Grace (26 page)

He glanced back at her once more, firmly pushing to the back of his mind the unwelcome thought that she looked like a heartbroken angel sitting there in defeated misery. “I release you from our bargain, Miss Ackerly.” With cruel and
deliberate harshness, he looked straight into her eyes and said, “I don’t want you anymore.” He opened the window, stepped out onto the ledge, and disappeared into the quiet of the predawn London mist.

For several long moments Grace sat motionless, her blind gaze rooted to the spot where she had last seen him. Slowly the numbness that had engulfed her began to recede, replaced with a screaming, paralyzing pain beyond anything she had ever known. With a deep, shuddering gasp, she wrapped both arms tightly around her stomach and began to rock back and forth in silence against the strange, horrible emptiness that slowly spread from within and surrounded her. Finally, unable to hold back any longer, she collapsed in a heap against her pillows and gave in to the flood of tears she had held back from the moment the man she loved had left her arms.

T
revor dropped lightly onto the terrace from the tree and moved grimly through the shadowy garden. The sky had just begun to lighten in the east. He found himself loathing the day to come. He already knew the cold light of day would bring nothing but torturous recrimination.

He headed purposefully toward the wall at the back of the garden, the same wall he had helped Grace scale the night of the card party. He stopped and placed a hand on the smooth surface. That night now felt like it had occurred an eternity ago, although it had, in reality, happened only a few days before. He took a step back, intending to jump to the top of the wall, but something held him in place. He cursed inwardly and clenched his hands into fists, angry with himself for his inability to leave, furious that he even cared. Unbidden images flashed through his mind: Grace laughing in his arms the first time they danced; Grace holding herself tauntingly aloof, then melting in his arms; Grace, her expressive face wreathed in wonder at the pleasure he made her feel; Grace, adoration shining in her eyes.

Grace, fragile and lost, clutching her gown to her naked body.

Trevor flattened both hands against the wall and closed his eyes, wishing he could stop the images, seeking to quell
the tide of overwhelming regret washing through him.
My God,
he thought,
what have I done?
He lowered his head to the cold marble, waging an internal war with himself.

Logically, his mind told him he should let it go. He and Grace had found themselves at cross purposes from the moment they met, hurtling inexorably down the road toward this moment from the very beginning. His reactions to her had caught him up in their intensity, enthralled him, rendered him incapable of listening to his reasonable side.

He had listened to his heart.

Even now, after what had happened between them, his heart compelled him to go to her. His back stiffened with the effort it took to keep himself from turning and climbing back into her room. His arms ached to hold her, to comfort her, to beg her forgiveness.

Trevor’s internal battle raged for some moments. When he finally opened his eyes, the sky had lightened considerably. He knew he could not leave things this way. He took a deep breath and turned resolutely back toward the house. Fixing his gaze on the second-story window through which he had just exited, he took a step toward the house, then stopped abruptly. A gas lamp had just flared to life in the room next to Grace’s. He saw a shadowy figure moving around behind the gauzy curtains.

He stared at the dark window beside the lit one for a moment longer, then became aware that the morning birds were stirring. The pleasant sound of their song grated on his ears, and a shuttered expression came over his face. His chance had passed. Abruptly he turned and leaped to the top of the wall. He glanced back only once, then dropped down and disappeared on the other side.

His chance had passed.

The day dawned bright and cheerful, filling the spacious room with warm sunshine and vibrant color. The earliest
birds had awakened and sang sweetly in the garden. Their happy sounds drifted into the house through the open window where Grace stood, already fully dressed in a simple, unadorned cream muslin gown.

She had not gone back to sleep after Trevor left, although she felt physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. She had cried for over an hour, the first time she could remember crying like that since her childhood, until finally she realized she had no tears left to shed. In the strange calm that often follows such an outpouring of emotion, Grace began to examine what had happened, began searching within herself for the reasons why.

The fact that Trevor had come to her room with the sole intention of hurting her went without question. The reasons he had done so puzzled her. The act defied logic, went against everything she had come to know about Trevor’s nature. The more she thought about it, the less sense it made. Trying to reconcile his actions, however, forced Grace to face an unsettling truth: she had fallen in love with him.

Certainly nobody had ever made her feel the way he did. Every emotion she had experienced since she met him felt magnified, whether it was anger or sadness, happiness or longing. He had evoked extreme reactions in her from the outset, and she had fought each feeling fiercely, frightened of that which she could not control.

She sank down on the chintz-covered settee beneath the window, drew her knees up under her skirt, and rested her chin lightly upon them. She furrowed her brow, still thinking about the man she now realized she had somehow lost. He had cared about her, too. She knew that now.

Until last night.

Before last night he had reacted to each outburst of her temper, each ill-tempered verbal jab, each scathing rebuff with patience, gentleness, and humor. So why now, she
wondered, when she had just begun to return his caring, did he do this terrible thing? She had asked herself that question at least a dozen times since he left, and still it made no sense to her. He had seemed so angry, so very bitter. Almost . . .

Hurt.

Grace heard the door to her room open softly. She fixed a bright smile on her face and turned away from the window to see Faith standing quietly by the door. “Good morning,” she said as cheerfully as she could, beckoning her sister to come and sit beside her.

“You should be in bed,” Faith admonished in a quiet voice as she crossed the room. Her troubled gray eyes searched her sister’s placid face.

Grace let that remark go. She kept the frozen little smile fixed to her lips and turned back to the window, pretending a sudden consuming interest in watching a fat gray squirrel scamper across the terrace.

