Grace (21 page)

It was then, as he watched Grace gesture and babble on in a way completely foreign to her, that Trevor finally figured out her game. Grace intended to either bore him or disgust him into giving up on their little wager. He let her blather on until she finally had to stop to take another breath.

“It won’t work, Grace.” He addressed her gently, but firmly. Faith stirred and looked at him with interest.

Grace stopped speaking in midsentence. She nearly scowled, but recovered nicely. “Why, my lord, surely you
didn’t think that I was trying to hint that I’d like some sort of gift from you? Why, I would never be so—”

Trevor cut her off. “I meant that your poorly executed imitation of an empty-headed widgeon will not work,” he said calmly.

“Imitation!” Grace looked gloriously indignant. “My lord, if you don’t like me as I am, then just say so, but please don’t hurl unkind accusations at me. I am as I am, and you can just take it or leave it!”

Trevor shrugged. “I suppose I’ll just have to take it then.” His eyes twinkled merrily at Faith as he leaned past Grace to say conspiratorially, “She can’t keep this up, you know.”

Faith smiled back, inclining her head in deference to his excellent logic, a trait she particularly admired.

Grace sat furiously and rigidly silent. Trevor had always had the power to anger her, but the fact that Faith, her own sister, had defected to his camp so easily . . . How
could
she? She stole a glance at her sister out of the corner of her eye. Faith silently and serenely admired the passing parklands. Grace glanced at Trevor and found him quietly watching her, his smile smug. She snapped her gaze back to the front, glad to see they were approaching Aunt Cleo’s town house. She pressed her lips together and resolved to stop trying to best him with plots and plans. She would simply ignore him for the next nine days.

Before the horses had come to a complete stop, Grace stood up. She brushed past Trevor’s knees in her haste to get out of the vehicle and away from his irksome presence. She gained the ground without injury, then stalked up the steps and swept into the house without a backward glance at her treacherous sister or the irksome earl.

Trevor watched her go, a wide grin sweeping his features. He climbed down and held out a hand to Faith. “It has been a real pleasure, Miss Ackerly. Would you please tell
your sister that I look forward to escorting her to the Corwins’ ball tonight?”

Faith gave him a direct look as she stepped down from the landau. “You know she would rather die than go with you this evening, Lord Caldwell.”

Trevor raised his eyebrows. “Ahh, but she hasn’t such a choice, has she? Will you be there also?”

Faith nodded. “I’ll be there with Aunt Cleo.”

“Well, good, then. I shall have a chance to give your aunt my regards.” He tipped his hat to her and climbed back into the landau. The vehicle pulled away, leaving a be-mused Faith standing silently at the curb. She watched him go, turned to walk up the steps, then stopped for a moment, her attention caught by a subtle movement in a dark doorway across the street. She peered at the shadowed alcove for a moment, then shrugged and decided her eyes were playing tricks on her. Her thoughts quickly returned to the problem of her sister and the earl as she walked up the steps and slowly entered the house.

As soon as she came in, Grace pounced on her like an angry cat. “How could you take his side?” she accused furiously. “Against your own sister!”

Faith looked at Grace calmly as she pulled off her gloves. “Think about what you’re saying, Grace. What is it, exactly, that Lord Caldwell has done that is so very terrible?”

Grace stubbornly pressed her lips together and averted her gaze.

“He’s done nothing,” Faith answered with cool logic, “except escort you to balls, tolerate your temper, and gift you with his time and undivided attention. In return, you’ve repeatedly deceived him, tried to make him look foolish before the entire ton on more than one occasion, and flayed him with your tongue at every possible opportunity.

“Despite this, he continues to try to please you in every
way he can, which only leads me to believe that the man must genuinely care for you. What more could I ask for my sister than that she be cared for?”

Grace shook her head. “You’re wrong, Faith. It is merely his desire to win that makes him continue with this farce. I’m nothing but a prize to him.”

“My point exactly. If he wins—and let me point out that he’s working quite hard to do just that—he gets you, Grace. If the prize weren’t worth getting, why would he work so hard to get it? Why hasn’t he quit if it isn’t worth it to him?”

Grace turned away and walked slowly into the yellow salon, her thoughts jumbled as she processed the information she had known all along but stubbornly denied.

Faith followed her persistently. “I’ll tell you why, Grace. He wants the prize.”

Grace did not respond.

“Try being nice to him,” Faith urged.

“I have no wish to marry, Faith—not even Lord Caldwell,” Grace protested weakly.

“Just please try to be kind to him for the next nine days. At the very least, you’ll be able to look back and say that you kept your part of the agreement honorably.”

Grace sank into a chair, lost in thought. “I’ll try,” she promised her sister quietly.

T
revor sat uncomfortably in a delicate gold brocade chair in the yellow salon, his long legs crossed carelessly, his impatience evidenced only by the tapping of his index finger upon the intricately carved arm of the chair. He sat because he knew that if he stood he would pace, and if Grace caught him pacing, he would be forced to concede yet another small victory to her.

He had already cooled his heels for more than fifteen minutes before he’d decided to take a seat, choosing the gold brocade armchair because it looked like the only piece of furniture in the dainty, feminine room substantial enough to bear his weight. Even so, he felt like a great, hulking beast caught in a doll’s house. He grimaced. Trust Grace to try to throw him off balance in varied and subtle ways before she drove the final dagger home at the end of the allotted fortnight.

