Grace (28 page)

“All right,” said Grace. “I’ll send him a note. How shall I word it?”

Faith thought for a moment. “Simple and very straightforward. No sense wasting time on something that will merely be tossed away and ignored.”

Grace glared at her sister in renewed exasperation. “If you’re so certain he’ll ignore it, why should I bother at all? Why don’t we simply proceed to something he can’t ignore?”

Faith shook her head. “No,” she mused. “We have to make sure that he can’t put you out of his mind. Small reminders are important while we plan something more elaborate.”

Grace smiled suddenly, a widening grin of delighted hope. “He can’t win, you know,” she stated with a confident
toss of her shining, red-gold head. “Nobody is as persistent as an Ackerly.”

Faith looked grave. “You’re absolutely right, Grace; he can’t win. If Huntwick allows himself lose you, he’s lost more than he’ll ever know, so he couldn’t really count that a victory. But
you
can lose, big sister.” They looked at each other soberly for a long moment.

Grace stood and shook out her skirts with a determined air. “Well,” she said brightly, “shall we go write that note? We’ll send it, and if I don’t receive a reply in two hours, we’ll move on to step two.” She paused. “What
is
step two?” she asked.

Faith had already begun walking back to the house, having no need to straighten her own unrumpled skirts. “That,” she said calmly over her shoulder, “depends entirely upon his reaction to step one.”

Trevor took the envelope from the silver tray his footman held out to him. He opened it in distraction as he mulled over a legal document that required his signature. When he reached a stopping point, he paused a moment in his work and glanced at the two lines the note contained.

His expression utterly blank, Trevor handed the note back to the waiting footman and returned to his work. “No reply is necessary,” he said. The footman bowed and left the room, closing the study door silently. Lately, his lordship preferred everyone around him to be quiet.

W
hile waiting for Trevor’s reply, Grace retired to her chamber and took a much-needed rest. When she awoke, she found that several hours had passed, for the sun had angled much lower in the sky. She stared out the window in sleepy confusion, trying to fathom the strange sense of anticipation that tugged at the edges of her consciousness. A wayward image of Trevor as she had last seen him, silhouetted against the moonlight from that very window, flitted through her mind. With a sudden rush of clarity she remembered the note and the plan, and realized the answer she awaited from the earl was causing her nervous expectation. Quickly she leaped out of bed and ran across the room, yanking so hard on the bellpull that Becky and two footmen appeared at a run, certain that something grave had once more befallen their mistress.

After convincing the footmen she had suffered no untoward incident, she impatiently shooed them out of the room and turned to her glowering maid. “Have I received any messages?” she asked breathlessly, ignoring the censorious look in Becky’s narrowed eyes.

“Lord above, Miss Grace, I don’t know! What’s gotten into you, to go about scaring us all half to death like that? I was sure I’d find you in a heap on the floor again.”

Grace managed to look contrite. “Nobody has called either, I suppose?” she persisted in a hopeful tone, although she knew that if Trevor had called, Faith would have made certain someone awakened her.

“I don’t know that, either. I’ve been above stairs the whole time you were sleeping, miss.”

“Well, then, I’ll just have to go and see for myself.” Grace hurried to the door, then stopped at the sound of Becky’s hesitant voice.

“If you don’t mind my saying so, Miss Grace, your dress is looking like it was slept in. And your hair could use some attention too.”

Grace opened her mouth to tell Becky that she could care less about her appearance, when a sudden thought struck her. She stopped in her tracks, one hand on the doorknob. If, by some miracle, Trevor decided to answer the missive in person, looking her very best was probably a good idea. Reluctantly she turned back. “All right,” she agreed. “But please hurry.” She slid into the chair before the vanity mirror and allowed Becky to brush the riotous tumble of burnished curls into some semblance of order.

Fifteen minutes later Grace walked into the blue salon her aunt favored because she could watch the setting sun through the windows overlooking the garden. Grace appeared calm, freshly dressed in a becoming russet day dress, her hair smoothed into shining waves held off her forehead with an amber clip. Inside, her stomach was doing flips. She looked at Faith in inquiry, who shook her head, indicating that she had heard nothing. Although Grace had hoped for better news, she had not really expected it. She shrugged cheerfully and crossed the room to the chair near the windows in which her aunt sat.

“You certainly look refreshed after your nap, dear,” said Cleo.

Grace perched on the arm of the chair and leaned down to give the older lady an affectionate kiss on the cheek. “I feel better with each passing moment,” she assured Cleo. “Have you any plans for the evening, Aunt?”

“I thought perhaps the opera,” Cleo mused. She leaned forward so she could see past Grace to the settee where Faith sat with her needlework. “What do you think, Faith? Shall it be the opera?”

Faith lowered the embroidery hoop and looked up. “You go with some friends, Aunt. I think I’ll stay and keep Grace company.”

Cleo looked distressed. “Perhaps we should both stay in tonight, dear. Some quiet entertainment at home will be just the thing.”

“No!” Grace blurted, then hastily tried to cover her outburst. “I mean, I won’t be the least bit bored with Faith for company, and besides, it will be a nice night for you to do something you would like.” She looked to Faith for support, but her sister was busy counting stitches and was not paying attention to the course of the conversation. Grace reached down and covered Aunt Cleo’s hand with her own. “You’ve spent all of your time chaperoning us, and we
do
appreciate it, but you must want some time to yourself, perhaps to spend with some friends?”

