Grace had hoped that by now the other woman would have forgiven – or at the very least forgotten – the incident. But she could see by the tightness of Lady Wells’ mouth and the florid color spreading rapidly across her rounded cheeks and exposed bosom that her hope had been in vain.
As the rest of the guests watched on in rapt fascination, making no attempt to hide the fact that they were listening to every word, Lady Wells slowly reached down the front of her low cut emerald green gown and plucked out a roll. “Clumsy as ever I see,” she spat in disgust.
Like a fox cornered before a pack of hounds, Grace was frozen helplessly in place. “I… I did not mean to… It was… It was an accident,” she stuttered, blinking furiously against the sudden swell of tears that threatened to fall. She would not cry in front of these wretched people. Through the maze of faces she caught Rosalind’s eye. Her sister looked panic stricken; no doubt concerned that Grace’s latest faux pas would put a damper on her debut. Grace shook her head ever so slightly from side to a side, a silent signal for Rosalind to keep her distance, and her sister gratefully obliged.
“An accident?” Lady Wells shrieked, drawing even more attention when she flung her arms outwards and spun in a circle, playing to the crowd as if she were an actress and they her captivated audience. “I have honey in my hair! It shall take forever to comb out. What do you have to say for yourself this time, Lady Deringer?
“Is that your real hair then?” a painfully familiar voice drawled from the far corner of the room. “I rather thought it was a wig.”
As the crowd simultaneously turned to see who had delivered such a grave insult, Grace pinched her eyes shut so tight she saw bright spots. She did not need to look at the man’s face to know who it was. Just his voice alone was enough to have her heart pounding and her palms breaking out in a cold sweat. Dear heavens, and she had thought upending the pastry tray was bad enough.
This was worse. A thousand times worse.
Stephen was here.
CHAPTER FOUR
Grace knew the exact moment her former fiancée was recognized by the swell of excited whispers and rustling of dresses as women strained to be closer to him. He had always had that effect on the opposite gender. His piercing green eyes, chiseled features, and tall, striking figure all but guaranteed heads would turn whenever he walked into a room.
She had certainly not been immune to his charms the first time they met. She could remember it as though it had happened yesterday instead of four years ago, when she was a hopelessly shy and naïve girl of twenty two and he a confirmed bachelor, rake, and womanizer (amidst other less favorable titles).
It had been during the summer when the ton retreated to the country to escape the stench of London in mid-August. Grace’s family owned a small, quaint fifty acre estate that was bordered on either side by much grander properties, one of which was hosting an outdoor picnic.
The Grandhill’s had been friends of the Deringer’s for years, and it went without saying that every member of the family – Grace included – would be expected to attend. Never one for social gatherings, even as a young woman, Grace had tagged along behind her mother and Rosalind for the obligatory greetings before she retreated to the back of the estate, seeking a respite from the sweltering heat beneath the shade of a large mulberry tree.
Consequently she had fallen fast asleep and was quite forgotten about, until a certain Earl happened to stumble across her by pure happenstance. Stephen would later admit that he had grown bored by the festivities and was planning on sneaking away, but had been so enchanted by the sight of her curled up sleeping beneath the mulberry tree that he had quite literally stopped in his tracks.
He cleared his throat, and the faint sound was enough to wake Grace from her light doze. Lashes fluttering, she yawned widely and stretched her arms high above her head, taking in her outdoor surroundings with a bemused expression. Light filtered down through the sharp edged leaves, creating a shifting pattern of circular shapes on her pale blue dress and indicating the hour had passed from late morning to mid afternoon while she napped. Suddenly cognizant of the fact that she was not alone, Grace glanced to the side… and shrieked when she saw a man standing no more than three yards away watching her with great interest.
“Hello,” he said. And then, in a more apologetic tone, “I did not mean to startle you.”
Grace scrambled to her feet. “What did you think would happen, sneaking up on someone like that?” Pressing a hand tight to her chest, she drew in a deep, steady breath to calm the pounding of her heart. “You nearly scared me to death.”
“You certainly look alive enough to me.”
Eyes narrowing, Grace took a closer look at the stranger. He was tall, taller than she by at least six inches, with a well conditioned frame and undeniably handsome face. It was all brooding lines and angles and would have been perfect were it not quite so obvious that his nose had once been broken. He had a gleaming mane of gold, thick as a lion’s pelt and nearly as long. It brushed his shoulders, drawing her eye down to his dark blue linen tailcoat and the smartly pressed waistcoat beneath. They were the clothes of a gentleman. A wealthy gentleman if the gold buttons running the length of his tailcoat were any indication.
“Who are you?” she asked, her shock quickly giving way to curiosity.
“Who are you?” he countered. “Were I to believe in such things I might think you were a wood nymph, or a sprite.” Faster than Grace could blink, the man came forward and plucked something from her hair. When he stepped back, she saw it was a leaf. He twirled the slender stem absently between his thumb and forefinger, a half smile flirting with the corners of his mouth as he watched the small leaf spin in circles before he lifted his head. “Do you often take naps outside?”
