Never a Gentleman (4 page)

Diccan held out her chair and waited for her to sit. “I thought so. I have the exact same symptoms. I don’t know if you tipple
to excess, Miss Fairchild, but I rarely do, and never on a packet boat. So in the absence of other evidence, I believe we
were both drugged.”

He was disappointed when Miss Fairchild failed to react. “You’re not surprised?” he asked.

She looked calmly up at him. “It would explain much.”

He shook his head, a bit disconcerted by her poise. “Kate,” he said, turning to seat his cousin. “Who sent you the message
to meet me?”

She sat down. “I thought you did. I assume I was wrong.”

“You were. Where did you receive it?”

“We were at a country weekend at Marcus Drake’s. We got as far as Canterbury last night.”

That brought Diccan’s head around sharply. “Drake? Who knew you were there?”

Kate gave him a grin. “Everyone, I imagine. The notice was in the society pages.”

Even so. Marcus Belden, Earl of Drake, was the one who had asked Diccan to meet with Evenham. Could he
somehow be involved in this latest debacle? Diccan didn’t want to think so.

“The note did look to be in your hand, Diccan,” Kate said, bringing his attention back. “Do you know why?”

“I have been involved in some delicate negotiations. The postwar map of Europe and all.” He shrugged, hoping he looked convincing.
“Someone might have wanted me to stumble.”

Kate raised her head. “They finally gave you a real job?”

Diccan flashed her a smile. “Purely by attrition, my dear. The usual suspects are too busy.”

She gave him a brisk nod. “Well, then, I believe an apology is due.”

Diccan flinched from the thought. He tried one last time to believe that Grace Fairchild had orchestrated her own runaway
marriage. One look at the high color on her ashen cheeks put paid to that. She was, just as he’d suspected, a pawn. So he
stood, and he gave Miss Fairchild a credible bow.

“I had no right to cast aspersions on your character,” he said. “I apologize.”

And oddly, he got a smile in return. “Thank you, but I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself. I can’t imagine your having any other
reaction to finding a woman you didn’t expect in your bed. I would be happy to help any way I can to find out how. And why.”

Diccan nodded, already focused on the quickest way to settle the business. “Of course,” he said. “Now then, my schedule is
tight, so we must get on with making plans. Propitiously we’re in Canterbury, and the good archbishop is one of those ubiquitous
cousins. I should be able to obtain a special license by the afternoon. Do you wish to stay here, or repair to London for
the ceremony?”

Kate looked toward Miss Fairchild, who sat suddenly silent. “Oh, London,” Kate said. “It will make it look less like a hole-in-the-wall
event.”

Diccan nodded absently, beginning to pace. “Good. I have to get there as quickly as possible anyway. I can send someone ahead
to reserve rooms at the Pulteney. When Biddle finds us, he can begin to move my things from the Albany.” A sudden dread had
him eying his cousin with disfavor. “You don’t expect the pater to preside over the nuptials, do you?”

Kate sighed. “It would look odd if your father were excluded, Diccan. He is a bishop, after all.”

That was the last straw. All he needed to complete this farce was to see his father in one of his bouts of self-righteous
indignation. When the maid came, Diccan would ask for hemlock in his coffee.

“Excuse me,” Grace spoke up.

Diccan stopped. The deuce. He’d all but forgotten her sitting there. “Yes?”

“Am I involved in these plans?”

He blinked. Surely she wasn’t that dense. “Of course you are. What did you think?”

“I thought you might have consulted me.”

The expression on her face was serene, but Diccan could see the pulse in her neck quicken. “What? You’d rather be married
in Canterbury? Don’t blame you. The pater’s a regular tartar.”

“I’d rather not be married at all.”

It took a second for that to sink in. “You have no choice,” he snapped, thinking of Thornton.

“Of course I do,” she said with a slight smile. “And my choice is that you go on about your business, and I’ll go home to
mine.”

Diccan wasn’t certain just why he was so furious. She had just given him a way out. He’d offered marriage, and she had rejected
him. The onus now rested on her. But he resented the hell out her blithe dismissal of his sacrifice.

“You just promised to cooperate.”

“I promised to help. By that I meant I could disappear into the country where nobody cared about what happened in Canterbury,
and you would be able to avoid a marriage neither of us wants.”