Aunt Cleo looked shrewdly from one sister to the other, then patted Grace’s hand, saying, “You were always such a sweet child.” She got up with the help of her cane and started toward the door. “Perhaps I’ll ask Edna Fariday to join me at the theater. I’ve scarcely seen her all Season.” Her voice trailed off as she left the room and made her way toward the stairs.

Filled with a strange exhilaration, Grace began pacing back and forth in an effort to decide what step they should take next. When she began mumbling to herself, Faith finally
put aside her embroidery and regarded her sister. “I’m not sure what you expect to accomplish with all that pacing, Grace. You’ll tire yourself.”

Grace stopped in midpace and plunked down in a chair across from the settee.“I’m going to go see him,” she announced.

Faith raised her brows. “Alone?”

“No. With you.”

Faith shook her head. “I think you should let him know you intend to pay him a call.”

“So he can simply refuse to see me?” Grace sighed in exasperation. “No, thank you.”

“He may still refuse when you appear uninvited on his doorstep.”

Inspiration struck, and Grace sat up straight. “I could always dress up again and go as Grant Radnor. He may see me then, if only because I’ve shocked him into it.”

“Yes, you could do that—and you could also hope that nobody else sees you and recognizes you on the way to his town house in broad daylight,” pointed out Faith. “Besides, he already knows you rather well. I don’t think anything you do will shock him at this point.”

Grace gave Faith a barbed look. “If you’re only going to contradict every suggestion I make, the least you could do is to come up with ideas of your own.” She fumed, her growing frustration evident on her face and in her tone.

“I did.”

Grace snorted. “Another message? I told you before we sent the first one that it wouldn’t work.”

Faith leaned forward. “It’s perfect; don’t you see? If you tell him you’ll come to him if you don’t get a response by a certain time, you’re forcing him to at least acknowledge you. And that means he
has
to think about you.”

“But it’s only making him angrier.”

“Precisely.”

Grace looked at Faith in complete bewilderment for a moment before comprehension dawned. A slow smile spread across her face.“I have to make him feel something for me, right? And anger is
much
better than indifference.” She looked at Faith, her excitement mounting.“I can do this.”

“Of course you can,” said Faith. She picked up her needlework and sighed as she began counting stitches again from the beginning.

Grace sat down at the desk, twirling a strand of red-gold hair around her index finger as she contemplated what to write. She considered and discarded several ideas before she came up with a message that suited her. She frowned, unsure of what she should use as a salutation. She had simply written his name at the top of the first note, but now thought it had sounded a bit too personal, especially as she rarely called him by his name, even when he had still liked her.
My lord
sounded as if she pandered to him, and she thought
Huntwick
sounded too masculine. She briefly toyed with the idea of writing
Hunt
at the top of the note, as she had heard Gareth Lloyd and Sebastian Tremaine address him, then realized he did not consider her a trusted friend, as he did both of those men.

Finally, she turned to Faith for an opinion. “Tell me how this sounds: ‘There are things we must discuss. I will call upon you this evening at seven o’clock unless I hear otherwise from you before that.’ ” She looked at Faith. “I’m undecided on how to address him or how to sign it.”

Faith kept working. “Be yourself,” she advised without looking up.

Grace thought for a moment, then resolutely turned back to the desk, wrote
Trevor
at the top and signed it simply,
Grace,
as she had done before. That finished, she sprinkled the note with sand, folded it, and slipped it inside an envelope. She sealed it with a bit of wax, then hurried off in search of O’Reilly. She wanted someone she trusted.

She found him stocking the liquor cabinet in the library, and said, “O’Reilly, could you please take this note to the Earl of Huntwick for me? It’s quite important that he receive it today, so please track him down if you must.”

“Yes, Miss Grace,” said O’Reilly, feeling unaccountably pleased that she had specifically chosen him to carry out this task.

Grace smiled in thanks. “Please tell whomever you speak with that you’ve been instructed to deliver the note personally. I need you to watch his lordship closely and tell me how he reacts.”

If her request sounded strange, the servant hid it well, nodding as Grace continued with her instructions. “From the moment he sees you until the moment you leave, watch him and try to remember the expressions on his face, as well as his words. Can you do that for me, O’Reilly?”

“Yes, of course, Miss Grace.”

“Thank you.” And with another sweet smile, she walked away.

W
hen O’Reilly knocked on the Earl of Huntwick’s door in Upper Brook Street, Trevor was at his favorite table in White’s playing cards with his friends Gareth and Jonathon Lloyd. It took an inordinate amount of persuasion before the footman finally convinced Wilson to part with that information. It would take far less time for Wilson to regret doing so.

After Trevor had drunk himself into oblivion the previous morning, he’d slept the afternoon away, awakening with a pounding headache and the grim determination to forget that he had ever set eyes on Grace Olivia Ackerly. As if to prove to himself how easily he could do just that, he dressed for the evening and went to the Dunworthys’ ball. Once there, he set out to charm as many young ladies as possible, once again raising the hopes of every mama in London who had previously seen her aspirations dashed by the exclusive attention Trevor had paid to Grace.