Upstairs, Grace was pacing. Troubled by a nagging headache and an odd sense of weariness, she briefly considered writing a note begging him for the evening off, but was loath to use the fact that she did not feel well as an excuse, ruefully reflecting that she had already dishonestly done so. After several starts and an equal number of stops, she gave up and decided she would have to brave the
inconvenient pain for the evening. She reread the last draft of the note:

Grace shook her head and prepared to go downstairs, leaving the unfinished letter on her dressing table. Trevor had no idea of her thoughts since she had angrily left his vehicle. He deserved more than a simple note.

After he had waited for twenty-five minutes, Trevor finally heard Grace’s voice in the hall. He stood, automatically composing his features into those of a gentleman who had nothing better to do than to wait for a woman to honor him with her presence.

A moment later Grace entered the room. She walked directly to him. She stopped a mere foot away and searched his features for a clue to his mood. What she saw appeared to satisfy her, for she smiled and held out a hand. “Good evening, Lord Caldwell,” she said softly. “You look very nice this evening.”

Trevor stopped in the act of kissing her hand, her fingers still pressed to his lips. He quirked an eyebrow, then let go, trying to reconcile this very agreeable Grace with the girl who had stormed out of his carriage without a backward glance only hours earlier. He found he could not. “I look very nice?” he drawled in exaggerated shock. “Why, Miss Ackerly, that was a
very
nice compliment. You look
very
nice, yourself. I expect we shall have a
very
nice time tonight, don’t you?”

Her eyes glowed with humor. “I suppose I deserve that,”
she admitted with a little laugh. “Can you possibly forgive my wretched behavior the past few days?”

Trevor raised his other eyebrow in disbelief, certain his ears deceived him.

Grace saw the look and hastened to explain. “It’s rather unfortunate and a bit embarrassing, but I’m afraid I have a very bad habit.”

More and more interesting. “Go on,” he invited.

“You see, I very much hate to lose.”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

Grace blushed. “But most people don’t try to cheat.”

“You cheat?”

She nodded in sublime discomfort. “When I’m not certain of winning.”

“And you don’t feel certain of winning our wager?”

Her eyes flashed and her chin lifted proudly. “Of course I’m sure I’ll win,” she stated, then grinned a trifle sheepishly. “But it doesn’t hurt to take steps to ensure I do.”

Trevor looked down at Grace. He took in her jaunty smile, her gloriously flushed cheeks, and her dancing blue eyes. A wave of tender, possessive pride swept over him, startling him with its intensity. He returned her infectious smile with one of his own.“Shall we begin anew then, my dear?”

Relief visible on her face, Grace held out a compromising hand. “Shall we round off the days already used, my lord? We can say one week remains on the agreement, beginning today. Care to shake on it?”

Trevor’s lips twitched as he looked at her proffered hand, then back at her face. He gave her a pointed look, then reached for her hand and pulled her against him. His arms closed around her as he bent his head and whispered in her ear, “No, my dear, the original deal stands. We have nine days left.” He pushed a hand into her hair, tilting her face up to his as he had wanted to that afternoon. Her heart hammered wildly as he lowered his mouth to hers
and murmured against her lips, “I think we’ll seal this agreement with a kiss.” His lips brushed hers as lightly as a butterfly lands on a flower.

Grace caught her breath, hoping he would not hear the wild thundering of her heart. “We originally agreed that there would be no more kisses,” she protested weakly, angry with herself for standing quietly within the warm circle of his arms.

“I believe I’m entitled to bending the rules just this once.
You
did,” he pointed out to silence her when she started to protest. “Besides,” he continued, his eyes turning forest green with desire, “that wasn’t a kiss.
This
is a kiss.”

He claimed her mouth with insistent, searing tenderness, molding and shaping her lips to his. Grace held herself rigid in protest for just a moment, then gave in and melted against him with a small, surrendering whimper. He gathered her more closely. Helpless, she slid a hand up the broad expanse of his chest to clutch his shoulder for support, clinging desperately as the world spun away beneath her.

Her touch fanned his carefully banked passion into flames of wanting. He ran his tongue insistently between her lips, teasing them, coaxing them to part. When they did his tongue plunged into her mouth, and she met it with her own. The kiss exploded, each of them feeding an urgent need in the other, a need that defied explanation. As she pressed herself more tightly against him, Grace felt the rigid evidence of his arousal between them, and gasped in involuntary shock.

Afraid he had frightened her, Trevor tore himself away and walked across the room, looking out a window with his back toward Grace, his raging emotions betrayed only by an occasional twitch of his clenched jaw.

Grace stood in the center of the room where he had left her, her head down, fighting the overwhelming urge to go
to him, to wrap herself around him and lay her cheek against his back. Her arms felt strangely empty as they hung at her sides. Not knowing the real reason he had pulled away so suddenly, she said in a small voice, “I know that I deserved that.”

Trevor released a breath he did not know he held. “But who is punishing whom?” he muttered. Turning, he faced Grace. “Perhaps we should both play by the rules from now on,” he suggested. “Shall I escort you to the Corwins’ ball now, my dear?”

Not trusting herself to speak, Grace nodded. Trevor walked across the room and held out an arm. Although he noted that the hand she placed on it shook just a little, he somehow managed to keep from pointing that out.

Grace winced. Everything was glaring and blazing. The tiniest sounds seemed amplified. The smell of the wax from the chandeliers accosted her senses, and the voices of too many people crushed into a hot room that was much too small pounded upon her ears. Even the music blared, too loud for her to handle tonight.

When they arrived at the ball, Grace and Trevor had almost immediately separated, she to go stand with her aunt and sister, he to join some friends in the adjacent room for cards. Grace had watched him go, his dark head and broad shoulders easy to follow because of his height. As soon as he disappeared into the other room, she found, to her surprise, that she felt somewhat bereft.