Chapter 14
TOGETHER THEY EXITED the home, Grace fastening the buttons of her habit jacket as they approached the horses.
“Ready?” Benedict asked. The shoulders of his coat were a darker blue than the rest of it, beleaguered as they were by the rain that dropped lightly but steadily on them.
She straightened the coat and nodded, looking up at him.
He was closer than she’d expected, his boots grazing the hem of her gown.
His eyes held hers a long moment before wrapping his hands around her waist. She hadn’t time for shock, because with little effort, he lifted her onto the horse, her sides feeling the warmth and pressure of his grip even after he released her.
But he didn’t immediately move, his hand against the mare’s neck and his chest against her knee.
“Let us go directly to your home,” he said. “It is closer than mine by the main road. Then we need not be out in the rain so long.”
With her agreement, he patted the horse and moved to his, swinging into the saddle with athletic grace.
“Did you recall anything else while with Mrs. Turner?” he asked as he urged the horse into movement.
Grace shook her head. “Nothing in particular. I did feel more… relaxed there, though. More so than in my home, even. It was familiar.” She shifted a little, eyes darting to his. “Which did make me think…”
His hand lay lightly upon his thigh, his gaze on her as their horses walked in tandem, awaiting her words.
“My father earned his fortune in trade. I am very far beneath you in status, you know. We would not even have spoken seven years ago.”
His eyes narrowed on her. “I would thank you to not disparage the woman I am courting.” He leaned over, gently grasping Grace’s reins and directing her horse around an outcropping of rocks. He caught her eye with a grin.
Her cheeks flushed. She felt as if she were laying out every reason he ought not to court her.
One by one, bricking them in place, just waiting for the one that would make the load too heavy for him to bear.
“And I… I was betrothed before, as well.” She tried to say the words unhurriedly, forcing them to come out sounding natural, but she watched his reaction closely.
His jaw worked, but his eyes remained ahead. Had he known? “Did Mrs. Turner tell you of that?”
She shook her head, beginning to feel the wet seeping beneath her collar. At least home was growing closer. “She knew nothing of it. I suppose it hardly matters, but perhaps that man saw something in me that caused him to, well, change his mind.”
“No,” Benedict said. “That was not it at all.”
Confusion took her and she looked over at him.
He swallowed. “I need to tell you something, Grace. I should have before now, but I was… I am afraid you will not forgive me.”
Her brows flew up. “What?” Her home was just visible down the lane. Subconsciously, she slowed her horse. Despite the weather, she needed more time with him.
He swallowed. Her heart grew hot to watch his discomfort. What was this about?
“You must know,” he began, “that I was unaware of the betrothal. My mother kept it from me.”
Her betrothal? Or did he speak of his? It made… but it made no sense at all. A pounding had begun in her ears, but she strained around it, needing to hear what he said.
“I never meant to hurt you.” Rain fell between them, picking up speed and blurring his features. “Grace… I was your betrothed. I was the man who ruined everything that night.”
The movement of her horse seemed to slow as the words hit her. Her mind went blank before a dozen questions rushed in, none of them fully formed.
Beneath it all, there was pain, though. Old, familiar pain, creeping to the surface.
“But… you…” One question drifted above the rest. “You kissed someone? My mother said my betrothed kissed another.” She feared the answer. But needed it.
“I did. Or, a woman kissed me, but I recognize that is no excuse. And… Blast, I am not explaining myself well. I have told you I was not a gentleman, and I think my mother feared I would run if I…” He cursed again, as if seeing how horrible that sounded as well. He would have run from her?
She blinked drops of rain from her eyes. “Who? Did you love her?” A horrible thought joined the dozens of others. Had she taken him from someone? Had he loved another but could not have her?
Had his family forced him into this? To play at caring for her?
Rain fell faster still, and she envied the freedom. Her eyes burned with the effort of holding tears at bay.
“I did not. I hardly knew her.” He swallowed. “But you deserve to know everything. Should have known from the beginning. The woman that night… was Miss Lennox.”
Grace had not thought it could get any worse. Her fingers, face, and toes were all numb, but her chest burned terribly. She spurred her horse faster, needing to be home. Or at least to be away from this man and this conversation.
But her parents! They must have lied to her as well—or at least her mother. Had everyone been laughing at her expense all along?
“My lord!”
Grace ignored the yell from behind them, pressing forward through the deluge until Benedict himself shouted, his horse just behind her own.
“Grace!”
On reflex, she looked back.
Behind him, all the grooms had their horses off the road, and the reason was immediately clear. A pair of horses pulled a carriage through the increasing rain at a speed that was too fast for the weather.
Benedict moved faster than her mind. He leaned to her, grasping the reins and spurring his mount into action to pull them both to the side of the lane.
The movement removed her from the oncoming carriage, which flew past in a clatter of hooves, wheels, and sprayed rainwater, but she was set off balance, side-saddle as she was.
The moment seemed to suspend for longer than it ought to have. She distinctly felt the moment she could not recover her balance. The reins slipped from her hands; her foot tangled in the stirrup.
