Saving Grace (25 page)

Grace tucked the broom and saw behind the tree, reasoning that they were no worse off there than where she’d found them, and hurried up the drive.

She pulled the front door open by degrees, grimacing with every squeak of the hinges. When the opening was just wide enough for her to slip through, she peered inside and felt vast relief at seeing the entry deserted. After slipping inside, she shut the door behind her as quietly as possible, then glanced at the staircase and caught her anxious maid, who was hopping up and down at the top, beckoning for her to come.

Grace held a finger to her lips and tiptoed across the marble floor. She was just placing her foot on the bottom stair when the parlor door opened and voices emerged from within. She did not turn around, but kept her face forward and began a resolute march up the stairs.

“Goodness, Nicholas, who is that?” The high-pitched, unfamiliar voice echoed across the foyer. “Since when do you allow the servants to go traipsing about, looking so disheveled? Have you dismissed the laundresses as well?”

“No, Mother.” Lord Sutherland’s sigh might have been her own. “Miss Thatcher, come here please.”

Grace hung her head in defeat, wishing for all the world she’d chosen any other day to trim the bushes, or any other task to start on.

Why couldn’t I have been reading demurely in the library? Or studying the portraits on the walls — or playing whist, even.
Anything
but this.

Slowly, she turned around, smoothing the front of her soiled dress — the one that had been stained with mud the night of the carriage accident and was not suitable for any situation save working in the garden. Grace snatched the kerchief from her head, preferring to risk Lord Sutherland’s wrath over having her hair unbound over the humiliation of it being up in a rag.

She retraced her steps down the stairs as Lord Sutherland and his mother drew closer. Kingsley lingered nearby, and Grace was stunned to detect a hint of sympathy in his eyes. For her, or for the dowager, who was now presented with a pitiful excuse for a future daughter-in-law?

Grace forced her eyes to meet the woman’s and found an almost mirrored image of Lord Sutherland staring back at her. Deep pools of blue, brimming with displeasure, looked her over, top to bottom. In comparison to Grace’s untamed curls and soiled gown, every last hair on the dowager’s head lay placidly in place, and her dress had as much starch as if she’d just stepped into it — an impossibility, as the woman had been traveling.

I am in a great deal of trouble.
Rather than risk lowering the dowager’s opinion of her further by anything she might say, Grace simply curtsied.

Lord Sutherland provided the words — and ample meaning in his tone. “Mother, may I present my intended, Miss
Grace
Thatcher.”

“Truly, Nicholas, I cannot understand how you agreed to such a ridiculous demand.” His mother had started on him as soon as dinner was over and Grace had left them to retire early, pleading a headache. His gaze strayed through the open drawing room doors and to the base of the staircase. For multiple reasons he wished he could follow.

No doubt her headache was real; his certainly was. Mother and her incessant harping tended to have that effect on people. She was always so serious and stern about everything.

Much like me,
he’d realized during dinner when Grace had so kindly pointed out that she recognized where he got many of his best qualities from. He wasn’t sure
best
was the appropriate word.

“And I don’t see why you —” His mother’s berating continued, and, with years of practice, Nicholas effectively ignored her, trusting that he could chime in with an appropriate response when there was a lull in her speech.

Had she always been this way? He quickly concluded that she had. He would have sworn that she and Father — a personality most opposite his mother — had been a good match. She’d kept his mischief in check; he’d lightened her seriousness. Somehow the marriage had worked famously, because Nicholas could not recall any discord in their home during his childhood.

But with Father gone, the tone of their home had changed. With sudden and disturbing clarity, Nicholas realized that Father and Elizabeth had been the light in their home, while he and Mother had tended toward the dark. Left on their own, he imagined they’d flounder in the black for the remainder of their lives.

Unless ...
He oughtn’t even entertain the thought. Miss Thatcher was no more a permanent fixture here than the leaves falling from the trees outside. She might last a season or two — until he determined how to best use her against Preston — but then she would be gone, and whatever light she’d brought with her as well.

“How could you agree to marry her, Nicholas?” his mother repeated. “Whatever were you thinking?”

“It was quite simple, Mother.” Nicholas jumped into the conversation. “It was that or break my oath to Elizabeth that I would never shoot Preston. He called me out over the girl.”

Not the complete truth, but close enough.
Nicholas didn’t trust his mother to see his view, to understand why he hadn’t — why he still couldn’t — simply put Miss Thatcher in a carriage and send her over to Preston.

“I don’t believe it.” The dowager leaned forward in her seat, giving a little stomp to her foot, putting Nicholas in mind of another lady who’d also stomped her foot at him in his study a few weeks earlier.

“I’d not have believed it possible either,” Nicholas said. “But I’ve got it in writing, if you don’t believe me. I’d know Preston’s hand anywhere, and his words were true enough.”

“But you refused to duel?” his mother asked.

“What else could I do?” Nicholas said. “Believe me, I was more than tempted to accept. Only the thought of you, Mother, and what it might do to you were I to spend the remainder of my days in Newgate — or worse — restrained me.”

“You seem overly confident that you would have bested him,” she observed, relaxing in her chair once more. “Preston is quite a good shot too, you know.”

“Are you trying to tempt me?” Nicholas asked. “I can change my mind yet.”

“But you won’t.” A slight smile lifted the corners of her usually stern mouth. “You loved your sister too much to do that.”

