by Ingrid Hahn
“There you go again taking responsibility for others. What is it you want, Grace?”
What did she want? Had she been asked that question a few weeks ago, she would have had a ready answer. She’d have said she wanted to go into the world and make her own way.
Something was changing. Or had changed, almost without her noticing. Because the first image flashing in her mind at her sister’s question was Corbeau’s face.
Chapter Nineteen
“You should have allowed me to hang the kissing bough from the doorway.”
Corbeau stood on the periphery of the drawing room, waiting, along with everyone else, to be called into dinner. Without moving any other part of him, he issued Hetty a rebuking glance. He’d not heard so much about kissing over the whole course of his life than he had in the last few days.
They were all conspiring against him. “Absolutely not.”
“A diversion that might not be enjoyable to you might be very much appreciated by others.”
“I have some familiarity with the concept. The answer, however, remains.”
The hour wasn’t late, but the ivory room glowed with candlelight as if night were already upon them. Thank goodness he hadn’t allowed his sister to convince him to move dinner to later in the afternoon when she claimed doing so would be more fashionable.
Across the space, Grace, wearing pomona, shone like a silver goblet polished to perfection amid a clutter of tarnished pieces. The crisp apple-green of her gown set off her hair.
Damn him. If only he could make the denial and have done with it.
If only the accusation didn’t cut so deep.
Hetty adjusted her fan. “We invited too many people.”
“That’s what I say every year.”
“More than a few who declined wrote rather late to say their plans had changed.” Hetty smiled. “I suppose you know how that might have come about.”
The news about his sudden engagement to Lady Grace and the details of how the affair had unraveled no doubt had circulated with alacrity.
He caught Grace’s eye from across the room.
Her lips parted. Then, quickly, she refocused intently upon the person seated beside her.
He shouldn’t have let the question get the better of him. He shouldn’t have left without discussing the matter with her. Why couldn’t he have simply answered and been done with it? What was wrong with the truth?
Unfortunately, Hetty caught the exchange. “Whatever you did, you should apologize.”
“What makes you think I need to apologize?” It was worse than he thought if the new wall between him and Grace was so obvious. And he didn’t really want to hear his sister’s answer.
The timing could not have been worse. This was the night of the feast, the reason everyone came to Corbeau Park at this time of year. However nominal it might have become to some, the feast remained important to the memory of his departed mother.
It was important for another reason as well. It marked the end. Just one more day and guests would leave, the Landon family included.
“Sometimes it doesn’t matter who’s at fault. One apology leads to another. Believe me.”
And sometimes his sister could be so very wise. “Thank you. You mean well, but remember that this is none of your concern.”
“You can use that tone on me all you want, brother, you’ll not frighten me.”
He stared her down. “None of your concern.”
“With those looks you two have been giving each other all night, it’s quickly becoming my concern. We have guests to think about. You might claim not to care what anyone else thinks, but I know well you want no more gossip about your engagement than you’ve already accidentally stirred up.”
He made to reply, but she held up a hand.
“I know what you’re going to say—that this is a private matter and nobody else’s concern. As a strict moral philosophy, I agree with you. However, you must face the reality that we have a houseful of people watching. They’re jackdaws.”
“Jackdaws?”
“And you know what everyone says about jackdaws.”
With Hetty, one would never know what it was that everyone said about jackdaws. “Enlighten me.”
“Curious as a jackdaw, they say.” She spoke with her characteristic playfulness.
“I don’t believe anybody says that.”
“If they don’t, they ought to, because it’s true.” She stuck her nose in the air, then dropped her voice to speak again in low tones. “Do you mind about the family’s blemished past? She said something to me the other morning that made me believe her father’s disgrace has been weighing heavily upon her thoughts.”
“I would never claim it’s ideal. However, it changes nothing.”
“Yes.” Hetty nodded. “That’s what I thought. Pity it’s so difficult for her—not that I blame her, mind. Only think what she must have endured these past eight years.”
Dinner was called. His stomach was hollow, but not for want of food.
The time of reckoning had almost come. And Grace was not yet his.
At the table, Corbeau sat. Endured. Hetty must have caught the unusual amount of strain he suffered, for she was brighter than usual, trying to carry him as host where he fell lacking.
Just as it seemed he’d been imprisoned in a hell of never-ending feast, the gentlemen were rising to their feet as the ladies took their leave.
The silver had gleamed, the candles glowed, and the food was rich enough to make them all gouty as kings.
None of it mattered.
It was by far the worst Christmas Feast Corbeau Park had ever seen. It brought no honor to his mother’s memory.
“I daresay, my good fellow, this was far and away the finest Christmas dinner we’ve ever seen at the Park.”
He focused on the man who’d issued the absurd statement, a viscount of middling years who’d been among the old earl’s intimates. He had the build of an ox and was renowned for the appetite of approximately equal strength.
