by Liz Carlyle
All his fears, and all his sister’s far-flung theories about Grace and the Gift, were rapidly ceasing to matter. He knew only that fate was taking him on a journey—just as Anisha had predicted weeks ago—and that he had yielded to it.
He slipped into her room just after midnight, without knocking, certain in the knowledge that Grace would know it was he. She rolled up onto one elbow, drowsily dragging the heavy blond hair from her eyes.
“Adrian,” she whispered, her voice flowing over him like warm honey.
He let his silk robe slip to the floor and made love to her wordlessly and slowly, telling her with his body and his sighs that what he felt for her would never end. And when at last she lay sated beneath him, he drew her fast to his side and buried his face against her throat, his lips set to the tiny heartbeat beneath her ear. He hadn’t even bothered to withdraw but had filled her with his seed exultantly, and perhaps with a measure of hope.
“I have to go away tomorrow, Grace,” he finally said, whispering the words against her skin.
She stiffened in his embrace. “For how long?”
“Three days.” He brushed his lips over the turn of her jaw. “And when I come back, we need to have a long talk, you and I.”
“Hmm,” she said. Even in the gloom, he could feel her gaze roaming over him. “Can I ask where you go?”
Inwardly, he sighed. He really did not want to distress her with Napier’s fears. “To Yorkshire,” he said. “To Lord Bessett’s country estate. We have some unfinished business.”
“Fraternitas business?”
“Yes, of a sort.”
She rolled onto her back and made an exasperated sound. “Why is it, Adrian, that I suspect you’re being faintly disingenuous again?”
He dragged an arm over his eyes and considered his words. “Because I am,” he finally said. “And because Anisha is right—you’re too perceptive by half. But Grace, do you still trust me?”
“Yes.” As always, her answer was swift.
“Then may we leave it at that for now?” he asked gently. “Will you just simply put your faith in me and trust that I’m doing what is right?”
She acquiesced with surprising ease, rolling back against him and curling one leg over his. “Done,” she murmured, kissing him lightly on the temple. “There, you see? I actually do trust you. But something else is troubling you, isn’t it? Something besides us, I mean.”
He gave a harsh laugh. “Aye, too perceptive by half,” he said again. “I wish, Grace, I had listened to you this afternoon. About Rance, I mean.”
“There was trouble, wasn’t there?”
“I—” His words broke off, and he felt frustration sketch across his face. “I saw Rance with Coldwater. In a compromising position.”
“I don’t understand,” Grace murmured.
He let his head fall fully back against the pillow. “I saw Rance almost kissing Jack Coldwater—or that’s what it looked like.”
“Ça alors!” Grace sat up straight in bed. “Surely you were mistaken.”
Again, he shook his head, his hair scrubbing the pillow. “I hope so,” he whispered. “But something was going on.”
“But not that, surely,” she muttered.
“Afterward, Coldwater bolted like a startled hare,” he went on. “But I had Anisha with me and had to drag her away.”
Grace seemed to ponder it for a moment. “Long years in the legion sometimes do strange things to men,” she finally whispered. “It is a hard life. But Rance? He was the worst sort of womanizer imaginable. Now I see why Anisha wanted to leave in such a rush.”
“I was struck sideways by it, I can tell you,” said Adrian. “I have lived like a brother with the man, and never knew that he…well, that he could feel…oh, hell, I don’t know.”
Grace rolled over him and laid her bare breasts against his chest, settling her cheek on his shoulder. “I hear a hesitation in your voice.”
“No, not…a hesitation.”
But the truth was, he had occasionally wondered at Lazonby’s attachment to Belkadi. Belkadi and his sister Safiyah had spent their youth as ragtag camp orphans, as best Ruthveyn could gather, and Belkadi had ended up a sort of batman to Lazonby. After his capture, Lazonby had given strict instructions they be brought out of Algeria, and Ruthveyn had done it. Not that Belkadi felt an ounce of gratitude, mind. It was all very odd.
“What are you thinking?” Grace murmured, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear.
