The Devil's Necklace (16 page)

Her wide smile faded. “Thank you.”

Ethan glanced away, his chest suddenly tight.

Rafe’s attention swung in Ethan’s direction. “I’m afraid I have business to attend in Threadneedle Street. I hate to deprive you two of my sterling company, but I’m sure you can find a way to entertain yourselves.”

Ethan refused to let his mind wander in the direction that thought led. He told himself to think instead of the chance that Forsythe might yet be in England, that the man responsible for the slaughter of his men might still be apprehended. He reminded himself that the woman standing in front of him was the traitor’s daughter.

“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind dropping me at my solicitor’s along the way,” he said. “I’ve a meeting scheduled there this morning.”

Rafe flicked a glance at Grace. “That isn’t a problem.”

“If you will excuse us…” Ethan said.

She nodded, managed a smile. “Of course. I…have a number of things to do myself.”

She didn’t say more and neither did he, just headed out the door behind Rafe, trying not to wish he were staying at home with Grace.

The second day after her arrival, Grace sent a note to her mother that she was returned to the city. After her hasty marriage, she had written to Amanda Chastain relaying the news that she was now the marchioness of Belford. She had received several notes in reply, each of them overflowing with excitement.

I can scarcely believe it! And we were both so worried
that you would disappoint.
Both being her mother and stepfather.

I should have known my smart, darling girl was far too wise to settle for anything less than a peer. And a marquess, no less!

That Grace had been wise where Ethan was concerned was, of course, as far off the mark as anyone could get. She had been foolish and reckless and if it hadn’t been for Ethan’s sense of honor—that same sense of honor that kept him from her now—she would have wound up with a fatherless child.

But Amanda Chastain cared only for the end result. Having a daughter married to a marquess was quite a feather in her cap. Grace was the marchioness of Belford. In her mother’s eyes, that was all that mattered.

That afternoon, when Amanda Chastain arrived at the town house, Grace wasn’t quite sure what her mother might have to say, though she hoped they could avoid the subject of her husband, which, of course, wasn’t going to happen.

“Dr. Chastain and I are thinking of giving a small dinner party in honor of your marriage,” her mother said as they sat sipping tea in the garden. “If I may say so, the marquess has been extremely remiss in his social duties where we are concerned. The man is our son-in-law, after all.”

“I think you would be wise to wait, Mother. I have no idea how such a gesture will be received. Ethan is an extremely private man.”

“Yes, well, it is time London knew there is a new marchioness of Belford.”

Grace reached over and caught her mother’s hand. “Not yet, Mother. I beg you. Give us a little time.”

Her mother’s eyebrows, the same burnished color as
Grace’s, arched high in her forehead and she gave a little sniff. “Well…I suppose we could wait just a bit.”

It was a rather noncommittal reply and silently Grace prayed her mother would leave the matter of her daughter’s marriage alone. It was obvious Ethan wanted nothing to do with her or her family. Certainly he wanted nothing to do with the child he had sired.

Somehow, Grace vowed, she would find a way to make that change.

Grace saw no sign of Ethan for the rest of the day or evening. Determined to ignore his absence, in the morning she paid a visit to young Freddie Barton, finding him happily at work out in the stable.

The blond boy smiled when he saw her and set his pitch fork aside. “’Tis good ta see ye, milady.”

She resisted the urge to reach out and hug him, certain it would only make him uncomfortable, but she was inordinately glad to see him, this young boy who had become her friend.

“And you as well, Freddie.” They talked about his work as a groom and she discovered he loved spending time with the horses. He showed her around the stable, proudly telling her each of the animals’ names. “It ain’t a ship, milady. But it’s the next best thing.”

“Do you miss the sea, then, Freddie?”

Before he could answer, Schooner strolled up, rubbing his big orange body against Freddie’s crooked leg. Absently, the boy reached down and picked him up. Holding the cat beneath one arm, he stroked the animal’s fur. “Aye, milady, in a way, I do.”

He was better off here, she knew, out of danger, still… An interesting thought occurred. “Perhaps I could be of help in that regard. I could teach you how to use a sextant.
I could show you how to navigate using the sun and the stars.”

The boy’s whole face lit up. “Would ye, truly, milady?”

“We could start tomorrow, if you like.”

“Start what tomorrow?” asked a deep voice from the doorway. Ethan stood rigid, a dark look on his face. Her heart kicked up at the sight of him.

