In the absolute silence that followed his admission Stephen braced himself for the worst. He imagined Grace declaring her hatred of him. He imagined her demanding he leave and never return. He should have known better.
“I am going to make us some tea,” she said quietly, gazing into the fire. The light from the flames threw her profile into contrast, illuminating the petal white softness of her skin and riotous mane of dark curls that had come loose from her coiffure and now spilled in waves across her shoulders and back. “When I return, I would like to hear everything.”
His gentle Grace. Tears burned in the corners of his eyes, and Stephen was forced to nod his agreement for fear his voice would crack should he try to speak. She managed a small, tight smile before she left the room, leaving him alone to gather his thoughts.
In that moment Stephen knew Grace would forgive him hell itself if he asked it of her, and he cursed himself a thousand times over for waiting so long to tell her the truth. He had thought he was protecting her, but he had only been breaking her, one small piece at a time. She was everything that was good and light and beautiful. He did not deserve her or her forgiveness, and it would be his burden to bear that his greatest hope – and his darkest fear – was that he would get them both.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Grace carried the tea platter into the parlor with shaking hands. Stephen had been busy, she noted, seeing the two leather chairs he had dragged from the corner of the room and positioned in front of the fireplace. He was sitting in one of them, but sprang to his feet when he heard her and began to pace between the two chairs with all the nervous energy of a caged jungle cat.
“Sit down,” she said as she poured them both tea, added two generous lumps of sugar to hers, one to his, and held out his cup.
“Thank you,” he said automatically, and although he sat as she requested, he did not sip his tea or relax into the chair, but rather sat right on the edge as if prepared to flee should the moment present itself.
Grace’s heart softened. Surely Stephen would not be like this if he did not sincerely care for her. It was her greatest fear: that in the months that passed he had simply ceased to have any feelings for her. But how could he have touched her like he had and be staring at her as he was now and not feel something? Perhaps there had been another woman – her stomach rolled sickeningly at the idea – but he had returned for her. He had made love to her. Yes, he had yet to declare his love vocally, but he had shown her, in every way a woman could be shown, that she was his and he was hers. With every brush of his fingertips, with every press of his mouth, with every soft moan and gentle caress he had taken back a part of her soul that had always been meant for him.
Wrapping one arm around her middle and using the other to balance her tea, she sank into the remaining chair and curled her legs up underneath the long hem of her borrowed shirt. “Tell me everything,” she coaxed. “It’s time, Stephen.”
“I do not know where to start.” Feet braced apart, elbows on his thighs and head in his hands, Stephen was the epitome of tortured misery.
Grace sipped from her tea before she set it aside. “Start from the beginning.”
So he did. And when he was quite finished Grace allowed herself a moment to digest everything she had been told before she calmly got to her feet, crossed to Stephen’s chair, and dumped the remains of her tea on his head.
“What in the world—” he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “Grace, I know you must be upset but that was bloody well hot!”
“Good.” Grabbing the teapot from the serving set she hoisted it high and she advanced on Stephen with slow, deliberate steps while he backpedaled across the parlor with his hands poised above his shoulders in the universal gesture of surrender.
“Take a deep breath and calm down,” he ordered. “Think this through. You are not acting like yourself.”
Grace merely blinked and chucked the teapot at his head. It went far to the right – she had never been very good at throwing things – and smashed to the floor just shy of the wall, splashing pale brown water everywhere. “Was that calm enough for you, Stephen?” she asked sweetly. Looking around for something else with which to vent her anger, her gaze settled on the poker Stephen had used to tend the fire.
“Grace, please think about what you are doing. I realize it may take some time to – HOLY HELL!” he yelled when she sent the poker spiraling through the air. It stuck, sharp end down, in the middle of the chaise lounge.
Rather pleased with her aim this time, Grace’s lips curved in a self-satisfied smile. Rage the likes of which she had never known thrummed inside of her chest, so potent and burning hot it made her feel cold and detached, as she were observing what was happening from a great distance. “Shall I throw something else, or has my point been sufficiently made?”
Stephen drew his hands over his face and rubbed at his eyes. “Let me explain,” he begged. “For the love of God, just let me—”
“No,” Grace snapped when he took a step forward. “Do not come any closer. I do not want you to touch me. I do not want you to talk to me.”
He froze. “Then what do you want?”
“I want you to leave.”
“Gracie, you do not mean—”
“LEAVE!”
Perhaps she was not as detached as she had thought. Chest heaving from the effort it was taking to contain her sobs, Grace jabbed a finger towards the door. “Go, Stephen. I cannot… I cannot even look at you.” It was true. The mere sight of him caused her stomach to tighten and her throat to painfully catch. She felt ill, and knew it was a good possibility if Stephen did not leave within the next few seconds she would retch all over the last remaining carpet in the house.
Stephen retreated to the doorway, placed his hand on the knob, and hesitated. “I do not know if you understood the whole of what I told you. I never slept with her. I never loved her.”
“But that makes it all the worse, don’t you see? You should have told me from the very beginning.”
“Would you have let me go if I had?”
