A Gentle Grace (Wedded Women Quartet) (10 page)

Covertly wiping the crumbs off her skirt from the delicious blueberry pastry she had all but inhaled, Grace stole a sideways glance at Stephen. They had been walking arm in arm through the field for some time and while she was bursting with conversation, he seemed content to wander in silence.

She wondered if he was always so quiet, or if it was just around her that he guarded his words like precious gemstones. There was no doubt that Lord Melbourne was an unusual man. She could easily see how someone could judge him as arrogant or, in less unflattering terms, just another rake. But there was something below the surface of his ready smile and dry wit that hinted at more. Something she could not quite put her finger on, but was intrigued by nevertheless.

The sun, having dimmed beneath a flock of white clouds in an otherwise clear blue sky, drifted free again, causing Grace to squint and look away from the Earl as a ray of light played directly into her eyes.

“You forgot to wear a hat.”

Belatedly Grace patted the top of her head and noted that there was, in fact, no hat to be had and oh, wouldn’t her mother have a fit when she found out! “I suppose I did. I tend to do that quite often.”

“Your hair gleams in the sun,” Stephen said quietly.

Caught off guard by the compliment, Grace blinked several times while she struggled to think of a fitting response. “You… have gleaming hair as well?” she ventured, to which the Earl replied with a snort of laughter.

“Perhaps you had best leave the flattery to me, Lady Deringer.”

“Yes,” she agreed without hesitation. “I probably should.”

They shared a smile, and the intimacy of such a seemingly harmless expression quite stole Grace’s breath away. Anxiety, not wholly unpleasant, swelled within her chest. She felt the muscles in Stephen’s arm tighten ever so slightly and her fingers squeezed in reflex.

“Lady Deringer, I…”

“Lord Melbourne, I…”

Self-consciously Grace laughed and tucked a lock of hair that had come loose behind her ear. “You go first,” she urged, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye only to discover he was already gazing at her. As if drawn together by some invisible force they stopped and turned to face each other. Stephen’s free hand rose to gently clasp her other elbow. Instead of feeling caught, Grace felt… protected. Safe. Treasured. The butterflies in her belly went crazy, dancing and swooping and swirling in dizzying circles.

“Are you going to kiss me now?” she wondered out loud.

Stephen took a step closer. “Do you want me to?” he asked huskily.

Grace tipped her chin up, the better to study the Earl. He stood in front of the sun, blocking it from her eyes and creating a shimmering halo that cloaked his head and shoulders in a dazzling light. “You look like an angel,” she whispered.

His mouth curved, revealing a dimple high on his left cheek she had never noticed before. “Far from it, I am afraid.”

She bit her lip, equal parts terrified and breathlessly excited. “You would never hurt me, would you?”

Stephen released her elbow to cup her cheek. He ran his thumb along the soft curve of her jaw line, his touch so gentle as to barely be felt, and Grace leaned into the pressure, welcoming the foreign feel of a man’s fingers gliding along her skin.

“No Grace,” he said. “I would never hurt you.”

Satisfied with his answer, she allowed her eyes to drift close and waited for his lips to descend on hers…

And waited…

And waited some more.

When nothing happened Grace opened her eyes and peeked up at him. “You can kiss me now,” she said politely, less he was waiting for her permission.

Stephen traced his fingertips over her ear and smiled. “You do not want to rush moments like these. They do not come along very often.”

“They do not?” Grace asked.

Silently the Earl shook his head.

“Why?”

“Because,” he whispered as he dipped his head lower, “women like you do not come along very often.” And then his mouth was on her mouth, and his body was pressing against her body, and his hands were framing her face as if she were made of the finest porcelain, and it was all so wonderful and new and bewildering and amazing that Grace quite forgot to breathe.

She wanted the kiss to last forever, and murmured a throaty protest when Stephen drew back but he was only adjusting the angle of his mouth, and when his lips settled against hers for the second time an entirely new sensation of feeling swept over Grace. She leaned into the kiss, into
him
, and he coaxed her lips to part with a teasing slide of his tongue. Her knees wobbled and she clung to his broad shoulders with all her strength.