“I—I told Freddie I would teach him how to use a sextant. I was planning to ask your permission, of course, but I didn’t think you would mind.” At least she hadn’t thought so when she made the offer. Ethan had always been kind where Freddie was concerned.

Now, looking at the deep frown between his eyes, she wondered if she had been wrong.

“I doubt you’ll have time to teach him. You won’t be staying that long.”

She managed to keep the smile fixed on her face. “Well, at least we could get started…that is, if you don’t mind.”

“Please, Capt’n, could we? I would so like ta learn.”

Ethan cleared his throat. “Actually, that is the reason I came out here. I’ve hired a tutor for you, Freddie. He is going to teach you to read.”

Freddie’s mouth dropped open. “Ye aren’t jesting, are ye? I’m truly gonna learn to read?”

“I’m not jesting.”

“Do ye really think I can?”

Ethan’s features softened. “You’re a smart lad, Freddie. You always have been. Aye, I believe you can learn to read, and a lot of other things, as well.” He looked over the boy’s head at Grace. “Teach him to navigate, if you like. A boy can never learn too much. Perhaps you will at least have time to teach him the basics.”

Her smile returned. “Thank you, my lord.”

Ethan turned and started walking. Grace watched his tall frame disappear behind a high box hedge near the front of the garden and felt a pang of loss.

“When can we start?” Freddie asked.

She managed to muster a smile. “How about this afternoon?”

Grace couldn’t help a glance toward the house, wondering if there was the slightest chance Ethan might join them.

A
clear blue sky brightened the early June morning. During the night, a light rain had purified the London air, leaving the streets clean and the paving stones damp. Grace had just finished breakfast when Victoria Easton arrived at the town house. She herself was nearly eight months pregnant, the reason she hadn’t been able to visit Grace at Belford Park.

Still, she had written numerous letters, one explaining her reasons for betraying Grace’s condition. In return, Grace had admitted her part in her father’s escape from prison and her husband’s belief that the viscount was responsible for the deaths of the men in his crew.

There were no longer any secrets between them.

Grace looked up as her longtime friend burst through the doors of the drawing room, a tiny whirlwind of energy, round and weighty, miserable and radiant all at the same time.

“It is so good to see you!” Tory threw her arms around Grace, her petite frame and large belly making the gesture clumsy. Both of them laughed.

“It’s wonderful to see you, too.”

“Just think,” Tory said, looking Grace over, though her pregnancy barely showed. “We shall be raising our babes together. We are going to have such fun!”

So far, Grace had given little thought to the child she carried. Mostly she was worried about Ethan and their seemingly hopeless marriage. Now, as she looked at her friend, unconsciously her hand curved over her stomach.

“I still can’t believe it. It doesn’t quite seem real.”

“In time it will.”

“You were always good with children. You’re going to make a wonderful mother. Look at the way you took care of Claire.”

“Yes, well, thanks to Cord, my sister has a husband to care for her now.”

“How is she?”

“Blissfully happy.” She pointed a finger at Grace. “It is you we are worried about.”

Grace sighed. “He doesn’t want me here. I wish I knew what to do.”

They walked over and sat down on the sofa, neither in the mood for tea. “Do you love him?” Tory asked bluntly.

Did she love him? She had told her friend in a letter that she did, but that was some time back and a good deal had happened since then. In truth, Grace had a feeling Tory couldn’t understand how she could be attracted to a man as cold and distant as Ethan. There were times she had a hard time understanding the attraction herself.

“Do I love him? The truth is, I loved him almost from the moment I saw him. There is something about him, Tory. Something different and wonderful, something inside him that calls to me but I can’t seem to reach. For a while, I told myself that I no longer felt the way I did before, that I only married him to give my child a name, but it isn’t the truth. I don’t believe I ever would have wed
him if I didn’t love him deeply, if I didn’t believe that in time he would come to love me.”

“Do you think that perhaps he does?”

“I don’t know. When he looks at me…when I feel his beautiful eyes on me…” She placed a hand over her heart. “I can almost feel my heart squeezing. In those moments, I think that perhaps he does love me. I am determined to find a way to make it happen.”

Tory seemed to mull that over, then her eyes began to sparkle with the same mischievous glint Grace had seen when they were students at Mrs. Thornhill’s Private Academy. “Stand up.”

“What?”

“I said to stand up!”

Grace slowly rose from the sofa.

“Now, turn round.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

She did as Tory commanded and when she looked at her friend again, the gleam was even brighter in her eyes.

