Read A Gentle Grace (Wedded Women Quartet) Online
Authors: Jillian Eaton
A Gentle Grace (Wedded Women Quartet) (15 page)
This time their lovemaking was sweet and patient and gentle. Grace savored every touch, every moan, every soft, soothing stroke. There were no words exchanged between them; they spoke with their bodies, with their eyes, with their hearts. And when they came to the edge it was as one, and when they leapt into the abyss it was together, as it was always meant to be.
By dawn they had made it upstairs to the master bedroom. Light flickered in through the curtains, bathing the room in a soft, rosy glow and rousing Grace from her peaceful slumber while Stephen watched over her, his fingers combing absently through her long tangle of dark hair.
When her eyes fluttered open she smiled at him and snuggled closer. “Do you remember our first kiss?” When he nodded, she sighed dreamily and rested her head against his chest. “That was the moment I fell in love with you, I think. You were so handsome and I was so frightened I would say the wrong thing.”
“You always say the right things,” he murmured.
“When did it happen for you?”
“When did what happen?” he said, finding himself distracted by the curve of her collarbone. He kissed her bare shoulder, and with a mischievous grin began to tug the sheet lower. She smelled of roses and sunshine, and every inch of creamy skin he revealed was more tantalizing than the last.
“When did you realize you were in love with me?” she asked impatiently, tilting her chin to look up at him. With a sigh, Stephen pulled the sheet back into place.
“I knew we would suit the first moment I saw you.”
Her nose wrinkled. “You knew we would
suit
?” she repeated dubiously. “That does not sound very romantic.”
“Should I tell exactly what I was thinking, then?”
At her vigorous nod, he leaned close to her ear and whispered, “I thought you were a wood nymph sent from the wilds of the forest just for me. I wanted to lay you out beneath the sun and undress you so slowly you would beg for me to hurry before it was through. Then I would kiss you like this,” – he pressed his lips ever so softly to her neck – “all over your naked body and you would taste like fresh strawberries just picked from the vine. Then I would use my tongue to—”
“That… that is quite enough,” Grace said breathlessly.
“Hardly,” came Stephen’s prompt reply, and with a little growl he had her pinned on her back beneath him with one easy roll of his body. Her hair, the ends still damp, spread like black fire across the pillows. He lifted one silky strand and rubbed it between his fingertips. “I could have you now if I wanted.”
“Yes.” Grace’s eyes were dark with desire, her smaller frame all but humming with it. She wet her lips, and the quick peek of her tongue caused Stephen to groan.
“But I won’t,” he said with great reluctance.
“You… you won’t?” Her brows pinched in confusion, and with a laugh Stephen pressed a kiss between them before he collapsed to the side and tucked her tight against the length of his body. She fit perfectly, as if she had been made for him, or he, Stephen thought with a lazy smile, had been made for her.
“I need to make an honest woman out of you, Lady Deringer. We are getting married.”
Grace sat up on one elbow and peered down at him, her expression an adorable mix of sexual frustration and bemusement. “But we are not even engaged.”
“Of course, how could I have forgotten?” Reaching up, Stephen captured her face between his hands and kissed the tip of her perfect little nose. “Marry me.” He kissed her left cheek. “Marry me.” The right. “Marry me and make me the happiest man in the world.” Finally he settled on her lips with a quiet hunger that she easily matched. Grace had always been a sensuous creature, ready to give pleasure as well as receive it. Their tongues met, retreated, met again. The kiss was slow and leisurely; they had no where to be, no where to go. Stephen enjoyed her mouth as he would a grand feast, taking his time to nibble here and there, to lick this and slide his tongue along that, until he felt as though in addition to the feast he had partaken in too many glasses of brandy for all his head was swirling and his mind was jumbled.
Only Grace had the power to do that to him. To take him to another place, another time, where all he could think of was her and his heart was so filled with love it was near to bursting.
When the kiss ended at last they were both breathless, and Grace fell back on the pillows with a little sigh to stare up at the ceiling, her lower lip puckering as it only did when she was giving considerable thought to something.
“We need to agree to be honest with each other,” she said at last, still gazing at the white plaster that seemed to stretch endlessly above their heads.
“Always,” Stephen agreed solemnly.
“And remember to kiss after we fight.”
“How do you know we will fight?”
She poked him in the ribs with her elbow.
“Yes, well,” he sighed, “I suppose if we must fight we must fight, as long as there is kissing in the end.”
