To Win a Lady's Heart (The Landon Sisters) (9 page)

Chapter Fifteen

The bang of a door jerked Grace into unwilling consciousness. Dear Lord. It couldn’t be morning already. She’d only just started drifting to sleep.

She pushed herself up, trying to blink her sleep-induced squint away, but the light was so bright. What was this, daybreak?

“That’s the Grace I know.”

“Hetty?”

Her friend came to perch on the side of the bed, smiling much too much of any kind of smile for such an ungodly hour. “It’s almost noon.”

Noon?

Maybe she had gotten a bit of sleep, after all. If only she felt as if she had. By way of response, Grace muttered a few words best left off the tongues of ladies.

Luckily, it didn’t seem Hetty noticed. “You were up early the other morning.”

“What?”

“The other morning when you were sneaking back to your room.”

That had the effect of straightening Grace’s spine and making her eyes stretch beyond their current puffy capacity. “What?”

“Don’t worry, I’m certain I was the only one who saw you.” Hetty wrinkled her nose. “You were with my brother, no doubt, and I want no details, so let’s say nothing more on the subject.”

Even a cup of steaming chocolate would be hard-pressed to entice Grace to begin the day. She let herself fall back against the pillows and pulled the covers over her head. “Go away.” Her voice sounded like a cat had mangled it beyond recognition.

“Don’t tell me you found your way into the wine last night.”

What had the previously estimable virtue ever done for her? Forced her into an engagement and left her pitifully untouched by a man. A very desirable man.

She’d given him every reason in the world. They could have been together, and then what ground would she have had to stand upon against the engagement?

Yet he hadn’t. It was almost as if he wanted her on as good a set of terms as possible after the way the engagement was thrust upon them.

“Are you all right, Grace?”

“What?”

“You groaned.”

Had she done that aloud? It must be a side effect of thinking too many thoughts after too little rest. “I apologize.”

“We were going to work on your hair this morning, but you’re too unwell, aren’t you? Trouble sleeping?” Hetty’s tone shifted to concern. “That’s all it is, isn’t it? It’s not something more serious? You don’t need the apothecary, do you? Grace?”

Grace emerged from the warm cave to find her friend placing a thick ledger book upon the writing table. “I’m well enough.”

Hetty met her eye. “I thought you might as well start familiarizing yourself with the household accounts. That is, if you care to. They’ll be under your jurisdiction soon enough.”

To this way of thinking, it would appear Grace was as good as married. A pity that in the particulars she had yet to have certain knowledge of the man supposed to be her husband.

“I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what the last ten years have been.”

“Oh?” Hetty looked at her expectantly.

“Through everything, you’ve remained a true friend. Never once have you faltered. At least, not that I know of. I’ve never thanked you properly.”

Hetty waved. “I don’t wish to minimize what it was your father did, I know it has cost you all dearly, but I would never let a little thing like that stand between me and a friend.”

“You’re one of very few who would think in such terms.”

“They don’t love you as I do. I knew you were my friend the very first time I saw you.” She gave a wide grin. “It was friendship at first sight.”

So it had been. Grace, too, smiled at the memory. “May I ask you something?”

“Always.”

“Why have you never married?”

“If you’re well enough for such a question, you’re well enough for me to send in my maid. How long do you need until you’ll be ready for your hair to be dressed?”

Grace caught her friend by the wrist just as she was about to pull away, no doubt about to make for the door to put her designs into motion. “I want to know.”

“Well, you know… Only a grand passion will do for me.” Hetty heaved a heavy sigh, face theatrically forlorn. “All the beaux are lining up to win my hand, but I’m determined none but the one most deserving shall have me. And I haven’t quite decided which among them that should be.” She laughed.

One of the aspects of her friend Grace liked best was her humor. Just now, however, Hetty appeared to be deflecting. Was she? “Think about all the independence life as a married woman would offer.”

“I think rather more highly of independence as a wealthy widow, which should be enough to layer a cool frost over the hearts of any eligible man with whom I come in proximity.” Hetty wore a wryly wicked smile.