His mouth was doing the most delicious things to her. Nibbling and suckling, nipping and teasing until she was quite heady with it. She fumbled to keep up, to mimic the lick of his tongue against her bottom lip, but with a quiet rumble of laughter Stephen told her to relax, to enjoy, and so she did.

She felt his hands slip from her face to the sensitive curve of her back. His fingers followed the seam of her dress, pressing against each bump in her spine until goose bumps ran the length of her body. When his hands finally reached her neck they settled there, but not before slipping beneath her collar and massaging the tightly corded muscle until she wanted to moan from the pleasure of it.

And just when Grace thought it could not get any better, when she thought the kiss had reached sheer perfection, his mouth began to trace a decadent path from her lips to her jaw to the base of her throat where her pulse fluttered quick as a bird’s wing and back again.

“Oh,” she gasped, her eyes opening in wonder. “That feels… That feels
quite
nice.”

“Do you want me to stop?” he murmured. 

“N-n-no,” she said, her breath catching when he slipped her earlobe between his lips and began to suckle. “You are d-doing very nicely.”

He slowly worked his way back to her mouth and finished the kiss as he had started it: his lips pressed ever-so-slightly against hers. When he finally stepped back and slipped free of her arms Grace remained motionless with her eyes closed, reluctant to let go of the moment even after it had ended.

Her lips felt swollen and she traced her fingertips over them in wonder, thinking
this is what a woman’s mouth feels like after she has been kissed quite thoroughly
. She had always imagined her first kiss would be terribly awkward and stiff, but this… well, it was certainly safe to say it had been anything but.

“Lady Deringer?”

Grace looked at the Earl, and for the first time she saw something other than cool indifference in his brilliant green eyes. She saw uncertainty, and a glimmer of hope, and another emotion she could not put a name to but was able to recognize because she felt it as well.

And there, in the middle of the field on a bright summer’s day in late August, she held out her hand and he took it in his and they smiled at each other, their eyes communicating what their lips could not, and she said, “Please, call me Grace,” and he said, “Only if you call me Stephen,” and so she did.

They returned to the house arm in arm and met an anxious and somewhat cross Henrietta on the veranda who complained that they had gone beyond her line of sight – not that she was watching – and Lord Melbourne had best mind his manners from this moment forward.

“Yes, Lady Deringer,” he said respectfully, and only Grace saw his lips twitch as he fought to hold back a smile. “May I request permission to come calling tomorrow?”

“Of course you may,” Henrietta said, her eyes widening. “If that is what you want.”

“It is what I want,” the Earl said. “It is what I want very much.”

And thus began the courtship of Stephen and Grace.

Her stomach hurt. Glaring down at the half eaten pastry in her hand, Grace pushed it across the table, but she knew it was not responsible for the dull ache that was creeping up from her belly and settling like a rock in her chest. No, this feeling of loss and emptiness she could blame entirely on Stephen, black hearted cad that he was. How could he love her so tenderly then, and leave her so callously later?

Drawing her skirts to the side she stood up and began to push her way past the wall of people crowded around the refreshments. Suddenly she did not feel at all like dancing and wanted nothing more than to go home. Except she could not go home, because she had come with Catherine in her husband’s carriage, and she had no carriage of her own because there was no money to provide for one and there was no money to provide for one because Stephen had left her.

Tears stung the back of Grace’s eyelids as she burst through the narrow door and into the ballroom. Striving to remain inconspicuous she stayed in the back, as far away from the happily waltzing couples as she could manage. The last thing she wanted to do was force Catherine or Josephine to leave the ball early. She would simply stay hidden until it ended; it was not as if men had been clamoring to dance with her to begin with, and even if she saw Stephen at this point she was not certain if she would be able to – or want to – speak to him.