And she fell.
Someone yelled.
Then her head hit the ground, and all went black.
HANDS WERE ON her face; palms pressed to either side. Someone was speaking, but the words were as if said through a thick curtain.
A groan escaped her—had that truly come from her own mouth? Her head rang, her neck ached, and she felt as if she could not pull in breath properly. And she was wet. Cold and soaked through, with rain blanketing her face.
“Grace!” a familiar voice called. Or said. Yelled.
And then footsteps. Or hooves. Something running toward her with a pounding sound that reverberated within her skull.
She tried to stand but firm hands held her shoulders down. Something softer than the ground was put beneath her head.
And with great effort, she pried her eyelids open.
Benedict was there—though his visage was fuzzy—holding her face, saying her name. When their eyes connected, he seemed to slump back, though he did not release her.
“What hurts?” he asked, his voice ragged. “Blast it, Grace, I am so sorry.”
She tried to shake her head, but that was a mistake, and it made her groan again. She pressed her eyes closed.
Benedict’s hands left her face, but then his touch slid down her arms. “Did you injure anything else? Besides your head. Blast it all, your head!” He restrained the level of his voice, but the anger—and fear—still bled through his tense words.
A shudder wracked through her. Rain puddled beneath her, every splatter of water like a small hammer to her head.
“I think—” she began, opening her eyes. But then she froze. Where before, she had nearly seen two of his faces with her fuzzy eyesight, now it was an entirely different two colliding. She saw him as she’d come to see him now: caring, funny, charming. Dear.
But she also saw him as she’d found him to be before. Callous. Unfaithful.
Memory was flooding in, nearly as painful as her head itself. Everything he’d told her was true. Every painful piece was brought back to recollection with startling clarity.
She had been betrothed to him.
And he’d kissed another woman. Her best friend.
Another groan tore from her, but this time, the pain was far deeper than her skull.
“Grace? Grace!”
She recognized her parents’ voices but was in too much pain to turn her head. Someone must have collected them.
Benedict pulled away, replaced by her mother. Grace recalled more of her now too. The whole of the last several years.
And the truth that she must have kept her knowledge of Benedict from Grace. Might have orchestrated the entire thing.
Fatigue as heavy as a cloak settled over her. Apathy seeped in with it. She could not care now. She was too tired. Too hurt.
“We are going to take you inside, dear,” Mama said, her palm against the skin of Grace’s cheek. The touch was comforting, but nothing like Benedict’s. “Before you catch your death.”
She made a sound that must have been deciphered as agreement, for suddenly Mama stepped back.
“You and your men—can you carry her?” she asked of Benedict.
“Yes.” He looked down at Grace, on his knees in the muddy road beside her. “But I do not know if it is wise.”
“We cannot leave her here with this rain. It will be far more damaging to her!”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” He swallowed.
Grace’s father appeared at her other side, his expression somber as he knelt beside his eldest daughter. “We have you, my dear,” he murmured.
Benedict put his hand out. “I think, sir, it might be best if just one of us carries her, to avoid jostling her overmuch.”
Her father’s look was sharp. “And you are that man?”
The men looked at one another over her; Benedict’s gaze matched her father’s for intensity. “If you’ll allow it.”
Papa hesitated, then nodded.
Not missing a moment, Benedict slid his arms beneath her, pulling her to him. The movement caused sharp pain through her head, but then he tucked her against his chest, holding her as securely as he could and coming to his feet.
She couldn’t look at him. The pain was too great. Her heart hurt too much.
But despite her best efforts, a tear slid from the corner of her eye.
“I am so sorry, Grace,” he murmured, striding down the lane. A bustle of activity behind them indicated the horses and people were following. “So, so sorry.”
He seemed to be apologizing for the present and the past.
In an agonizingly long—and short—amount of time, he had her in the house. Mama ran ahead of them, barking orders to have the surgeon called and her room readied.
Benedict’s arms did not waver as he took the stairs and strode through the family wing.
Gasps sounded in the hall. How she wished to reassure everyone she would be just fine—but she could not even reassure herself.
With a marked tenderness, Benedict lowered her to her bed, gently sliding his arm out from beneath her.
He did not immediately move away either.
His eyes bore into hers. Then he pressed a kiss to her forehead.
Soft, gentle, and lingering. His warm breath thawed the chilled skin at her hairline.
But it couldn’t erase the pain, real and imagined.
Mama appeared beside him, her expression aghast. But Benedict was a mask of respectable calm.
Only his eyes and the way his hair appeared to have had a few too many agitated hands swept through it gave away some of the emotion she’d felt in that brief kiss.
“Take care of her,” he said to her, his words firm and commanding.
“And send word when you know more of her condition. Please.”
Mama gaped for a moment, then nodded. “Mr. Whitmore will see you out.” And she fairly pushed him from the bedside.
But Grace’s eyes followed him to the door of their own accord. The last thing she saw before he disappeared from the room was his familiar face, but with a haunted expression she was certain she’d never seen before. Not in the last week and a half, nor in her newly recollected memories.