His eyes, Grace noted absently, were the same color green as the leaf in his hand. “I… That is to say… Well, yes,” she admitted, for it was true. “Quite often, actually. Well, it is not so much that I intend to fall asleep. But that is usually the end result.”
The man quirked one eyebrow. “The end result of what, pray tell?”
“Trying to draw or embroider. I fear my hands are much too clumsy to do either, and so I simply take a nap instead.”
“Outside,” the man said.
“Outside,” Grace agreed.
He seemed to consider this for some time, his attention wavering between the leaf and her face. Grace waited patiently, for she often took quite a bit of time to collect her thoughts as well, and rather despised it when people rushed her along before she had readied what she wanted to say.
From the front of the estate she could hear voices raised in merriment, chief among them her mother’s, who rarely took time to think about anything before she allowed it to float past her lips.
“You are quite unusual,” the man said finally.
Grace’s brows pinched together over the bridge of her nose. “Thank you.”
“How do you know that was a compliment?”
“Because I have chosen to take it as one.” She tipped her head to the side. “I can only assume that you are comparing me to other young women of my age, and as I would be the first to profess that I have very little in common with them, I must say your initial assessment is very accurate.”
“Quite unusual,” he repeated.
Grace smiled.
“And intelligent. Witty. Oddly charming. Beautiful, of course, and—”
“No,” Grace interrupted, her smile fading. “Now you are humoring me, sir, and I do not take kindly to it.”
“Because I said you were intelligent?” he asked incredulously.
Grace shook her head.
“Witty?”
Another shake.
“Charming, then.”
She pursed her lips.
“Surely you have not taken offense to my calling you beautiful. Was I too forward?” His voice dropped to a whisper, as if he were admitting something very grave indeed. “I tend to be that way on occasion.�
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Grace nodded. “I can believe that.”
“But you do not believe you are beautiful?”
“No,” she corrected with the tiniest of frowns. “I know I am not. Kindly save your mindless flattery for some other unsuspecting lady. I am not interested.”
For too long Grace had floundered under the false flattery of her peers. She was not blind. She knew her middle was a little too plump, her lips a little too thin, her eyes a little too pale… She was no great beauty, and after years of being forced to disguise her flaws with powders that made a muddle of her complexion and corsets that were much too tight, she had finally gathered the nerve to tell her mother the hell with all of it. Well, perhaps not those exact words had been used (Grace was not quite that brazen), but her point had been made nevertheless. She was done dressing to impress. A man would love her for who she was or he would not love her at all, thank you very much, and this man – this handsome, mysterious stranger – could take his empty compliments to the devil himself for all she cared.
Grace expected him to be put off by her bluntness – a trait which men did not seem to find very appealing in a lady – and crossed her arms while she waited for him to turn heel and stalk off. She did not expect him to throw back his lion’s head and roar with laughter, but that is exactly what he did. He laughed until tears gathered in the corners of his brilliant green eyes and he had to wipe them away with the cuff of his very fine jacket.
“Are you addled?” she wondered out loud, which only served to send him into another fit of laughter while Grace looked on, growing more bemused by the second.
“I have never,” he said once his laughter had finally subsided, “met another woman quite like you before. Pray, tell me your name.” Abruptly earnest, he stepped towards her and extended his hand, palm up, long fingers slightly curled in silent invitation.
The stranger did not wear gloves, as proper gentleman did, although that did not take Grace by surprise as she had already decided he was no proper gentleman. She hesitated before placing her hand – covered, of course, in white gloves of the softest linen – ever so lightly over his. Their eyes met, and Grace drew in a sharp, sudden breath as she felt a tingle race from her head all the way to her toes. She started to snatch her hand back, but with a cluck of his tongue the man closed his fingers, effectively locking their palms together.
There was heat there, more heat than there should have been, and even though Grace knew the proper thing would have been to demand her release or call for help, she could do nothing save gaze upon her captor in stunned silence.
Was this what it felt like, she wondered dazedly, to fall in love at first sight? She had heard women murmur about the phenomenon amidst themselves more times than she could count; their faces always alight with a soft rosy glow and their eyes sparkling bright with hope and promise.
Grace did not feel like she was glowing or sparkling. She felt as though she had taken a hard kick to the chest, so quickly had all of the air fled her lungs, leaving her gasping for air like some landed fish.
“Your name,” the man repeated softly. “What is it?”
“Grace.” The moment her name was past her lips she winced, regretting the informality even as the stranger seemed to savor it as one would a particularly decadent piece of chocolate.
“Grace,” he echoed, rolling the one syllable off his tongue so slowly it became two. “Grace,” he said again, and she felt the press of his hand as surely as he must have felt the answering tremble of her fingers. “It is a lovely name. A fitting one as well.”
At that she smiled tentatively and ducked her chin in an effort to disguise the emotions that were running rampant across her countenance. Unlike her dear friend Catherine, Grace had never been able to conceal what she was feeling. If she was happy she looked happy. If she was sad she looked sad. And if she was falling head over heels for a perfect stranger… Well, she was not quite sure what that looked like precisely, but she did know she did not want him to see it!