“A woman is often her most attractive these first months she is carrying a child. With the high-waisted gowns women are wearing, no one will ever know you are
enceinte.
I should think you’ll have at least another month before you begin to show. We must use that time to our advantage.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m telling you that now is the time to make Ethan see you as the beautiful woman you truly are, and I know exactly how to begin. Cord and I shall have a ball in honor of your marriage.”

“No, please, Tory. Ethan would be furious. My mother
wanted to host an intimate supper and I discouraged her. A ball would be even worse.”

“You must trust me in this. Cord has told me that even in the months before you were wed, Ethan never spent time with another woman. There is every chance that you are right, Grace. Perhaps Ethan is in love with you and simply doesn’t know it.” Tory smiled. “It is our job to make him realize how much he truly cares.”

“But—”

“You will wear a beautiful ball gown and you will look every inch the perfect marchioness. The women will be green with envy and the men will buzz round you like bees after honey. Ethan will be mad with jealousy.”

“I don’t know, Tory. Are you sure that’s a good idea? It seems to me you had rather a bad experience along that line with Cord.”

Tory waved the words away. “That was different. Besides, in the end it all worked out. It is good for a man to see how desirable his wife is to other men.”

She worried her lip. “I’m still not sure this is a good idea.”

“Trust me, Grace. I know what I am doing.”

Grace hoped so. So far none of her own ideas seemed to be going at all the way she planned.

Three days passed. Three days and three long nights. Ethan couldn’t sleep, barely managed to force himself to eat. All he could think of was Grace. Sweet God, just seeing her in the stable talking to Freddie sent a hot stab of desire shooting through him. Damnation! Even in her condition he wanted her. Perhaps more than ever before.

On the fourth day, more and more desperate, Ethan summoned Grace to his study. Staring into the empty
hearth, his thoughts in turmoil, he turned at the sound of her voice.

“You wished to see me, my lord?”

He still wasn’t used to having her address him that way. He liked it better when she called him Ethan, though he didn’t dare tell her. “I wanted to discuss your return to Belford Park.”

One of her eyebrows arched. “Return? I only just got here.”

“True enough, but you came against my explicit orders. You are remaining here at my forbearance. That will only last so long.”

Her chin inched up. “You intend to throw me out in the street?”

“Hardly. I intend for you to return to Belford Park. There you will have my sister-in-law to help you through the months ahead.”

“I’m not going, Ethan. I am staying right here.”

He should have known this wouldn’t be easy. Nothing was ever easy where Grace was concerned. “You intend to defy me?”

“I intend to take my rightful place as your wife.” Grace struck a stubborn pose, and an image arose of her standing in his cabin, shredding the outrageous gowns he had bought her, silently daring him to stop her.

He fought down a tug of amusement.

“As a matter of fact,” she went on, “in that regard, I’ve been meaning to inform you of the ball Lord and Lady Brant will be giving two weeks hence in honor of our marriage.”

Ethan softly cursed. “I can’t believe Cord would allow Victoria to get involved in something that requires so much effort this near her time.”

“Actually, Claire and Lord Percy will be acting as host
and hostess in Tory’s stead, in company with Lord Brant, of course.”

Ethan turned away. He knew he’d been treating her unfairly. Word of his marriage had begun to leak out. People were beginning to speculate, to wonder why he had hidden his wife away in the country so soon after they were wed. Eventually, they would count the months and deduce the truth of her pregnancy, but being married to a marquess had its advantages, and in time the gossip would fade.

As long as he didn’t add to the speculation by forcing her to return to Belford just days after her arrival in the city. Damnation! Why did everything have to be so complicated?

“Ethan…?”

The look on her face, a cross between determination and vulnerability, made his chest hurt.

“All right, you may stay for a few more weeks. Then you are going back to Belford.”

He didn’t miss the faint gleam of triumph in her eyes. God’s breath, the woman could be a conniving little wench when she wanted. For an instant, his amusement returned, but he quickly tamped it down, along with the flash of desire that accompanied it.

Inwardly, he sighed. Two more weeks before he could send her back to the country. Two more weeks of fighting the urge to bed her. He wasn’t going to do it. He wasn’t going to give her that kind of control. Once she was back at Belford, he would find himself a mistress, as he should have done long ago, a woman to satisfy his needs yet remain at a distance.

He wished he found the notion more appealing.

His attention returned to Grace. “If there is nothing else to discuss, you are free to leave.”

She looked as if she wanted to say something more, but in the end simply turned and walked out of the room. The sound of the closing door seemed to echo in the empty chambers of his heart.