Stripping off one long glove she used the ivory satin to wipe her face dry, began to slip the glove back on, and gasped in frustrated dismay when she saw the dark powder marks streaked across the delicate fabric. Now the glove was ruined, and it was not even hers! None of it was. Not her beautiful dress, not the necklace around her throat or the diamonds that hung from her ears like miniature chandeliers. Not even the jeweled dancing slippers that were pinching her toes unmercifully belonged to her! She was merely borrowing it, as she had once borrowed Stephen. Of course, had she known he was merely borrowed at the time instead of hers to keep… Oh, but what was the use in wool gathering?

Disgusted with herself, Grace pulled off the other glove and blew her nose with it before casting them both aside on an empty chair. She would pay Catherine back for them in kind, she thought determinedly. And she would stop feeling sorry for herself. And she would stop—

“You look beautiful tonight.”

The achingly familiar voice caused Grace to jolt, but this time she did not try to run away. Sniffing back the rest of her tears, she drew her shoulders taut, lifted her chin, and looked the man standing in front of her straight in the eye. “Hello, Lord Melbourne.”

“Once you called me Stephen.”

“Once we were engaged.”

The merest hint of a smile tilted the corner of his mouth. “Touché,” he whispered.

This is what you wanted
, Grace reminded herself as her mind alternated between fight and flight and nerves coiled in her belly like writhing snakes.
You wanted to see him again. To talk to him. To be with him. Well, now that you have gotten your wish, what are you going to do about it, missy?
“Would you like to dance?” she asked impulsively.

She could tell her question had surprised Stephen by the slight widening of his eyes, but he recovered quickly. “Would
you
like to dance?” he countered, his tone deceptively calm.

“Still answering a question with a question, I see.”

A genuine smile parted his lips. Without another word he extended his hand and Grace’s fingers trembled only slightly as she took it.

Stephen’s skin was warm against hers, his palm more calloused than she remembered, but oh, the thrill of touching him again, of being close enough to inhale his scent again, of merely being in the same
room
as him again was positively heavenly.

And then they were dancing; swirling across the ballroom as if the past four months had never happened. As if they were right back where they had been, happily engaged and madly in love. And for one moment, for one selfish, impossible moment, Grace closed her eyes and let herself forget Stephen had broken her heart.

Blocking out the whispers and the stares, she thought only of him and how right it felt to be in his arms.

This is where she belonged. Where she had always belonged. When she was with him she did not feel plain or forgotten or stupidly clumsy. She felt as though she were the only woman in the world, and with one touch, one glance, one whisper he could ignite her very soul. Except…

Grace’s eyes shot open and a grim frown replaced her dreamy smile as reality rained down on her head like a bucket of cold water. Except Stephen had
not
ignited her soul these months past; he had extinguished it, carelessly and without feeling. It would be easy to pretend otherwise. She had certainly hoped that could have been the case: that she could have forgiven Stephen with the same breath she pledged her love for him and everything would return to the way it had been. But now Grace knew that could not happen, for after having tasted the pure bliss of true love she could never settle for anything less, and a love with secrets and mistrust was no love at all. 

Stephen tilted his head down when she stiffened in his arms, and the lazy smile she saw play across his mouth infuriated her beyond all reason. Had he really thought it would be that easy to win her back? Did he truly think so little of her? Her mouth tightened. Oh, simple Grace! Oh, gentle Grace! Do whatever you wish and she’ll always come back to you like a foolish pup to its master complete with a wagging tail. Well, she was not a dog and Stephen was most certainly not her master. Perhaps they had a chance at true love, but not until he gave her a very good reason for why he had left, complete with a little begging. Yes, Grace decided ruthlessly. She would rather like to see a bit of begging.

Conveniently forgetting the fact that
she
had been the one to ask
him
to dance, Grace came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the ballroom floor. “I do not feel well,” she said, which was not a complete lie. Her stomach was rather queasy, but it was not illness that made it so.

Keeping one hand curved around her waist and the other clasped tight against hers, Stephen frowned and stepped closer. “You do look a little flush,” he observed, his eyebrows pinching over the bridge of his nose. “Would you like to sit down?”