Desire Wears Diamonds (39 page)

“It’s higher than I’d like, but she swears
she’s cold.”

“I’ll examine her. We can speculate on this
stair landing until dawn and accomplish nothing.” He took her by
the hand and they both headed down the hallway where the future of
Ashe’s happiness once again hung by a thread.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

It was a very odd introduction to his
friends. While they waited in the library together for news, Grace
began to gain a better appreciation of the circle that Lord Winters
had spoken of. Runners were sent to courier word to Mr. Hasting’s
wife and to Lady Winters. Mrs. Isabel Thorne was already upstairs
in attendance to her friend Caroline and Mr. Godwin, the butler,
shared that Darius and his wife were in residence as guests of the
Blackwells.

Grace pressed her fingertips to her temples
to push back a headache. It was a great deal of information to take
in at once. The “Gayle” whose note had sent Tally into action
turned out to be Dr. Rowan West’s wife and a professional nurse or
midwife of some sort. Mrs. West’s rare standing as both a wife and
a woman with a profession of her own gave Grace a bit of hope and
insight; insight into Michael’s acceptance of her desire to earn
money of her own with her writing and hope that his sentiments
might be genuine on the subject and not a facet of his
deception.

Rowan came back down to talk to the men and
Michael reluctantly retreated with the others for a private
conference regarding Mrs. Blackwell’s status, but not before he
asked, “Will you wait for me, Grace?”

She nodded but did not answer him, making an
effort to suddenly study the buttons on his waistcoat.
If I
speak to you, it will be hard to hang onto this fury,
she told
herself.
And it doesn’t seem right to be anything but furious at
a man who marries you because…

“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He
retreated with the others and the ornate solid door to the library
closed behind him.

Her brow furrowed and she pinched the bridge
of her nose.
Truth be told, I don’t know why he married me
anymore, do I?

The house was too quiet for her comfort and
Grace dreaded the notion that the silence of the grave had already
contaminated what was probably once a joyous home. She wondered
about the babies and prayed that Mr. Ashe Blackwell would find it
in his heart not to blame his daughters if the worst came to pass.
Grace knew from her own childhood that a father who cared only
enough to educate and ignore you was almost as bad as none at
all.

There was a gentle knock at the door and a
pale young woman stepped inside with hair so blonde it was white.
Grace had the fleeting impression of a lovely phantom before she
approached, substantial and living, in a periwinkle silk day dress
edged in ivory lace. The woman shyly extended her hand. “I am
Isabel Thorne and I’m…so sorry.”

“Sorry?” Grace’s fingers fluttered nervously
at her throat. “Is it bad news about Mrs. Blackwell? Oh, God…”

“No!” Isabel quickly interrupted her. “She
lives and while she is still very weak, Rowan is confident that she
will make a full recovery.” Isabel smiled. “Gayle was a wonder and
saved her life. Her husband gives her full credit though I suspect
he also had a hand in the reversal.”

Grace nodded, relief shivering down her
spine. “Thank goodness! I know it seems strange to be so overcome
since I’ve never met her but…their faces when they heard she was in
distress—I will never forget the look of heartbreak in Michael’s
eyes.” Grace bit her lower lip and did her best to bring her mind
back to the present. “I should have introduced myself. I’m Grace
Rutherford. But you seem to have known that. Why were you
apologizing to me?”

Isabel sighed and gestured elegantly toward
a pair of chairs by a reading table. “Please let me explain.”

Grace sat down as primly as she could.
Isabel Thorne looked like a creature carved from bone china who
even pregnant had the kind of innate confidence and beauty that
made Grace acutely aware of her rustic background. Grace only hoped
she didn’t have a smudge on her own nose from leaning against the
windows in the carriage. “Mrs. Thorne, you’re a stranger to me. I
can’t think of a trespass that requires an apology that wouldn’t
also require…a prior meeting?”

Isabel smiled but her eyes were sad. “I wish
that were true. Darius made a point of finding me upstairs after
you arrived. You see, there was a terrible misunderstanding.”

“Go on.”

“When we heard of your impending marriage to
Mr. Rutherford, the circumstances were less than ideal.”

