The Perfect Kiss (3 page)

If she married, her body would belong to her husband and so would her fortune. The carriage jolted and swung. No man’s kisses could possibly be worth that . . .

“Tidy yourself, gel. You are all blown about!”

“Yes, Sir John.” Grace’s hands rose to tidy her hair and again she got a shock as she felt the harshly dyed locks. Nobody would recognize her as Grace Merridew now.

Under Grace’s instructions, Aunt Gussie’s maid, Consuela, had cut Grace’s hair shorter and dyed it dark brown. And in a stroke of genius, she’d used henna to paint indelible freckles all over Grace’s face and hands and around her neckline. The henna paste stained the skin and even washing failed to remove the false freckles.

They would fade, Consuela had assured the horrified Aunt Gussie. Grace would need to redo them every so often, but in the meantime, the shortsighted Sir John would never suspect that brown-haired, heavily freckled Greystoke was in fact Miss Grace Merridew whose red-gold hair and pure, peaches-and-cream complexion was famous. He had only met Grace a few times since the girls had left boarding school. As herself, and in the right context, he would probably recognize Grace, but not, she’d gambled, like this. She was right.

She felt a pang for the loss of her long, red-gold hair.
Melly’s babies
, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time.

Grace didn’t share Melly’s passion for babies. She liked children, but only after they’d started walking and talking and had become small people. But Melly adored babies, even the doughiest, dribbliest, smelliest ones.

Melly’s dreams were simple. She didn’t want a lord or a fine London house or lots of money. She just wanted a nice man who would love her and marry her and give her lots of babies. It was what every girl dreamed of, Grace believed.

Every girl except Grace.

Which is why she was so determined Melly’s dreams would not be sacrificed. Cutting off her hair was nothing. Hair grew back. People’s dreams didn’t. Dreams shattered, and sometimes, so did the people.

Lord D’Acre, Dominic Wolfe of Wolfestone Castle, could take his moneybags and his cold-blooded travesty of a marriage elsewhere.

Grace would rescue her friend. She was Grace Merridew, knight-errant! She pondered the term. Knightesserrant, perhap?

 
 
DOMINIC WOLFE RODE THE LAST FEW MILES SLOWLY, HIS HEAD bowed against the wind that had just sprung up. Gray clouds boiled slowly, darkening the sky. Summer storms were all sound and fury: lightning and thunder.

He’d reach Wolfestone before it hit, he thought.

As always, the thought of Wolfestone made his jaw tighten. He’d wanted never to set eyes on the place. Blast the Pettifers and their sudden decision to come here! He should have made it clearer to Sir John exactly what their bargain entailed.

Probably the daughter imagined she was inspecting her future home. His mouth hardened.

There was a jagged flash of lightning, and thunder rumbled in the distance. He glanced down at the dog trotting at his side. Her ears were flattened unhappily. Sheba was terrified of thunder. Dominic bent and scooped her up, settling her in front of him on the saddle. Both horse and dog were well used to Sheba riding so.

It had been a long journey. If he’d had more notice he would have used a carriage. He’d tried to stop the Pettifers leaving London but his messenger had returned with the information that they’d already left. By that time Dominic’s only option, if he was to arrive before them, was to ride from Bristol.

Not far now.

He caught a glimpse of a turret through the trees. Wolfestone. He felt a strange frisson at the sight. Dread? Anger? Anticipation? Perhaps even a shred of the yearning he’d done as a child, in those far-off naive days when he’d longed to see Wolfestone. A tiny piece that seemed to have survived his coming of age, his
knowing
.

He dragged his gaze away. There was a bitter taste in his mouth. Wolfestone. The place for which his mother had been sold.

And now himself.

Ten minutes further on he found himself in front of a huge pair of iron gates, one hanging at a slightly drunken angle. They were supported by two imposing stone gateposts on each of which was mounted a statue of a snarling wolf. On the left was a stone and half-timbered gatehouse. It looked deserted. The gates were open. Welcoming him? He doubted it.

Thunder rumbled again, closer, and his dog quivered. Dominic urged his horse, Hex, up the drive. Shelter from the storm, that’s all Wolfestone was to him now.

