A Gentle Grace (Wedded Women Quartet) (13 page)

BOOK: A Gentle Grace (Wedded Women Quartet)
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And there was no one to blame but himself.

 

 

 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

One Month Later

 

Grace pulled the warm wool shawl tighter around her shoulders and stared woefully down into her cup of tea. Outside Margaret’s cozy parlor with its elegant rosewood furniture and crackling fire, rain and wind lashed at the windows as the storm that had hovered relentlessly over the countryside for the past three days continued.

When Grace had arrived four weeks earlier at Heathridge – unexpected but immediately welcomed – the sun had been bright and the sky a seamless blue. Now the weather was a perfect match for her mood.

“Would you like another pastry, dear?” From across the room Margaret held up a tray of the delectable sweets and exchanged a concerned glance with her husband when Grace shook her head.

“I, uh, will go check on the horses.” The Duke stood up, uncoiling his lanky frame from the chair he been more or less dozing in for the past two hours. When he walked past his wife he paused to kiss her cheek and his hand curved familiarly over her slowly growing belly. “Do not tire yourself out,” he murmured.

Grace, who watched the sweetly intimate exchange with undisguised longing in her eyes, interceded quickly. “Not to fear, Henry. I will keep an eye on her.”

Henry smiled and tipped his hat. “Thank you, Grace.”

“Make sure to give Poppy extra carrots!” Margaret called after him as he left.

Poppy, Grace knew, was Margaret’s favorite horse on the entire estate. While Henry’s stable boasted some of the finest racing bloodlines in all of England, Margaret was head over heels for an overweight, gray muzzled, swaybacked old draft mare she had rescued years before.

“How is she doing?” Grace asked.

Taking a pastry from the tray before she set it aside, Margaret spoke around a mouthful of cherries. “Who, Poppy? Oh, she is absolutely delightful. I have finally convinced Henry to give her the run of the place. I swear that horse is going to outlive us all. She will be the perfect mount for the baby.”

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I do not believe children start riding while they are still infants,” Grace pointed out.

Margaret simply smiled and patted her belly. “Mine will.”

Knowing better than to try to talk sense into her friend when the subject involved her beloved Poppy, Grace let the matter drop entirely. And because she had thought of little else since fleeing the city and coming to Heathridge, her thoughts automatically turned to Stephen. Plucking at a loose thread in her shawl, she said in a voice so quiet as to barely be heard, “Has the mail been delivered today?”

“No, sweetling.” Crossing the room, Margaret squeezed Grace’s shoulder before she reclined on an ornate chaise lounge twice the size of the one Grace had stabbed with a poker. “Nothing will come until this weather lets up.”

“That,” came a glib voice from the doorway, “is not precisely true.”

“Josephine!” Margaret and Grace cried together.

Flicking droplets of water everywhere, Josephine sauntered into the middle of the parlor, plunked her hands on her hips, and dropped into an elaborate curtsy that forced a smile from Grace’s lips despite her miserable mood. “Yes, it is I,” the blond decreed dramatically. “Come to rescue you from boredom at the hands of Margaret.”

“I am not boring in the least!” Margaret protested.

Josephine pursed her lips. “You are married and pregnant and living in the country. Thus, you are boring. Do not worry, dear. It is not your fault. I blame your husband entirely.”

“Henry! What in the world did he do?”

“Well, you did not put that baby in your belly all by yourself.”

Grace felt the laugh bubbling up before she could contain it. How strange – and how good – it felt to laugh again. She almost imagined she had quite forgotten how. Glancing down briefly to adjust a fold in the skirt of her blue morning dress, she looked up just in time to see a look – a very pointed, very satisfied look – passing between Margaret and Josephine.

“You planned this,” she accused as realization dawned. “Your coming here was no coincidence. Is Catherine here as well?”

