My Saving Grace

by Harmon, Danelle

  Del took another direct hit in the other eyeball from a drop of rain, and wiped his eye with the back of his wrist. He looked down at the wound with the needle and thread going in and out of it beneath his brother’s bent head. His stomach swam and he cursed himself for his weakness. And then he felt it.

  Her arm, lithe and strong, coming around his back to support him. Holding him close.

  Colin, damn him, chose that very moment to finish up, and as he deftly tied off the last stitch and snipped it with a pair of scissors, that sweet little arm fell away and Del was suddenly cold and wet and miserable.

  “There,” Colin said at last. “All done.” He wiped the needle with a cloth, stuck it through a spool of thread and returned them to the wooden case. “I think we should bandage that, though. Best to keep it clean and dry.”

  “It’s fine,” Del said, and got to his feet. He felt suddenly lightheaded and swayed, cursing himself for a second time.

  “Are you all right, Captain Lord?” came Lady Grace’s voice from what seemed to be far away.

  “I’m fine. Just famished and in need of breakfast.” He smiled to try and put her at ease, and reached down to help her up. Her fingers were wet and damp within his own, her hand dwarfed by his.

  And then she untied his shirtsleeve from his arm and shaking the garment out, offered it to him, her eyes soft. Their gazes met. He felt the now-familiar slash of current pass between them that left him dry-mouthed and hungry for her, left him wanting to take her in his arms and kiss her senseless the way he’d done just hours before. She must have felt it too, as she blushed and looked away. Wordlessly, Del offered her his good arm. She took it, he covered her hand with his own to keep it dry, and together, the four of them walked back to the coach.

  31

  Ponsonby was waiting for them when they returned to the house.

  There he stood in the front hall, hat in his hand, dripping wet and the picture of alarm. He must have just arrived.

  “I came just as soon as I heard about it,” he said breathlessly. “Lady Grace! Are you all right?”

  “Oh, Captain Ponsonby! Your colleague here has fought a duel over me, and I hope you’ll have a word with your lieutenant on how he behaved! He rushed to the mark and turned before Captain Lord here even had a chance to do the same and thus had an unfair advantage, and—”

  “That’s enough, Grace,” said the admiral. “Captain Ponsonby and I will discuss it. You must be hungry. We all are, I daresay. Ah, Lady Ariadne. Maeve, my dear. Thank God at least two of the females in this house saw fit to stay out of men’s affairs though I’d like to know which one of you told Grace here where the duel was held, and how to get there.”

  Lady Falconer just smiled, her eyes gleaming.

  “Breakfast, anyone?” asked Lady Ariadne, also smiling.

  Running footsteps and then Ned appeared, his face pale and anxious. Childlike, he ran straight to Captain Lord and then stopped, pulling himself up and proceeding with what he thought was measured calm. “Nobody died, I hope?”

  “Nobody died,” said Captain Lord who, to Grace’s dismay, had retreated behind a wall of stiffness at sight of the other captain.

  She tried to soften the sudden tension in the room.

  “Captain Lord spared Lieutenant Akers’ life,” she babbled. “And this, after Lieutenant Akers shot him. If someone had shot me, I wouldn’t have been so restrained! I would’ve shot him back! But Captain Lord fired high. I think that was very noble of him, don’t you, Captain Ponsonby?”

  “Rather frowned upon in the rules of the code duello, I daresay,” he returned, and the atmosphere in the room went even colder as Captain Lord’s eyes hardened and he swung to face the other man.

  “You wish to be next, Ponsonby?”

  “That’s enough, both of you,” snapped Sir Graham. “I’ll hear no more on the matter from either one of you or anyone else.” He bestowed a stern look at his niece. “And that includes you too, young lady.”

  “Why don’t we all go to the dining room and have some breakfast,” Lady Ariadne said cheerily. “Such a gloomy day, I’m sure some eggs and toast, pastry and a pot of tea will be just the thing.”

  “I have already broken my fast,” said Captain Ponsonby, with a polite inclination of his head. “But I’ll take some coffee, if I may.”

