by Ingrid Hahn
…
The plush interior of the carriage was silent. Grace looked out the window, the snowy countryside passing by, quiet and unassuming and serene as ever. The heat from the warming stone below her feet emanated through the soles of her boots. She wiggled her near-frozen toes, thinking back to that first day they’d come to Corbeau Park. The carriage had broken. It’d been so cold. She’d wiggled her toes then, too. How odd memory was, holding on to such an insignificant thing like moving one’s toes.
And now it was all so different. How could the world simply continue? Her heart had been torn in two—ripped and mangled beyond recognition. First by Corbeau and his absurd attempt to buy her, and then all over again by those pronouncements he’d made in front of God and everyone. Nobody had ever taken such a stand for her.
True, he hadn’t said exactly what she’d dreamed for so many years to say herself, but he’d given them all a good lashing. Far be it from her to deny the simple fact of how satisfying it had been to watch the scene unfold.
And considering his extreme reserve—how uncomfortable he was around people. For him to have stood before so many and let loose his tongue…what must it have cost him?
Phoebe and Lady Bennington had the bench across from Grace. Her sister broke the silence. “Do you think they’ll notice we were without Jane?”
“I rather think not, my love.”
Grace caught her sister staring. Phoebe looked away. Then back again. “You know, Grace, I liked Lord Corbeau well enough, I suppose, but I did think him rather a bore until he stood up before everyone—”
“That’s enough for now, my dear.” Their mother gave her youngest daughter a significant look.
Phoebe gave a toss of her head. “Well I don’t see why we shouldn’t talk about it.”
Lady Bennington elbowed her youngest daughter. “There is nothing to discuss. Unless…” She gave Grace a wary look. “Unless Grace should wish to discuss…er…anything, of course.”
How could either of them begin to understand? How could any of them understand?
Normally, the person she’d be candid with would have been Hetty. Obviously, in this circumstance, she couldn’t do any such thing. Jane was gone, Isabel was in London as she always was, her mother was her mother, and Phoebe was too different from herself.
What was the use? She didn’t have the words to say what she felt. She hardly knew herself.
…
Corbeau pulled his horse to a halt at the edge of the village under a rapidly darkening sky. A light snow was dusting a fresh layer of perfect white over the wintery world. His breath came from between his lips in misty clouds.
Everything was quiet. Between night falling and more snow drifting down from the heavens, people were staying snug indoors.
He swung his leg over the saddle and dismounted, keeping a hold on the straps of the leather reins as he stroked his hand along the white stripe running down his mount’s face. The beast grunted his appreciation for the attention.
Horses made ever so much more sense than people. A person could guard his heart and soul. With horses, everything was open. Corbeau was going to be relying on the creatures much more heavily than normal in the coming weeks.
The inn was no more than fifty paces away, lazy billows of smoke rising from the chimneys. Once they’d left, it hadn’t taken long for a servant to tell him where they had gone.
He’d set out to win Grace. Had he done everything he could have?
Did he have to relent—did he have to surrender, to give her up? Was that well and truly the end?
These were the questions battering the inside of his skull as he’d ridden from the house.
But as he approached the perimeter of the small settlement, a sort of perfect calm had nestled in his bones. The answer whispered in the center of his being. Yes, he’d done everything he could have.
If she wanted him, she could have had him.
Most women in such dire circumstances would have taken him in an instant. Had she been the scheming sort who valued the copious comforts wealth afforded, she might have lured him in all those years ago when he’d first wanted to court her. They might have been married as many as, what, seven—no, eight years now? They could well have had children by now.
Could she have come to love him in that time?
Grace chose not for want of money, but for the demands of her heart. And there, it seemed, he had no place.
He hardened himself against further conjecture. The stinging pain of all he wanted—all he couldn’t have—it was too much. Too overpowering. Too intense. Too raw.
A shadowy figure lingering in the far boundary of torchlight from the inn’s yard caught his eye. Odd to be out on such a night.
He was about to remount the stallion and turn back when a sensation hit him right between the shoulder blades.
His heart flipped. He couldn’t make out any features. He didn’t have to. It was her there, Lady Grace lingering alone in the falling snow while night folded around the world.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Corbeau licked his lips. The dampness vanished immediately in the dry air.
Was there anything left to say?
Desperation clawed in his chest—desperation that it wasn’t over, that there was one last thing to annihilate everything else and win her once and for all.
There wasn’t.
He should leave. But she’d seen him.
They stood, together and apart, somehow the only two people in existence.
Words coalesced in his mind.
He approached like a man whose insides were about to be sliced out and fed to pigs. But approach he did, horse in tow, newly fallen snow crunching beneath his boots. “You’re out alone, Lady Grace.”
“I know.”
The horse shook its head and stomped a hoof. Corbeau absently stroked its nose.
“You must be chilled.”
“I’m warm enough, my lord.” The heavy cloak she wore had collected and melted just enough snowflakes to emit the distinctive scent of wet wool.