He rolled with her to one side. “That I wish I wasn’t leaving you,” he answered, his eyes searching her face. “Grace, do you think it’s possible? Is there any chance? This mad notion of Anisha’s, I mean?”
She knew at once what he meant. “I didn’t at first,” she confessed. “But I do believe I’m descended from Sir Angus Muirhead, and that he went to France and nearly died in a bridge collapse. It would certainly appear he had an association with the Fraternitas Aureae Crucis.”
“Sutherland is convinced,” Ruthveyn replied.
Grace sighed and flopped onto her back to stare up at the ceiling. “But do I believe I have some sort of gift?” she went on. “No. I am what I’ve always been.”
Propped on one elbow, Ruthveyn laid the flat of his hand against the faint swell of her belly. “Grace,” he said, “I put my seed in you tonight. And I did it…I did it half-hoping. Because I love you, Grace, and I think we—”
“Stop,” she said gently, covering his hand with her smaller, warmer one. “Just…stop, Adrian. You want to love me, perhaps. But right now, it’s just possible you’re in love with hope, and nothing more.”
“Damn it, Grace, don’t tell me—”
“No, let me speak,” she gently insisted. “Right now, Adrian, you hope I am—oh, I don’t know—one of the Vaties, I suppose? It sounds mad even to say it. I’m just not. And what you feel is predicated on my being something I’m not. That is my fear. Can’t you see how I might think that?”
Ruthveyn cupped his hand round her face, holding her gaze to his. “I love you, Grace,” he said firmly. “Don’t tell me what I feel. I love you. I need you, and sometimes I ache for you so badly I feel as if my heart will be torn from my chest if I lose you. That is my fear, Grace. So don’t tell me what I feel. Tell me you love me. Tell me you’ll marry me.”
“You cannot be serious,” she whispered. “Not now.”
“Very serious,” he rasped. “I have never been more serious.”
When she shifted her gaze away, he turned her face back to his. “All right,” he continued, his voice softer still. “Tell me you don’t love me. Look me in the eyes, Grace, and say it.”
In the gloom, she made the faintest little sound. A sort of mewling, as if she might burst into tears. “Of course I love you,” she said on half a sob.
He felt instantly like a cad. “Oh, Grace,” he whispered, gathering her to him. “Oh, Grace, don’t. I’m sorry. Just…don’t.”
“Of course I love you,” she said again. “But I don’t want you to want me just because you think you can’t read me, or because you think I might be carrying your child. I meant what I said today, Adrian. Love that is love only when things are right and easy, and everything tumbles into place is just not enough for me. And when you think on it, you’ll know it isn’t enough for you, either.”
“So you think I’ve decided I love you merely because of my sister’s wild theory,” he said.
“I think that a few hours ago you were dreading our future,” she whispered. “You wouldn’t even bed me properly—and I begged you.”
“Grace, in the club?” he choked. “I was expecting Fricke, for God’s sake. He practically walked in on us as it was. And I told you then that I would never leave you.”
“And that you hoped I had sense enough to leave you,” she finished.
He cursed under his breath—and using a word no gentleman used in a lady’s presence, let alone in her bed.
A long moment of silence followed as they lay together,
the weight of his body over hers, her arm wrapped round his waist. She was partly right, he realized. He had let Anisha’s wild notions propel him toward something that, though inevitable so far as he was concerned, had not been well thought out.
Oh, he loved Grace—and he was determined to marry her. He needed to spend whatever days fate allotted him by her side, even if those days were no more than a fortnight, and even if he knew them numbered to the very hour. For even a fleeting moment in her presence brought him a joy and a peace he had never imagined possible, and a moment without her was…well, not worth living, perhaps.
Eventually, he would convince her of all this. But it was, perhaps, unreasonable to expect her to suddenly fall into raptures just now.
“Very well,” he said softly. “Have it your way, Grace. Just…stay with me. Don’t give up. Don’t run back to France. Give me time to convince you of the rightness of us.”
She turned her face into his and kissed him. “Make love to me again,” she whispered. “Slowly, as we did once before. Share my breath and my soul, Adrian, with our bodies joined as one. And just for a few hours, live only in the present. With me. Don’t think about the future.”
