Never a Gentleman (20 page)

“I do have another question,” Grace said, straightening
her gloves. “About Diccan. Well, about his older brother. How did he die? Diccan just said that he wasn’t up to the bishop’s
weight.”

Both women wore identical scowls. “It’s no secret,” Kate said. “The bishop thought he’d fashioned the perfect Hilliard in
him. Groomed him for greatness. Until Robert drank himself to death.”

Grace swore she felt the loss herself. “Were he and Diccan close?”

Kate shrugged. “Difficult to tell with those two. Diccan never talked about it, except when his parents then turned their
sights on him. He was supposed to fill the gap. He told them to go to hell.”

Grace, wasn’t surprised. He must have grieved badly.

“Mushroom,” Kate muttered at a passing gig. “Have nothing to do with her. Beats her abigail.”

Grace followed Kate’s gaze, only to stumble over another person entirely. A mounted Harry Lidge was waving to her from down
the lane. Oh, dear. What should she do? Kate and Harry seemed to loathe each other. But she hadn’t seen him since Canterbury.

“Do you want to get down?” Kate asked without acknowledging him. “I may not be able to tolerate the saintly Harry, but I know
you’re friends.”

Grace felt like squirming. “If you don’t mind.”

“We’ll circle the park and pick you up.”

Grace wished Kate would tell her what was between her and Harry, but she didn’t have the right. So she let George hand her
down, and she limped over to where Harry was dismounting from his bay.

Giving her a pointed look, he kissed her cheek. “You’re well, Gracie?”

“I am, Harry. What are you doing in town?” She reached up to stroke the star of white on his gelding’s velvety nose. “And
you, my lovely Beau. Has he forced you to show off for the peacocks?”

Beau, who knew her well and had more than once carried her, whuffled into her hand.

“Hilliard doesn’t accompany you today?” Harry asked.

How many times, Grace wondered, would she have this conversation? “He is in meetings.”

“He’s just married,” Harry protested, and succeeded in making Grace feel worse.

“And that marriage interrupted serious responsibilities he must now fulfill,” she answered. “Now then, have you been reassigned
yet?”

It took a few minutes for Harry to relax, but in the end he and Grace walked, talking of nothing much, friends once again.
Even if he had been complicit in her marriage, she was glad to be on his arm.

It wasn’t enough to offset the uneasiness that grew as they strolled along. People were blatantly staring. Considering the
fact that most were smiling on her with the same sly disdain as Diccan’s mother, she was fairly sure they knew who she was.
The tall, gawky girl with no looks and a limp who’d snabbled the elegant Diccan Hilliard.

“I hear his father tried to pay her off,” she heard a young woman say.

Someone giggled. “I heard she paid
him
off.”

“Ignore them,” Harry advised, his hand tight on hers as they walked. “They’re just jealous.”

Grace managed a too-bright smile. “Well, you do look dashing in your Rifleman’s green.”

But his expression hadn’t eased, even for her clumsy
humor. “Lady Kate is back from her jaunt around the park,” he said. “Would you like me to walk you to her?”

“And have you two come to blows in the middle of the park? No, thank you. Someday you’re really going to have to tell me why
you two are always at daggers drawn.”

His answering smile was tight. “Someday maybe I will.”

Giving her hand a kiss, he vaulted up onto Beau. Grace waited until he was well away before heading back to Kate. She hadn’t
noticed the pair of strollers coming her way. They had obviously noticed her. An exquisite blonde dressed in an abundance
of peach ruffles and a wasp-waisted tulip.

“Well, I must say I’m glad I got a good look at her,” the girl was saying to the young dandy as she twirled her peach ruffled
parasol. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have ever imagined how bad it was. Poor Mr. Hilliard.”

“Indeed,” he said, patting her fair hand. “You’d think she’d have a sense of shame.”

The girl sniffed, a picture of derision. “I just hope he doesn’t succeed in bringing her into fashion. Lurching about like
that would be so dreadfully tiresome.”

Grace fought the urge to cringe. It was bad enough that she heard them. What was worse was that she began to blush, that ugly,
splotchy red that so humiliated her. They were no more than ten feet away now. Calling upon old pride, she straightened her
shoulders and walked on.

She wasn’t sure how it happened. She had looked up to smile at Lady Bea where she waited in the carriage as the couple neared.

“I feel ill at the sight,” the girl sneered. “She shouldn’t be allowed to walk in public.”