“I’m not sorry, you know.” He was scowling fiercely, but couldn’t stop. “For this afternoon, I mean.”
“I wouldn’t have you be.”
“I hope—I hope what I said didn’t embarrass you.”
She gave him a wistful smile. “Of all the things that have been said about me or my family, I promise you, what you said didn’t rate a mention on the list of worst moments.”
A silence drew out between them.
He took a breath. “I have a question to ask you. You don’t have to answer, but I would like to ask all the same.”
“All right.” The tip of her nose was pink.
“Might you have had me if your father hadn’t lost everything?”
She looked startled, but recovered almost instantly, blinking rapidly as if suddenly recollecting a subject pressing on her conscience. “What about that poor serving maid?” Grace shook her head as if lost in thought. “What’s to happen to her?”
Maybe the question was too much for Grace at this juncture. Never having an answer would plague him, but perhaps there was no answer. Perhaps it was impossible to tell what would have been if only this or if only that. “She’s going to be all right, you have my word. I’ve put aside a portion of money that will support her and the child both.”
Grace’s eyes took on a faraway look and her head bent. “Poor girl.”
“She’ll have choices. They’ll be limited by what has already come to pass, but you have my word, she’ll have choices. I shall never forget what you said, my lady. ‘The world works by our hands and ours alone.’ They’ve been imprinted forever upon my mind.”
“I like to think she hasn’t lost everything. Lost everything…” Grace’s mouth twisted into bitterness. “It doesn’t come close to describing what he did to our lives.”
Grace stared into the distance. They stayed quiet a moment. “It’s funny. I was out here thinking about my father. And you.”
<
br /> “Me?”
“How sorry I am. About everything.”
It pierced his heart, that tremble in her voice.
His own turned rough. “Don’t be sorry on my account, Lady Grace. I’m not sorry for what we had together, and I won’t have your pity.” This woman had joined with him in one magnificent act of love. She’d shown him true passion. She’d opened his heart. How could he be bitter for having had a taste of something most people couldn’t even dare dream of? “It’s my failure in social graces, isn’t it? You can’t take to husband a man like me, so incapable in the simple niceties everyone else takes for granted.”
Grace gazed at him in utmost earnestness. “Whatever else you might think of yourself, my lord, you should know there wasn’t a single person among your guests who didn’t change a little for the better when singled out for your notice.”
Corbeau started inside.
“More than your guests. Remember that first morning when we arrived unexpectedly early and the carriage was stuck in a rut?”
“It was worse than that, if memory serves. The wheel broke.”
“Remember the coachman who brought us here?”
The only thing he recalled about that morning was not having the first notion how to handle the fierce need to be close to Grace. “I don’t.”
“A battered old man, hunched and world-weary. The way you were kind to him—the way you’re unthinkingly kind to everyone… Then when you took me around the estate, how all your tenants admired you, how all the villagers look upon you. I kept asking myself who could ever possibly be deserving of you.”
“If we’re going to venture into the question of just desserts—”
“No. Let’s not. To be sure, I have too many defects for calculation, my lord.”
The dark of night was closing in around them; the glow of the torch in the sconce of the stonewall enclosing the inn’s yard was becoming more intense.
“Oh, your flaws are as innumerable as anybody else’s, no doubt. For your strength, Grace, I love you. For that I can hardly fault you when you show it, and I won’t allow you to term that resolute part of your character as a flaw.”
Brows rising, her lips parted. “Love me?” Her gaze fell to the ground, and her voice came out soft. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t have stood before all and said what you said had you felt anything less than love.”
He reached out with a gloved finger to draw a single line down the side of her face. Who would kiss those freckles now? “And I love you still.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“What would I be if I could alter so readily?” Any man whose heart could change so rapidly deserved no one, least of all a woman such as Grace. “I wish I could have induced you to take my hand for any reason whatsoever. I do. And I will…for a long time. Perhaps forever.”
She looked away. “You wouldn’t have wanted me if I took your hand only for your fortune.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“You would have come to resent me. Perhaps not at first, but eventually.”
“My biggest regret is that I wasn’t able to show you that I would have stood by you. I would have faced down anything for you. Anything. Anyone. And I regret the fact that we stayed away from each other for years.”
She gave him an arched look. “You stayed away from me, my lord.”
“Yes.” He smiled, the memory bittersweet. How important it had been to maintain as wide a berth as possible. Knowing what he knew now, how he was around her, it would have been easy to fault his former self for the precaution. Could he have loved her from afar? Would what he felt ever fade into a soft sort of platonic love suitable for a dear friend? “I stayed away from you. I should hate, after all this, to go on as we were, as virtual strangers to each other.”
“I can’t say if we will ever see each other again or not.”
“I have a promise to uphold, don’t you remember?”
“Promise?” His heart gave a jerk of hope and immediately crashed down again, cold and desolate, as if alone in a frozen pond. “What promise is that?”
“In the storeroom.”
She went incredulous. “Which time, my lord?”