And as he stared, losing himself in the deep blue infinity of her gaze, Adrian decided it was the best suggestion he’d heard in days.
Grace awoke the following morning to a house that felt empty and soulless. Adrian had left her bed before dawn—and left her frightfully short of sleep after two hours of his slow, exquisitely torturous lovemaking. He had kissed her hard, then whispered something about the first train out of Euston Station. Already she felt his absence like an ache in her bones.
Throwing back the drapes, she saw that the haze of fog and smoke had lifted to reveal the remnants of a fine drizzle running down the windows, the cobbles beyond yellow and glassy in the muted gaslight. A milk cart rumbled past in the gloom, the driver hunched forward, his hat brim sagging.
Oddly restive, Grace breakfasted alone, the food like ashes in her mouth, then spent the following two hours drilling multiplication tables into Teddy while his brother tried to set his trouser hems on fire and Milo flapped and squawked, “Help, help! British prisoner!”
“I think I’m the British prisoner,” Teddy finally declared, shoving his slate away. “This stuff’s worse than the Black Hole of Calcutta.”
Grace sighed. “Over a hundred of England’s bravest were suffocated in the Black Hole,” she reminded him.
“Well, the old nawab should have made ’em do multiplications,” he returned, “and the rest would have died of boredom.”
Perched on the punishment stool in the corner, Tom turned round. “Can I get down?” he asked hopefully. “I think I’ve learnt my lesson now.”
“Yes,” Grace snapped. “Get down and go ask Higgenthorpe if the maids have finished cleaning the conservatory. Milo must go back, else Cook will be serving parakeet for dinner.”
“Awwkk!” Milo protested, flapping his wings. “Pretty-pretty! Pretty-pretty!”
“It’s far too late for flattery, old boy,” said Grace grimly.
“What, ho!” said a silky voice from the doorway. “Sounds as if I’m just in the nick!”
Grace turned to see Lord Lucan saunter into the room. “Alors, one rascal after another,” she said with a muted smile. “Here to defend poor Milo, are you?”
“No, no, to recommend a madeira sauce,” said Lord Lucan. “Or a velouté, perhaps, and a chilled Viognier, if you mean to sauté him?”
“Aww, she ain’t really going to eat him, Uncle Luc,” said Tom. “She’s just worn to a frizzle because Teddy don’t know times-nine from times-eight, and because I struck a match to his trouser leg.”
“Isn’t, doesn’t, and I believe I said I was worn to a frazzle,” Grace corrected.
“Frizzle, frazzle,” said Lord Lucan, beaming a mouthful of white teeth at Grace. “My dear girl, you’re going to crease that lovely brow. Look, the sun has finally peeped out. What say I grab a cricket bat and take the lads to the park to burn off a little mischief?”
Grace tossed a knowing look at the young man. “And would that be your sort of mischief, Lord Lucan,” she asked sotto voce, “or theirs?”
The teeth shone brighter, if such a thing were possible. “Oh, just theirs, ma’am,” he replied. “My sort is resilient—and shameless.”
“Just the word I was thinking of.” Grace snapped shut Teddy’s arithmetic primer. “Thank you, nonetheless. I accept your kind offer, and will debit your sister’s account accordingly.”
“Ah, there it is again!” Lucan’s smile broadened as she rose. “The razor’s edge of a most tempting tongue.”
“Better than a fork, I daresay,” murmured Grace, shoving the primer back onto the shelf.
“Aye, but with either implement, ma’am, you are going to keep some poor devil on the straight and narrow.” Lord Lucan snatched the bat and ball from its basket by the door. “Come, lads! Fetch your coats.”
“Hurrah!” said the boys, bounding from the room.
Just her side of the threshold, however, Lord Lucan hesitated. “But just so I’m clear, Miss Gauthier—are you quite, quite settled on my elder?” He dangled the bat gracefully from two fingers. “I mean, prophets can be so portentous and gloomy, don’t you think? And then there is that whole Vedantic philosophy thing—dashed hard to get your noggin round that business, I always say. And some women, let’s face it, just prefer the golden Greek god look to dark and myst—”
“Lord Lucan.” Grace thrust out a hand. “Give me the bat.”