“If you think my name is fitting than you do not know me at all,” she murmured, peeking up from beneath her lashes. “I am quite certain my mother tempted fate when she chose the name for me, as I am far from graceful. Did your mother do the same with you?”
“I am named after my great grandfather, a noble man of upstanding moral character,” he drawled. “So yes, I suppose you could say she did tempt fate.”
Grace blinked. “Are you admitting you do not have upstanding moral character?”
“It is not something I have ever been accused of possessing, thank God.”
“You are quite candid,” Grace observed.
The stranger grinned, revealing a dimple high on his left cheek that did the silliest of things to Grace’s belly. “A high compliment indeed, my lady.”
“And very evasive.”
“Evasive?” One eyebrow arched. “How so?”
“Well, you know my name. My Christian name,” she said in a whisper, “and I do not know who you are at all.”
His thumb played across her knuckles, gliding over the thin linen of her glove so lightly as to barely be felt. “Stephen Melbourne, Earl of Terraview, my lady. It is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Using the temporary uproar caused by Stephen’s sudden appearance to her advantage, Grace slipped out of the room via an open door that spilled directly into a poorly lit hallway. A thick carpet of indiscriminate color muffled her footsteps as she scurried away with all haste, not caring where she was going, only knowing that she needed to escape.
Out of breath and barely holding back the sobs that were building like a dam in her chest she stumbled into an empty study and slammed the door shut behind her. Her knees threatened to buckle as she leaned up against the door and she clung weakly to the brass doorknob, drawing strength from the sturdy metal fixture even as her thoughts whirled in a thousand different directions.
Stephen was back.
And oh, the pain of that knowledge was like a knife to her chest. A knife that did not enter cleanly, but rather one that angled in from the side, shredding and slicing and scarring as it went. Pressing a fist between her breasts Grace drew in a ragged breath and stepped further into the empty room.
It was small, but elegantly furnished, with a long mahogany desk and floor to ceiling shelves lined with books and other glittering treasures, a painful reminder of how her own father’s study had looked before they were forced to sell everything off bit by bit.
Because of me, she thought brokenly as she sagged into one of the two leather chairs that faced the desk and drew her knees up beneath the voluminous skirt of her gown. Because Stephen lost interest in me, as everyone always warned he would. Because he cast me aside as if I was nothing, as if I were no one, and he never came back.
Until now.
Now, when she was finally on the precipice of moving on and forgetting him, he had returned. The bastard. The awful, wonderful, heartless bastard who she hated almost as much as she loved.
Burying her face in her hands, Grace bowed her shoulders and wept.
When Stephen finally found Grace, she was curled up asleep in Lord Markham’s study. Beyond the room the ball continued, marked by raised voices and general merriment as the story of Lady Wells’ unfortunate pastry incident and his unexpected – albeit much celebrated – return made the rounds.
Stephen closed the door behind him and locked it, effectively sealing him and Grace in their own little bubble of privacy. Candlelight flickered across her pale face, illuminating the damp trails of silver that tears had left on her cheeks. Seeing evidence of her misery was like an arrow through the heart, although he knew the pain that blossomed in his chest was no less than he deserved.
Careful not to wake Grace, he crossed the room and sat in the chair next to hers, watching her sleep as he had once done long ago, when they had first met. He had been as entranced then as he was now, and now, like then, the mere sight of her was enough
to steal the very breath from his lungs.
She had claimed to be no great beauty, he recalled with a wayward smile, even though he still thought her the most beautiful creature he had ever met. Her beauty came from within, shining through and encompassing everyone who was blessed enough to be loved by her.
Once upon a time Stephen had had the pleasure of being one of those people. She brought him light and laughter the likes of which he had never known, changing him for the better, rescuing him from himself. And he had taken that love, so artlessly given, and crushed it with one calculated pummel of his fist.
He still remembered, word for word, the letter that had ended it all. The letter that had torn his soul apart even as he wrote it. The letter that had haunted his dreams every night since its completion.
The letter that had taken his Grace away.
Dear Grace,
I am writing to let you know I will not be joining you at
Kensington as planned. As it so happens I am leaving
today for the Americas and will not be returning for
some time. In lieu of my extended absence, I feel
it is best to call off our engagement.
I wish you all the best in your
future endeavors.
Lord Melbourne
It mattered naught that he truly believed his actions had been for the best at the time. That he had seen no other way to protect his beloved fiancée other than to cast her from his life completely. That leaving her was the only way her could ensure her complete safety, even if it meant he was cursing himself to a fate worse than death for a life without Grace was no life at all.
She had loved him, and in loving him she had trusted him, and he had destroyed all of that with one fell swoop of his quill. Stephen knew he could never forgive himself for what he had done, but the question that still remained, the question that haunted his every waking moment, the question that had ultimately brought him back to London, still went unanswered: could she forgive him?
A Gentle Grace (Wedded Women Quartet) Page 3