughed. Despite himself he allowed a little smile as well, and something moved between them, warm and intimate and impossible to ignore. She blushed and looked down. He remained gazing at her for another moment, admiring the curve of her cheek, the way her fine blue eyes had shone as she’d playfully flirted with him and drawn him out of his bad mood.

  She looked up then, caught him gazing at her with fondness and admiration, and this time, did not look away.

  “Well,” she finally said, holding his gaze. “I got you smiling again.”

  “So you did.”

  A moment later the vehicle dipped as both Jimmy Thorne and the driver clambered aboard. He clucked to his team, the coach gave a sudden jolt and began to move.

  They were on their way.

  24

  So she’d thought of him as old.

  Old!

  Just how old did his demeanor make him appear? To her? To others? Had Connor Merrick been right all along after all? Connor who’d worked hard to get him to “live a little,” mocking his strict adherence to protocol, uniform code, the expectations of a Royal Navy officer?

  Connor who, having worn Del down and found a hole in his rigid comportment one hot and sweltering Caribbean afternoon when the idea had finally become too delicious to resist, finally convinced him to climb the schooner Kestrel’s rigging and take turns leaping into the sea just for fun?

  Fun.

  Fun?

  He pondered that. And wondered if “fun” and “old” were compatible, and if the removal of the former from one’s life produced the latter, because he certainly wasn’t in the business of seeking “fun.”

  But...

  Old?

  How old might Lady Grace have thought him to be if he didn’t carry such a heavy weight of responsibility, if he were not modeling everything he’d been groomed to believe an officer should be? If he, like Connor, behaved with unfettered abandon?

  And had fun?

  That afternoon when Connor had challenged him to leap from the rigging seemed like another lifetime ago. Indeed, it had only been several months.

  Two people now, who were advising him to... to what? Go soft? Behave like a young lad? A man without responsibilities?

  What, exactly, did they mean?

  He sat there wondering whether he should be
grateful for this mutual observation or irritated, and directed his gaze out the window so as to give his thoughts free rein to decide.

  And saw Akers.

  Irritation won, and he forgot about any fleeting inclinations to improve himself.

  Just outside, Akers was on a chestnut gelding and chatting to Ponsonby. They were laughing at something, sitting their horses with an ease that Del knew he lacked. Anger chewed at the ends of his carefully cultivated aplomb. He turned away, the good mood that Lady Grace had coaxed from him too fragile to withstand the sight of that sniveling little snot just outside. It had taken everything he had not to confront Akers right there on the landing after Lady Grace had been so unforgivably humiliated. But to accuse the man, to call him out in front of an audience that included the victim herself, would cause the kind of scene that Del did not wish to make.

  He was patient.

  He would deal with this matter at the right time and place.

  His chance finally came when the procession neared Burnham Thorpe, birthplace of the famous Lord Nelson whose acquaintance Del had never had the great fortune to make. It was also the family seat of the Earl of Weybourne whose newly-wedded wife, Letitia, was the sister of Captain Ponsonby himself.

  The countess was working a frisky adolescent colt on a longe line, and when she saw them coming, she hurried toward them, the colt in tow. She was vivacious and bright and invited them all in for refreshment but Sir Graham, cooped up in a hot, noisy coach with the twins fighting over who would be the first to ride one of the famous Norfolk Thoroughbreds, was eager to be on his way.

  “We’ll come by for a proper visit before we leave, I promise you,” he said kindly.

  But it was obviously the last stop for Ponsonby. He dismounted, exchanged a few words with the admiral through the open window and leading his horse, headed down the drive with his sister, laughing with her as Akers, still mounted, followed just behind.

  Del’s cool gray eyes missed little, and even from inside the coach he saw the angle of Akers head and knew the lieutenant’s gaze was lingering after Ponsonby as his superior walked in front of him.

  Del reached for the door handle.

  “Captain Lord?”

  “I’ll be but a moment, Lady Grace.”

  He opened the door, stepped down, and strode briskly toward the retreating trio. None were aware of Del’s swift approach from behind.

  “Lieutenant Akers,” Del said coldly. “A word with you in private, if you please.”

  The lieutenant turned and just looked at him, one brow raised, the corner of his mouth turning up in a faint sneer. “Did I forget something, Captain?”

  “No, but I did.”

  Ponsonby and the countess had paused as well. The captain’s face registered confusion but being a gentleman, he allowed Del the moment he requested without questioning it. Del stalked to the shade of a nearby sycamore, drawing Akers well out of earshot of the others. There, he turned to face the man, who was quick to get in the first word.

  “I do not understand why, sir, you must lead me all the way over to this spot when whatever it is you have forgotten, could have been conveyed to me earlier. Why, to go to such measures to—”

  “I saw what you did to Lady Grace and her gown.”

  The words were delivered with the cold challenge of a drawn sword, and something in Akers’s face changed. A momentary panic, of alarm even, and then the smiling facade moved in once more.

  “And just what do you think you saw?”

  “You stepped on her hem when she was about to get out of the boat. You did it on purpose, to humiliate her in front of Ponsonby and to possibly cause an accident.”

  “And why would I do that?”

  “Do I really need to spell it out for you?”

  “Perhaps you should.”

  Del stared at him coldly. “You perceive Lady Grace as a threat, don’t you?”

