“Gracie, are you ready dear?” Her uncle held out a hand to her from the street, where both he and her aunt already stood.
Before she could respond, she snapped shut her jaw. She must remain composed. “Yes, of course.” She allowed Uncle Laurence to hand her down from the carriage and to lead her to the entryway of the glorious house. The house she wanted anything but to draw nearer to. The house she most certainly did not want to enter. Her legs propelled her forward, but she felt almost as though she were floating, as though her body had taken over since her mind wouldn’t quite cooperate.
Perhaps that had been one of his brothers. Or perhaps it was him, and his leaving meant she wouldn’t have to face him. Facing just his family would be enough of a trial. If only she could decide whether she wanted the man to be him or not. This indecisiveness might be the death of her.
Before she could make up her mind, they were being escorted into the house and led through stately hallways until they arrived at a dining room. A lovely dining room. Perhaps the most beautiful dining room she had ever seen, filled with silk fabrics hanging over the windows and covering the furnishings, in rich colors that beckoned to her, and a huge table that would easily seat fifty people without batting an eye.
Of course it was also filled with people. Her head was still in a fog, and she found it difficult to concentrate or to look at these strangers and determine who they were and if any of them happened to be Lord Alexander.
Her hand was taken by another—a soft, female hand—which then guided her to a seat. So she sat. And realized that her mouth must be gaping open, yet again, even though she had firmly shut it before dismounting her uncle’s carriage.
Voices rang out all around her: a loud, aggressive male voice, a sharp, forceful female voice, one very calm masculine voice. They all blended together before things shifted into focus.
“She is a whore!” Father. Father was here. With Lord Alexander’s family. He is here. “Grace, you will come with me this instant. I swear on your mother’s grave—”
No, she couldn’t go with him. She tried to speak, but no sound came out.
“You are not taking this girl anywhere, my lord, so you may force that idea from your blithering head this instant.” The female voice. Grace looked about, trying to find the speaker.
An older woman stood before her, tall and regal with the most glorious head of rich, auburn hair Grace had ever seen, tinged with only a few streaks of grey. She had a look of determination on her face that would have cowed an army as she stood before Father, towering over him, hands fisted against her hips and swords slashing through her eyes. This woman held herself with the bearing of a goddess, or perhaps the Queen.
“His Grace has informed me that you are his guest because the Prince of Wales has made the request, and so you’ll not be taking one single, solitary step outside. Is that clear?” She paused only long enough to receive a curt nod from Grace’s father. “And to top that, since your daughter has come into my home, she is my guest and may stay as long as she sees fit. You, sir, have no say in the matter.” He stammered to interrupt, so she added: “None!”
The goddess-woman had not finished. Grace could only stare in amazement that anyone would dare to speak to her father in this way. What she wouldn’t give to have the courage to do so herself.
“Furthermore, you will never use that word in my presence again. Have I made myself understood? Don’t try to pretend you don’t know what word I speak of, and do not ever use it again in reference to your daughter. Your own daughter! How could—how could—augh!” She shuddered in anger, but took only a moment from her diatribe.
Grace couldn’t bear to take her eyes from the woman for long, but she took a brief glance about the room during that time, now that her vision had cleared again. Two young ladies, similar in age to herself, with varying shades of red in their hair sat about the table. Aunt Dorothea and Uncle Laurence had taken seats at the end of the table, opposite of Father and the older woman, next to Lord Rotheby. Aunt Dorothea winked when she caught Grace’s eye. Two men with reddish hair and two others with dark hair completed the party. They must be Lord Alexander’s family. Except, perhaps, for the dark-haired men. She searched her mind for a moment, trying to place them amongst the siblings, but to no avail.
They all stared, transfixed, upon the very same exchange she’d been observing for the last several minutes. Not upset, per se, but rather engaged.
Lord Alexander was nowhere to be seen. Good. Or was it bad?
There was no time to debate. The goddess had recomposed herself and pushed forward. “You call yourself a father? You arrogant, impertinent fool.”
Father looked to take exception to being called a fool, but she would not be deterred, and she allowed no one to interrupt.
“And what is this bag of moonshine you’ve directed toward Sir Laurence and Lady Kensington? Of all the blasphemous faradiddle, that just about takes the cake. It is plain to see that these two could not hurt a fly if they tried, so I call your bluff. Poppycock! No one kidnapped anyone, and I’ll hear no more of it. It seems to me, based on the way you speak to your daughter, that she would have been ridiculous and absurdly foolish to stay with you. She left you, Lord Chatham. She ran away. Is that not the truth of it, Lady Grace?”
The fullness of the formidable woman’s gaze fell on Grace, along with the eyes of everyone else in the room. Even Father. She slunk down into her seat and wished she could burrow a hole to the Indies or the Americas or somewhere else—anywhere else—but there.
She had to be Lord Alexander’s mother. Mustn’t she? “Er, Your Grace, that is, well. Yes? Yes. I did. I left on my own.” After a few words came out with no major disasters smiting her down, she gained a touch of courage, turning her gaze to rest fully on her father. “I went by coach to Aunt Dorothea and Uncle Laurence’s home in Somerton and they were gracious enough to allow me to stay with them. They’ve done no wrong. You must drop your unfounded charges against them at once.” Good God, where had that come from? She had issued her father a command.
