“No, of course not!” the Duchess said indignantly. “Although Marcus has had meetings with Lord Melbourne on several occasions and he always returns in a very cross mood. The Minister,” she continued in a whisper, “is said to be a very difficult man.”
“They do share the same last name,” Margaret said thoughtfully. “I always thought it was a coincidence.”
“We all did,” Josephine said.
“When I asked about his family Stephen always told me he was an only child,” Grace said softly. “He has lied to me countless times.”
“Well, technically speaking, he was an only child,” Catherine reasoned. “At least the only child his mother ever gave birth to. It is not his fault his father already had a son by his first wife fifteen years Stephen’s senior that he never knew about until he was an adult.”
Leaning forward out of her chair, Josephine reached out and tapped Grace soundly on the knee. “Oh, for heavens sake. He was trying to protect you, you ninny. The Prime Minister is one of the most powerful men in all of England. If he ever finds out who helped ferret his wife and daughter out of the country Stephen will be in grave danger. He could even be arrested.”
“Or hanged,” Margaret piped in.
“Do they still do hangings?” Josephine straightened back up. “I rather thought it was death by firing squad these days.”
Unable to believe what she was hearing, Grace sprang to her feet. “Are you defending him?” she cried in disbelief. Here she had thought to garner some sympathy for her plight, and it sounded as if they were taking Stephen’s side!
Her three friends exchanged three quick glances before they all looked at Grace and shook their heads in unison.
“Yes, we are,” Catherine said.
“Absolutely,” Margaret agreed.
“I suppose he is not a total cad,” Josephine said grudgingly.
Grace hugged her arms tight around her chest and shifted her gaze to the fire. “But he lied to me about everything,” she said in a very small voice.
Getting to her feet with a little grunt of effort, Margaret came up beside Grace and put a comforting arm around her shoulders. “Josephine is right, sweetling. He was trying to protect you. He did a noble thing, getting Lady Melbourne away from her husband. Once a man strikes a woman… Well…”
“He will do it again,” Catherine said when Margaret trailed off. “And again. He saved her life, Grace, and he did his best to protect you in the process. Lord Melbourne – your Lord Melbourne – has no other family. If the Prime Minister discovered what he had done before he returned to London, he would have come straight for you. By breaking your engagement, Stephen made it appear as though you meant nothing to him, and thus could not be used as leverage.”
Grace’s shoulders drooped. “I suppose I never thought of it that way,” she admitted.
“Of course you did not,” Catherine said in her no-nonsense tone. “You thought he should have told you from the very beginning, and by not doing so he chose his sister-in-law over you, which made you feel even worse, because you cannot be mad at her since she a victim, so it only accentuated your anger for him.”
“Yes.” Grace blinked. “That is exactly it.”
And it was. At long last, someone had put an explanation behind the feelings that were swirling inside of her. Love, anger, fear, pride. They had been in such a tangled knot she had been hopeless to sort them out. Now it felt as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders and a sigh of heady relief coursed through her body. Stephen had never meant to hurt her. Not purposefully, at least. His intent had only been to protect her, and protect the poor woman who had suffered at the hands of his half brother. In truth, he was a hero… and she had treated him as the worst sort of villain. “Oh,” Grace murmured, breaking away from Margaret to walk towards the window. Pressing her fingertips against the cool glass she stared blindly out into the storm as her mind raced with should-haves.
She should have forgiven Stephen.
She should have gone into his arms.
She should have never left London.
Grace startled when she felt a light squeeze on her arm, but it was only Margaret come to join her at the window. Squinting, the red haired Duchess lifted a finger and pointed at something beyond the glass.
“Do you see that tree there? The one behind the fence?”
“A tree?” Grace’s brow furrowed. “I… Yes, yes I see it.”
“Henry’s great-great grandfather planted that tree for his wife the day after they were wed. Every storm it has lost something. Leaves, a branch, once it was even struck by lightening and we feared it dead, but in the spring it came back. Love is like that, I think.”
“Love is like a tree?” Grace asked skeptically.
“No, no.” Margaret shook her head. “Love is like that tree. Every storm it breaks, but when the storm is over and the sky has cleared it is never broken.” Grasping Grace’s shoulders, Margaret spun her away from the window with surprising strength for a pregnant woman and looked her square in the eye. “Be a tree, sweetling.”
Grace bit down on her lower lip. “But what if Stephen does not want to be a tree?”
“Mayhap he does not want to be a tree, but after all this time apart from you I bet he is as hard as one!” Snickering at her own vulgar sense of humor, Josephine stood up and came to stand beside Margaret. Catherine, still a bit damp around the edges but not nearly as soaked as she had been when she arrived, followed close behind and the four friends formed a circle.
“Margaret,” Catherine said approvingly, “that was a very good analogy.”
“Thank you.”
“You are welcome.”
Josephine frowned. “I made an analogy as well,” she pointed out. “I compared the tree to Stephen’s—”
“Yes, yes,” Catherine said hastily. “We all heard you.”