“Thank you, my lord.” Corbeau hoped his expression was less fierce than his face felt. Thankfully, men were far less likely to be aware of such things than ladies. Or if they were, they couldn’t be bothered with conjecture. Whether that was a fault or an attribute of the sex depended on the situation. “I will pass along your compliments to my sister. She will be pleased to have them.”
“A fine young mistress she’s been at Corbeau Park, acting in your late mother’s stead.”
“I couldn’t have asked for better.”
The port was coming out. It wouldn’t do to drown himself in the stuff, but a swift drink would do no harm.
He emptied the crystal and grimaced. The sticky taste of raisins clung unfavorably to his palate. This was not a beverage to be taken quickly. The placid-faced footman quietly refilled the glass without drawing any attention to what Corbeau had done.
“Forgive me, my lord.” The butler was suddenly above him, proffering a small note on a silver tray, the gray-haired man’s expression as serene as ever.
Corbeau took the slip of creamy paper and studied his name written in the long, curving strokes of an unfamiliar hand. He thanked the servant, dismissing the man with a gentle nod.
It was from Grace.
Meet me in the library.
His heart fell. Was it to be over so soon?
Corbeau’s heart was uncomfortably large, seeming to take up far too much space within the restricted confines of his chest. It beat hard and steady—and a bit too quickly for comfort.
It was madness thinking he’d win her in so few days, naught but a handful of hours. He needed days. Weeks.
He’d set himself on a course of desperate plays. He’d told himself he’d do anything for her. But he wouldn’t answer the single question she had of him.
Because the question itself revealed the depths of her mistrust.
In the library, she wasted no time. “We need to talk about this morning.”
&
nbsp; “Among other things.”
“Let’s start with this morning. One thing at a time.”
She turned from him, striding away, not to put her focus on anything else, particularly, but to keep her back to him. The line of her neck was long. Exposed. All but ready for him to graze his lips down the silken length.
Would she give herself up to him now as she’d been so ready to just a few nights before?
If he fell to his knees and begged her to love him, would she have mercy?
“I compliment you and Hetty both on the meal, my lord. Its fame is well-earned.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Do they all run together in your head? One Corbeau Park Christmas Feast unable to be distinguished from another?”
“With things unsettled, I couldn’t taste a single bite this year.”
“I pray that isn’t the first sign of a cold.”
“About this morning. My temper had the better of me. I am very sorry, you know.”
“Oh.”
They lingered together in silence. If only she would speak. If only she would turn and throw herself into his arms.
“Grace.” His voice was low, strained with the agony of wanting her.
The wood fire popped. She jumped. She responded softly. “My lord.”
He came close, resting his hands upon the softly rounded flesh of her upper arms. Leaning slightly forward, he breathed the scent of her hair into his lungs.
“You couldn’t have, could you? You couldn’t have contrived for us to be found in the storeroom together to force us to marry.”
“It’s still a question in your mind?” His hands fell away. A few glowing sparks flew upon the tinder of that same anger, the kind that’d had the best of him only hours before. “You think me so underhanded?”
“Are you saying you did not?” She faced him. They were close. Too close. She looked up at him. He looked down upon her.
All he would have to do was lean forward. Their lips would meet. She would melt against him. He wouldn’t want to stop.
This time he wouldn’t let go. He’d show her all the most intimate ways he could worship her.
Then it would no longer matter. They wouldn’t have to give that nonsense in the storeroom another thought.
He was a fool if he thought it would be so. She was proud, this one, his Lady Grace. Others might scorn her for it, but he didn’t. All the comforts of what his rank and fortune could offer were at her feet, ready and willing for her to claim them.
Yet she would not.
“Forgive me the less-kind implications of the question, my lady, and take what I ask for nothing more than the simple inquiry that it is, but—wouldn’t it be easier to resign yourself to the engagement? To accept me?”
“Resign myself?” Her mouth twisted in melancholy. “What would it make me to take such horrible advantage of a man and trap him into marriage on so little provocation as circumstance?” She shook her head. “But, as you pointed out, my lord, it’s far more complicated.”
His insides turned to lead. Changing the past was one thing he was powerless to do. “Your late father.”
“You never knew him, did you?”
Sensing she was about to share an intimate part of herself with him, he kept his voice gentle. “Not really. I knew him by sight. But I’ve heard more about him than I ever cared to know.”
“He wasn’t all bad. In spite of everything, I think he really did love us, in his way. He was just a man with—people say he should have been able to help himself, but I don’t think he could. If he’d have been able to help himself, he would have. It made him wretched.” Grace took a shaky breath. She trembled. She spoke quietly, but with the force of so many years of struggle behind her tone. “As horrible as it is thinking about it, I think in the end, part of him wanted to—wanted to pass on.”
Corbeau’s voice was little more than a whisper. “It’s difficult having complicated feelings for one’s parents, isn’t it? Even though we’re so far beyond childhood, some memories remain strong.”
