by Cecilia Gray
She snapped the book shut. She was out of her mind. Was she really entertaining grand notions of marriage to a man who had for years pined for another woman and was grieving the loss of his father and brother? He hadn’t even indicated his interest in such a thing, despite his embrace during the funeral. And what did she hope to base her own feelings on? A kiss? A caress on the ankle? One, tiny caress? Was one caress so different from another?
Well, that was easily remedied. She would know, once and for all, whether the event merited the attention she gave it.
Through the library window, she caught a glimpse of Damon Cade, Viscount Savage. He walked past—perhaps on the way to the ballroom—resplendent in a dark coat and breeches.
“My lord!” she cried.
He stopped, backed up two steps, and turned his head. She inhaled swiftly. The dark slash of his brows, the serious set of his mouth somehow enhanced his beauty, sharpened his cheekbones, made the marble that comprised his fine features seem even more polished.
He caught her stare and lifted a brow in question. She nodded to bid him enter the library as her heartbeat pattered in her chest. What she was about to do was ill-advised at best and scandalous at worst. Yet she had to know. She was desperate.
He strolled in, hands in his pockets, as if he might whistle at any moment without a care in the world.
“Privacy, if you please,” she said, gesturing to the open doors.
He raised his other brow. “Before I agree, I must know something . . . You have no intention of entrapping me in marriage, do you? I normally would not pose such a question, but unlike some hunters, I feel you would be honest.”
“If I did mean to entrap you in marriage, I assure you there would be little you could do to avoid such a fate. I am quite clever when determined.”
“I suppose that answer should give me comfort, but it does not.”
“Marrying you is the furthest thing from my mind,” she said. “That being said, please know I do mean to ask something of you equally beyond reason.”
After a beat, he shut the door and turned with a smile. “Consider me intrigued.”
She set her foot on a nearby stool and pulled her skirt up an inch or two. “Please touch my ankle.”
He took a step back, as if he’d been physically shoved, but to his credit, he masked his emotions quickly. “I can only assume your purpose is nefarious but well-intentioned.”
“I need to make sure . . .” She cursed the wobble in her voice. “I need to be sure of something.”
He approached her slowly, his gaze never leaving hers. Her heart quickened but in nervousness more than anticipation. He stood in front of her, and she felt the warmth from his chest, the slice of his breath against her cheek.
“Are you certain?” he asked.
She nodded.
He reached out and paused by her ankle, then very carefully, he wrapped his hand around it.
She felt warmth and a pleasant tingle. He swept his thumb very deliberately against her skin through her stocking, just as Graham had done. She couldn’t deny it was pleasant.
“Is that sufficient?” he asked.
She nodded, and he stepped away.
“That was nice,” she said.
“Well, I should hope so. I’ve had enough practice.”
“But it wasn’t . . .” She cocked her head at him. “It wasn’t nice. Does that make sense?”
He smiled. “It does.”
She left him behind in the room, muttering behind her. She quickly found Graham in the ballroom, engaged in conversation with his friends. Dinah managed to make her way toward him at the moment he stepped away from Benjamin and Mr. Crawford.
“Lord Graham,” she said, a little too loudly in her anxiety that he would walk by without seeing her.
He stopped, ran his hand through his hair, ruffling it, and gave her a smile. “I had wondered when we would speak.”
“I have . . . been worried about you,” she said. “And have thought of you often.”
“I believe I knew that,” he said, “and I found it a comfort these past few months.”
“I have something of urgency to discuss with you.”
“More pinching?” he asked. “Or wine and chocolate? Perhaps a little of both. And definitely poetry.”
She tried to return his smile but was too nervous to do so.
He seemed to sense her mood, because his smile fell away. “Are you quite all right, Miss Dinah?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
He glanced around the room, then took her by the arm and led her outside.
She knew where they were going—the gardener’s cottage—yet he took her on a merry walk around the pond first. He discussed their recent activities at Woodbury—the berry harvest, the townspeople—and inquired after Sera.
It was nearly twenty minutes until they were alone in the cottage, and he finally said, “I assume you received my last missive? You did not respond. I was worried.”
“I did,” she said. “Forgive me. I was not sure how to respond. I am still not sure.”
He ran his hands through his hair. “Perhaps I have been too confident in your feelings.”
“It is not my feelings that are of concern.” For a moment, she stared at him. “I have meant to ask more of your symptoms of heartache. Did you feel anxious? Unsettled? As if there was another version of you, inside your own skin, that yearned to get out?”
“While I bear those symptoms, they are not of heartache,” he said. “However, you describe my sentiments exactly.”
“It is because I share them,” she said.
Realization dawned in his eyes. “Dinah, I must confess that as much as I long to hear you finish, I must caution you against speaking further.”
“Please,” she said. “You’re nearly my closest friend and confidant. Can we cast aside Society’s shackles and speak plainly? I cannot know if your actions of last year assisted in this development—I can only assume they have—but they were not the sole cause. I have never believed in love because it defies definition and description. But Graham, I believe I may love you.”