Might as well continue while she still had breath. “And as Her Grace said, I won’t be going anywhere with you. Ever again.”
“That’s right! She can stay with us,” said Aunt Dorothea, apparently unable to completely bite her tongue.
Grace passed her aunt a smile before she turned to the duchess and nodded. She wished, for the briefest of moments, she could interpret the look on the older woman’s face. Reverence? Acceptance?
“Well, I suppose that’s settled then,” the duchess said. “Shall we move on to what I find to be the greater concern here, Lord Chatham?” As she turned her gaze away from Grace and back to her father, it shifted to the cold, steely determination from before. “Which, of course, would be your treatment of your daughter. I realize that, as her father and her guardian, you are certainly entitled by law to do with the poor girl as you see fit. But really, sir, some things are simply beyond the pale. Where has all of this come from?”
Her posture demanded a response.
“You dare to question me in this manner, yet I am the impertinent one?” Father’s chin quivered, belying his show of bravado.
“Lord Chatham,” came the calm, smooth voice of the man nearest her father. This must be the duke himself. “You would be well advised to answer my mother when she asks you a question. And if you insult Her Grace again, or any of the ladies present for that matter, I shall take it upon myself to teach you a lesson in manners.” He never raised his voice much higher than a whisper, forcing her to lean closer to hear his words. But his quiet demeanor disguised a grim resolve she had no desire to test.
Father’s eyes narrowed, but he only followed it with, “Indeed.”
“So? Go on.”
He harrumphed and fidgeted and shifted his eyes about, but the dowager would not back down.
“Very well. What was your question?” Of course, Father couldn’t make this confrontation easy. Grace was, at least somewhat, hopin
g he wouldn’t answer. Hearing the truth of why he had so mistreated her might be too much to tolerate.
“Whatever could give you cause to cast such dubious names upon your one and only daughter, your flesh and blood, your child whom you should protect and love and cherish?”
His eyes settled on Grace, full of hatred and unbridled anger. She cast her own to the floor and took deep, rapid breaths, hoping to staunch a flood of tears.
“That whore—”
The duke was out of his chair and across the room faster than Grace could react. He pulled Father from his seat and slammed him against the wall. The crack of Father’s skull reverberated in the room. He hung, suspended by the younger man’s grip on the collar of his coat, his feet dangling a few inches above the floor.
“You have been warned, Chatham.”
Father stared up at Lord Somerton’s teeth, which had not even moved when he spoke, trembling like a small child.
“I ap—apologize. It will not happen again.” Words rushed from his mouth. “Please, please put me down. I promise to mind my language.”
Lord Somerton dropped him and he fell like an overused doll to the floor.
Seemingly unfazed by any of the happenings, the dowager walked over to where Father sat. She took a chair nearby. “Where does all of this anger stem from? Surely she couldn’t have done anything so terrible to cause all of this.”
“Her? Grace?” Father spat out the words. “Grace has likely done nothing so terribly wrong, at least if you disregard her having run from home and then whatever misguided affairs she has carried on with your Lord Alexander. No, it has nothing to do with her, but with what she is not.”
“What am I not?” She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until all eyes turned to her again.
“What are you not? You aren’t a boy, for one thing. You cannot be my heir.” Venom filled his words.
“I cannot help that, Father.” Could he really hate her for that?
“Oh, but that’s not all. You are also not your mother, but you look like her. You have her hair, her skin. Her eyes. You look more like her every day. I can’t bear to look upon you.” Was that a tear forming in his eye? Surely not.
“Lord Chatham, why does it hurt you so much to have your daughter bear the resemblance of your wife?” The dowager’s voice was soft, kind. Almost motherly.
“Because after Grace was born, her mother would have nothing to do with me. The trollop carried on affairs with half the ton, and then she contracted an illness and died from it.” Tears flowed freely down his cheeks, and his usually ruddy face was blisteringly purple. “Because I was never good enough for her mother, so she can never be good enough for me.”
Something propelled Grace forward, across the room, to hand her father a handkerchief. She stood there, before him, watching him with something akin to pity. All these years, he had pushed her away and wasted his life, all because she looked like her mother and reminded him of his own pains.
He reached for her, and she backed away out of instinct. As she took her step backward, she bumped into a very tall, very male body.
“Oh! Pardon me.” When she looked up, the duke reached out to steady her and then moved her off to the side, where she was suddenly surrounded by all of the Hardwicke siblings present. One of the sisters took her hand and patted the back of it reassuringly.
“You do realize, of course,” the dowager continued, “that you’ve been quite wrong to mistreat your daughter because of your own grief.”
He blubbered and sniffled and wiped the handkerchief across his face, making an even bigger mess of things. “I know!”
“You cannot change the past, Lord Chatham. But you can change the future.”
“But how? I’ve made a true muck of her life, haven’t I?” He looked only at the dowager, not at anyone else in the room, least of all Grace.