“Yes. You’re right.”
“Will you ever forgive him?”
“It’s something I struggle with each and every day.”
“You can make a new start, my lady.” Desperation mauled his innards. “A new start with me.”
“No. I can’t. Don’t you see? I can never make a new start—not truly. I can run away, change my name, hide my identity, but it will never go away.”
“You want something more, don’t you?” He must withstand the pain of speaking thusly. If it was the truth, he’d accept it with all the honor by which he’d stood by in insisting upon the engagement. To do anything less would be to be less—less than an earl, less than a man.
Her eyes were so large he could fall in and swim in their glistening depths. She stayed silent in contemplation. Whether she saw him or whether she was a hundred miles away, he could not have said.
“I don’t know, my lord.”
“I see.” But he did not.
“My lord?”
“No. You’re right. I’ve been wrong about this. I’ve been wrong about everything. Your father’s disgrace imprinting upon me and the circumstance of our engagement are only part of the equation. Your father’s doings robbed you of any ability to trust.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s another man’s ghost between us. And all the wounds he left behind. They haven’t healed, have they?”
“I still don’t know what you mean.” Grace shook her head as if she didn’t want to know what he meant.
Yet another point on which he was entirely powerless. Pray life wasn’t going to continue throwing such things at him that he could not change. “It means you need something I cannot give you.”
…
Grace was abed with the loaned book, trying to concentrate on the strange Egyptian customs surrounding Osiris. She squinted at the page. A pagan god of the dead. And this was what interested Corbeau? To her mind it was so very dark.
A slight noise came from the direction of the door. She blinked and straightened. Was it her imagination, or had it been a very soft knock?
She crept from the warm cocoon of the blankets and cracked the door open. The corridor was empty. The cold air from the fireless space fluttered about her ankles.
Just as she was about to shut the door, her eyes lit upon a small parcel on the floor.
Clutching the wrap tight about her shoulders, she stepped out and looked both ways. Nobody.
Very well.
She bent to pick up the little box. A note was affixed to the outside with her name rendered in bold strokes.
Shutting the door behind her, she broke the seal.
The engagement is broken. You are released. C.
The information began soaking down into her bones. Her insides hardened.
This was what she wanted. Wasn’t it? “Oh, Lord in heaven, what have I done?”
Her hands trembled so badly she could hardly pull back the lid on the little wooden box. She peered within.
A strawberry.
Chapter Twenty
The taste of the strawberry lingered sweet on her tongue. The gift could only have meant one thing, couldn’t it? He was bidding her good-bye.
This was what she wanted. Relief should be pouring through the fibers of her being—relief so profound, it should make her weak with gratitude.
Instead, mutiny careened within her, fiery and reckless. Her spirit rebelled against all that would be lost by ending the engagement.
How could she want something so much—want someone so much—and still be caught in the steel trap of fear?
There was no time for fear now.
Charged with purpose, Grace crept through the silent house, limbs too warm from the pounding want burning in her blood to notice ambient temperature. She was absurdly thankful she’d sent the sniffling maid to bed early instead of insisting the girl bother with winding rags into her hair.
&nbs
p; Because she wasn’t going to go about tonight in such an odd headdress, not for this. She’d have had to stop to take them out, and she could stand the idea of tarrying as little as she could stand the idea of the questions she’d suffer for such an action upon morning.
She hadn’t even bothered with a candle. Only blown out the lamp in her chamber and left.
By God, was she really going? And so eagerly? It was dangerous moving through a house stuffed with so many people, even at such an hour. What if she were caught?
But it wasn’t just anyone. It wasn’t a frivolous risk. It was Corbeau.
How had she never noticed before how the floor squeaked and groaned with such terrible abandon? Every footfall seemed as loud as a demon shrieking to wake its brethren from the dead.
Was this really her? Was she, Grace, charging from the safety of her room in the dead of night with the hope of breaking one of the most sacredly held rules in all of society?
It was. And without a single regret. It was.
Maybe she was her father’s daughter, after all.
The warmth low in her belly spoke for itself. She wanted this.
She was at the landing where the stairs split. The guests had all been in the west wing, while the master’s apartments were in the east wing.
A low voice called out from the dark. “Grace?”
She stopped, and her eyes adjusted enough to see him there waiting for her above, his form lean and powerful as he stood in his shirtsleeves.
“What are you doing?”
“Isn’t it obvious, my lord?”
“Didn’t you receive my—?”
“I did, my lord. I did.”
“Well then?” He stepped before a window into a sliver of moonlight, and her heart swelled at the sight of him. What a man he was—what his nearness did to her.
The bold words charged heedlessly from her tongue, her heart thundering at a dangerous pace. “I’ve come to see you, my lord. I’ve come to—well, I want you…I want us…please, my lord, let me be yours, if only for one night.” She raised her hands to her cheeks but found no warmth. For once, she wasn’t blushing.