“But what should I do now?” Grace wondered out loud. Breaking free of the circle she began to pace the length of the parlor, her eyes downcast and her expression troubled. She had certainly made a mess of things. Stephen had come to with his heart on his sleeve and she had sent him away! No, not just that. She had thrown a teapot at him. And a poker! The shame of it brought tears to her eyes and with a not so quiet sniffle she buried her face in her hands and sank into the nearest chair.
She was tired of crying. She was tired of feeling sad. She wanted things to be as they were before, when everything made sense and her greatest worry was how long the train should be on her wedding gown. Now it was all a great jumble of confusion with no end in sight. “I just want to be happy again,” she murmured, dropping her head back and letting her arms fall lifelessly at her sides.
“And so you shall be,” Catherine said briskly.
“How? I have been here nearly a month and—”
“A month and three days, actually,” Margaret corrected, revealing her small quirk for always knowing the exact length of time that had passed for any given thing.
“A month and three days then.” Grace sighed. “During which time Stephen has not sent me so much as a letter.”
“And why should he?” Josephine asked. With a rustle of crinoline the blond glided across the room and perched on the armrest of Grace’s chair. Crossing her long legs at the knee in a balancing act that defied gravity, she raked her hair back with an impatient flick of her wrist and said, “He came back for you once, dear, and you chased him away. Lord Melbourne is many things, but he is not a man to make the same mistake twice. If he does not think you want him, he will not come charging after you on a white horse. He is not a prince, and you are not a princess, and real life is not a fairytale. Happily-ever-afters are not handed out on silver platters. They have to be earned.”
Grace sat upright and frowned as she digested Josephine’s advice. “You are absolutely correct,” she decided after a long pause.
Josephine blinked. “I am?”
“She is?” Margaret and Catherine chorused.
“Yes,” Grace said decisively. “I must go to London at once.”
“Take my carriage,” Catherine offered. “The driver is returning to the city after he changes horses. If you travel through the night you should arrive by late tomorrow afternoon.”
Grace embraced each woman in turn. Josephine she squeezed the tightest, and when she whispered “thank you” in her friend’s ear the blond wiped at something in her eye that looked suspiciously like a tear.
“Oh, get on with you then,” Josephine said, sniffling loudly. “Never mind that Traverson and I traveled all day just to see you.”
“You live a mile away,” Catherine said dryly.
Josephine pursed her lips. “Yes, but it is a very long mile.”
“I will have a maid ready your things,” Margaret said. “Are you certain you want to leave in the middle of the storm?”
Grace did not hesitate. “Yes. I have to see Stephen. I have to… Well, I need to…” Here she paused, for while she knew with every beat of her heart that she loved Stephen and wanted to be with him, she was not quite sure how to accomplish what seemed like an insurmountable task. Doubt gnawed through her euphoria, chasing away the hope that had filled her with light and giddiness. She bit her lip. What if he did not want to see her? What if he had already left London? What if he—
“Tell him that you love him,” Josephine advised with a wink. “Keep it simple, dear. You will be fine.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I know so. Now go along and change into your traveling habit. We will be right behind you.”
Grace rushed out of the room, and when a loud thump followed by a muffled shriek echoed through the house, the three remaining friends merely shook their heads and did their best not to laugh.
“Has she been tripping on that bottom step all month?” Josephine asked curiously.
“Since she arrived,” Margaret confirmed.
“I think it is a good thing,” Catherine said. “It means the old Grace is coming back.”
“I hope so,” Josephine murmured. “I truly hope so.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The storm did not let up during the night. If anything it grew worse, which made the return journey to London a long and arduous one. By the time the exhausted team of horses made it to Stephen’s townhouse it was just shy of one in the morning, and even though the driver offered to take her to Catherine’s to spend the rest of the night, Grace declined. She was not tired. Quit the opposite, really. Her body fairly vibrated with tension when she departed from the carriage, and her hand trembled when she raised it to clasp the solid brass door knocker and gave three hard bangs.
When nothing happened, she knocked again, and only after she saw the carriage depart out of the corner of her eye – splashing up a wave of water as it went – did she realize her error. If Stephen was not at home, the servants were unlikely to hear her. They would all be sleeping on the third floor, and when she squinted against the rain and looked up, she saw no candles burning.
“Bloody hell,” she muttered, repeating one of Stephen’s more preferred curses. “What am I going to do now?”
She was already soaked to the skin and she knew her trembling was not all from nervousness. It may have been spring, but the air was damp and the hour bleak. She supposed she could go to her parents, but they lived clear across the park, and while Grace had never been known for her common sense, she did know a lady never, ever attempted to go into Hyde Park after dark.
Pulling her cloak tighter around her shoulders, Grace shivered and looked at the door knocker again. It stared plaintively back at her; a giant lion’s head with a small scruff of mane and a ring through its nostrils. “Sorry about this old chap” she said before she grasped the ring in both hands and began to swing it furiously back and forth, hitting the door with as much strength as she could muster.
On the tenth knock – or was it the eleventh? Her arms had lost count long ago – the door opened with such abruptness that Grace tumbled inside and was stopped short by a hard chest. It was rather like running into a wall, and as she wheezed and coughed and struggled to catch her breath she dimly heard the door slam shut behind her followed shortly by Stephen’s voice raised high in alarm and disbelief.