“And,” she continued, tilting her head to the side to look at him in earnest, “you can never leave me again. Promise, Stephen. Say it out loud.”
Sensing the fear lurking beneath the command in her voice, he sat up in the bed and drew her up against him. She rested her head against his heart and he stroked her hair, letting the room settle into silence before he asked, “Do you hear that?”
“Yes,” she whispered. Her eyes were closed, her breathing steady and even and matched perfectly to his. “I can hear your heart.”
“Every beat is for you,” Stephen said achingly. “Every breath I draw is for you. Every morning I wake is for you. It was always for you, Grace.” And here he paused, for his throat had tightened and his eyes had grown suspiciously damp, but he pressed on, for there were some words that simply needed to be spoken out loud. “It will always be for you.”
And so it was.
EPILOGUE
Grace and Stephen were married in August, on the same day they had met so many years before. The ceremony was held inside a small country church with only close friends and family in attendance.
Rosalind, Catherine, Margaret, and Josephine were all bridesmaids. Clutching bouquets of wildflowers, they smiled from ear to ear as the service was read, and it was Josephine – most surprisingly – who was the first to dab at her eyes with a handkerchief.
“What?” she hissed defensively when Margaret and Catherine slanted amused glances in her direction. “It is dusty in here.”
It must have been dusty outside as well, for when Stephen and Grace ran through the receiving line amidst cheers and claps and rice being tossed in the air, Josephine began to cry in earnest and had to be ushered away by her ever doting husband.
Later that evening the four friends gathered on the back veranda of the newlywed’s estate. Inside of the manor general merriment in the form of dancing and drinking ensued, as it had since early in the afternoon. Grace, her cheeks blooming with color and her lips suspiciously swollen, was the last to arrive.
She burst through the French doors with such enthusiasm that the train of her wedding gown caught on the edge of the first step and she would have fallen were it not for Catherine and Josephine reaching out to catch her. Margaret, quite pregnant now that she was only three months from her due date, looked up from her seat and shook her head.
“You were far less clumsy when you were miserable,” the redhead noted. “Now I suppose you will be tripping over every little thing.”
“Most likely,” Grace agreed with a grin. And then, stepping to the edge of the veranda and throwing her arms wide, she said, “Isn’t this simply marvelous?”
“The best wedding I have been to all year,” Josephine agreed.
Catherine rolled her eyes. “This is the
only
wedding you have been to all year.”
“Well that certainly is not my fault, is it?”
Only half listening to her friends, Grace tipped her head back until she could see the moon. It gleamed high overhead, showering everything below it in a silvery glow and filling the night with a sense of magic and wonder. Now that the day was coming to an end she wished it had lasted longer, although she knew she would remember every moment that had passed for as long as she lived. For the sheer pleasure that if gave her – and the quiet thrill she felt every time she happened to look upon it – she glanced down at her left hand where her newly placed wedding band encircled her left ring finger.
It was a plain gold ring with a small heart shaped diamond in the middle. It had belonged to his mother, Stephen had told her as he slipped it on, and even though Grace knew he could have easily afforded a ring with a glittering jewel the size of her knuckle, she was blissfully happy this was the one he had chosen to give her. She would treasure it forever and wear it for always until it was time to pass it down to her eldest son or daughter, and they would do the same, as would their children’s children.
“Isn’t it wonderful,” Grace said with a sigh and a smile as she looked up from her wedding band, “that we have all found the loves of our lives?”
“Speak for yourself,” Josephine said promptly, but she, too, smiled and when her gaze inadvertently flicked to the French doors Grace knew she was looking for Traverson.
“I have been married to Stephen for less than a day, and yet I cannot imagine my life without him.”
“Nor I without my Henry,” Margaret said.
“Or my Marcus,” Catherine agreed.
“And you,” Grace continued, taking time to look at each one of her dear friend’s in turn. “I could never imagine my life without you. You are in my heart the same as Stephen.” And because it was her wedding day, and because she was feeling extra emotional, and because it simply seemed like the right thing to say, Grace smiled through the sudden sparkle of tears in her eyes and said, “You are my sisters and my best friends. I love you all to the heavens and back.”
Laughing, smiling, wiping away their own tears, Catherine, Margaret, Josephine, and Grace came together in a tight, seamless embrace before, with arms firmly linked, they returned to the manor to find their husbands.
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