She had to do something. Preparations for the ball were underway but it was yet many days away. In the meantime, Grace refused to stand by and watch her marriage continue to crumble. Of course, there had never really been a marriage, just a few words spoken by the vicar and those brief nights together after they were wed.

Her cheeks went warm at the thought. How she missed sleeping next to Ethan, missed kissing him, making love with him. Worse yet, Ethan seemed determined they would never be together that way again.

Grace sighed into the quiet of her sitting room. They were married, but Ethan was convinced there could be no future for them. He seemed to believe that if he found happiness with Grace, he would be betraying the men who had died at his side, murdered, he believed, by her father.

Perhaps he was right and the past stood between them too solidly to ever be conquered.

One thing was clear—as long as her husband continued to avoid her, she would never be able to make him fall in love with her, never have a chance for them to be happy.

With Phoebe’s help, first thing the following morning, Grace dressed in a sunny yellow muslin gown embroidered with roses. The gown was one of her most flattering, she thought, setting off her complexion and the gold in her heavy auburn hair.

She found Ethan in the breakfast room, reading the morning
Chronicle,
toying with a plate of coddled eggs and kidneys, though mostly he seemed to be moving the
food around on his plate. His hair was still damp, glistening like black silk, his mouth held a casually sensual curve. He came to his feet the moment he saw her, his usual mask of control falling quickly into place.

“You’re up early this morning.”

“I am usually an early riser, as you may recall.” But as the baby grew, she seemed to require more and more sleep. “I came down to ask you a favor.”

His winged black brows drew slightly together. “What sort of favor?”

“As you know, preparations for the ball are already underway. Victoria was supposed to take me shopping for the proper sort of gown, but with the baby so close, she woke up feeling a little under the weather. As time is running short, I was hoping you might take me.”

His light eyes warily searched her face. “I know nothing of women’s garments.”

Grace smiled. “As I recall, you had no trouble buying clothes for me before…though this would have to be a gown of a far different nature.”

The edge of his mouth faintly curved, and winning that small response seemed a triumph of epic proportions.

The smile slipped away. “Perhaps Lady Percy will take you.”

“Claire is busy helping with preparations for the ball. She gave me the name of a modiste she says is all the crack. It shouldn’t take very long.”

He looked as though he were going to refuse.

“By your own words,” she added before he had the chance, “I shall be here only a few more weeks. Surely you can indulge me a bit until then.”

The wary look remained, but it would be the worst sort of manners for him to send his pregnant wife off on her own with only her lady’s maid to accompany her.

“All right, I’ll take you. In the meantime, why don’t you sit down and have something to eat? You are supposed to be eating for two, are you not?”

It was the first reference he had ever made to the baby and it made her insides feel weak. “Yes…yes, I am.” And suddenly she realized she was ravenously hungry.

Seating her in a chair next to his, he walked over to the sideboard and began filling a plate for her from an array of silver chafing dishes, adding a piece of bread to the delicious smelling food while the footman poured her a cup of hot chocolate.

The footman retired, leaving them alone, but neither of them attempted to make conversation. Not wishing to chance bringing up the unwanted subject of her father, she didn’t ask Ethan what items of interest he had found in the paper. After all, the authorities were still searching for the viscount, though from what she could discover, she didn’t think they had found any trace of him yet.

When she finished cleaning her plate, she used the bread to sop up a bit of grease, then looked up to see what appeared to be amusement on her husband’s handsome face.

“I guess you truly are eating for two.”

She looked down at her empty plate and her cheeks went warm. “My appetite does seem to have grown.”

“That is probably good. Come. We had better get started. Since you are a woman, I have a feeling this may take a little longer than you think.”

Oh, it is definitely going to take longer,
Grace silently vowed.
It is going to take the entire afternoon.

Ethan couldn’t believe it. Somehow his conniving little baggage of a wife had convinced him to take her shopping. Worst of all, he was enjoying every minute.

As Victoria’s sister, Claire, had suggested, their first appointment was at the modiste’s, an elegant shop in Bond Street.

“We’ve been expecting you, my lady,” Madam Osgood, the shop owner, said as the bell rang announcing their arrival, a skinny woman with silver-gray hair and tiny silver spectacles perched on her narrow, but rather formidable nose. “And you must be his lordship. My, what a dazzling couple the two of you make, both of you so tall and attractive.” She peered at him over the top of her glasses. “’Twill be even more so, once your bride is wearing the beautiful gowns I am going to design just for her.”