His brows shot aloft. “Thank you, no. I’ve seen your swing.” He beamed one last wolfish smile. “Anyway, looks like the better man won. Usual thing, eh? Mustn’t keep the lads waiting!” Hastily, he turned, and slammed at once into his sister.
“What was he up to?” Lady Anisha cut a suspicious glance over her shoulder as her brother hastened away.
“Just taking the boys to the park,” said Grace evenly. “How do you do this morning?”
Anisha sighed and fell into one of the chairs. “Well, I had hoped to see my children,” she complained, propping one elbow on the worktable. “It seems to me Luc has taken to indentured servitude a little too cheerfully, and now the boys would rather play ball than be read to.”
“Don’t despair,” said Grace, sitting down opposite her. “Luc’s heart is good—if not pure—and the children are of an age when boys long for a fatherly influence.”
“Now there’s a frightening bit of syntax,” she said. “The words Luc and fatherly in the same sentence. By the way, where did Raju hare off to at the crack of dawn?”
Grace lifted both brows. “I should know?”
“Yes,” Anisha returned. “And you do.”
It was Grace’s turn to sigh. Were there no secrets? Not, apparently, in a houseful of psychics. Then why didn’t Anisha know the answer to her own question?
“To Lord Bessett’s,” she finally said.
“All the way to Yorkshire?”
“So I gather,” said Grace. “He left from Euston Station.”
“Do trains go to Yorkshire?” Anisha’s dark brows snapped together. “I don’t even know where it is.”
“North, I think?” Grace suggested. “My French governess believed the geography of England a waste.”
“Did she indeed?”
“Oh, yes. She lived secure in the belief that one day the French would triumph and simply rename all the towns and counties, so there was no point troubling to learn them.”
“Ah, the hazards of a foreign education!” said Anisha, grinning. “We’ve doubtless learnt all manner of heresy, you and I.”
Then at once they burst into peels of laughter, but the laughter fell away, leaving only a heavy silence.
“Seriously,” said Grace. “Are you all right?”
Anisha cut her an odd look from beneath a fringe of inky lashes. “Raju told you?”
Grace looked away. “Anisha, I am sorry,” she said.
“You harbored a certain fondness for him, did you not?”
She gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “And you think you don’t have the sight.”
Grace reached out and covered Anisha’s hand with her own. “Rance Welham is a good man,” she said fervently. “A good man and a brave soldier, and whatever else he may be is quite beside the point. But that does you no good at all, I know.”
Anisha shrugged and sat up straight on a sigh. “Oh, I’m over it, I daresay,” she said evenly. “But it would have been…pleasurable, perhaps. And it would have driven Raju wild.”
“You…aren’t in love with Rance?”
Anisha lifted one slender shoulder. “Oh, not hopelessly,” she admitted. “A little taken, perhaps. All right, a great deal taken. But what woman wouldn’t be?—No, wait. Don’t answer that. Not you, that’s who—but only because fate has been saving you for my brother.”
“Anisha—!” Grace said warningly.
Anisha broke her gaze and leapt up to ring the bell. “I fancy a cup of tea,” she said abruptly. “And while we wait, I shall finish your palm.”
“And my stars?” Grace asked teasingly.
“I can tell you a little, perhaps,” said Anisha. “But I have not completed my charts.”
A footman came in, and went out again to do Anisha’s bidding. Anisha sat back down, extended her hand across the narrow table, and waggled her fingers at Grace.
With a bemused smile, Grace thrust out her hand, palm up. Anisha swept her fingers down it, as if clearing away cobwebs, then began to work her way around the palm, rubbing her finger lightly over the bumps and swells of flesh, her brow creased.
“These are your mounds,” she finally said. “Each tells us something different.”
“My future, do you mean?”
Anisha cast up a scowl. “Jyotish and Vedic palmistry are sciences,” she said with mock censure. “Not tent tricks at a country fair. They can help you understand your true nature, and your tendencies—both good and bad—and teach you to manage your life with grace.”