“She and Marcus are settling the children in the guest cottage as we speak,” Margaret admitted. At Grace’s hurt look, she threw her arms wide. “What? Yes, yes, I asked them to come! What else would you have me do? You have been moping around for weeks, sweetling. Something had to be done.”

“I have not been moping,” Grace muttered. It was a lie, and all three women knew it. The truth of the matter was that she
had
been rather depressed lately. After Stephen’s revelation she had left London the very next morning, hoping a change of scenery would help soothe her troubled thoughts. Penning a quick letter to her parents, she had called in a favor from a close friend of her mother’s who just so happened to be traveling to the country that very same day and had room in her carriage for Grace. Heathridge had seemed as logical a destination as any, and Margaret had gone out of her way to make her feel welcome the moment she showed up on her front doorstep.

Yet despite her best efforts to the contrary Grace could not get Stephen from her mind, and she was miserable with longing for him because of it. Every day that passed without word from him was worst than the last and she wanted nothing more than to return to London and run headlong into his arms, but the haunting knowledge of what he had done – and what he had not done – stopped her every time.

“…see what you mean.”

“She has been like…since she came here.”

“…what we can do…help her…”

Vaguely Grace realized Josephine and Margaret were speaking about her. Sitting up a little straighter in her chair, she crossed her arms beneath the heavy shawl and frowned at both of them. “I am right here, you know.”

“Now you are.” Josephine arched one brow. “Before you were not. Honestly, Grace, this rut you have been in is quite played out. Either get yourself out or burrow in completely, but this hovering in the middle business has got to stop.”

“I agree,” said Margaret.

“That is easy for you to say.” Rather annoyed that both of her friends were taking sides against her, Grace added, “You have husbands that dote on you.”

“Ah.” Josephine held up one finger and made a
tsk tsk
sound with her tongue. “But we did not always. Did we, Margaret?”

“No we did not,” the redhead agreed.

“I cuckolded Traverson for more a year before we discovered that we loved each other. What?” she asked when Margaret and Grace both stared. “Oh, both of you know the truth of it. No use pretending otherwise, is there?”

“Henry ran off with my dowry before the ink was dry on our marriage certificate,” Margaret recalled with a wry little smile. “Let us not forget that.”

“And as far as Catherine and Marcus… Well.” Josephine shuddered. “You know the way they used to fight. They hated each other for
years
.”

“Years,” Margaret echoed.

Grace frowned. She supposed she had never really thought of it that way. She saw her friends as they were now: blissfully happy and head over heels in love. It was easy to forget how they had been before.

“Now,” Josephine said as she helped herself to a pastry before sitting beside Margaret, “when Catherine gets here you are going to tell us the exact reason Stephen left you and broke the engagement.”

“Oh.” Grace’s brow furrowed. “I already told Margaret—”

“Then you will not mind telling it again.”

 

When Catherine finally arrived – soaked to the skin and muttering about ‘obnoxious’ children – she brought a decanter of wine with her and poured a glass for everyone sans Margaret, who declined citing an upset stomach.

“Here,” Grace said, shrugging out of her shawl and handing it over to the shivering Duchess, “take this.”

“Thank you,” Catherine said gratefully. Bypassing a chair, she sat directly in front of the fireplace and began to unpin her wet hair so it could dry. “I do hope the rain stops soon. The children are beside themselves with boredom and I fear I am at my wits end.”

Josephine clapped her hands together. “Yes, well, that is all positively fascinating, but I want to hear about Stephen.”

Knowing her friends would not relent until she told the sad, sorry story in its entirety (yet again), Grace took a deep breath, braced her hands on the edge of her chair, and began to speak. Her voice trembled at first, but as she continued she spoke stronger and faster until by the end the words were tumbling on top of each other, but no one seemed to mind. Her three person audience listened with rapt attention, alternating between expressions of disbelief, shock, and more than one “he did
not
”. When she was finished she sat back to anxiously await her friend’s reactions. Not surprisingly, Josephine was the first to offer her opinion.

