It was too late to take Lord Kent aside and ask the man’s permission to court his daughter—he imagined word of his courtship would have already reached Lord Kent’s ears since he hadn’t been making a secret about his intentions. What he really wanted to do as he arrived for dinner was press Grace again to marry him, but if the way she’d been holding herself aloof from him was any indication, she wasn’t any more likely to accept today than she’d been the first time he asked. He was frustrated with his lack of progress and couldn’t fathom what more she wanted from him. They were compatible physically—there was no way an innocent could have faked her reaction to his touch—and before he’d discovered her true identity, their conversation had been free and easy. Why, then, was it so impossible for him to figure out what she was thinking? Worse, he was beginning to fear that his courtship was just as uncomfortable for her as Freddie’s had been. He wanted Grace to come to him freely, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to wait for that. But the opposite—leaving Somerset without her—seemed equally impossible to him.
As he stepped into the drawing room, his eyes immediately sought out Grace, but he found only her parents and her sister.
He greeted them each in turn, somehow holding himself back from asking if Grace would be joining them. It occurred to him that she hadn’t yet pled a headache to escape having to see him.
It was Lady Kent who gave voice to his concern. “I have no idea what is taking Grace so long. Perhaps I should go up and check on her.”
“Oh, that is my fault,” Helen said. “My maid was feeling unwell, so I sent her back to bed and used Grace’s maid. I’m afraid I monopolized her terribly when I was getting dressed.” She smiled at Edward. “I’m sure Grace will be down soon.”
Her overly bright response had him suspecting she was hiding something, but he merely nodded. All that mattered was that Grace planned to join them.
He heard her step on the stairs before he saw her, and he was grateful for the moment to prepare himself for her arrival because when she stepped into the doorway of the drawing room, he almost swallowed his tongue. The gown she wore wasn’t exactly risqué, but it showed far more of her than he was used to seeing. When she stood still, the fabric of her lavender dress fell in a straight line from under her bosom, but when she moved it molded lovingly to her curves—curves he was intimately familiar with—for a brief second before falling back into place.
But overshadowing the way her gown offered quick glimpses at the lithe body beneath was just how much of her upper chest was on display. The neckline wasn’t scandalously low—he’d seen far more revealing dresses during his time on the continent—but it showed more than enough to remind him what it had felt like to touch her there and rain kisses on her breasts. To suck one rosy-tipped peak into his mouth, then the other…
His trousers were starting to become too tight and he had to look away. He caught the twin expressions of surprise on Lord and Lady Kent’s faces and he half hoped they would send her back upstairs to choose a different gown. Good Lord, how was he supposed to behave like a gentleman in front of Grace’s parents when all he wanted to do was pull their daughter into another room and renew his intimate acquaintance with her?
When nothing of the sort happened, he crossed to where Grace stood and bent over her hand. He could feel every eye in the room boring into his back.
“You look lovely tonight, Miss Kent.”
She returned his greeting with a slight curtsy. “It is so nice to see you again, Captain.”
Was it his imagination, or was her voice warmer than it had been since the truth about her identity had been revealed? That might have been wishful thinking on his part, but he wasn’t imagining the way she smiled up at him. Or that she wasn’t wearing Freddie’s locket.
He tore his gaze away from hers when Lord Kent remarked that he was famished and ready to go in to dinner. Grace’s father rose and offered an arm to his wife and the other to Helen, while Edward did the same for Grace. As he waited for the others to precede them, he was powerless to stop his gaze from dipping to her neckline before he forced himself to drag it back to her face. Grace said nothing, but her raised eyebrow made it clear she had noticed his interest.
“You can hardly blame me,” he said softly in reply to her unspoken observation before following the others down the hall and into the dining room.
Since theirs wasn’t a formal dinner party, the numbers were uneven. He’d hoped to regain his composure by putting some distance between himself and Grace, but when he crossed the threshold, he saw that Lady Trenton had already seated herself on the side of the table with only one place setting. That left him with no other option than to help Grace into her seat and take the one next to her.
He expected that under the watchful eye of Grace’s parents and older sister, he’d be able to regain control of his wayward desire, but it almost seemed as though Grace and Helen were conspiring to make that impossible. Whenever he tried to engage Lord or Lady Kent, one of them would drag the conversation back to something Grace knew much about. He couldn’t ignore how much he missed her and the closeness they had so briefly shared when he had to look down at her where she sat beside him. Her décolletage beckoned at the edge of his vision, but for the most part, he managed not to let his eyes stray in that direction. It was bad enough that Grace had caught him staring at her breasts—he didn’t relish the rest of her family witnessing his admiration of her charms.
