Debutantes Don’t Date (24 page)

A soft knock sounded at her door, startling Grace from her musings. Jasper came in
before she could answer and he closed the door soundlessly.

“I thought I should come and see how you are. He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Jasper
asked for the hundredth time. “Come here, Grace, I need to see for myself.” He held
his hand out to her, silently inviting her to him.

She rose from her seat; she couldn’t stop herself from walking towards him any more
than she could stop breathing. He grasped her arms and pulled her tightly into his
embrace. For the first time since arriving back at Victoria’s she felt safe. The warmth
from his body enveloped her and the ice around her heart and in the pit of her stomach
started to thaw. A tear sneaked from the corner of her eye, leaving a trail as it
ran down her face.

“Grace.” He breathed her name into her hair. He still didn’t seem to believe she was
unharmed. “I need to make sure he didn’t hurt you. Please let me see.” He gently set
her away from him and wiped the tear away as he looked deep into her eyes, trying
to discern hurt or fear in the depths.

“Jasper, I am
fine
.” A shiver ran up her body at the intense look he gave her. If only there was a way
to convince him the damage Lord Wester did was not to her body, maybe Jasper could
fix the damage he’d done to her soul.

She stepped from his reach and gave him a sly smile. “Let me show you,” she said as
she reached up and slowly took the pins from her hair. The mass of curls tumbled down
her shoulders. She watched as Jasper’s eyes darkened with longing. “What will it take
for you to know that I’m OK?” She reached behind her and undid the tie at the back
of her dress, letting the garment slide to the floor.

Jasper’s breath hitched.

Grace undid the hooks of her stays one by one. She let them drop to the floor on top
of her dress. She stood before him in her shift. “Do I look all right now, Jasper?”

He nodded his head.

“Would you like to see the rest of me?” She smiled before reaching down to draw up
the last layer of clothing.

“Stop.”

She let the hem fall back down and looked down at the floor. She suddenly felt a lot
more naked than she really was. She wished her dressing gown was close at hand.

Jasper’s hand grasped her chin and gently lifted her face. “Look at me,” he commanded.
“Are you sure you want to do this? Because once you are naked there will be no going
back.” His voice was husky and caught on the word naked. She looked into his face
and saw the tension there. His jaw was clenched and his breathing shallow. His eyes
were dilated. Heat radiated from his body; she could feel waves of it through her
thin shift.

“I am sure.”

That was all he needed to know. He knelt down and slowly lifted her shift inch by
inch up her legs, running his hands over her smooth skin. He stopped at the junction
of her thighs and gently blew on her opening hidden amongst her curls. Her knees sagged
and her back arched in anticipation. His lips curved in satisfaction and he placed
a kiss on her thigh before raising her shift over her torso as he stood. “Arms up.”

He lifted the shift up and trapped her arms in the fabric, gently kissing the small
cut on her breast from Wester’s knife, before drawing a nipple into his mouth. The
bud grew hard in his mouth as he sucked and swirled his tongue. A low moan escaped
her lips while she struggled to free herself of the rest of her clothing. He took
mercy on her and pulled the shift the rest of the way over her head.

She grabbed his face and pulled his lips to her mouth. The heat of the kiss consumed
them both. Her tongue swept between his teeth and stroked his demandingly. “I need
more,” she breathed as her hands found the buttons on his shirt and frantically tried
to open them.

The sound of tearing fabric and the ping of a button hitting the wall reached his
ears. He pulled back, “Gently, darling, there’s no rush; we have all night.”

“I want you
now
,” she said fiercely and tugged his shirt from his trousers.

A joyful laugh tore from his lips. He pulled the shirt over his head while she reached
for the fall of his trousers. He almost passed out when she cupped his throbbing member.
All thought left his head as the blood rushed to a more important location. Her hands
had fumbled with his shirt, but they were steady now. She had him free in seconds.
She grasped him in her hand and started to stroke him back and forth. His whole body
convulsed in pleasure. “We will have to do that some other time, my dear, otherwise
this will be over awfully quick.”