  “Why don’t you go and take yourself off, instead?” snapped Captain Lord.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Del, what is the matter?”

  “There is nothing the matter, Lady Falconer. Nothing at all. If you will all excuse me, I’ll take breakfast up in my room. Good day, all of you.”

  He turned on his heel and stalked to the stairway, leaving Sir Graham frowning, Captain Ponsonby wondering what to do about the affront, and Grace exchanging a confused look with Lady Falconer.

  The tension in the room softened at his disappearance.

  “Yes, let’s eat,” said the admiral. “Dirty weather out there, not a good day to be out of doors.”

  Grace stood there for a moment as everyone began to file toward the dining room. Captain Ponsonby lingered behind and with a blinding smile, offered his arm to her. She took it, feeling suddenly uncertain.

  Look! He is noticing me! Does it get any better than this?

  But the triumphant voice was small and even a little desperate, and it was in her head, not her heart.

  Is it possible that I don’t care for Captain Ponsonby as much as I think I do?

  The arm beneath her fingers was strong and muscled, hard and unyielding, and another man’s arm flashed into her mind, the one belonging to the man who had just removed himself from their company and gone upstairs, the man who had tenderly covered her hand to keep it dry, the man who had fought a duel over her.

  Fought a duel over her.

  Grace’s heart swam with confusion, and she felt a sudden overwhelming guilt.

  He did all that for you, and yet here you are with Captain Ponsonby, your dream finally coming true.

  Her other self answered back. But Captain Lord knows how you feel about Captain Ponsonby. He agreed to help you win his heart. There’s nothing to feel guilty about.

  They entered the dining room. Outside, the rain streaked against the windows and pale silver patches began to show amongst the dark scudding clouds. The room lightened and within the myriad colors of the sky outside, thin bits of blue began to show.

  Captain Ponsonby pulled out her chair for her and seated her.

  Took a spot beside her.

  Grace was barely aware of the food being served, her appetite suddenly gone and her mouth too dry to swallow anything, anyhow. She took tea, sugaring it well, steadying her shaking hands by anchoring them around the hot porcelain. She pretended to engage in the conversation around her but inside, she wondered what Captain Lord was doing upstairs, if he was sinking into the hot bath he’d professed to want, if his arm hurt, and if he was thinking of her.

  As she was of him.

  She longed to go to him, to make sure he was all right, but Lady Ariadne was inviting them all out to the stables after breakfast so she could show them the famous Shareb-er-rehh, the clearing skies outside the window promised what looked to be a fine summer day after all, and Grace had no chance to make her escape.

  * * *

  Breakfast had finished. His craving for coffee satisfied, Sheldon Ponsonby stayed behind for a few moments as the others filed out of the room and headed for the stable.

  He saw Lady Grace look back at him, her brow furrowed, and smiled at her in reassurance that all was well.

  He waited until she’d gone and then hailed the admiral before he could join them.

  “A word if I may, Sir Graham?”

  “If it’s about another damned duel, or the one that took place this morning, I don’t want to hear it. But you’d damn well better have a word with Akers.”

  “I will, sir. But that’s not what I wished to talk to you about.”

  Ned was lingering,
pretending to be scrounging for a last pastry in an ill-concealed attempt to eavesdrop.

  “Out with it, then.”

  “In private, if I may, sir?”

  Sir Graham looked at his son. “Off with you, lad. We’ll be along in a moment.”

  The boy nodded and left the room.

  “Spill it, man.” said the admiral. “What is this about?”

  Sheldon drew himself up, smiling. “It is about Lady Grace,” he said. “It has not escaped me, that she is exceptionally kind-hearted, brave, and of course, uncommonly beautiful. That she typifies the best of her sex. I am enchanted by her. There, I’ve admitted it.”

  Sir Graham just stared at him, his face inscrutable.

  Pressing on, Sheldon Ponsonby blurted, “With your permission, sir, I would like to court her.”