He let out a small laugh. “I promised to suffer through the attempt of trying to speak to you at least once a year. I believe it was decided that November next would be appropriate, leaving me plenty of time to think of what subject I might broach.”
He sobered. “But enough of this now. The air is too cold for this absurdity.” Two people out of doors alone while snow fell. It wasn’t done. “You should be going in. Have something to warm yourself. I should be returning.”
“Wait—” Alarm flashed in her face.
“Yes?” His lungs caught hold of his breath and wouldn’t let go.
Her expression fell. “I am sorry.”
Corbeau nodded. “As am I.” But for such different reasons. For not having won her. For thinking that money would have been the answer to everything.
He hitched his foot in a stirrup and swung up on his mount. Taking the reins, he signaled the horse to turn back toward the house. Before they went, however, he looked back at her over his shoulder. Those deep-set eyes in her beautiful face were so wide and sorrowful. It was almost as if he could break her heart, after all.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Grace wriggled out of the warm bed she was sharing with her mother and sister. They didn’t travel with their own bedcoverings, of course. They’d had to make loan of the inn’s, which weren’t a fraction as nice as those at Corbeau Park.
In the darkness, she rubbed her arms. Did he have one more morning of his work in the stables? If so, he’d begin in a few hours. She smiled. What other earl in the whole history of the world would have done such a thing? In an odd way, it suited him. That’s what great lords did, wasn’t it? They served. And there was no one who exemplified that more than Corbeau.
She moved carefully in the blackness, feeling her way around slowly. All the while her heart thumped madly, urging her to make haste. She found her own clothing by process of elimination. Her mother’s smelled of lavender, Phoebe’s of crushed almond—although goodness knew why. Grace felt around in her trunk for the snuffbox. Her hand hit upon something else, something hard and covered in leather. Was that the book he’d lent her? Well, she’d take that along, too. In their haste to leave, it was easy to see how it could have been packed by mistake.
She rummaged some more until she found what she originally sought.
Dressed and wrapped in her cloak, she slipped from the room, cringing with every rustle, every creak of the floor.
“I need transportation,” she announced to the innkeeper’s wife, who was bent over bread dough and kneading aggressively, her thick arms covered in flour. The kitchen smelled of heaven.
The round-cheeked woman of middle years straightened. “At this hour?” She swept a lock of frizzy hair from her forehead, marking her face with a white streak. “’Ain’t no one going out in this here snow, even if you could find one such as will take you in the dark.”
“I can pay.” The snuffbox was heavy in her inner pocket. It was worth more than a trip to Corbeau Park, even factoring in a large sum for the inconvenience of weather and time. Parting with the object would cost her mother and sisters dearly.
Did she dare hope that losing the one thing of value in her possession wouldn’t be the last in a long line of regrets?
The innkeeper’s wife considered. “Suppose I could send over to Mill House to see if Mr. Miller will take you. He keeps a sleigh and is never one to turn up his nose at a good opportunity for an extra bit of coin.”
“Yes, please do so.” She spoke before realizing she had nothing extra to offer for the assistance. “On second thought, direct me and let me go.”
The woman waved. “It’s no trouble to our Francis. Fine lady such as yourself shouldn’t be out alone, not in the dark in such cold.”
Grace wasn’t a fine lady, and her worn traveling cos
tume betrayed as much, but she let the woman’s words pass. “If you’re certain.”
“Of course. You just sit yourself down and you’ll have one of these meat pies once they’ve cooled. They’re for tonight, but they make a mighty fine way to start the day, too, if I do say so myself.” She brushed her hands on her apron and bustled through a back door.
Yet more kindnesses Grace wouldn’t be able to repay. Not unless…
But she couldn’t pin her hopes on that. Not yet. They’d parted. There was no reason to believe he might want her back. Yes, he’d said he would continue loving her, but loving her and tolerating her as his wife were two different things. After all they’d gone through these past few days, after all they’d said…after all she’d said.
No. Going to him with any expectation wouldn’t be fair to either of them.
But neither could she leave before telling him… Grace swallowed at the lump forming in her throat. The only place that could ever be home now was in his strong arms. She had to tell him she’d thought of a name for that gray barn cat.
…
Grace had finished one whole pie, and now the food weighed heavy in her belly. She was much too agitated to have taken such a full meal, except doing otherwise seemed terribly impolite after all the trouble they’d gone through on her whim.
Mr. Miller proved a disheveled man, with the indentation of a too-snug nightcap across his forehead.
He didn’t greet her with so much as a grunt. “Francis said you’d pay.”
“And so I shall.” She rose and held out the snuffbox. “Will this do?”
Large hands with stubby fingers closed around the payment. This time, there was little chance of her father’s possession resurfacing in her life. Good riddance to the thing.
Mr. Miller didn’t help her into the sleigh, the dogcart version of the conveyance compared to the one she’d ridden in with Corbeau. During the night, the sky had cleared, and the first hints of a rosy dawn set the snowy world aglow.