“Well, then,” the dandy said with a smirk, “she won’t.”

And before Grace could react, he stuck his cane out and tripped her. Her bad leg twisted beneath her. She reached out to catch
some kind of support; the couple stepped backwards, smiling as if watching a trick at Astley’s. Arms windmilling in a last
desperate attempt at balance, Grace sprawled face-first onto the gravel.

F
or what seemed like forever, all Grace could do was lie there in the middle of a Hyde Park path, an untidy lump of gray and
shamed red.

“See what I mean?” she heard the girl ask, and had to look up to see if such a pretty child was really that venal. The girl’s
smile was beautiful. One had to look close to see the glint of malice.

Just then Grace caught sight of Kate’s groom George trundling her way, his face screwed up with worry. Kate was climbing out
of her carriage, her expression ominous.
Oh, dear
, was all Grace could think, bowing her head in frustration. She’d better get up before Kate turned this into a circus.

She was looking down at her hands, gathering strength for a try, when she heard gravel crunch.

“I’m sorry, George,” she apologized, unable to face him, “but I seem bent on imitating a tortoise. Might I have your hand?”

“But you already have my hand,” she heard, and almost
crumpled right back to the ground. “My fortune, such as it is, and my heart.”

Diccan. Ah,
merde.
She might have known he would arrive just in time to see her at her most inglorious. “And I am the richer for it,” she answered
with a stiff smile up at his coolly elegant features. “For now, though, I think your hand will suffice.”

He eased her to her feet, his sure grasp on her arms surprisingly gentle. “Well met, wife.” Straightening her bonnet, he smiled.
“I was hoping to see you today.”

She fought to keep from blushing. “Not so precipitously, one would hope.”

“Any meeting is a pleasant surprise.”

Impatiently brushing off her dusty clothing, she glanced at Diccan’s pristine coffee brown jacket, biscuit pants, and gleaming
boots. Of course he looked elegant and unruffled. She looked as if she’d been sweeping the stoop. “I don’t suppose you could
be kind enough to look a bit mussed.”

An eyebrow lifted. “I would do almost anything for you, wife. But wrinkle my Weston coat? How could you think of so distressing
Biddle?”

She smiled. “I must have been consumed by my desire to leave the park.”

“I’ll accompany you,” Diccan said. “Right after I speak to young Mr. Palmerston behind you.”

The boy preened. “A pleasure, sir,” the boy spoke up, suddenly nervous. “May I introduce…”

Diccan raised his quizzing glass. “No,” he said in flat tones. “I don’t believe you can.”

The girl went pale. The boy tried to bluster it out. “Doing it up too brown, sir, surely?” he asked, clutching his own quizzing
glass. “It was an accident, after all.”

Diccan went perfectly still. Grace heard someone gasp. She caught her own breath as Diccan lowered his quizzing glass. His
languid expression had suddenly turned cold as death. “Odd,” he said, and Grace shivered. “I saw something very different.
Something no gentleman could excuse.”

The young man finally realized the danger and began to babble apologies.

“See, Chuffy?” Grace heard from behind her. “We didn’t have to run over here after all. Told you he wouldn’t murder anyone
in the park. He’d hold up traffic.”

“Never stopped him before,” was the answer.

Grace looked over to see two gentlemen approaching at a fast clip, one tall and broad, with a thick head of auburn hair and
a parade-ground voice, the other shorter, wider, and balder, with spectacles that slid down his nose. They were in Kate’s
company and were leading their horses.

“Oh, but he’s much older now,” the tall one said. “Don’t have the energy. Besides, he knows that grass stains are the devil
to get out of superfine.”

“When have I ever been brought low enough to worry about grass stains?” Diccan drawled. “No, this young gentleman has accepted
my invitation to spar at Jackson’s tomorrow. Haven’t you?”

The boy grew even paler, and Grace knew that Diccan had picked the perfect punishment. Not only public humiliation, but time
for the boy to consider the actions that had induced it. Diccan had truly frightened the boy. He was sweating, and Grace understood
why. Diccan had frightened her, too.

In that one moment, almost too quickly to comprehend, his eyes had gone eerily blank. The urbane gentleman she’d come to know
had vanished, and someone else entirely
appeared. Someone as hard and ruthless as death. Someone she didn’t know.