An arrow through the heart would have been kinder. How could she have been such a fool? “Of course I would have,” she said softly. Her fingers dug into the back of one of the chairs to hold her up as her knees threatened to collapse. “Of course, Stephen. There would have been no question.”
His brows knitted together in confusion. “Then why…”
“Because you did not trust me.” Suddenly Grace felt tired. So inexplicably exhausted that she sank to the floor right then and there. She hugged her knees to her chest and laid her head upon them, gazing out the far window to the darkness beyond. “You chose her over me, and you did not even have the decency to tell me you were doing it. You simply left. No,” she corrected herself with a watery smile, “you did not just leave. You wrote that damn letter first. I hated that letter, and yet I read it a dozen times a day. I worried over every word. I deconstructed every sentence. In the end, it did not matter, because you were not leaving me, you were choosing her. Oh, you did a wonderful thing, Stephen. I am very proud of you. But you should have told me.” The tears came then, an entire flood of them that stained her cheeks and caused her shoulders to tremble uncontrollably. “You should have told me,” she whispered.
When her sobs finally subsided Grace gathered what little courage she had left and lifted her head, but there was no one there. He had gone, and she was alone.
Again.
Stephen did not leave until he knew for certain Grace was asleep. He prowled around the outside of the house like a burglar, careful to keep his steps silent as he tracked her slow, methodic ascent up the stairs to her bedroom on the second floor. She moved like a ghost past the windows, still dressed in his white shirt, her face drained of all color and stained with tears. The single candle she carried shone like a beacon in the night, its flickering light illuminating the outline of her curvaceous body as she drifted in front of her bedroom window. She was ethereal in her beauty, reminding Stephen
of the first moment had ever laid eyes on her. Curled up beneath a mulberry tree fast asleep, she had made a fetching sight, and he had been as instantly captivated by her then as he was now. The time in between had done nothing to dim his enthrallment of her, nor temper his love. If only he had not made a muck of things… Stephen closed his eyes.
There was no going back. He had earned every bit of her loathing, every ounce of her hatred. She was right. He should have trusted her with the truth, should have told her everything from the very beginning, but he had been terrified of losing her, and his lips twisted at the irony, for in the end, when it was all said and done, he had lost her anyways.
And there was no one to blame but himself.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
One Month Later
Grace pulled the warm wool shawl tighter around her shoulders and stared woefully down into her cup of tea. Outside Margaret’s cozy parlor with its elegant rosewood furniture and crackling fire, rain and wind lashed at the windows as the storm that had hovered relentlessly over the countryside for the past three days continued.
When Grace had arrived four weeks earlier at Heathridge – unexpected but immediately welcomed – the sun had been bright and the sky a seamless blue. Now the weather was a perfect match for her mood.
“Would you like another pastry, dear?” From across the room Margaret held up a tray of the delectable sweets and exchanged a concerned glance with her husband when Grace shook her head.
“I, uh, will go check on the horses.” The Duke stood up, uncoiling his lanky frame from the chair he been more or less dozing in for the past two hours. When he walked past his wife he paused to kiss her cheek and his hand curved familiarly over her slowly growing belly. “Do not tire yourself out,” he murmured.
Grace, who watched the sweetly intimate exchange with undisguised longing in her eyes, interceded quickly. “Not to fear, Henry. I will keep an eye on her.”
Henry smiled and tipped his hat. “Thank you, Grace.”
“Make sure to give Poppy extra carrots!” Margaret called after him as he left.
Poppy, Grace knew, was Margaret’s favorite horse on the entire estate. While Henry’s stable boasted some of the finest racing bloodlines in all of England, Margaret was head over heels for an overweight, gray muzzled, swaybacked old draft mare she had rescued years before.
“How is she doing?” Grace asked.
Taking a pastry from the tray before she set it aside, Margaret spoke around a mouthful of cherries. “Who, Poppy? Oh, she is absolutely delightful. I have finally convinced Henry to give her the run of the place. I swear that horse is going to outlive us all. She will be the perfect mount for the baby.”
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I do not believe children start riding while they are still infants,” Grace pointed out.
Margaret simply smiled and patted her belly. “Mine will.”
Knowing better than to try to talk sense into her friend when the subject involved her beloved Poppy, Grace let the matter drop entirely. And because she had thought of little else since fleeing the city and coming to Heathridge, her thoughts automatically turned to Stephen. Plucking at a loose thread in her shawl, she said in a voice so quiet as to barely be heard, “Has the mail been delivered today?”
“No, sweetling.” Crossing the room, Margaret squeezed Grace’s shoulder before she reclined on an ornate chaise lounge twice the size of the one Grace had stabbed with a poker. “Nothing will come until this weather lets up.”
“That,” came a glib voice from the doorway, “is not precisely true.”
“Josephine!” Margaret and Grace cried together.
Flicking droplets of water everywhere, Josephine sauntered into the middle of the parlor, plunked her hands on her hips, and dropped into an elaborate curtsy that forced a smile from Grace’s lips despite her miserable mood. “Yes, it is I,” the blond decreed dramatically. “Come to rescue you from boredom at the hands of Margaret.”
“I am not boring in the least!” Margaret protested.