He closed his eyes briefly at his name and took her hands in his. “I have thought of little else but you this past year, but I feared you did not return my affections.”
“But how can that be true?” she asked. “How can you love her and me? How can you know your feelings are genuine? Or permanent?”
He moved his thumbs over the backs of her hands, pulling her more tightly to him. “I only know that I can neither hear a poem nor enjoy a glass of claret without thinking of you. I can do little but think of you, and even now, when she comes to mind, it is only in the context of you. Thinking of you increases the pleasure of all I do and have done.”
How could such simple words make her feel so joyful? So indestructible? And yet, as much as she had changed since meeting him, she could not stop reason from scratching against her brain, a little itch she could not ignore. He could not have so easily changed affections. Perhaps it was just his heightened emotions.
“You’re pulling away. I can see it in your face,” he said. “I give no credence to your nickname of the Blasé Belle, and yet, it worries me that my feelings might so eclipse your own that they curse me to a lifetime of affections that are never reciprocated. Can you understand my trepidation?”
“Can you understand mine?”
He turned his back to her, ran his hands through his hair again, and spun around to face her once more. “We cannot both be correct in assuming the other’s affection is not as genuine as our own. I don’t know if I can be hurt again, Dinah. Not by you. I don’t know if I’d survive it.”
Her heart leaped to believe him, and yet that scratch came again. He had a way with words, and he was easy with his affections. “I have been hurt, too. My heart has been broken, too. They think I don’t remember my mother when she passed, but I have flashes of her scent, her smile. I know what love is, and I know how it feels when it goe
s away.”
He rested his forehead against hers, cupped her cheek in his hand. “Perhaps this is the battle we shall have our whole lives: who loves the other more.”
She grinned. “For once, I would be happy to be wrong.”
“Is it wrong to kiss you?” he asked. “Even if we are not officially engaged for a time?”
She tore herself away from him. “Why a time?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Are you not certain?” She hated this insecurity, this need she had for him, this fear that he might leave.
He pulled her into his arms. With a groan, he pressed his lips to her forehead. “None of that. It is not my preference, but Benjamin is making an announcement later this evening. I will spare you the details, but it involves his upcoming nuptials.”
She fisted the lapels of his coat. “To Alice?”
He frowned. “Alice? Why would you think that?”
“Nothing. Just . . . go on.”
“He will explain in his announcement, I am certain. It is already untoward for one of us to be engaged to be married so shortly after the misfortune that has befallen our family. But both of us?”
“So we must wait.” He was right, she realized. Every logical bone in her body agreed, even if her heart didn’t. “I have heard it said that delaying gratification makes the reward better.”
“I suppose, then,” he said, drawing her close, “we shall test that hypothesis thoroughly.”
* * *
G.,
How ironic that our own tempering was not shared by my sister Alice and Mr. Crawford. Now we must wait even longer, since to have three Belles married in such short form after Sera’s loss would be too much for the ton to handle.
I have twice this past month heard you referred to as my “brother.” It is not very encouraging.
D.
* * *
D.,
I suppose the only positive outcome is that I was so irked by this development that the last time I trained at Christian’s studio, I managed to take down Crawford, my brother, and Savage, all at once. I refuse to step in the ring again so my legend will follow me wherever I may go.
Unfortunately, I have also this past month been referred to as an “imbecile” (at White’s, for betting on a particularly slow horse that was named after Diana, goddess of the hunt, simply because it possessed a name so close to your own, but it then went on to win), an “upstart” (for declaring a peer’s foray into scientific matters poorly reviewed), and a “beef-wit” (for laughing so hard during a recitation of Shakespearean sonnets when I thought of what your possible reaction would be). I will admit I find all those preferable to “brother.”
G.
Chapter Eight
December 22, 1820
Woodbury, England
Another woman’s touch had most definitely come to Woodbury Hall. Graham hoped Benjamin was grateful for his duchess, for the hall had never been so well decorated and welcoming under their father’s watch, or even Sera’s, except for the select few days when the Belles were given leeway to throw a fete.
Garlands of holly and ivy decked the windows. The windowpanes were frosted from the cold outside. A light dusting of snow covered the meadows, and the pond, not yet frozen over, steamed in the air. Since yesterday, Graham had not been able to walk through the house without the scent of mincemeat following him through the rooms.
The sound of a coach wheeling along the drive caught his attention. He walked to the nearest window, rubbed his forearm against the glass to cut through the frost, and watched the horses traipse up the road to the hall, their hooves driving into the ground. It was not, as he had hoped, Dinah’s coach.
She had not come to Woodbury with her sisters, instead staying behind in London to await their father’s arrival in port. Graham felt like a country dog every time the supper bell rang. Whenever a coach—carrying family, or neighbors, or guests, or mail, or just strangers lost upon the road—happened to drive by, he was at the window in an instant, nose pressed to the glass.