She was exacerbating his headache. “Don’t be absurd,” he said. “Every gossip in London is waiting outside. You can’t leave
this room without announcing an engagement.”

Her eyes had gone flat. “An engagement? Oh, is that what we’re talking about?”

“Of course it is.”

Kate gave him a quick kick in the shins. “An actual proposal might come in handy, Diccan.”

Diccan sucked in a breath. He didn’t have time for this. The longer Miss Fairchild balked, the farther behind he got. Evenham’s
confession weighed on him; he swore he could still smell the boy’s blood on his hands. “Oh, hell,” he muttered, digging the
heel of his hand into his eye, as if that could ease his throbbing head. “Fine. Miss Fairchild. Will you do me the honor of
marrying me?”

It might not have been the most romantic proposal ever. It certainly didn’t warrant Miss Fairchild’s reaction.

“If you want to insult me,” she said in deliberate tones as she rose majestically to her feet and approached him, “You might
as well do it behind my back. I have too much to do to waste my time.”

“Damn it—”

She never let him finish. Winding up like a premier
boxer, she punched him in the nose and walked out the door.

In her wake, the room echoed with a thick silence. Diccan was surprised his nose didn’t bleed all over his cravat. Miss Fairchild
hadn’t spent her life with the army without learning how to hit.

Kate, too, got to her feet. “Well,” she said, sounding suspiciously amused as she settled her primrose dress about her. “Now
I understand why you’re thought to be the suavest man in England.”

Diccan knew he had no right, but he felt aggrieved. “I’m marrying her, Kate. What do you want?”

She gave him a sad look. “Courtesy would be a good start.” And she walked out too.

Diccan was still standing slack-jawed when the maid finally came in to answer his call. He slumped back into his seat and
dropped his head to his hands. “Coffee,” he growled. “And see if you have any hemlock.”

G
race was folding her clothing into her portmanteau when Kate strolled into the room.

“May I come in?” she asked, closing the door.

Grace didn’t bother to look up. “As long as you haven’t brought anyone else with you.”

Kate laughed. “I believe he’s downstairs making sure his nose is intact.” Before Grace could respond, she raised a hand. “And
don’t you dare apologize. I’ve known that scapegrace since my christening, and I have never once seen him bollocks up a situation
like he did just now. If it had been anyone else, I would have said he was overset.”

“I imagine he was,” Grace allowed, shaking out her gray moiré evening gown. “I’d think the very last place he would expect
to find himself was in bed with an antidote like me.”

“Grace,” Kate warned, settling herself back on the window seat. “That is unworthy of you.”

As miserable as she felt, Grace smiled. “Dearest Kate,” she said, smoothing the drab silk with her hand. “I was not
looking for sympathy. I know perfectly well who I am.
And
who I am not. And I am definitely not a woman Diccan Hilliard would notice if he hadn’t met me in your parlor.”

“He likes you perfectly well,” her friend protested.

“Of course he does. To tip his hat to in the street. Not to bed.”

Feeling the heat of yet another blush, she decided she was tired of always being uncomfortable. But the feel of his hand had
been so delicious…

“Here,” Kate said as if she heard the turmoil inside Grace’s head. “A wee nip might be in order.”

Grace looked up to see her holding out a chased silver flask. “Do you still have that?”

Kate looked at it with an impish smile. “Oh, yes. I never forfeit anything I steal from a friend.”

Just the sight of the thing incited a flood of memories for Grace. Those terrible days of Waterloo; the search for her father,
and finding Jack Wyndham, Earl of Gracechurch, fighting for his life. The days that followed, when a band of traitors threatened
the women who sheltered him. In fact, Diccan Hilliard had helped save them all.

That had been what had opened Grace’s eyes to him. Until then, she had seen Diccan as a bit of a lotus-eater. Brilliantly
witty, devastatingly sarcastic, and publicly devoted to pleasure, even his vague position in the diplomatic corps no more
than an excuse to entertain. But when called to help, he had not only been efficient and discreet, he had stunned Grace with
the uncommonly gentle care he’d taken of Jack’s desperate wife, Olivia. Even more, for one amazing moment, the man nicknamed
“The Perfection” had befriended Grace, the ungainly daughter of an old soldier.

