Love With the Perfect Scoundrel (16 page)

A soft tapping at her door interrupted her thoughts, and Sarah and Elizabeth slipped in on tiptoe around the edge of her door.

“Oh, you
are
still up,” Elizabeth whispered. “Sarah and I couldn’t sleep.”

Grace looked at the other two widows, and wished she had the gift of easy intimacy with other women. “Nor could I. I’m glad you came.”

The two women drifted to either side of her and Sarah pulled back the curtain to gaze into the night sky too. “Oh, it’s not as cold tonight, thank goodness. What a lovely night, is it not?” Sarah said.

“Yes,” Grace agreed. All three ladies gazed mutely at the stars until awkwardness crept in.

“Grace,” Elizabeth began tentatively, “will you not tell us what really happened—what is wrong?”

“Why would you think something is wrong?”

“Luc is limping and Quinn appeared very ill at ease when all of you returned,” Sarah said, “and throughout dinner both kept staring at you.”

Before she could respond, Elizabeth took over. “When you left Cornwall with Mr. Brown, Sarah and I wanted to come after you right away. And we would have, if we’d owned a carriage. We thought you might have liked to confide in us.”

Grace rubbed a finger along the edge of the window frame. “I’m sorry I didn’t seek you out. I shall tell you the truth of it. I just wanted to lick my wounds in private. It all seems so silly now. I wouldn’t have been truly happy with Quinn.” She turned her gaze from the stars to look at her two friends.

“Oh Grace,” Elizabeth breathed, “there’s something different about your eyes now. They are…”

“
Bluer
,” Sarah finished hesitantly.

Grace returned the lady’s smile and linked arms with them for the first time since she had known them. Surprise warred with pleasure on their faces. “You know what I’ve decided?”

They glanced at her expectantly.

“I think the Duke of Beaufort is directly descended from the murdering heathens of the Dark Ages, when whole villages lived in this castle, and entire families slept in each of these huge beds. With this forest of beheaded beasts staring at me I’ll never get any sleep. What say you? Shall we all get under this heap of blankets on this monstrous bed? Perhaps we can debate how long it will be before Mr. Brown tries to hang the good Duke of Beaufort from one of these fallow deer racks.”

Elizabeth, the tallest and most exuberant of the widows in their club, flung her arms about Grace and hugged her to her breast. “Oh, I prayed you were having a grand adventure. You did, didn’t you?”

Grace looked at the impetuous young widow with her lion’s mane of hair haloing her lovely face, and smiled. “Perhaps.”

“Oh, I knew it. I was the only one who had faith in your endurance. Did I not tell you, Sarah?”

“You did, indeed.” Sarah Winters was the eldest of them. Two wings of soft brown hair framed her clear gray eyes. Of all the ladies, Grace had found Sarah to be the kindest, and the most reserved.

Each of them rearranged the covers of the massive sleigh bed and propped the huge pillows along the head board. Inelegantly, they crawled under the covers like children.

Elizabeth leaned forward and grasped her hands, her eyes sparkling. “Tell us precisely what happened…Do not gloss over a single detail.”

Grace glanced from one expectant face to the other. If she could not trust these two ladies, there was no one on the face of this earth whom she could trust. And so, for the first time in her life, Grace confided what had happened. Oh, she was not so bold as to convey every last shocking detail. But her blushes probably explained what her words did not.

Sarah patted her hand. “Oh, but he will come after you. And he will come on bended knee, uttering a mound of apologies, too.”

Before Grace could disagree, Elizabeth continued. “Sarah is correct. Gentlemen don’t easily forget.” Elizabeth twisted a corner of her plain white dressing gown. An unusual hint of fear glinted in her eyes. “Indeed, sometimes, they never forget.” Elizabeth Ashburton had never said a word about her past, and Grace was certain there was something much deeper to her words.

Grace glanced at the earnest faces on either side of her. “I thank you for allowing me to confide in you, but you are both absolutely mistaken. In fact, given my rare history with gentlemen, I’d sooner expect to recklessly wager my fortune than to ever see the day Mr. Ranier came up to scratch. But I don’t want you to worry. I know precisely what to do now. We shall all go to London. Together…with our hearts united as we dance foolishly toward disaster.”

A smile returned to Elizabeth’s pretty face. “Ummm, Grace?”

“Yes?”