Grace’s cheeks flooded with color. “Mr.
Rutherford acted to shield me from scandal but I can assure you
that he did
nothing
wrong that night at the ball! My brother
was so convinced otherwise that there was no arguing with him
and—I’m…” Grace put her cool hands up to her face. “Well, to be
honest, now I’m not sure what happened but I was glad to be quit of
my brother’s house and no matter what lies were told to me, the
truth is Michael saved my life when he married me.” Grace’s eyes
widened in shock as she heard herself and she almost squeaked in
misery.

Isabel shook her head and reached out with a
comforting hand to pull Grace’s hands into hers. “No! I am the
last
woman in England to raise an eyebrow over the threat of
scandal! My own downfall was gleeful fodder for so many but I have
no regrets. Love conquers all.”

“I’m not sure that’s true but I’m happy for
you, Mrs. Thorne.”

“Let me begin again.” Isabel released her
hands and nervously pushed back a stray curl from her cheek. “The
men have a friendship and a bond, but so do the wives of the
Jaded.”

“The Jaded?” Grace asked.

“It’s a terrible name for their little club
started in jest and not very apt. We’ve campaigned them to change
it but I confess, it’s grown on us.”

“Us,” Grace echoed doing her best to follow
the tangled threads of the conversation.

“The wives. I was the newest addition to the
feminine inner circle, until you,” Isabel said. “And you should
have received the same warm welcome that we all did and that is why
I’m apologizing.”

“Oh!” Grace exclaimed. “Please don’t.”

Eyes the color of white opals shimmered with
unshed tears. “I must. It was deliberate, the way we refused to
call on you! Well, Caroline couldn’t of course, being confined but
we closed ranks against you so quickly. I think of it now and I
shudder!”

“B-because you thought I’d been ruined?”
Grace asked. “Isn’t that understandable?”

“Because we were certain that you were
conspiring with your brother and that you intended to hurt
Michael,” Isabel said.

Grace caught her breath. “I would never hurt
Michael.”

“After everything that Sterling Porter has
done, we didn’t think it beneath him to use a woman as bait—even
his own sister.” Isabel shifted in her chair, uncomfortable with
the subject. “We thought the worst of you. We thought you were
cruelly toying with Michael’s affections to strike against him and
we feared that Michael’s honor was forfeit if he were the one
playing some kind of game in which he would marry you for a
tactical advantage.”

“Did he?” Grace asked, an edge of
desperation in her voice.

“Absolutely not!” Isabel shook her head
firmly. “No. Gayle had it directly from Rowan’s own lips that when
he begged Michael to see reason, Michael refused. He refused
because he said he loved you. When the Jaded told him that they
would cut him off, when they accused him of being a traitor and
turning against them, he stood fast—because he loved you! They are
like brothers, Mrs. Rutherford. But he endured having every one of
their doors closed to him for the love of a woman; for the younger
sister of their sworn enemy.”

“For me,” Grace echoed softly. “It makes no
sense!” Grace took a slow deep breath and then another. “Mrs.
Thorne,” she began slowly. “I am still not sure what Sterling…what
he was, what he did. What I overheard this afternoon, it shook me
to my core! My brother? A villain? A killer? It’s a bad dream.”

“You poor thing!”

Grace made a quick gesture as if to wave off
any pity. “What I need now is for you to tell me everything you
know about the diamond, the Jackal and the Jaded. Please.”

Isabel smiled and in the quiet of Caroline
Blackwell’s library, she began to lay out a tale worthy of Mr. A.R.
Crimson, patiently pausing for questions and working with Grace to
slowly lay out the pieces of the vast puzzle of the Jaded’s
journey.

Until at last, Mrs. Grace Rutherford
understood the game.

And where she would stand.

Michael sat with the others in the music
salon where they’d finally heard the good news from Rowan and
nearly collapsed in relief. Ashe had yet to make an appearance but
it was understood that he would not be leaving his wife’s side
until his fears were completely assuaged. The rest was a blurred
discussion of Darius’s progress with Bellewood University’s
establishment and all the possibilities that life now offered them
free of the Jackal. They toasted Ashe’s beautiful daughters and
Rowan assured them that they were tiny mirrors of each other and as
identical as buttons.