He pulled her hands away from him and swung her up into his arms and carried her to
the bed. The hairs on his chest tickled her breasts, sending desire to her core. She
ran her hands over his chest and wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down
to the bed on top of her. She was wet and there was no need to wait any longer. Her
senses sharpened when he entered her, everything came into focus and her heart burst
from the love she felt for this man. Tears of joy flowed from her eyes and fell to
the pillow. She felt complete as she shattered into a million beautiful pieces, the
two of them coming together in unison.

“I love you,” she whispered into the darkness.

His heart stopped for a moment. Love? Yes, he loved her too. “Grace, will you marry
me?” He wanted to ask her for her hand.

“Isn’t the wedding tomorrow?”

“I want you to marry me because you want to, not because you have to.” He rolled onto
his side and looked down at her.

“I will be there, Jasper, I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said as he lowered
his lips to hers and she rose up to meet him halfway.

“I had better go. We don’t want to shock your maid in the morning.”

“Stay. There is plenty of time. It’s not even midnight yet,” she said as she snuggled
close to his body and laid her head on his shoulder.

He gathered her next to him and wrapped them both in a blanket before kissing her
hair and closing his eyes and falling into a contented sleep. Grace snuggled closer
and closed her eyes, visions of their wedding tomorrow dancing in her head as she
fell asleep.

Grace woke suddenly, the full moon shining down across the room to the bed. The brightness
of it was startling. It drew her out of Jasper’s warm embrace and to the window. She
shivered at the breeze coming in through the frame. The glass was definitely not double-pane.
Snow had fallen sometime while she was sleeping; the streets were unmarked and the
temptation to run downstairs and outside to make the first footprints was almost unbearable.
The cold stopped her. Her toes started to ache and the tip of her nose was tingling.
But still she stayed. Somehow she was unable to turn away from the big, bright moon.
She knew there was a shawl on the window seat. It was crazy that she stood here freezing.
She could at least wrap it around herself before she froze to death.

Grace shook her head at her foolishness, wondering why she didn’t return to her warm
bed, but instead she retrieved the shawl from where she had left it earlier. The warmth
she felt when she wrapped herself in its softness was bliss. Her contented sigh almost
drowned out the small thud of something hitting the floor.

There, by the chair at the desk lay the Lover’s Eye brooch she’d found at the New
Year’s Eve ball in her own time the night she arrived here. She bent to pick it up.
The picture of the eye inside was so familiar to her now, she knew in an instant that
it was Jasper’s.

She heard the clock in the hallway strike twelve; the moon’s brightness seemed to
grow. The lanterns lighting the street flickered and the room tilted. The object in
her hand grew warm; she opened her palm and watched the eye start to spin.

She screamed and dropped the brooch, suddenly realising how she had got here. The
brooch was the key!

Jasper was having the most wonderful dream. He was chasing Grace along the river bank
at the Bingham estate, the spring breeze catching her skirts, tangling them around
her legs. He caught her as she fell and together they tumbled to the ground, laughter
in her eyes and on her lips. She opened her mouth for his kiss and just when his lips
touched hers, she screamed.

He sat up in bed and reached blindly around for Grace, but she wasn’t there. Panic
gripped him. Where was she? Had Wester returned? She screamed again before he could
untangle himself from the sheets. They were intent on holding him down. His heart
was threatening to burst from his chest.

She was on the floor by the window, huddled in a ball, gazing at something on the
carpet in front of her. “Grace?” he called softly to her as he approached. He didn’t
want to startle her. “Grace, is everything as it should be?” He joined her on the
floor and wrapped his arms around her. “Have you had a bad dream? Grace, tell me what’s
wrong?”

Through the fog in her brain she heard Jasper calling her name but it wasn’t until
the warmth of his body hit hers that she was able to bring herself back into focus.

“Grace.” She heard her name again. She wrenched her eyes away from the time-travelling
device lying innocently on the floor before her and looked into Jasper’s concerned
gaze.

“It’s the brooch.” The words tumbled from her lips, stumbling over each other in her
eagerness to escape from her. “It brought me here. Spinning. The room. The eye. Spinning.
Lights flickering.” The words stopped and she said with perfect clarity, “Is it yours?”