“Could you please relate again exactly what happened between you and Mr. Ranier? You seem to have gained an unholy love of the ridiculous, something we’d not known you to possess before.”

Grace hugged a pillow to her breast and smiled.

Michael sat at a table in a room he had not previously occupied in Sam’s house, the small chamber fashioned for formal dining. It was the only room which was not fully furnished. For some odd reason, Michael had the distinct impression that Sam had halfheartedly gone about decorating it, only to give up when he’d decided it was an awkward chamber, too far from the kitchen, and too cold and dark.

Michael toyed with the excellent roast beef and the boiled potatoes and carrots Timmy’s mother had prepared for him within hours of Mr. and Mrs. Lattimer’s return that afternoon.

He would have given just about anything for a taste of burnt stew instead. Had it really only been three days?

The gloomy chamber made Michael lonely, a sensibility with which he was not well acquainted. It was the only room he could tolerate this evening. Every other place in Brynlow held memories of Grace.

He tossed his knife and fork onto the plate with a clatter.

Michael rose from the table and fisted his hands. He’d been itching to punch a wall all day. That was certainly a first. He’d always taken pride in his even nature.

Aside from two very specific events, he’d never regretted any action in the whole course of his life. Tonight, he did.

He wasn’t sure how he could have accomplished it, but he should have severed his connection with her in a better fashion. He had counted too much on her desire to rejoin the fabulously rich Mr. Brown he’d concocted in his mind. And he’d been certain she would want to return to the luxuries of her life with her friends.

He had guessed straightaway that all her talk of trotting off to Mann had been a desire for temporary sanctuary. If she had gone there, she wouldn’t have lasted a fortnight before becoming bored out of her mind on that desolate island.

She was far too good and kindhearted for her friends to abandon her to a lifetime there. She was a lady who was meant to return to the dazzling amusements found only in town. And if he forced himself to guess, within a month or two at most, a slew of richer-than-Croesus swells would pluck her out of her roost, place a very tight jeweled ring on her finger, and install her in a Mayfair townhouse dipped in gold and swathed in servants who would answer to her every beck and call.

He rubbed the ache between his brows.
Ah, hell.
Grace wasn’t like that at all. That was the crux of the problem. He would wager she would be willing to give up a good deal. He envisioned the cozy cocoon she would have created at Brynlow. He could even imagine her lovely voice falsely insisting each year that she wasn’t interested in spending the season in town with her friends.

And all the time, she would think he refused to go to London because of stupid pride. And for years, he would have let her think that. And there would have been always…
always, damnation
, the risk of exposure.

The risk of coming face-to-face with Rowland Manning’s vengeance and the utter ruination of anyone caught with him. It was not dancing in the air at the end of a hangman’s noose he feared so much as the stain it would leave on her name and his family’s name. He would be relegated to a footnote in history as a cowardly, lying murderer—true or not. He would be proclaimed the single failure among generations of heroic, illustrious Wallaces.

He shook his head. And worst of all, Grace would be forever cast aside by society.

And suddenly he was mortally tired of living this half life.

A footfall echoed in the hall and he turned to find plump Mrs. Lattimer in the doorway. She glanced at the heaping remains on his plate and appeared crestfallen. “Shall I bring you somethin’ more to yer likin’, sir? Timmy tells me yer right fond of our cheese.”

“No, no, Mrs. Lattimer. The roast beef was delicious. I, uh, I’m feeling a bit off, that’s all.”

Concern lined her forehead and she plucked at the practical cap covering her tightly coiled hair. “Half the village is abed with a digestin’ complaint. A fine welcome to the North. I’m sorry, sir.”

He waved away her concerns and rose from the table. “Never been ill a day in my life, ma’am. I’ll be as right as nine pins on the morrow.”

She grinned, revealing an uneven but endearing smile. “Shall I bring you a drop o’ tea in the library, sir? I bought a bit in the village in case you liked it. Mr. Bryn never asked for it. But perhaps it would ease you. Mr. Lattimer built up the fire for you.”

They were determined to coddle him, which amused Michael to no end. He’d never employed servants before and it was clearly going to take some getting used to. He realized, oddly enough, the luxury of poverty—of never having to put on a show of good humor. “Tea would be just the thing,” he lied.