“Be serious.”

“What’s the fun in that?” Hetty made a moue before drawing a deep breath. She turned thoughtful. “I don’t know, really. I suppose I haven’t found anyone to whom I feel I’m truly suited. I certainly haven’t been stirred by any great passion, if such silly things do exist. Besides, I’ve had to care for my brother—”

“You’ve what?”

“What?” Hetty stood, clearly flustered, her eyebrows pulling low, head shaking. “No—that’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s not a real reason for anything, really. It’s just—oh, you’re confusing me.”

“Hetty, I might be about to marry him. If there is something I should know—”

“Might be?” Everything around them halted. Hetty stared, face open and unguarded. There was a long silence. “Why just now did you ask me about why I never married? Did something happen last night?”

Grace adjusted herself to a partial sitting position, using her elbows as support and spoke carefully. She had plenty of practice saying what needed to be said to her sisters. It was different, though, with a dear friend. “I’m afraid that the decision whether your brother and I should marry is only between him and myself.”

If that were true, how in the world had they ever allowed societal expectations and Corbeau’s self-proclaimed sense of honor to force the engagement?

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Hetty’s mouth pinched and she softened. “Really, I am.”

“I am, too. I shouldn’t have pried into a private matter.”

Hetty waved. “Oh, I don’t care. I really don’t have any reason why I haven’t yet. But I expect I will…someday. Or else…” She gave a delighted smile. “On second thought, I won’t. You shall marry my brother and I shall take up the occupation of favorite spinster aunt to a whole household of your children. Besides, you have too many sisters and I have none a’tall, so you must—you really must. ’Tisn’t fair.”

Grace tried to smile in turn. Really she did.

There were a few moments of silence. Grace bit her lip. “If there is something about your brother I ought to know, perhaps it would be best if I knew now.”

Hetty sighed. “It’s difficult to explain. He’s not like us.”

Grace waited, but nothing more came forth. “That’s it? He’s not like us?”

“There are plenty of individuals he likes well enough, but by and large he prefers horses to people. More than a very few individuals at a time, three—maybe four—and he’s hopeless. People in any number immobilize him. It’s how he has always been. He can’t help it. He tries, really he does, and sometimes I push a little, forgetting that I don’t understand, like I did the other day”—Hetty was gesticulating in rather a passionate manner—“and then I remember and know I must be the most horrible sister in the whole world, and this whole Christmas feast he promised our mother to carry on takes its toll. Last year he didn’t recover for a month.”

She looked away, shoulders sunken.

Grace held her tongue for whatever was left to come.

At last, it did. “The worst of it is that our father, as good a man as he was, by and large, went to his grave never having forgiven him for it.”

…

Grace spent the early part of her day unusually aware of being surrounded by others. What must it be like for Corbeau to be uneasy around people, if what his sister had related was, in fact, correct?

It made a good deal of sense, though, explaining much as it did about his particularities.

Everyone was being left to his or her own individual amusements today, but most of the ladies had gathered together in the drawing room the same as the other days, many in quiet occupation. Phoebe was noticeably absent, bringing down the liveliness of the early afternoon gathering.

It was no use trying to work on her needlepoint. Her mind was wandering too much. The kiss played in her mind again and again. How could she trust her fingers to remain steady under such conditions?

Grace was standing behind Jane, who’d been given use of Hetty’s paints. Her sister carefully and precisely applied small amounts of color to an increasingly complex landscape scene based on a description of what the summer gardens were like at the height of their beauty.

With the prickle of awareness, Grace turned. The earl hovered in the shadowy corridor just outside of the drawing room, wearing an expression that needed no nuance of understanding to comprehend.

She approached him in a faint rustle of skirts, slippers silent over the floor. His arms held a book casually against his midsection. The perfect cut of his dark green jacket accentuated the strong lines of his virile presence.

“I didn’t expect quite so appraising a look from you when you saw me for the first time today.”