Grace was no closer to knowing if Captain Hathaway could ever come to love her, but her light flirtation with him at dinner had succeeded in showing her that he was not indifferent to her. For the first time since he’d learned her true identity, he’d behaved as though he actually enjoyed her company.
Gone was the stiff, formal demeanor he’d adopted when he’d decided to court her. She’d made every effort to engage his attention over dinner, and while she knew he’d found it almost impossible to keep his eyes from straying to her neckline, he’d also been attentive to what she’d said. It hadn’t taken her long to go from forcing herself to act more open in his presence to feeling more than a little giddy at the attention he was showing her. Her spirits had lifted every time she’d caught a hint of heated promise in his eyes.
More than anything, she wanted to follow through on that promise with him.
She’d been allowing her pride to put up barriers where none were needed. If she hadn’t rejected Edward’s proposal of marriage, if she hadn’t behaved as though she wanted nothing more than to be quit of his presence when he came to call, she knew now that she could have thawed much of his cool facade. She’d tried to push him away simply because he hadn’t fallen prostrate at her feet and declared his undying love for her.
But she wanted this man like no other. He might never come to love her, but they did share a special connection, one that she had never felt with any other man. Not even Freddie.
When the meal ended and it was time for the ladies to leave the men, Edward moved behind her and drew her chair back. He took that opportunity to speak to her in a voice low enough so only she could hear. “I need to see you in private.”
His words, together with his warm breath on her neck, caused a slight shiver to go through her. She met his gaze and nodded before leaving the room with her mother and sister.
“Well, that was interesting,” her mother said as they made their way down the hallway to the drawing room where they would wait for the men to finish their port.
“Indeed,” said Helen, her smile threatening to engulf her face as she beamed at Grace. “The captain couldn’t take his eyes off you.”
She’d hoped for just that outcome, had schemed with her sister to try to make him reveal his interest in her, but she couldn’t rejoice yet. Before she could take that final step with the captain, she had to close the door on the guilt that threatened to suffocate her whenever she thought of Freddie. She needed to read his letter before she and Edward had that private conversation. Only then would she be free to contemplate a future with him.
“There is something I must do,” Grace said when they reached the drawing room. “I’ll rejoin you in a few minutes.”
She didn’t wait to see what Helen or her mother would say but turned and made her way upstairs. When she entered her bedroom, she walked over to her writing desk and opened the top drawer to retrieve Freddie’s letter.
She lowered herself into the chair, took a deep breath, and broke the seal. Her resolve almost faltered when she spied her dear friend’s familiar scrawl. Her heart told her to put the missive back in the drawer, but her head reasoned that she needed to do this. There could be no future until she had laid the past to rest.
She took another deep breath and began to read.
My dearest Grace,
You already know how much I admire you. I have made no secret of my plans for our future in my other letters, and bless you, you have said nothing to contradict them.
But what you don’t know is that I realize I have done you a great disservice. I know you do not return the depth of my affection, but that knowledge did not stop me from putting you in an untenable situation in offering for you when I did. I knew exactly what I was doing… I knew you had no choice but to agree to marry me when, if I’d asked at any other time, you would have rejected my suit. I can only say I hoped that with time apart you would come to miss me and realize that your feelings were deeper than you’d imagined. But your letters in reply to mine, while balms for my soul, have made me realize that your affection for me does not go beyond that which comes after many years of friendship.
It is important that you know I had intended to release you from your promise when I returned home. I love you too much to live with the knowledge that I had trapped you in a marriage you did not desire. I would rather retain you as a dear friend than see you every day and know that you do not love me in the way that I crave. With any other woman, a marriage based on friendship would suffice, but never with you. I want more or, barring that, nothing at all.
I plan to entrust Captain Hathaway with delivering this letter to you, but I am asking you to tell him that I have kept something from him. He knows I have lost a leg and believes I will be returning home. But the doctor has told me there is no hope and the expressions of sympathy I see on the nurses’ faces when they change my bandages underscore that prognosis. The wounds I received have festered, and I have been told that I will soon succumb to them. Even now I feel my thoughts beginning to cloud from the fever. I dare not tell the Captain and have sworn the doctor and nurses to silence because I know he is too good. If he suspected, he would prevent me from doing what needs to be done. Please do me this one last favor and put his mind at ease.
I am, as ever, yours in love and friendship,
Freddie
“Oh, Freddie.”
Grace’s heart clenched, and a new wave of grief at losing her friend engulfed her.