“God, they’ll have the running of him!”
Josiah said. “
Two
daughters! He doesn’t stand a chance!”

Michael stood at the first pause in the
conversation. “Gentlemen, I have to return to the library and see
if it’s possible to…speak to my wife.”

“Shall we go with you?” Galen offered. “To
help plead your case?”

“Very amusing,” Michael tried to smile. “No,
this is something I will have to face alone.”

Darius walked him to the salon door. “Give
her time. It’s a jolt to lose a brother.”

“And what kind of jolt is it to find out
that your new husband was practically a bystander to your brother’s
death?” Michael squared his shoulders before putting his hand on
the doorknob. “She hates me, Darius.”

“You are a very hard man to hate,
Rutherford,” Darius said as solemnly as a priest. “Take heart.”

Michael opened the door and left his friends
to their conversations.

He began to walk down the stairs and came to
an awkward halt as Grace met him on her way up the same staircase.
“Were you…coming up to…?”

“There is poetic balance in speaking to you
here, don’t you think?” she asked him calmly.

“In Ashe’s home?”

“On stairs,” she amended. “If I hadn’t
lingered on that landing today, I wonder what I would have
missed.”

Michael grimaced. “Why don’t we go back down
to the library and speak privately?”

She shook her head. “No. There is a wicked
part of me that is enjoying how very awkward and miserable you look
up there.”

“Damn it,” he muttered and deliberately
walked to be three steps below her to level out their heights a
touch and spare her neck from craning up at him. “You cannot be
enjoying any part of this, Grace. I don’t believe you.”

“Nothing sinister, Michael. That is what you
said to me; that there was nothing sinister in the business you had
with my brother.”

He nodded. “I lied.”

“Why?”

“To protect you from the worst of it and as
I’m being mortally honest from here forward, to make sure that you
didn’t warn your brother that I was aware of his villainy. It was
like waltzing with the woman of my dreams with a viper at my feet,
Grace.”

“I never liked him, Michael. But that is a
very horrible thing to admit…” she whispered. “I dreamt of a life
free from him but I never wished him dead.”

“I know.” He ran a hand through his hair,
his nerves getting the better of him. “I want to say I’m sorry
but—I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry for stealing a taste of a
happiness I’d long ago hardened my heart to ignore. But you, Grace,
you are impossible to ignore.”

“You, sir, are very talented when it comes
to distracting me with sweet words and—“

“I love you, Grace.” He bowed his head. “I
wanted to say it one last time before you end this.”

“Have you nothing else to say in your
defense?”

“Other than the fact that your brother would
have traded your life for a diamond? That he threatened to murder
you and frame me for it if I didn’t give him what he wanted? Or do
you want me to try to go further back? As if his sins against all
of us even after he abandoned us to die in a Bengal dungeon, his
attempted murder and amoral disregard for the lives of innocents
makes any difference to the ultimate truth that I was willing to do
anything
it took to keep you safe and to protect the people
I love?”

“Anything?”

He nodded miserably. “I loved you enough to
even see if there was a compromise to be made with a man who has
actively tried to kill my friends and myself over the last few
years. If there’d been even a glimmer of humanity in that man, I’d
have laid down my own life before I’d have allowed him to lose his.
I’d have found a path or forced an alliance because sparing his
life might have meant that you wouldn’t hate me.”

“Do I hate you?” she asked, her eyes
widening.

“You must,” he said quickly but then a
strange flicker of doubt came to life inside of him. “Don’t
you?”

She climbed one step and opened her arms,
leaning forward to allow him to lift her into his arms. “I said I
might but apparently, I cannot hate a man that I am in love with.
It is a contrary but a terrible truth that I will live with for the
rest of my life, Michael.”

“You love me.”

She nodded, tears shimmering like diamonds
trailing down her cheeks. “I love you, Michael Rutherford.”

He kissed her with a thorough sweetness that
made everything inside of him break loose in a torrent of relief
and joy. Her feet left the stairs and she clung to his neck as he
held her fast, both of them desperate to relish their happiness and
banish the last of fear.