Grace tried settling her features into something that might resemble an expression befitting the proper lady she was supposed to be.

Images of last night seared her mind. The kisses…the wanting…

Before she could say anything, he tilted his head, eyes narrowing to study her coiffure more carefully. “You’ve done something different.”

At his notice, her face went hot. In fact, she’d been convinced to lose most of the length in order to lighten the burden and gain freedom of styling. It was terribly modern, almost too much so for her. Down, the locks reached only a few inches past her shoulders.

Between them was an unspoken awareness of her sudden discomfort. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“It’s very becoming, my lady.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Her hands suddenly seemed awkward. Clasping them before her didn’t feel right because he’d notice her fidgeting. But holding them behind her back felt worse, like she was thrusting herself out for display, which only brought back a memory of last night’s soft caresses.

By her sides, then. There. She pulled them straight, determined her fingers would not work over themselves as she stood before him.

Corbeau schooled his expression and cleared his throat. “I thought perhaps you’d like this.” He held out the book to her. It was middling size, neither large nor small, with a handsomely understated leather cover. “Unless, of course, today you’d rather have a novel, after all.”

She turned the volume to read the words printed in heavily stylized lettering along the spine. “
A History of Egypt
?”

His brows went up in uncertainty. “The writer writes with enough authority to make me believe he’s actually traveled to Egypt as he claims, and worked to sift fact from myth, as best one can who was not an eyewitness to events. About a third of the book is devoted to their pagan practices and stories, actually, with a particularly interesting chapter on Osiris.”

“Osiris?”

“One of their pagan gods.”

He’d liked the book. And believing she might, as well, brought a surge of warmth into the center of her chest. “I must thank you again, my lord. This is very…very thoughtful.”

After that, she was at a loss with how to fill the silence.

Neither of them made any move to leave. Last night she’d been in this man’s arms. She’d offered herself to him, nearly begged, in fact. It seemed reasonable she might feel ashamed of her wantonness. Surely last night was owing to a demonstration of having been in the grips of a temporary madness.

It would be easier to work on the theory if lingering inside her wasn’t an inclination to press herself against him once more.

Grace touched her earlobe carefully when it began to itch, acutely aware of her every look, every movement being surveyed under his watchful eye. Better to look fidgety than be driven senseless.

The floor was of some interest for a time. Then the well-appointed decor of the corridor in which they stood. Grace gave a stretched smile to Lord Maxfeld when he appeared at the other end. The other man stood still, as if taking in an entirely new anatomical anomaly, then shook his head and vanished the way he’d come, the receding sounds of his footfalls battering the floor.

She brought the book to her nose. Inhaled, letting the scent settle her nerves.

Corbeau’s heavily masculine features that had once seemed so cold, so stern, so distant, now seemed anything but. How could such little time alter her perceptions so radically? “Was there something else, my lord?”

He appeared to brace himself. “Hetty told me what she said to you.”

Her brows rose. “It’s true, then?”

“Quite true, I’m afraid. It’s not something I’m proud of, but something I work very hard to manage.”

That didn’t answer the question as to whether or not he still suffered from his father’s—what had it been, precisely—disapproval?

“You know”—it didn’t bode well that she was but two words in and already sounded stilted—“if I don’t marry you, I will disappoint my mother terribly.”

“Then pray, by all means let that be the reason you keep from breaking the engagement.” His tone was dry. “Goodness knows a man thinks little enough of himself without—” He caught himself and one side of his mouth turned in a droll sort of half-smile. “I almost said something I would have regretted.”

“But it’s a difficult thing, though, isn’t it? Disappointing one’s parents.”

That made him blink with the surprise of having been caught off guard. It faded into comprehension, and his mouth drew tight. “I take it that Hetty told you about my father, as well.”

“Yes.”

“I see.” He paused. “My lady, I’ll forgive you the guise with which you’re baiting me—this time. In the future, if you have a question you wish to pose to me, do me the honor of being direct, as I know you can be. I think there is enough between us now for such marks of mutual respect.”