Those days and weeks after Waterloo were mostly a blur to her, especially after she found her father dying on the bloodsoaked
cobbles of Château Hougoumont. But one image stood out: the sun slipping through the trees in Brussels’ Parc Royale to warm
Diccan as he laid his hand on her arm in sympathy, the ruby in his signet ring flashing fire. It had been the first time he
had voluntarily touched her; not the obligatory meeting of fingers in greeting or accidental brush in passing. He had seen
her in the park that day and made it a point to stop. The most enigmatic man in the
ton
had smiled as he told her what a good man her father had been, and she had realized that those chilly gray eyes could be
kind.

She looked again at the flask. It had been Jack’s, but Kate had blithely confiscated it for herself. For one mad moment, Grace
almost grabbed it from her friend’s hand and emptied it.

“Couldn’t you see your way to marrying him?” Kate asked.

“No,” Grace said. “Nor does he really want me to.” Turning to her packing, she picked up the old red Guards jacket she’d worn
all across war-torn Spain. She knew she should put it away, just as she should her father’s uniforms and her nursing apron.
But it comforted her to wear it when she rode. She had a growing suspicion that she was going to be needing that comfort often
in the coming days.

Without so much as knocking, Diccan Hilliard pushed open the door and stalked into the room. “We need to talk.”

“Are you certain you’re still in the diplomatic service?” Kate asked wearily.

He huffed. “I don’t have time for diplomacy, Kate. I
have to get to London, and every moment Miss Fairchild dithers, she puts me further behind schedule.”

Grace was clutching her jacket so tightly she knew the braid would imprint on her hands. She couldn’t bear to face the fury
in his eyes. “I fail to understand what’s keeping you, Mr. Hilliard,” she said, struggling mightily to keep her voice level.
“Certainly not me.”

Kate once again offered the flask. “Drink, Diccan?”

Flashing Kate an impatient glare, he strode right up to Grace. “You bewilder me, Miss Fairchild,” he said, sounding more furious
than bewildered. “Surely you know the way of the world.”

He was too close. Grace stepped back and bumped into the bed, beset by the sense that he was sucking the air from the room.
All she could do was comfort herself with the familiarity of that well-worn jacket in her arms.

“Quite as well as you, sir,” she said with what she thought was admirable calm.

“Perhaps it isn’t clear to you how much you would profit by this marriage,” he said, his voice tinged with condescension.

Immediately her body reacted, heat blossoming deep in her belly and snaking along her limbs. She knew perfectly well what
she could gain with this union; it burned her. And yet, it wasn’t enough.

“I gain nothing I want, Mr. Hilliard.”

He looked stunned. “A proud name.”

“I’m perfectly happy with my own.”

“A fortune.”

“I have one, thank you. An eccentric aunt died and left her estate divided between me and her pet monkey. So you see there
are others who value me as they should.”

He raised a wry eyebrow. “You would have me.”

For the first time, she felt almost like smiling, even as her heart battered against her rib cage. “An almost irresistible
temptation, to be sure. And yet, I must refuse.”

“You will be ruined!”

She tilted her head, assessing. “Is it ruin to be ignored by a society that has ignored me all along? Or would it be worse
to bind myself for eternity to a man who can’t even look at me? Have done, sir. I am content. You need not offer yourself
up on the altar of matrimony to save me.”

He looked oddly irritated by her answer. “And what about me?”

She forced a smile. “After having spent time with you at Lady Kate’s salon, I feel certain you feel nothing but relief at
my refusal. Enjoy it with my blessings.”

Even though her heart shriveled with shame at having to baldly state the truth, Grace returned to her packing, praying no
one saw her tremble. Was she a fool? She could have this man in her life. She could bear his children. She could see him every
day, teach him to find happiness with her. By all that was holy, she could have him in her bed.

And watch him wander off to every other bed in the realm.

Grace didn’t have much. She did have self-respect. She would be betraying herself if she sold herself for such spurious comfort.
Even to have the right to have those elegant, clever hands on her.

She knew he still stood behind her: she had never been able to share a room with him without knowing. She could feel it now,
a persistent hum along her skin, as if the two were connected by some kind of magnetic force, stronger now that he had touched
her. Hoping he would never know how much he affected her, she picked up another gown and folded it,
the routine keeping her from running away. Or worse, begging him to ignore her protests and marry her out of hand.