Faith looked at her sister’s pale profile. She noted the bluish shadows under her luminous eyes, the cheekbones that had always been delicate made more prominent by her recent illness, the glow missing from her usually animated face. Grace turned suddenly from watching the squirrel, and Faith averted her eyes lest her sister catch her staring.

“What a pretty day it’s going to be,” Grace said with hollow enthusiasm. “I think I’d really like to spend some time outdoors. You can’t imagine how terribly boring it is being cooped up in this room all day, waited upon hand and foot while the world goes on without me.” She paused a moment to take a breath, her numb mind searching for topics to distract her sister from how miserable she felt.

“I know Lord Caldwell was here last night.”

As though Faith had not spoken, Grace continued her haphazard, one-sided conversation. “I know that Dr. Wyatt
said that I might go downstairs for a bit tomorrow, but I’m really feeling so much better today than I’m sure he thought I would be. . . .”

“Grace.”

Faith spoke with quiet firmness. Grace subsided. She closed her mouth and looked at her sister with eyes so vulnerable it almost broke Faith’s heart. She reached out and clasped both of Grace’s hands in her own. “I don’t know why his lordship was here, or what you said to each other, but I do know that I’ve never heard you cry like you did this morning after he left.” Her eyes were filled with solemn sympathy, her voice full of gentle compassion.

Grace felt her resolve to remain strong crumble against the love and soft understanding on her sister’s face. Slowly, in stops and starts, she told Faith what had happened, leaving nothing out, blushing only a bit as she described in a small, trembling voice the intimacies she had shared with Trevor. When she finished, she looked helplessly at her bemused younger sister.

Faith was silent for a long moment, staring out the window in deep thought before turning back to face Grace. “Why aren’t you angry with him?” she asked.

Grace gave her a blank look.

“After all, he’s treated you abominably, and with no apparent reason. It just isn’t like you to simply accept—” She broke off. She looked into her sister’s eyes in sudden comprehension, for the answer was there for all the world to see. Faith caught her breath. “Oh, Grace.” She sighed. “You’ve only just realized you’re in love with him.”

Grace closed her eyes and nodded miserably.

Faith sat quietly for a moment, staring with heavy eyes at the rumpled bed in which her sister had cried out her heart only hours before. She glanced at Grace out of the corner of her eye, taking in the dejected air so foreign to her feisty older sister. She knew she had to do something.

Briskly she stood up. “All right, so you love Lord Caldwell. What do you plan to
do
about it?” She kept her voice deliberately offhand and light.

“Do?” Grace repeated numbly, her eyes widening.

Faith nodded decisively. “Of course. You want to get him back, don’t you?”

That alarming statement brought Grace surging to her feet. “No!” Her voice rang out, shrill with alarm. “I don’t ever want to see him again!”

“You’re giving up?” Faith scoffed. “You’ll simply allow him to waltz in here in the middle of the night, treat you that . . . that
way
, and then just let him walk off?” She peered intently into Grace’s face with mock concern. “I guess that fever took more out of you than we thought,” she said. “Why, the Grace Ackerly I thought I knew would never stand for that sort of treatment. At the very least, he owes you an explanation.”

“But he doesn’t want me,” said Grace, exasperation and pain on her face.

Faith shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said. She walked over to the door, where she paused with her hand on the knob. “But if you ask me . . .”

“I didn’t,” said Grace crossly.

“. . . I’d say that Trevor Caldwell probably loves you, too, and with an intensity that would astound you.” She opened the door and started to leave, but turned back again at Grace’s flat, misery-filled voice.

“You’re wrong, Faith,” she said. “It was all just a game to him. He doesn’t care for me at all.” She looked dully across the room at her sister.

Faith felt her heart break again, but her voice remained firm. “Of course he does, Grace. Only someone very much in love could hurt deeply enough to do what he did to you last night.” With a final encouraging smile, Faith left the room, closing the door on her sister’s stunned expression.

The object of their conversation was ensconced in his library at the house in Upper Brook Street, methodically imbibing fine French brandy from an ornate crystal decanter that had once belonged to a Russian prince. A matching bottle lay ignominiously on its side beneath his chair, already emptied of the whiskey it had contained. He sat precariously perched on the edge of the red leather armchair, his feet widely spaced, his elbows propped upon his knees, and his spinning head buried in his hands. He tried, unsuccessfully, to block the image of a shattered, red-haired angel, her sapphire eyes brimming with anguished tears, silently beseeching him not to leave her. He had begun to think that nothing short of death itself would ever wipe that image from his mind. As soon as that thought left his mind, he realized that even death might not bring respite, for he was perfectly certain he would spend eternity in his own personal hell, forced to relive, over and over, each moment he had ever spent with Grace. He groaned and slumped back in the chair with a muffled curse.

Gareth Lloyd, the Earl of Seth’s brother, found him like that when Wilson showed him into the library at half past ten. All of the curtains were drawn, casting the room in a gloomy semidarkness. The only light emanated from a stubby candle that sputtered on the table beside Trevor’s chair. Gareth looked at his friend in amazement, then walked to the nearest window and reached for the curtains, intending to open them and let in some light.

“Don’t!” Trevor’s voice rang out, harsh and unnaturally loud in the oppressive air of the still room. Gareth turned in surprise. Trevor straightened in his seat and reached for the decanter. He refilled his glass unsteadily, sloshing a bit of the amber liquid over the rim and onto the shining surface of the polished mahogany tabletop. “Care for a drink?” he slurred, holding the decanter toward Gareth, who shook
his head. Trevor shrugged and put the bottle back on the table with a clumsy thud. “Fine,” he said. “More for me.”