“Is that it, then?”

“Do you mean is that everything he told me?” Grace nodded. “Yes, yes it is.”

Looking vaguely perplexed, Josephine said, “Forgive me, my dear, but if that was all he did I fail to see the problem. Why, he should be commended for rescuing that poor woman! Instead you have crucified him. It does make for a splendid tale, though. Did you know Stephen was the Prime Minister’s half brother?” she asked, glancing down at Catherine.

“No, of course not!” the Duchess said indignantly. “Although Marcus has had meetings with Lord Melbourne on several occasions and he always returns in a very cross mood. The Minister,” she continued in a whisper, “is said to be a very difficult man.”

“They do share the same last name,” Margaret said thoughtfully. “I always thought it was a coincidence.”

“We all did,” Josephine said.

“When I asked about his family Stephen always told me he was an only child,” Grace said softly. “He has lied to me countless times.”

“Well, technically speaking, he
was
an only child,” Catherine reasoned. “At least the only child his mother ever gave birth to. It is not his fault his father already had a son by his first wife fifteen years Stephen’s senior that he never knew about until he was an adult.”

Leaning forward out of her chair, Josephine reached out and tapped Grace soundly on the knee. “Oh, for heavens sake. He was trying to
protect
you, you ninny. The Prime Minister is one of the most powerful men in all of England. If he ever finds out who helped ferret his wife and daughter out of the country Stephen will be in grave danger. He could even be arrested.”

“Or hanged,” Margaret piped in.

“Do they still do hangings?” Josephine straightened back up. “I rather thought it was death by firing squad these days.”

Unable to believe what she was hearing, Grace sprang to her feet. “Are you
defending
him?” she cried in disbelief. Here she had thought to garner some sympathy for her plight, and it sounded as if they were taking Stephen’s side!

Her three friends exchanged three quick glances before they all looked at Grace and shook their heads in unison.

“Yes, we are,” Catherine said.

“Absolutely,” Margaret agreed.

“I suppose he is not a total cad,” Josephine said grudgingly. 

Grace hugged her arms tight around her chest and shifted her gaze to the fire. “But he lied to me about everything,” she said in a very small voice.

Getting to her feet with a little grunt of effort, Margaret came up beside Grace and put a comforting arm around her shoulders. “Josephine is right, sweetling. He was trying to protect you. He did a noble thing, getting Lady Melbourne away from her husband. Once a man strikes a woman… Well…”

“He will do it again,” Catherine said when Margaret trailed off. “And again. He saved her life, Grace, and he did his best to protect you in the process. Lord Melbourne –
your
Lord Melbourne – has no other family. If the Prime Minister discovered what he had done before he returned to London, he would have come straight for you. By breaking your engagement, Stephen made it appear as though you meant nothing to him, and thus could not be used as leverage.”

Grace’s shoulders drooped. “I suppose I never thought of it that way,” she admitted.

“Of course you did not,” Catherine said in her no-nonsense tone. “You thought he should have told you from the very beginning, and by not doing so he chose his sister-in-law over you, which made you feel even worse, because you cannot be mad at
her
since she a victim, so it only accentuated your anger for
him
.”

“Yes.” Grace blinked. “That is exactly it.”

And it was. At long last, someone had put an explanation behind the feelings that were swirling inside of her. Love, anger, fear, pride. They had been in such a tangled knot she had been hopeless to sort them out. Now it felt as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders and a sigh of heady relief coursed through her body. Stephen had never meant to hurt her. Not purposefully, at least. His intent had only been to protect her, and protect the poor woman who had suffered at the hands of his half brother. In truth, he was a hero… and she had treated him as the worst sort of villain. “Oh,” Grace murmured, breaking away from Margaret to walk towards the window. Pressing her fingertips against the cool glass she stared blindly out into the storm as her mind raced with should-haves.

BOOK: A Gentle Grace (Wedded Women Quartet)
4.49Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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