The mail coach, while not Dinah herself—as Dominic Belle would never deign to use a mail coach for travel—could always contain news of her from London, so Graham met the carrier in the foyer and snatched up the letters before the butler could even drop them into their elegant silver tray.
He rifled through several letters to Benjamin, one to Dominic Belle himself, another few to the other Belle sisters—none with Dinah’s distinctive clear script without serif or curls—until he finally found one addressed directly to him. He dropped the rest of the letters in the tray and flipped the envelope from front to back. The hand was unfamiliar.
Graham turned on his heel toward the west wing to change for dinner as he used his finger to break the envelope’s seal and slip out the missive. He had read the contents—all three pages in desperate scratches of ink—before he even reached the steps that led to his bedroom. He stilled at the bottom of the staircase, turned to the first page, and read again, certain he’d misunderstood.
By the third reading, he realized he had not. The pages trembled in his hand, and the script blurred as he contemplated their contents. The timing could not have been worse, but the message demanded a response. The contents were such that they also demanded to be burned.
Lily could not mean for him to come to her aid after all this time, after she had taken another as a husband and had birthed a child. Still, she needed him. That much was clear. She’d said so in her letter—that she understood she was taking a great risk in writing to him, but she hoped their former friendship would grant her an audience with him. She was now a widow.
A widow? Lily? So young and a mother, at that. He could not imagine. What means had she been left with? Graham briskly walked to the study, where a roaring fire licked the brick panels of the fireplace. He tossed the pages inside and watched them crisp to ash.
But what of Dinah? He slumped in the wing chair and buried his face in his hands. He couldn’t tell Dinah.
It was Christmas, after all, and there was no need to address the issue until his return to London. He should do it face-to-face and not in a letter, anyhow.
No, he must deal with the matter immediately. If he did not, it would overshadow the festivities ahead and, more particularly, the engagement to Dinah he hoped to announce. He did not want any unfinished business with Lily corrupting their relationship. Dinah would not want it, either.
He called for his man to ready his luggage and send for the carriage.
“Where are you going?” Benjamin asked when he came upon the scene in the entry an hour later. Graham had donned his coat and hat, and was pulling on his gloves.
“To London. To return by tomorrow, I hope.”
“I hope so, too,” Benjamin said. “Bridget and Alice have arranged a family feast and will have your head, along with other body parts, if you upset her plans.”
“Please make my apologies to the Belles,” he said with a nod.
But he wondered if, after he concluded his business with Lily, he could seek out Dinah in Town. Perhaps he would ask her father for permission for her hand while there, before they all left for Woodbury. Yes, that was a far better plan, and it would allow them to celebrate in private.
If anything, this detour to London would prove a blessing, would it not?
* * *
London, England
If there was a valet, footman, or able-bodied street urchin within ten miles who was not currently employed to follow behind them carrying her father’s packages of holiday gifts along Bond Street, then the man was probably at home with influenza. Dinah’s father had announced his shopping plans when she had met him at port, and he had amassed a following of men eager to earn extra coin for their own holiday meals. They should have been in a carriage on their way to Woodbury, but instead, she wiped the snow from her boots as they entered their tenth establishment, a milliner.
“Tell me, my lady,” her father said, his voice booming through the store as its merchant approached them wi
th eager eyes, “is there such a hat that can flatter all my children? I’ve five daughters, two engaged, one widowed, and each with a different color hair. If you can find me such a hat, I’ll have five of them, and even one for myself.”
The day was growing long, and with each store, it became more likely they would need to stay a night in London. One more night away from Graham should have been no more difficult than the rest, but it felt more distressing. Infinitely more distressing. Another nonsensical feeling with no basis in rationality. He was responsible for more and more of those lately.
“You look fetching today,” her father said as he turned to study her. “I hope to find all my daughters looking as well.”
“Even Sera is recovering,” Dinah informed him. “She has taken another ward under her wing, and she’s become quite the celebrated matron. It’s no secret that having her protection means a smart match in the marriage mart.” She held her breath, fingering a bolt of flowered cloth.
But the remark she expected from him about how perhaps Sera should take Dinah under her wing did not come. Instead, her father petted her on the head and turned in search of the milliner.
Dinah followed, ducking and weaving to avoid running into the hat stands, which sprung arms into the aisles. “In fact, her last ward has made a match at just nineteen. From a good family. Second in line to a duke.”
“I’m not surprised. Sera has always had a touch of magic about her.”
After a beat, she baited him. “And here I am, single.”
Her father raised a brow and crossed his arms. “I thought you were as you wanted, Dinah.”
“Well, yes,” she mumbled. “I suppose.” What had got into her father? He’d completely changed since she last saw him. Perhaps having Alice and Bridget engaged had mellowed him. Or the shock of Bridget settling down with a man like Benjamin when she’d had her heart set on Lord Savage had been enough to make her father accept his blessings as they were.