  Akers blinked. Then his face suffused with color, a scarlet that was on the verge of going purple, and sweat stood out at the roots of his hair.

  “What—what madness!”

  “Is it?”

  Akers’s hand dropped to his sword, and he struggled to maintain his air of ennui. His voice became high with fury. “Your eyes deceive you, Captain Lord. And your tongue, unless it delivers an apology for not one but now two insults, will be your undoing.”

  “Let us not waste words, then. My second will be calling upon yours later this evening.”

  “And he will find him right here where we’re standing.”

  Del did not bow to the other man, nor was that courtesy afforded him. He simply turned his back and walked away. By the time he got back into the coach, he was relaxed and smiling.

  “What did you say to Lieutenant Akers?” Lady Grace asked, her blue eyes wide with confusion.

  “I was merely confirming a breakfast date with the fellow,” Del said, and turned his gaze back to the distant pastures as the driver chirped to the team and the coach got underway once more.

  * * *

  The breeze off the nearby marshes was a respite from the day’s heat, carrying the scent of salt and sea grass, and it blew gaily threw the open windows of the coach. Grace had not been raised near the sea though she had once visited it, and she found the odor heady and exhilarating. She leaned close to the window and closing her eyes in bliss, inhaled deeply.

  “I could never get tired of this smell,” she said happily.

  She was keenly aware of Captain Lord on the seat opposite her... and so was every cell in her body. Strange, that, when the prickly tingles she felt at his nearness were ones she’d expected to feel with Captain Ponsonby. Indeed, she’d watched the handsome blond naval officer walking off with his lieutenant and Lady Weybourne, but the hollow emptiness she’d expected to feel at his departure had been curiously late in coming.

  In fact, it hadn’t come at all.

  But there was Captain Lord on the seat across from her. His manner, while polite and cordial, seemed withdrawn, as though he had a lot on his mind. He was looking out the window, watching the fields and hedgerows as they passed them by, the distant blue line of the North Sea as they crested a rise. Though he had one wrist draped over his knee, the other resting along the seat back, the tension that had clung to him earlier had returned.

  “Captain Lord?”

  “Yes, Lady Grace?”

  “Are you feeling quite well?”

  He seemed to come back to himself and smiled a little. “I confess that I find coach travel rather tedious.”

  “You’re not seasick— coach-sick?— I hope?”

  His smile spread, became genuine. “No, of course not. And current company makes the journey quite enjoyable even if the endless swaying and rocking does not.”

  “That is a sweet thing to say,” she said, meeting his eyes with a little grin of her own.

  Again, that flash of heat. Of connection. Her nipples tingled and she folded her arms across her chest to contain the feeling, surprised and a little shocked.

  Did he feel that same odd connection?

  Could he know that she did?

  But he had looked away, returning his attention to the fields and green meadows passing outside. Grace studied the faint indentations beneath his cheekbones, the muscles in his jaw, the hard sculpt of his lips. She wondered what he looked like in a uniform. Navy blue... it would complement his cool gray eyes. Gold epaulets on those proud shoulders, the tails of his uniform coat emphasizing his physique, snug white breeches showing off the length and musculature of his legs.

  Really, her mind shouldn’t be going in such directions.

  You should be reserving such thoughts for Captain Ponsonby. After all, he’s the one you fantasize about. The one you hope and plan to marry.

  But she wasn’t fantasizing about Captain Ponsonby.

  She was fantasizing about Captain Lord.

  They were crossing a small river now, moving through a village. Captain Lord remained silent. Even Polly,
sitting beside her, cut her eyes to the captain and back to Grace, silently questioning the tension.

  Grace shrugged and cleared her throat.

  “Are you looking forward to seeing your brother, Captain Lord? Meeting his family?”

  “I am indeed. It’s been a long time. Too long.”

  “Have you ever seen one of these Norfolk Thoroughbreds they raise?”

  “I have not.”

  He returned his attention to the passing landscape, withdrawing into that contemplative place from which she’d temporarily been able to draw him, thinking his own thoughts once more. Maybe it was best to leave him with whatever so occupied his mind. Still, she wondered what was bothering him so.

  Wished she could reclaim the easy companionship they’d enjoyed before.

  Sighing, she leaned back against the squab and forced her own attention out the window. Best not to think about Captain Lord. About his nearness. His very presence. She looked at the manicured fields with their trimmed hedgerows, a kestrel hovering above waving grasses. At the blue, blue sky that spread high above the landscape, the thick cottony clouds that rolled across it, pushed along by delicious summer breezes. The land was flat here, the soil sandier than she was used to seeing, the air sweet and fragrant with the scent of grasses and flowers. More gently rolling pastures and a little stone church, brick and stone houses and the flat Norfolk marshes beyond. Another field, low and rolling, and neat white fencing that stretched off into the distance. And there, horses, their tails flicking as they grazed. Beautiful horses with gleaming coats and long, long legs under powerfully muscled haunches. Beyond them, a manor house slumbered in the sunshine. The coach began to slow and moments later, they were turning down a drive that paralleled the western side of the enclosed pasture.

  The horses within it lifted their heads, pricked their ears and watched them. Several came galloping up to the fence, trotting alongside it with necks arched and tails high as they kept pace with the coaches, exchanging friendly whinnies with the steeds that pulled them.