The castle, when he saw it, took his breath away. Built of the local gray stone, it squatted malevolently, overlooking the valley up which he’d ridden, cold, ancient and forbidding, a house well used to combat and war. And hatred.

His ancestral home. Awe inspiring and ugly. Not worth sacrificing anyone’s happiness for.

His mother had almost never spoken of it. The very mention of the place brought that tragic look to her eyes, the look he’d spent his childhood trying to banish, the look that haunted him still. “You’ll know if you ever go there, why I cannot speak of it,” she’d told him once. He looked at it now and knew.

He would destroy it.

The gravel drive that led to the front door was dotted with weeds. In the front was a stretch of long ragged grass. It should have been a lawn. Dominic frowned.

Movement under a group of oaks caught his eye: three silvery mares, pale and ethereal in the pre-storm light. Beautiful creatures, with gracefully arched necks, sloping shoulders, and large, dark eyes.

Arabians. Valuable creatures. What were they doing running loose in the open? The front gate had been left open. The horses could wander out. Or perhaps they’d wandered in.

One of the mares stood a little apart from the others. She was moving restlessly in a way he recognized. Her belly was stretched almost to the bursting point.

Dominic’s frown deepened. No horse should be wandering loose like that, let alone a heavily pregnant mare. Especially when a storm was imminent.

He looked around, but there was not another living soul in sight. It was bizarre. The place should be thronging with servants.

He glanced at the roiling gray clouds and the ominous gloom and urged his horse forward, seeking the stables. Some fool had let those mares out and needed to be told. That pregnant one needed to be under cover, not out in a storm.

He rode up to the front door and yanked on the brass doorbell. It jangled noisily in the depths of the building, but not a soul stirred within. According to the books, wages were being paid, so where were the servants?

He didn’t have time to speculate now; he would get to the bottom of it later.

He found enormous stone stables behind the house, but they were deserted, too. His horse’s hooves echoed eerily on the dusty cobblestones. From the look of things, neither man nor beast had been inside these stables in months.

Thankfully the stalls were fairly clean and at the front of the stables were some gray-looking bales of hay that, when broken open, proved to be sweet and golden within.

He quickly unsaddled his own horse, Hex, gave him a quick rubdown, gave horse and dog a drink, then prepared several stalls, including a stall for the mare to give birth in, far from the others. Finally he locked his dog in. She whined and scratched on the door but he ignored her.

Cursing his recent run of poor luck, he ventured out to try to catch the pregnant mare at least before the storm hit.

GRACE CLUNG TO HER LEATHER STRAP FOR DEAR LIFE. HER FEET were braced against Melly’s seat opposite, Melly’s feet were braced against hers. They jolted and bounced and rocked wildly from side to side. The pace was insane.

They must be close to Wolfestone now. Surely.

Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled all around them. Abruptly the carriage lurched, slowing marginally, and swung hard left, nearly tipping over. It was saved by a tall something against which it scraped and banged, then righted itself. Grace caught a glimpse of high stone gateposts with some creature atop them. A dog? No, a wolf.

Wolfestone. At last. Thank God. They might even arrive alive, she thought wryly.

Grace peered out of the window as they hurtled up the gravel drive, trying to catch a glimpse of Wolfestone. And when she did, she just stared. Set against a backdrop of hills and looming clouds, it looked bleak and gray and fascinating. Sprawling, ancient, half house and half castle, it had been extended and added to by various members of the family over generations.

An ugly mishmash of styles, Sir John had called it when delivering a lecture to the girls at the beginning of the journey. But Grace found it fascinating: full of odd angles and strange extensions, turrets, battlements and pointed roofs, arrow slits, and a series of wonderful Gothic arched windows. She hoped there were gargoyles. On such a building there ought to be gargoyles.

On a sunny day the front rooms of the house must be full of light, for dozens of mullioned windows faced south. As she watched, the dark clouds parted and a single ray of afternoon sun caught the diamond panes. They briefly glowed with golden fire.

“How beautiful!” she exclaimed but her words were lost as lightning slashed down almost in front of the coach. The horses screamed and reared, thunder roared around them, and the coach tipped and crashed over on its side with a horrid splintering of wood. The passengers bounced around like balls, crashing against the walls of the carriage and each other.

Then there was silence, except for the roaring of the storm.

