Never a Gentleman (47 page)

But it mustn’t have been, because he regained his feet and laid his hands on her shoulders. Before she could protest, he had
turned her around so that they both faced her little mirror, his face hovering over her shoulder like a wish, her own eyes
unpardonably huge, her chest rising and falling too fast beneath the shimmering blue silk.

“Please tell me you do,” he said, and damn him if he didn’t sound sincere. “I don’t think I could survive if you didn’t. I
certainly couldn’t marry anyone else.”

She tried to turn, but he wouldn’t let her. He had begun to stroke her hair, his fingers winnowing through the fire-red strands
and sending cascades of chills down her throat.

“I don’t understand,” she protested, sounding breathy and frightened. “You were free. You escaped. What are you doing back
now? You can see I haven’t suffered any horrific scandal.”

He kissed the top of her head, as if it were more precious than any artifact she had collected. “I waited until now because
I wanted to make sure it was all well and truly over. The documents signed and witnessed and finalized. It is official now.
We were never married.”

The words pierced her like hot steel. “Yes,” she whispered. “I know.”

He nodded. “And you definitely said that I didn’t have to come back to marry you out of any sense of obligation.”

This time she could only nod.

His smile grew wide and bright. “Good. Then it must mean that I came back because I wanted to. Did you even bother to look
at the ring I went to so much trouble to obtain? It’s the Hilliard emerald, you know. Goes well with red hair, or so I’m told.
Worth a bloody fortune. I was hoping that if you weren’t sensible, or madly in love, or mad as mud, at least you might be
a bit mercenary and accept me for the ring.”

She was shaking her head again, wondering if he was the one who was mad as mud. “You can’t want me.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “I can’t?”

He ran his hands down her arms, to her hands, up the underside, the slide of his fingers against silk unbearably exciting.
Before Grace could think to move, he was unbuttoning the buttons at the neck of her caftan.

“Curious garment,” he murmured, dropping little kisses along the side of her throat. She couldn’t bear the whisper of breath
against her skin. Still, she seemed to need to arch her neck to give him better access.

“It’s a caftan,” she whispered. “I had to get… a… man’s. Too tall.”

He began to slide the silk off her shoulders. “I beg to differ. You are the perfect height. With the perfect mouth and the
perfect shoulders and the perfect, delicate feet.”

“Don’t be…”

The caftan fell away and she was naked before him. Grace squeezed her eyes shut.

“Oh, Grace,” he murmured against her. “Are you so afraid of me?”

Yes,
she wanted to say.
No. I’m afraid of me.
“You can’t possibly want this.” She didn’t think she’d have to explain. She knew he could see perfectly well what she meant,
displayed right there in the mirror.

She felt his mouth on her shoulder, her back, his lips skipping over the ridges of her neck. “Again, my dear,” he said, his
hands sliding up her sides, “I beg to differ. Admittedly a horsewoman’s body might be an acquired taste. After all, not every
man can appreciate the special pleasure of being able to cup a pair of breasts entirely in his hands.”

To demonstrate, he wrapped his long-fingered hands around her breasts. She shuddered again, pleasure shearing straight through
to her toes.

“Too… small.”

“Grace,” he sighed, and she almost found herself smiling. “Tell me. Am I not known throughout the
ton
for my exceptional taste?”

She wanted to giggle, but couldn’t get the breath in to do it. “Biddle certainly thinks so.”

Lower. His hand was slowly sweeping over her hip, marking pelvis and navel and the slope of her belly.

“Exactly. Then you can’t dispute my word when I say I find something beautiful.”

She was glowing; she swore. His breath was on her neck, his fingers dipping into the curls at the juncture of her legs. Her
breasts were suddenly taut and tingly, her limbs trembling so badly she simply wanted to sink to the floor.

“Open your eyes, Grace,” he commanded.

And she opened them. She opened them and saw
his
eyes, almost black with arousal, languid with delight, soft with… no, she could never hope for that.

“I love your body, Grace,” he said, as if he heard her. “I’ve
missed it fiercely these last weeks. I can’t get the taste of you off my tongue, or your cries of climax out of my ears. I
want to hold you as you fall asleep and slip into you when you wake. I want to see what you’re going to do with those great
stones you’ve laid out in the stableyard and inspect every room you’ve decorated.” He closed his eyes, nuzzling his face against
her neck. “I want to recreate every painting on your wall.”