“She won’t return with you. She’s made herself abundantly clear on that matter, and I daresay she’s made the proper decision there. I’ll certainly support her in that endeavor.”
“As shall I,” said the duke.
“And I,” came from one of the dark-haired men.
“I believe you know, Chatham, where I stand on the matter.” Uncle Laurence remained seated with the earl and Aunt Dorothea, but he insisted upon being heard.
The other Hardwicke brother said nothing, but formed one hand into a fist and punched it against the other.
“So it seems Lady Grace has two options. She can return to Somerton under the care and supervision of her aunt and uncle—”
Father scoffed. “They have obviously not supervised her too closely now, have they?”
Lord Somerton spoke so softly Grace was uncertain she’d properly made his words out, but it sounded something like, “And your supervision has been better, then?”
The dowager continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “Or she can marry Alex. Of course, I’m sure you can see the latter option would be the far better course of action for her reputation, since she has been quite the subject of all the latest on dits here, and I would imagine in Bath, and likely in a number of other places across the country. And if you truly have the intention of making her future better than her past has been, then I would suggest you consider everything that is best for her.”
But she couldn’t marry Lord Alexander. She’d refused him. He deserved better. “But—” Her voice broke off on a sob. The sister holding her hand pulled her in for a tight hug and the other girl joined them, patting her on the back, rubbing a hand over her hair.
“I believe the young ladies have heard enough of this, don’t you agree?” the dowager asked the group as a whole. “Lord Sinclaire, would you be so kind as to escort them all to the drawing room? And the Kensingtons too, if you’d like. I’ll order tea served, and Peter, Lord Chatham, and I will join you once this business has been settled. Neil, you go along with them.”
The woman effectively shooed them all on their way, the two Hardwicke sisters practically holding Grace up as they walked. They settled in and a cup of tea was pressed into her hands where she sat near the hearth. She didn’t know whether she drank. She could only think of one thing.
She would be married to Lord Alexander, if she could not find a way to stop it from happening. But surely, the dowager and the Duke of Somerton would convince Father. He would think it his best course of action. How could he not?
But how could she allow it to happen? Oh, what a dreadful, dreadful mess.
People came and went from the drawing room, conversation went on all around her, but she paid it no mind. Not until Father came in.
He looked at her, his eyes filled with sadness and guilt and maybe a touch of fear. He nodded with resolute fervor.
And she knew.
~ * ~
He rode Sampson through Rotten Row. Alex needed to clear his head, and nothing short of a neck-or-nothing jaunt would do.
The fashionable hour wouldn’t arrive for several hours, which suited him. Company would only serve to aggravate him more, and constant interruptions to socialize and gossip would surely cause his head to explode. A few ladies and gentlemen were out and about, taking some air in the park. The Row, however, was deserted in general, and those who were there seemed content to ignore him.
Alex spurred his horse again. The wind created by their run pushed his beaver hat back from his head, but he didn’t care. The hat floated away behind him. He knew not where it landed. Really, what did something so frivolous matter in the grand scheme of life?
More than ever before, he wanted to marry Grace.
Of course, all the prior reasons were still in place. He had compromised her virtue, had been intimate with her—and while she did not carry his child, she certainly carried a child. A child who would need a father. A child he would love.
But now, there was something more.
Grace could never go back to her father. He couldn’t allow it. Alex tried to imagine what her childhood must have been like with a
father who would call her a whore. How could the man care so little for his daughter, for a child of his own flesh?
But clearly Chatham was capable of unspeakable atrocity. Alex knew this. The man had been prepared to marry Grace off to Barrow, after all, a man who quite possibly was a traitor to the crown. A man who may have ravished Grace.
Alex shuddered.
At least he would no longer need to worry about Grace’s future with Barrow. The Regent would see to it that the bastard would never step foot outside of prison walls alive again.
Cool air heavy with the scent of rain whipped his hair about his head. He heard nothing but the clop of Sampson’s hooves against the hard dirt. Alex dug his spurs into the horse’s side, urging him to more and more speed, the possibility of rain be damned. Wind against his face was exactly what he needed to clear his mind.
How could he change Chatham’s mind? There must be a way.
Alex had a fortune, thanks to his brother. He would someday have property, whether through inheritance from Gil or through his own purchase. He could provide the marquess with a connection to the Duke of Somerton, one of the most powerful men in all of England.
What more could he want?
Without question, Chatham wasn’t concerned with Grace’s welfare, but more with his own status. And with a guarantee of higher respectability within the beau monde than he currently possessed, was Alex’s dearth of title really such an issue?
Truth be told, Alex’s problem with their earlier encounter was not Chatham’s refusal. He had more confidence in his own persuasive abilities than to take the man’s denial at this point as an absolute.
No, what truly bothered him was that Chatham had used such a monstrous word to describe Grace.
Whore. He filled with rage again over the thought of the term.
The worst of it was everything in Chatham’s manner showed he believed what he said. The man had neither cringed nor had he shown disgust when he called her a whore. He’d looked Alex plain in the eyes and uttered the foulest thing imaginable.
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