Chapter Nineteen #2
He’d lived most of his life in fear. So many of his actions had been driven by it.
Grace feared nothing; not even the social ruin that would come if she happened to bear an illegitimate child.
She didn’t fear what would be said about her, just as she hadn’t feared what had already been said about her.
She lived beyond such judgments. Did he have it in him to do the same?
“I’ll call again,” Henry said.
“No, you damned well—”
“I will hear her refusal from her,” Henry said, and this time his voice carried a weight it had lacked before.
“I have given her a mistaken impression of my regard, and she deserves a proper apology for it. And afterward—afterward, she will be within her rights to curse me to perdition, if she so chooses. But that will be her choice, and I will not allow you to rob her of the satisfaction of it.”
“The satisfaction of it,” the duke repeated, briefly stunned by Henry’s audacity. Almost as if that weak little creature he had dismissed only moments ago had startled him by cobbling together the spine he had thought he lacked.
For a moment they simply stared at one another; a silent battle for dominance. But for once in his life, Henry was not going to bend. Not in this. Not ever.
A reluctant laugh seared the air, and the duke shook his head in exasperation.
“Get out, Lockhart,” he said. “And it ought to go without saying that if you should breathe a word of this to anyone, there will be nowhere for you to hide, nowhere to run. We have got friends—family, practically—well-versed in the subtle art of making people disappear.”
∞∞∞
“Meow.”
Grace heaved a sigh as she slapped one hand over her aching eyes. “Tansy,” she said as she turned onto her side. “I said no.”
The cat, undiscouraged, leapt down from the window sill which she had been occupying, sauntered by the couch upon which Grace had dramatically draped herself earlier in the afternoon, and swished her fluffy tail directly in Grace’s face.
“You cannot go to his lordship’s garden today,” Grace said. “I’m afraid we are presently at odds with his lordship, and you must, naturally, be on my side. Here,” she said as she patted the couch. “Come sit with me.”
For once, Tansy responded appropriately to the request and jumped nimbly upon the couch. She padded gingerly along Grace’s side toward her head, at which point she delicately placed her two front paws directly on Grace’s chest, and thrust most of her considerable weight upon them.
“Oof.” Grace winced at the advent of the pressure. “Tansy. Please.”
Tansy thrust her whiskery face into Grace’s and let out a loud, indignant meow.
“I said no!”
With a little leap spryer than anything Grace could have imagined Tansy capable of, all four of her paws landed straight in her midsection.
Another mighty thwack of that fuzzy grey tail directly into her face, and Tansy flexed one paw in silent menace, unsheathing her claws as they neared the upholstered back of the couch.
“Tansy, no,” Grace said. “Not the”—rrriiiiiiiiiiiiip—“couch,” she concluded weakly, dropping her head back. Probably the damage had been considerable. Tansy did nothing by halves. “You rotten cat,” she said. “I suppose it’s my fault. I have spoiled you.”
Having vented her temper sufficiently, Tansy curled up at her side and began to purr with that queer, loud rumble.
Grace settled one hand upon Tansy’s soft head and rubbed between her ears.
“You are going to be evicted,” she warned.
“Charity will tire of your constant destruction of her furniture eventually.”
“No, she won’t,” Felicity said from the doorway. There was the sound of approaching footsteps, and then the clink of something upon the table behind her.
Grace craned her neck to glance up at her sister. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” Felicity said. “You weren’t in your room. Budge up,” she added, nudging Grace’s feet.
Obligingly, Grace drew up her legs to allow Felicity room to sit. “The children were unbearably loud,” she said. “And my head still aches abominably. I came down here to escape the noise.”
“In fact, they have largely been quieter than usual,” Felicity said. “I’m given to understand that Ian took the lot of them to task for their rambunctiousness after breakfast—and he may have promised them a sack of toffees each if they did not disturb us.”
“Gracious of him,” Grace allowed. Though the noise had still been too severe for her tender head to endure, at least she had found some manner of peace down here in the drawing room. “You seem to be in fine spirits,” she said.
“I didn’t drink quite so much as the rest of you did,” Felicity said. “So I’ve been playing nursemaid all day.”
“You’re rubbish at it,” Grace sniffed.
“What a fine thing to say of your beloved sister, who has brought you a cold cloth for your head.”
“Have you? I take it back. Where is it?”
“On the table behind your head. There’s a bowl of ice as well, to keep it cold.” Felicity gave a little gesture of her hand.
Grace groped behind her, feeling about for the cold damp cloth, and slapped it on her forehead. “Oh, that’s lovely,” she sighed as she sank down once more. “Tell me. How bad is the damage?”
“Tansy’s? Oh, just dreadful. She’s gotten straight down to the padding this time, the little terror.”
Grace groaned.
“It’s not so bad as all that,” Felicity soothed. “Charity won’t decline the opportunity to make the room over entirely, and you know that Mercy will be just delighted to have the chance to design a new fabric pattern exclusively for her. What brought this particular mishap on?”
“She wants to go to Lord Lockhart’s,” Grace mumbled. “She’s become accustomed to spending her days in his garden, availing herself of his catmint.”
“Why not let her?”
Because—because she couldn’t take the chance that Tansy might slip once more into his home.
That she might then have to retrieve her.
That she might run the risk of seeing him again.
And she couldn’t. Not now; not yet. “Because she ought to have just a little more loyalty to her mistress than that,” Grace groused.
“What rubbish. You want loyalty? Get a dog. Cats are traitors, all.” Felicity sighed and settled one arm over the back of the ruined couch. “I suppose you must know that Lord Lockhart came by today,” she said.
“Yes.” She had known he would. Although she had not been able to drag herself out of bed at that hour, she had thought she’d—sensed him, as it were. Like an energy within the house had shifted; a tension pervading the residence with his arrival. “Do you…know what was said?”
“Some,” Felicity said. “Anthony took him to task, as expected. Though Lord Lockhart said he’d call again.”
Grace levered herself up onto her elbows, and the cold cloth slid from her forehead onto her chest with a wet plop.
“What?” she asked, jaw slack. “Anthony didn’t succeed in running him off?
” How was that possible? No suitor she had refused had come out of a meeting with Anthony with anything less than shredded pride and their metaphorical tails tucked between their legs.
“Surprisingly, no,” Felicity said. “I wouldn’t have thought Lord Lockhart had it in him.”
Neither would Grace. What man in his position, forced to tender a proposal of marriage for the sake of propriety, would not have been relieved to learn that he was going to escape unscathed? That he would be neither expected nor required to sacrifice himself on account of his mistake?
The thought curdled her stomach. She sank back down and slapped the cloth once more over her eyes, which had begun to water. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m not going to marry him.” But it broke her heart just a little more to say it out loud.
When had he become capable of shattering it?
She had never let anyone else touch it. Even those cruel words which other people had often cast at her had been to no effect; she had not let them damage her heart, nor her self-confidence, nor even her self-esteem.
She knew exactly how little their opinions mattered, knew precisely who she was, and had long since learned her own worth. It had just—
It had just hurt so deeply to learn that Henry had not.