  * * *

  Del had finished his bath, dried himself with a thick fluffy towel, dressed and sat down at his desk to compose a letter to his parents. Anything was better than staying here feeling his heart break into a million pieces over yet another woman he couldn’t have, another woman who’d fallen for someone else, when a fierce knocking on his door caused him to put the quill down and look up.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Ned. May I come in, sir?”

  “Aye, come in.”

  The door opened, the boy slipped inside, and hastily shut the door behind him. “We have an emergency,” he said gravely. “A real one.”

  “This whole damned holiday is an emergency. In fact, I was just writing to my parents to tell them I’ll be leaving here immediately and heading down to Hampshire to visit them.”

  “Sir, this is serious.”

  Del raised a hand, raked it through his damp, freshly washed, and frizzing like a halo around the moon-hair, and shoved the curls off his forehead. “What is it?”

  “I just overhead that awful Captain Ponsonby speaking to my father.”

  “He’s not awful.”

  “Yes he is, and you think he’s just as awful as I do.”

  “No, I do not.”

  “He asked Papa if he could court Lady Grace!”

  “Right, then, he’s bloody awful. Thank you, Ned. You may go, now.”

  “But sir! You have to do something!”

  “What am I supposed to do? Your cousin came to me before we even left her mother’s wedding to tell me she fancied herself in love with Ponsonby and asked if I might help her win his heart. It would seem as though I have accomplished that aim.”

  “That’s not what you really want. I can tell!”

  “Oh?” Del raised a brow. “What is it I really want?”

  “Grace! You’re in love with her!”

  Del said nothing. He carefully wiped the pen off, put it in its brass holder, capped the bottle of ink.

  “Funny, isn’t it,” he said at length, “that you, a young boy, have discerned that unhappy truth whereas the lady in question remains painfully oblivious to it.”

  “Is that why you’re going to Hampshire?”

  “Better that than the alternative, which is likely to be another duel.” He folded the letter, sealed it with wax and signed it with his signet ring. “You may know me, Ned, as a man of restraint. Of protocol, rigorously defined and defended. But your cousin brings things out of me that are beyond my control, and it is not good for either of us that I remain here. I am only complicating things for her. Confusing her. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “I don’t want you to go.”

  “We will meet back on Orion when it’s time to return to Barbados. Which, given your father’s obvious stress over this trip, is likely to be sooner rather than later. He’s short of temper, unhappy, constrained. I fear for his health.”

  “I don’t think my cousin will want you to go, either.”

  “Your cousin has got what she wanted. A handsome man with a fine reputation from a good family who will treat her with kindness and dignity. The man she’d set her sights on all along.”

  “You’re all that and more, Captain Lord!”

  Del stood up, his chest full and his arm throbbing beneath the sleeve. He blew out the candle and laid a hand on the boy’s thin shoulder. “Someday, Ned, you will understand how the heart works. Or maybe, like the rest of us, you will not. But I do know this. We cannot order it to love someone it does not, nor can we order it to stop loving someone we can never have. Lady Grace will be happy. Let it go at that.”

  32

  The clouds were filing off to the east, and the sky they left behind was bright and clear and blue. The scent of the sea hung heavily on the freshly-scrubbed air and sunlight sparkled on the grass as the party, led by Lady Ariadne and accompanied by a trio of dogs, headed towards the stable to meet the famous Norfolk Thoroughbreds.

  There was not a person in all of England who did not know of the legendary match race between Shareb-er-rehh and the devil horse, the indomitable Black Patrick, though four years had elapsed since the contest had proven Lady Ariadne’s stallion much the fastest in all of England. And there in his paddock and grazing some distance away, stood a tall bay horse whose coat gleamed in the sun. His black tail swished at a fly and he appeared not to have a care in the world.

  Lady Ariadne paused at the fence and called to the stallion. Immediately, his head shot up, his fine ears pricked, and kicking off his flight with a bucking leap, he came thundering across the pasture toward them.