She was right, and they both knew it. Even greater than his respect and concern for his mother was the fact that he had given his word. And though Elizabeth was no longer around to see that he kept it, Nicholas intended to honor her by doing just that.

“I might have a way out of the betrothal,” Nicholas mentioned casually as he crossed the room, leaving the view of the staircase. He settled in the chair opposite his mother. “I agreed to marry Miss Thatcher
only
if
Preston will not have her. According to her father, Preston made an offer.”

“Can he be persuaded to take her still?” his mother asked.

Nicholas shrugged. He leaned back in his chair, one leg thrown over the other as if he did not care one way or the other. In truth, he found he was beginning to care a great deal. The longer Miss Thatcher remained, the more he came to know her, the less he wanted Preston to have any part of her at all. “I’ve not heard a word from him on the matter — aside from the letter calling me out. But knowing of Preston’s forgiving manner, I have to imagine he would, especially considering that there was no actual harm to her virtue that night in my bedroom.”

Pity that,
he thought, his gaze sliding to the doors once more.

“But you’ve not encouraged anything between the two of them?” his mother asked.

“No.” Nicholas’s look darkened to match hers. “It is asking a lot of me, to hand over to Preston something that will benefit him.”

“Bah.” His mother waved her hand dismissively. “What is there to benefit from? Let her shame
him
by running around in a ruined gown and kerchief with dirt on her face. I cannot see that you would be doing him any favors at all by letting him have her.”

“Then you are not seeing clearly.” Nicholas said. His mother turned her sights on him, her piercing gaze seeing past the facade he’d worked to maintain since her arrival.

“You care for her,” she said, mouth hanging open with the last word.

“Not at all,” Nicholas said, working hard to banish the image of Grace standing on the stairs, pulling the kerchief from her hair and freeing her chestnut curls to tumble across her shoulders and halfway down her back. He forced his thoughts from her hair to her face, smudged with dirt. And to his dismay, he found his mouth lifting in a smile.

“You
do
,” his mother said, seeing right through him. She scooted forward on her chair. “Nicholas, my boy, this is serious. Something must be done at once. This — Miss Thatcher — is the last woman you should marry.”

He let her words settle and knock some sense into him. She was right, of course. He did not wish to marry. He wished to destroy Preston, something he’d had trouble focusing on of late.

“What do you propose?” he asked, truly directing his attention to his mother for the first time all evening. “I cannot just hand her over to Preston. Despite what you have seen, Miss Thatcher has her merits. I’ve no doubt she could make him very happy.”

And I don’t want him happy. I want him as miserable as I am.

It was a startling revelation. Nicholas had never acknowledged his thoughts so precisely, but he realized how true they were, and how likely it was that he would never know their success. From the first day after Elizabeth’s death, Preston had seemed almost stoic in his determination to press forward. Had Nicholas not witnessed Preston’s grief firsthand at Elizabeth’s deathbed and on two occasions at her grave, he would not have been believed the man had been saddened by his loss at all. Preston was yet of a happy disposition, and he seemed inclined to retain it no matter that death had stolen that which was most precious to him.

He will never be miserable like I am, though I might take everything from him.
What would the loss of Preston’s income or estate mean, compared to the loss of his wife?
Very little,
Nicholas realized, and his own despair deepened.

“Nicholas? Nicholas, have you been listening? Have you heard a word I’ve said?” His mother had moved to the sofa beside his chair, and her hand was placed over his arm lovingly. He could not mistake the concern in her eyes. “You are not well,” she said. “Miss Thatcher has bewitched you. Look at you — unable to even have a proper conversation.”

He patted his mother’s hand. “I am well enough, Mother.”
Better than he had been for some time, if he was being honest. “What do you suggest I do?” This time, he vowed to keep his attention on her.

“You are determined to not give her to Preston?”

Nicholas considered for a long moment. “I do not think I can,” he said. “To see the man with more of happiness when ...”

“When we are both so miserable,” she said.

“Yes,” Nicholas agreed. “We
are
both miserable, Mother. Why is that? Can nothing be done about it?”

“Of course.” She smiled, but her eyes remained dark. Nicholas felt sad to see it. Father had been her light. He doubted very much that anyone or anything could replace it for her. “Now then.” Her lips pursed in concentration. “If you do not want Preston to have her, and you have given your word, then our only solution is for Miss Thatcher to cry off.”

“She won’t,” Nicholas predicted. “You’ve not met her father. Any situation will be better for her than returning to him.”

“You give up too easily,” Mother countered. She stood and crossed the room to the bell pull, then gave it a tug.

Less than a minute later, Kingsley appeared. He’d been close by, no doubt, knowing the dowager’s demands as he did.

“Please pour out for us. The sherry, I think,” Mother said.

“Of course, milady.” Kingsley bowed and walked to the sideboard to do her bidding.

Nicholas realized he needed to hire more servants, and fast, now that his mother was in residence. Demanding as she was, she’d have both Kingsley and Mrs. James worn clear through with exhaustion in no time at all.

Kingsley placed their drinks on a tray and brought them over. Mother stood to take hers, and Nicholas followed suit.

“We must make life so miserable for Miss Thatcher that she leaves of her own accord. Whether or not she returns to her father is her own concern.” Mother raised her glass. “To sending Miss Thatcher packing.”

Nicholas lifted his glass, and the crystal clinked together briefly. His mother brought the drink to her lips, draining it quickly. But Nicholas turned away, lost in thought, and did not drink at all.