Chapter Two

First appearance deceives many.

OVID

 
 
 
 
GRACE WAS THE FIRST TO MOVE, SLOWLY AT FIRST. SHE FELT AS IF she’d been given a beating. Her arm hurt and her head, but as her mind cleared she realized she was in one piece. Shaken, bruised, but essentially unhurt.

She turned to her friend. “Melly, are you all right?”

Melly groaned. Grace examined her. Melly groaned again and opened her eyes. “What happened?”

“The carriage overturned. Are you all right? Can you move?”

Melly moved, gingerly. “I-I think so. It hurts, but I think I’m all right.” She stretched. “Ouch! I’m bruised all over. Papa—how is he?”

Sir John was conscious and breathing but he looked far from well. His eyelids fluttered and he muttered, “Get me out of this contraption!” in a faint, querulous voice. His breath rasped in and out of his chest in painful-sounding gasps.

“Stay with him, Melly. I’ll run for help.”

“But what if—” The rest of the sentence was lost as Grace scrambled out of the window. The coach door was underneath them. Lightning flashed again and the heavens opened. Rain pelted down.

The horses moved restlessly, trembling with exhaustion and fear. Lightning flashed. They plunged in fear; she could see the whites of their eyes. One of the horses was tangled in the traces. If they got spooked again, they could drag the carriage with them.

Shielding her face from the lashing rain, she peered around. Surely someone had heard the crash and would come. She saw a still, dark figure lying in the gravel. The postilion. She ran to him and bent tentatively over him. “Are you all right?”

He moved and groaned, then swore drunkenly. He sat up and looked at her. “Whasshappened?” He gave her a bleary half smile, then swore and threw up, just missing her boots.

“Get up, you disgraceful sot!” Grace yelled at him. “You’ve crashed the carriage and the horses are all tangled in the traces! They could drag the carriage off at any moment!”

“Crashed the carriage?” he repeated stupidly.

“Yes! So get up and help me get Sir John and Melly out!”

The man staggered to his feet, took one horrified look at the upturned carriage, swore, and ran off down the drive.

Grace screamed at him to come back, but he kept right on running. She knew why. He’d probably be jailed, perhaps even transported for his negligence.

The horses plunged again, getting even more tangled in the traces. There was only one thing to do. Grace bent and pulled a knife from her sensible half boot. All the Merridew girls traveled armed but she hadn’t had time to borrow her sister’s gun. Hiding the knife in her sleeve, she approached the horses calmly and slowly, murmuring soothing words. They tossed their heads nervously, but allowed her to approach close enough to grab their halters, cut their traces and set them free. They galloped toward the trees.

Now to fetch help. She put her head down against the driving rain and started running up the drive to the big gray house. Not a single light burned. Of course, it was still afternoon; the darkness was because of the storm. But it didn’t look promising.

She ran up the front steps. There was a snarling wolf ’s-head knocker and a brass bellpull. She banged the knocker and pulled hard on the door pull. She pressed her ear against the door and could hear a faint chiming in the distance. She waited. She tried again. But nobody opened the door.

It looked like there was nobody in residence. But how could that be? This was Melly’s bridal visit.

No time to wonder. She ran round the side, following the drive, and found several likely-looking back doors. She banged on them, but there was no response. Every one was locked.

Had the drunken postilion brought them to the right house? The place was deserted.

Across one side of the cobbled courtyard she could see a bedraggled-looking kitchen garden. On the other was a large stone building with an arched entrance. Stables. Lungs heaving, she ran on.

Inside she paused to let her eyes adjust to the gloom. The building was large and cavernous. Rain drummed on the slate roof. There was fresh hay in a pile by the door and tack hanging on hooks, all covered with dust, except for one foreign-looking saddle and bridle, which gleamed with care. There was a long central passageway, off which lay rows of stalls. Most were closed. Four doors were only half closed: the top half of the door was hooked back. Over the closed lower doors poked the head of a white horse, its eyes large, dark, and intelligent.

Thank God. She could ride for help.

The wind dropped for a moment and Grace heard a whinny and the sound of a man’s voice, deep and low. She ran toward it and as she reached the line of open-topped stalls she heard the voice again. It was too muffled for her to make out any words, but it didn’t sound like English.