  “Hello, Shareb!” said his mistress, fondly pulling at his forelock before reaching into a basket and producing a pastry from the breakfast table. The horse took it from her palm, munching happily. She grinned and looked at her guests. “Please don’t tell Colin,” she said conspiratorially. “He doesn’t approve of raspberry tarts as part of the equine diet.”

  Her husband, who’d hung back a bit to throw a ball to the three dogs, came up. His bad leg might have hindered him, but there was nothing wrong with his eyesight.

  He slid a hand around his wife’s waist. “I saw that,” he chided.

  She laughed. “I figured you would.”

  “What a splendid animal,” said Lady Falconer, studying the stallion and stroking his broad, flat cheek. “How my mother would envy me this opportunity to see such a horse. She was passionate about them... why, we all learned to ride before we could even walk.”

  Nobody said anything, for Lady Falconer had lost her parents only a few months before. As though sensing her sudden pain, the stallion pushed his jaw against her hand and closed his eyes, just standing there in silent communion with her.

  Grace, still on Captain Ponsonby’s arm, exchanged a glance with her uncle. The sadness was there in his eyes, too.

  She directed her gaze back to the horse. Aunt Maeve was correct. The famous Shareb-er-rehh was tall and well-muscled, with a large dark eye and a big white blaze that tumbled down his noble face. And now, as he pushed his chest against the fencing and hung his head over it, allowing the former pirate-queen to stroke his cheek, he opened that dark eye and settled it on Grace. She could lose herself in that mysterious orb, and she wondered if he could sense her pain and confusion as he so obviously seemed to sense Lady Falconer’s grief.

  Captain Ponsonby eyed the horse. “I suppose,” he said tentatively, “that it’s out of the question to borrow him for a ride? I would love to show Lady Grace here, some of the surrounding countryside.”

  The horse’s ears went flat and he stepped back.

  “Was it something I said?” asked the captain, with a nervous little laugh.

  It was Colin Lord who cleared his throat and said quietly, “Shareb-er-rehh will allow no one on his back except for my wife. But there are other horses here, far gentler ones, that you’re welcome to take out for a ride. Or even a drive, if you would rather.”

  “A drive would be quite nice,” said Ponsonby, relieved to be saved from his sudden embarrassment. “Lady Grace? Would you care to accompany me?”

  She sensed a sudden tension around her, as though Captain
Ponsonby had made some sort of faux pas with his initial request— and deepened it by inviting her out for a drive. As though he were treading on ground that those around her would prefer he stayed off. Did they not like the man?

  She cast a glance toward her uncle, who had been uncharacteristically silent. “Uncle Gray?”

  There was something fleeting and pained in his eyes, but it was gone so fast she wondered if she’d imagined it. “Yes, you may, but do take either Ned or Polly with you for the sake of appearances.”

  “Of course,” said Captain Ponsonby, answering for her and flashing his dazzling smile.

  Grace smiled back. Excitement warred with something else in her gut, something that felt unpleasant and wrong. Very wrong. Wasn’t this what she’d been waiting for? Something she’d been wanting all along?

  Again she thought of the morning. Of Delmore Lord and his brave defense of her so-called honor, of the way he’d looked suddenly wan and ill as his brother had sewn up his wound and how she, Grace, had had an unexplainable urge to take him into her arms and hold him.

  And she thought of the night before.

  He kissed me.

  And it felt so... so right.

  “Lady Grace? Shall we go?”

  “Yes, Captain Ponsonby.” She swallowed against the sudden dry spot in the back of her throat. “I would like that very much.”

  * * *

  From the upstairs window of his room, Del gazed down upon the small party as they headed toward the pasture.

  He did not want to look. And if he were smart, he’d have yanked the drapes shut and denied himself the opportunity to further torture himself.

  But Lady Grace was down there, her dark hair loosely caught up beneath a jaunty little hat, her body trim and lithe in that same blue riding habit. She was standing with the others; Sir Graham and Lady Falconer, Colin and Ariadne, several dogs and yes, that insufferable peacock, Ponsonby.

  As Del watched, the man offered his arm to Grace, and smiling up at him, she took it.