Chapter Eight #3
He invited her one morning to join a ride with two of the children who had proved they were safe on quiet mounts without his having to walk alongside making sure they did not slide off.
He knew that Grace was an excellent horsewoman and thought she might enjoy the exercise, though it would not move at a pace to which she was accustomed.
She said no. She had promised to accompany her mama and Lady Stratton to the shop in the village.
Nicholas went riding without her.
It was very hard to find time alone with her, even in the presence of others.
While Owen and Winifred often sat in the drawing room after dinner, deep in conversation with each other, their heads almost touching, Grace always made sure she was part of a group.
It might include Nicholas, but she gave him no more attention than she gave anyone else.
It was perfect drawing room etiquette, of course.
But this was not a London drawing room filled with fashionable guests.
This was a relaxed family setting at Ravenswood.
It was a courtship setting, as everyone understood.
When she did talk exclusively to him, as might happen if he was seated next to her at the dining table or in the drawing room, she always gave him her full attention and the full force of her charm and her smile.
Her conversation was polished—and impersonal.
Sometimes he got drawn in by her sheer beauty and believed that they were close after all, that she was merely being cautious because most of the people surrounding her were little more than strangers.
But he was frustrated and a bit worried.
He wondered about her avoidance of the children.
Was it because of a basic shyness and unfamiliarity with them?
She had no siblings, after all, and therefore no nieces or nephews.
Or was it because of a definite aversion to children?
Would she be different with her own? Or would she be the sort of mother who would visit them in the nursery at an appointed hour each day and leave their upbringing and education to nurses and governesses?
That very real possibility filled him with misgiving.
And by God, he thought before the first week was out, he really did not know much about the woman he was now obliged to marry, did he?
Except that she was perfect—in ways that had seemed to matter before he considered reality as opposed to the ideal.
Who was Grace Haviland? It frankly terrified him that he did not know the answer.
Why had he not realized it before getting Devlin to invite her here and thus committing himself?
He knew why, though. He had given up seeking out the one woman who could make him happy and whom he could make happy.
He had given up on love and intuition and the heart and chosen instead to go with the head.
A head that had not been functioning as it ought.
A head that had considered beauty and dignity and perfect good manners to be enough.
He needed to discover if there was more to Grace than met the eye, however.
Surely there was. Though what could he do if there was not? There was nothing. He was committed.
The children brought his own childhood back to him with an ache of nostalgia.
He and his siblings had had the same sort of freedom as the Cunninghams had.
He had often used his to walk over to Cartref, where he would play for hours on end with Gwyneth or, when they were no longer young children, they would climb trees and lie along the limbs while sharing their dreams of the future.
But much of his time was spent at home. He and his older brothers—and Pippa—had constantly found scrapes to get into.
The younger children had squabbled endlessly until Ben or Devlin would threaten to bash their heads together, a threat that was never put to the test. Both their parents had been remarkably indulgent.
Mama had spent a great deal of time with them during the spring months while their father was in London, taking them on walks and picnics, rowing them all, a couple at a time, across the lake to the small island and playing imaginative games with them there. Or swimming with them.
Those had been good days. Unfortunately, the disastrous way they had ended had caused Nicholas to block out the memories as he concentrated upon making a success of his career.
He could not have those days back, of course.
They were irretrievable for all sorts of reasons.
But he could visit his family more often, and he could produce a family of his own.
He could hope that Grace’s ideas of child-rearing would not clash too drastically with his.
He knew Winifred’s did not. Her claim to adore her family was no empty boast. She even paid attention to the two who often held themselves apart.
She was always available to Andrew, communicating with him with the rudimentary sign language she had devised.
She was always patient with Robbie, who tended to glower suspiciously at the world from beneath heavy hair, which had been allowed to grow too long.
She would stand beside him, an arm loosely about his shoulders when he looked as if he might be about to erupt into a temper tantrum. He never turned his ire upon her.
Owen had the same open appreciation of children. If it was indeed courtship between the two of them, it boded well for the future. They seemed perfect for each other.
Ah, he could not keep himself from making the comparisons. He could not stop feeling a faint envy of his brother.
But what of Grace herself? She would almost certainly accept his marriage proposal.
But why? Because her parents were pressing it on her?
Because she was close to thirty and had decided it was time to put an end to her spinsterhood and the long years spent mourning the deaths of two fiancés? Had she loved either or both of them?
Did she love him?
He tried to tell himself that the answer did not really matter.
But then he would look at Devlin and Gwyneth and at his mother and Matthew Taylor, even at Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham, and know that it did matter.
The sooner he proposed marriage to Grace, the better it would be for him since it was something he could not avoid now.
But by God, he wished the visits of the Havilands and the Cunninghams had not coincided as they had.