Jasper reached for the brooch. Grace tried to stop him. “No! Don’t touch it,” but
it was too late, he already held it in his hand.

Nothing happened. The eye in the brooch stayed still and Jasper stayed where he belonged.

She cautiously peeked into his palm. “It was spinning before.” Her voice sounded annoyed.
She sniffed loudly, badly needing to blow her nose. Now that she felt safe, she felt
uncomfortable; her nose was plugged and her eyes were burning with unshed tears.

“Where did you find this?” Jasper asked in wonder. His mother had this made of his
eye so he could be near her even when he was away at school. It was very unusual for
someone to wear a ‘lover’s eye’ of a son, especially if that son was still alive.
It was often whispered she was having an affair and the lover’s eye was that of her
lover. But his parents’ marriage had been a love match and there was never any truth
to the rumours.

The brooch had been missing since she died. Jasper hadn’t been able to find it amongst
any of her jewellery and he hadn’t known where else to look.

“It was under the table at Kensington Manor. I picked it up just before I travelled
here. I never even thought this was the key.”

Grace reached for his hand and took the brooch from him. The eye started to spin again
and the brooch once again grew warm in her palm. She let out a small squeak and quickly
dropped it back into his hand. The spinning instantly stopped.

“See, I’m not crazy after all,” she said with a laugh that did nothing to prove her
statement.

They stared at the object for some minutes before Grace broke the silence: “Why’s
it only spin when I touch it?”

“I’m unsure, Grace. But you’re the one who uses it for travelling through time; shouldn’t
you know how it works?”

“I recognise the eye. It’s yours,” she said.

“I know, my mother had this made years ago so she could keep a piece of me when I
wasn’t around.” Jasper turned it around and around in his hand, gently touching the
jewels encrusting the outside.

“Think about it, Jasper. It’s
your
eye. Maybe whoever touches it, gets transported to you. That would explain why it
doesn’t spin for you, you can’t exactly travel to where you already are, can you?”

“I suppose not, but my mother was never transported to me when she wore it.”

“Should I call your sister, maybe it’ll work for her.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, you don’t want her to accidently travel somewhere
else, do you?”

“No. That would be horrible. I suppose we’ll never know.” Grace looked at the brooch
lying in his hand and sighed. How could she be so stupid. Of
course
it was the brooch that got her here. She had forgotten all about the brooch after
she put it in her reticule at the ball. Somehow it had ended up tangled in her shawl.
She looked on the window seat and saw her bag open and tipped over, her lipstick,
make-up and cell phone all fallen out.

Another thought struck her. “I can go home.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“I’m sorry, my lord, but I regret to inform you Miss Lancaster has already left. Lady
Harrison was looking for her this morning when she found the note she left behind.
Lady Harrison said Miss Lancaster has gone and won’t be returning. I am terribly sorry
you have missed her.”

Jasper’s world closed in around him as he listened to the words the old butler spoke.
He thanked Hoskins through the shock that assaulted his body. Gone? She was
gone?
He shouldn’t have left last night, but the hurt and anger he felt when she said she
could go home had blinded him. He had left as quickly as he could. He couldn’t take
the look of joy on her face when she had uttered those words; a knife had plunged
in and ripped out his heart. He now regretted storming out of the house in a rage,
but he never thought she would just leave; without even saying goodbye, without allowing
him to fight for her. The joy he felt last night in her arms was long gone now. All
that was left was emptiness.

He turned away from his sister’s house, wishing to never see the place again. He spoke
briefly to his footman, telling him to send word to the vicar and walked numbly away
down the street, leaving his coach behind. He needed to be alone.

He wandered the streets for hours until his feet made their way to the church where
he was supposed to be married today. It was as though they had a mind of their own.
If he had a choice in the direction they walked, he would have walked all the way
to Scotland before setting foot on the same street as this church. But here he was,
all the same. As he drew closer, he became aware of the hustle and bustle of servants
going in and out of the church carrying flowers and boxes piled so high they could
barely see where they were going. If he didn’t know any better, there was a wedding
here today. A knot formed in his stomach while he watched the preparations. It hadn’t
taken long for someone to pounce on the vacancy left by his cancelled nuptials.