This time she did giggle, because he had found her netherlips and was skimming his fingers over them. “It would take an awfully
long time.”

He licked her ear, and she gasped. “Not so,” he disagreed. “There are only what, thirty or so? No more than a week’s worth.”

She panted with the red heat that swirled up through her. “More in… storage.”

He nipped at her neck. “How many?”

Head against his chest, legs spread, she chuckled. “Years.”

He chuckled back, the most delicious sound in the world. “Naughty minx. Please, Grace. Marry me so we can do this every day.
Twice a day.”

“You’re sure you aren’t doing this out of… obligation? You don’t really need me.”

He stopped, and Grace could feel how still he became. “I think you deserve more than to be needed, Grace. I think you deserve
to be wanted. I want you. I love you. I suddenly find myself visualizing little girls with red hair and gray eyes.” He stood
so quietly, a suggestion in the shadows. His eyes were real, though, clear and bright and anxious. “Let’s have a pack of children
to make this place echo with noise. Let’s raise horses and babies and be the most bucolic couple in England.”

Dear, sweet Lord, she thought, stumbling over the possibility. He means it. He loves me.

“What of your career?”

“Let’s do that, too. I’ve been offered a post in Calcutta. I don’t suppose you want to see it again.”

Her head came up so fast she almost cracked his chin. “Really? India?”

He chuckled. “So the horses will have to wait. Unless you wouldn’t mind bringing them both along. I hear they have a wonderful
racetrack in Calcutta.”

She nodded. “Oh, they do.”

“Then marry me. Truly make me the happiest of men.”

“Yes,” she said before she lost her courage and failed to ask for what she really wanted. She would ask about other details
later, because the details didn’t matter. “I love you. I want you. I’ll marry you.”

He seemed to have stopped breathing. “You mean it?”

She met his gaze for the first time without flinching, sure her heart could match a hummingbird’s. “With all my heart.”

He seemed to deflate, as if he had braced himself for her refusal. It was such an alien thought that she fell even more deeply
in love. Fortunately, she had a chance to express it. Turning her to him, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her as if
he’d been starving.

“Good,” he said briskly.” “Then I don’t have to drag Gadzooks away from Epona again. He bit me the last time.”

“He’s in love.”

His smile was salacious. “I know just how he feels. I tried to bite Biddle, but he was too fast for me. I’d love to drag you
down to town to wake the vicar, but I think we learned our lesson last time. First we’ll go see a lawyer to
make sure you don’t just willy-nilly give Longbridge to the first husband who comes along. And then I’ll give you the emerald
so you can show it off. My mother assures me it’s a far greater treasure than any you’ve ever seen.”

She wanted to laugh. “I’m sure.” She couldn’t take her eyes from the almost boyish enthusiasm on Diccan’s face. She couldn’t
believe it. He truly looked younger, as if all the ennui and posturing had been stripped away by one word.

Tears crowded her throat again, but this time sweet ones. “Diccan.”

Her voice seemed to pull him back from somewhere. “Yes?”

She smiled. “Now that we’ve agreed on the important details, do you see that first painting on the wall by my dresser?”

He looked, and his eyes, if possible, grew darker. “Yes.”

“Can we reenact that one tonight, do you think?”

He pulled her off her feet so that they landed in a mound of pillows. “Oh, yes.”

Diccan and Grace’s second wedding took place in the little stone church in the village of Longbridge. The local vicar, a gentle
young man named Sharp, presided, and the neighboring ladies provided flowers. There were no guests, only Grace’s staff, with
the Harpers standing up for them. The last wedding had been for the benefit of everyone else. This wedding was theirs alone.

“I think our girl’s about to be surprised altogether,” Sean Harper said beside Diccan.

Diccan hoped so. He’d spent hours debating whether to
reveal his own secrets. But if Grace could have the courage to show her true colors, why couldn’t he? No matter how Biddle
wept.