Josephine pursed her lips. “You are married and pregnant and living in the country. Thus, you are boring. Do not worry, dear. It is not your fault. I blame your husband entirely.”
“Henry! What in the world did he do?”
“Well, you did not put that baby in your belly all by yourself.”
Grace felt the laugh bubbling up before she could contain it. How strange – and how good – it felt to laugh again. She almost imagined she had quite forgotten how. Glancing down briefly to adjust a fold in the skirt of her blue morning dress, she looked up just in time to see a look – a very pointed, very satisfied look – passing between Margaret and Josephine.
“You planned this,” she accused as realization dawned. “Your coming here was no coincidence. Is Catherine here as well?”
“She and Marcus are settling the children in the guest cottage as we speak,” Margaret admitted. At Grace’s hurt look, she threw her arms wide. “What? Yes, yes, I asked them to come! What else would you have me do? You have been moping around for weeks, sweetling. Something had to be done.”
“I have not been moping,” Grace muttered. It was a lie, and all three women knew it. The truth of the matter was that she had been rather depressed lately. After Stephen’s revelation she had left London the very next morning, hoping a change of scenery would help soothe her troubled thoughts. Penning a quick letter to her parents, she had called in a favor from a close friend of her mother’s who just so happened to be traveling to the country that very same day and had room in her carriage for Grace. Heathridge had seemed as logical a destination as any, and Margaret had gone out of her way to make her feel welcome the moment she showed up on her front doorstep.
Yet despite her best efforts to the contrary Grace could not get Stephen from her mind, and she was miserable with longing for him because of it. Every day that passed without word from him was worst than the last and she wanted nothing more than to return to London and run headlong into his arms, but the haunting knowledge of what he had done – and what he had not done – stopped her every time.
“…see what you mean.”
“She has been like…since she came here.”
“…what we can do…help her…”
Vaguely Grace realized Josephine and Margaret were speaking about her. Sitting up a little straighter in her chair, she crossed her arms beneath the heavy shawl and frowned at both of them. “I am right here, you know.”
“Now you are.” Josephine arched one brow. “Before you were not. Honestly, Grace, this rut you have been in is quite played out. Either get yourself out or burrow in completely, but this hovering in the middle business has got to stop.”
“I agree,” said Margaret.
“That is easy for you to say.” Rather annoyed that both of her friends were taking sides against her, Grace added, “You have husbands that dote on you.”
“Ah.” Josephine held up one finger and made a tsk tsk sound with her tongue. “But we did not always. Did we, Margaret?”
“No we did not,” the redhead agreed.
“I cuckolded Traverson for more a year before we discovered that we loved each other. What?” she asked when Margaret and Grace both stared. “Oh, both of you know the truth of it. No use pretending otherwise, is there?”
“Henry ran off with my dowry before the ink was dry on our marriage certificate,” Margaret recalled with a wry little smile. “Let us not forget that.”
“And as far as Catherine and Marcus… Well.” Josephine shuddered. “You know the way they used to fight. They hated each other for years.”
“Years,” Margaret echoed.
Grace frowned. She supposed she had never really thought of it that way. She saw her friends as they were now: blissfully happy and head over heels in love. It was easy to forget how they had been before.
“Now,” Josephine said as she helped herself to a pastry before sitting beside Margaret, “when Catherine gets here you are going
to tell us the exact reason Stephen left you and broke the engagement.”
“Oh.” Grace’s brow furrowed. “I already told Margaret—”
“Then you will not mind telling it again.”
When Catherine finally arrived – soaked to the skin and muttering about ‘obnoxious’ children – she brought a decanter of wine with her and poured a glass for everyone sans Margaret, who declined citing an upset stomach.
“Here,” Grace said, shrugging out of her shawl and handing it over to the shivering Duchess, “take this.”
“Thank you,” Catherine said gratefully. Bypassing a chair, she sat directly in front of the fireplace and began to unpin her wet hair so it could dry. “I do hope the rain stops soon. The children are beside themselves with boredom and I fear I am at my wits end.”
Josephine clapped her hands together. “Yes, well, that is all positively fascinating, but I want to hear about Stephen.”
Knowing her friends would not relent until she told the sad, sorry story in its entirety (yet again), Grace took a deep breath, braced her hands on the edge of her chair, and began to speak. Her voice trembled at first, but as she continued she spoke stronger and faster until by the end the words were tumbling on top of each other, but no one seemed to mind. Her three person audience listened with rapt attention, alternating between expressions of disbelief, shock, and more than one “he did not”. When she was finished she sat back to anxiously await her friend’s reactions. Not surprisingly, Josephine was the first to offer her opinion.
“Is that it, then?”
“Do you mean is that everything he told me?” Grace nodded. “Yes, yes it is.”
Looking vaguely perplexed, Josephine said, “Forgive me, my dear, but if that was all he did I fail to see the problem. Why, he should be commended for rescuing that poor woman! Instead you have crucified him. It does make for a splendid tale, though. Did you know Stephen was the Prime Minister’s half brother?” she asked, glancing down at Catherine.
A Gentle Grace (Wedded Women Quartet) Page 9