She wondered, suddenly, if she knew her husband at all. Even at his angriest, she had never seen this side of him that made
her think he could draw blood with just his eyes. Yes, he had gotten them all out of war-torn Belgium only steps ahead of
an assassin. She had always thought he’d used his diplomatic skills. For the first time, she wondered if that were true.

“Grace, see?” Lady Kate said as she stopped. “I’ve brought more company.”

And giving one glacial look at the ashen couple, Lady Kate deliberately turned her back. Grace saw the girl sway. She had
just received the cut direct, and from a duchess. A fitting punishment for her as well. Without another word, she and her
beau fled.

“You must let me make known to you Diccan’s particular friends,” Kate was saying. “Charles, Viscount Wilde and Mr. Ian Ferguson.
Gentlemen, my dear friend, Mrs. Grace Fairchild Hilliard.”

The courtesies were exchanged. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” Viscount Wilde said, his head bobbing so much his glasses slid
down his nose. “Call me Chuffy. Everyone does.”

He was Diccan’s opposite; plump and rumpled and altogether comfortable. Grace found that smiling with him was easy.

“Thank you,” Grace said. “That is very kind.”

Giving her own crumpled skirts another surreptitious shake, Grace looked around for a quick, inconspicuous escape. Chuffy
evidently had other ideas.

“You’re uninjured, ma’am?” he asked, hat off, not seeming
to notice that his horse was nibbling at his neckcloth. “Took quite a tumble.”

“I am, thank you.”

His blush was even more unfortunate than Grace’s. “Trumps, ma’am. Trumps. Can’t have anything happen to you, after all. Saved
m’brother’s life at Cardiff, don’t ya know.”

“Corunna,” Diccan and Mr. Ferguson chorused gently.

“Just so,” Chuffy said, his sudden grin infectious. “Conundrum.”

“You truly suffered no injury?” Diccan asked, taking her hand.

Grace saw real concern in his eyes and flushed with pleasure. “Only to my pride. But it is an old campaigner like myself,
so it is certain to recover.”

He had no gloves on, she thought inconsequentially. His skin was rough and warm, his grip gentle. His eyes crinkled at the
corners. Grace couldn’t look away. For that exquisite moment, Diccan couldn’t seem to look away from her either.

It was left to Lady Bea to hurry things along. “Treacle!” she called from the carriage.

Grace started, her attention snapped. “I should let Lady Bea know I’m all right.”

Diccan looked surprised to find himself standing there. “Of course,” he said, and let her hand go.

She wanted to protest. She wanted to reach out and reclaim his warmth. It was the bubbly, oblivious Chuffy Wilde who stepped
up. “Honor to escort you, ma’am,” he said, arm out, his other hand holding the reins of his well-formed chestnut, who was
now nibbling his hat.

Grace waited a heartbeat for Diccan to protest. He didn’t, of course. Trying not to sigh, she turned a smile on
Chuffy. “Your brother wouldn’t by any chance be Brock Wilde, would he?”

Chuffy beamed. “You remember him!”

“Who could forget ‘Wilde and Ready’?” she asked, laying a hand on Chuffy’s arm. “Why, he singlehandedly kept us in stewed
cony throughout the Siege of Burgos.”

Behind them, she could hear Diccan sigh. “Yet another heart conquered. I tell you, Ferguson, it’s enough to shake a man’s
confidence.”

“Just friends, Hilliard,” Chuffy assured him with a nod. “Not in the mood for a duel. Would displease m’mother.”

They proceeded back to the carriage in pairs, as if it had been arranged. The attention Grace had garnered faded away, softened
by Diccan’s proprietary behavior and his friends’ good humor. Grace knew she should be grateful. She should be delighted.
She was. Selfishly, though, she wished Diccan’s concern stemmed from more than courtesy. She wished that when he said she
had his heart, he meant it.

Ah, Grace,
she thought as Diccan helped her into Kate’s coach with a flourishing kiss of her hand.
You always were a greedy girl.

“Thank you, Mr. Hilliard,” Gentleman Jim Jackson said, his thick face folded into a wry smile. “That was an excellent exhibit
in the art of the fancy.”

Diccan grabbed the towel Ian Ferguson tossed at him and wiped the sweat that dripped from his face. Across the room, his young
opponent was struggling to stay on his feet. Blood poured down his skinny torso from his broken nose, and his right eye was
puffing out. It could have been much worse. Diccan had been surprised at how ready he
was to murder the little bastard. If the boy hadn’t stood up to his punishment like a man, he would have crushed him. But
the lesson had been administered.