“Grace? What in the… Grace, what the bloody hell are you doing here?”
The entryway was dark save the single candle Stephen held. The flickering light cast his face in shadows, giving him a dark, dangerous appearance that did nothing to soothe the sudden clutch of nerves in Grace’s belly. Allowing her wet cloak to drop to the floor, she rubbed her icy hands together and attempted to explain herself.
“I… I… I came back,” she said dumbly.
Stephen’s eyebrows knitted together. “I can see that. Come into the drawing room, I will get you some blankets and start a fire.”
Grace followed him docilely as a child. He made quick work of the fire and she sank gratefully down to the floor, huddling as close to the flames as she could stand. Stephen draped two heavy blankets over her shoulders, and within minutes her shivering had subsided and feeling had returned to her numb extremities. “Thank you. I was afraid you were not at home.”
“What are you doing here?” Sitting on the edge of a plush leather chair, Stephen leaned forward onto his knees and stared at her intently, his green eyes brooding and unreadable in the dim light. “It was foolish to come in this weather. You could have caught a chill, or been apprehended on the road by bandits, or—”
“I came to see you!” she cried, cutting him off. Stephen stiffened and drew back, but Grace pushed on, determined to say what she come to say, the consequences be damned. If Stephen did not want her then he did not want her, but it would not be because he thought she did not love him. Divesting herself of the blankets Grace lurched clumsily to her feet. Stephen’s arms shot out to steady her, but she stepped out of reach, knowing that if he touched her – even once – she would be lost.
Light from the crackling fire illuminated half of her body while the rest was claimed by the dark, sending a rippling shadow across the room. She began to walk back and forth in front of the flames, her steps small and measured, her brow furrowed in thought. She wanted – needed – to say precisely the right thing, and when she finally turned to face Stephen it was with a clear mind.
“I love you,” she said simply. She saw his eyes widen, his breath catch, but he remained silent, and she was grateful for it. “When you left… I have never felt pain like that before. Every day I prayed you would return, and when you did I was so happy… and so angry. I said and did things I truly regret.” Her eyes dropped guiltily to the floor as she admitted in a whisper, “Like throwing the teapot and poker at you.”
“Were they at me?” Stephen said dryly. “I rather thought you were aiming for the furniture.”
She motioned for him to be quiet by raising her finger to her lips and he obediently closed his mouth, but she saw the smile lurking there, and it helped to ease the frantic beating of her heart. “I wish you had trusted me with the knowledge of your half brother ages ago, but now I see why you did not. You were trying to protect me from him in the only way you thought you could. Although I do believe I would have rather liked to meet your sister-in-law. Is she safe now, with her daughter?”
Stephen nodded.
“Good. I am glad to hear it.” And now came the hard part. “I do not… I do not know if you want me back, Stephen, but I came here to tell you that—”
She tried to finish, but the words came out muffled, for in one long stride Stephen was up and had her pulled tight against his chest. He embraced her fiercely, as if he were afraid she would vanish into thin air less he held onto her with all his strength.
“Foolish woman,” he murmured into her hair, “I have wanted you back since the moment I left. I just never thought… I never dreamed…”
“That I would want the same?” Grace finished when his voice broke. Planting her palms against his chest she pushed back, givi
ng herself enough room to tip her head up and see his face. “It is merely your good fortune that no other man would have me,” she teased, her blue eyes sparkling. “You may not have noticed, but I am rather plain.”
“Beautiful,” Stephen corrected. “You are beautiful.”
“And I tend to speak without thinking.”
“Opinionated.”
Oh, she rather liked that. “And let us not forget how clumsy I can be.”
Stephen raised one eyebrow.
“Beast,” Grace said cheerfully, striking his chest. He captured her fist in one hand and ran his thumb across her knuckles, eliciting a soft sigh from her lips. “I do love you so very much,” she confessed. “Even when I hated you I still loved you.”
Stephen’s answer was a kiss so soft, so tender, that Grace had no choice but to melt into his arms. She giggled when Stephen scooped her up, but sobered the instant he laid her out in front of the fireplace. She waited in silence as he made a bed for them with the blankets he had used to warm her and when he was finished and he opened his arms she went gladly into his embrace.
This time their lovemaking was sweet and patient and gentle. Grace savored every touch, every moan, every soft, soothing stroke. There were no words exchanged between them; they spoke with their bodies, with their eyes, with their hearts. And when they came to the edge it was as one, and when they leapt into the abyss it was together, as it was always meant to be.
By dawn they had made it upstairs to the master bedroom. Light flickered in through the curtains, bathing the room in a soft, rosy glow and rousing Grace from her peaceful slumber while Stephen watched over her, his fingers combing absently through her long tangle of dark hair.
When her eyes fluttered open she smiled at him and snuggled closer. “Do you remember our first kiss?” When he nodded, she sighed dreamily and rested her head against his chest. “That was the moment I fell in love with you, I think. You were so handsome and I was so frightened I would say the wrong thing.”
A Gentle Grace (Wedded Women Quartet) Page 10