He urged her to enter the short hall before him, and she trundled ahead, stopping inside the library. “Oh, and Mr. Ranier? I took the liberty of going through the chest of drawers, as it be wash day tomorrow.” Her face colored and she couldn’t meet his eyes as she placed something on the edge of the desk. “Found this pretty shawl, and wasn’t sure if’n it be from the lady Timmy said you rescued. And, sir, it appears she knitted these mittens. She used a bit of the brown wool in the basket Mr. Bryn kept filled fer me.”

He would not rush forward. “Thank you Mrs. Lattimer.”

Blessedly, she departed and in two strides he was at the desk. Without thought he crushed the pink silk shawl to his face and breathed deeply. A rush of heaven sang in his mind and settled in his heavy bones. He gulped in the scent like a drunken fool. With each successive pull, images of Grace Sheffey floated in his consciousness. Her graceful hands, the arch of her back as she sat perched on a chair, the gold spun softness of her hair in the glow of firelight, her silken skin, and lush, tentative lips. And her eyes. Those blue, blue eyes of hers. Eyes that became lost in passion when he encouraged her to—God…he had to stop. He would lose his sanity from it.

He dropped into the leather chair, clutching the shawl like a bloody infant and then noticed the huge mittens. What on earth…Good God. She’d knitted them for him. Her scent was even in these too. Perhaps they had been her way of thanking him for rescuing her. She would have done it for anyone. Or perhaps they were for something else. She had mentioned something about the approach of Christmas and Boxing Day when they had spoken freely in the darkness, wrapped in each other’s arms. He hadn’t had the heart to tell her that Christmases at the orphanage had brought only the paltry joy of an extra portion of coarse bread if they were lucky, which did little to dispel the sadness of life without a most beloved parent.

God Almighty.

And he had given her nothing. Had only taken.

Staring into the leaping flames of the tidy fire in the library, flashes of her rooted around his mind again and again. It was a sign of weak character. Of pointless longing. He’d heard tell of it. Had thought it was something for idle, rich folk. Well, he’d no time for it. Surely, it was a temporary ailment, probably brought on by soft living—with servants, no less.

Mrs. Lattimer bustled inside with a tray and after a flurry of inquiries after his morning hours and needs, disappeared. Damn temptation. She’d placed a bottle of brandy beside the teapot. He poured some tea, the delicate amber brown of the brew swirling in his cup. Belatedly, he realized he’d not used the strainer. He scratched his head. Ah, the joys of a civilized life.

He added a lump of sugar and a splash of milk, and gulped the lot of it in one swallow. He wondered if he would make a habit of it. God, for five and twenty of his thirty-two years he’d considered clean water a luxury. He shook his head and almost reached for the brandy before coming to his senses.

It was amazing how spirits could unlock the mysteries of all problems, given enough time and enough firewater. Indeed, the fumes seemed to burn through any complicating factor. The only drawbacks were that the answers were usually fraught with disaster when rational thought returned, with a headache of epic proportions on the side. Besides, he had done so much wrong in his life, he had sworn once he’d left England that he would renounce all manner of sin if only to atone in some small way for his past mistakes.

Sprawled in the leather chair he’d last sat in with Grace, he tried to focus on the plans for winter and spring. He would order seed and then plant ten acres of wheat, barley, and corn aside from the hay fields. And he’d enlarge the flock of sheep. With any luck, within a few years he’d be able to realize his dream of training and breeding horses. Sam had left him three broodmares and a plough team. And then there was Sioux. She would be the first he would breed when he found an adequate stallion.

Why had she been so afraid of horses? He would have enjoyed teasing and goading her into the horsemanship lessons he had suggested. They could have had such pleasure riding the property in the spring. One of the broodmares was docile and the perfect size for her. And during the hot days of summer, they could have ridden to the clutch of apple trees in the north corner near the pond. Or perhaps they would have enjoyed a late-evening stroll with the sparkle of glowworms all about them during the fruitful season.

God, what sentimental drivel.

His mind shuttled away to the cyclical nature of life on this new land of his. The ewes would be dropping young more and more in the coming two months. As would the cows and the two broodmares. He wondered with a heavy heart if, despite his efforts, Grace would grow round with child. With
his
child. And all of a sudden he quite desperately wanted it. He cursed and reached for the brandy, praying for sweet oblivion amid the madness of everything that was Grace Sheffey.