“Not nearly as much as she’s surprised me,” he said. He couldn’t believe it, but her hair had continued to brighten, until
it was a sun, a beacon, a conflagration he could spot all the way to the horizon. And as her hair had brightened, so had Grace.
She was like a flower planted on friendly soil that lost no time in blooming. No longer could she ever be mistaken for that
grave young spinster in the gray dresses.

“Well now, will you look at that?” Harper murmured beside him.

Diccan came to attention. He looked down the aisle toward the back door. He felt his breath whoosh out of his chest. “Well,
bugger,” he chuckled. “And here I thought I’d surprise
her.
”

He should have known better. When had Grace ever let him get the upper hand? But he’d thought that the Turkish wedding costume
he’d unearthed would at least have impressed her, with its belted gold-and-white brocaded tunic and salwar. His head was covered
in a great white turban, adorned with two heron feathers, and his shoes were kid, with appliquéd arabesques. He even wore
a jeweled knife at his belt. It had been liberating to toss that damn black-and-white to the floor and don gold. It had been
comfortable. It had been decadent.

Not as decadent as his bride.

Gliding up the aisle as if on air, Grace was draped in a gold-embroidered scarlet sari, her arms adorned in red and white
bangles, her sandaled toes ringed, her throat circled in no less than three wedding necklaces of priceless gemstones and 22-karat
gold. She had a
maang tika
of gold and
sapphires and rubies in her hair, and matching chandelier earrings that brushed her shoulders as she walked. Diccan could
see the intricate pattern of henna tattooing up her arms. Sweet God, she was exquisite.

And then she lifted her demurely downcast eyes and got a look at him, and she burst out laughing.

“Well,” Mr. Sharp greeted them both with twinkling eyes. “This is certainly a new look for our church.”

“How can a girl compete against such beauty?” she asked with glowing eyes when she stopped by Diccan, the silk of her garment
whispering like a promise against the stone floor.

Diccan took her hand and raised it for a kiss, the Hilliard emerald winking right alongside his ruby signet ring. “How could
a man be so lucky as to have such a singular woman take him on?”

He wasn’t joking. His once-plain Grace looked exotic and sensuous and alive in her adopted attire. The sari, thrown over her
loose-flowing hair, framed a face still too long, too strong, too unremarkable for traditional beauty. But to Diccan, it was
a face of courage and whimsy and joy. It was a face he couldn’t wait to see reproduced on his children and lying on the pillow
next to his until the day they failed to wake.

In fact, he was so enchanted with her face that he almost missed the fortune she’d hung around her neck. “I don’t suppose
all that gold and gimcrackery is exceptionally good paste.”

She chuckled. “A bit of incentive, husband.”

He found himself frowning. “It’s no incentive at all. You’re worth more than every stone and karat you own.”

He thought he might have actually surprised her. He
thought he might enjoy doing it frequently. His Grace had a lot of catching up to do in the appreciation department.

“As this compliment comes from a great Caliph,” she said, her voice suspiciously wobbly, “I believe I’ll accept.”

“You like it?” he asked, showing off his attire. “I believe it will be three times as difficult to squeeze back into that
vile black-and-white.”

“Then don’t.”

He smiled over at the vicar, who was still patiently waiting. “ ‘
Her price is far above rubies,
’ isn’t that so, Reverend?”

“I couldn’t put it better myself,” Mr. Sharp answered with a smile.

Diccan still smiled at his wife. “You’ve freed me, my Grace. You’ve liberated me from the prison of perfection.”

For a moment, he thought perhaps she hadn’t understood him. She just stared, her eyes wide. Then, subtly, her expression changed,
warming, widening, blooming into a delighted smile.

“Obviously that amuses you,” he challenged.

She was shaking her head, the gold tinkling in her ears. “Intrigues me,” she said. “I just remembered standing at our last
wedding and thinking that your evening attire was a kind of uniform, like my gray. I was just thinking that today we’ve changed
those uniforms for new ones. But I was wrong. We weren’t in uniforms at all; we were in disguise.”

Anyone else would have challenged her, for what was Diccan Hilliard but his reputation, his attire, his wit? But from now
on, he intended to be a happy husband, an ambitious diplomat, and an exemplary country gentleman. Grace had finally given
him permission to be himself. She
had, in a way, pulled him from his own crate and set him free.