Never a Gentleman (24 page)

Said as if he would be relieved to see her go. And oh, she was tempted. It had been the dream that had always sustained her.
The future she had so carefully constructed in her mind. She would build a small life of contentment: walking land that was
her own, riding Epona pell-mell across country. Nurturing the little family she’d gathered, and collecting new friends like
flowers.

She wanted to have tea with the vicar’s wife and help organize a fete. She wanted to learn how to churn butter and put up
fruit for the winter. She wanted quiet and normalcy and the precious comfort of routine. She wanted to set her roots so deep
into Berkshire soil that she became
indistinguishable from the native flora. Instead she had been sentenced to a life amid the brittle artifice of a society that
respected few of her talents and none of her qualities, and where, if she were ever to mean something to Diccan, she would
have to stay.

Her heart broke a little more; she could feel it bleed inside of her. But she kept smiling. “Indeed, no,” she replied.

The second blow intruded on her gradually. Her watcher was back. Oh, she didn’t see him often, and it was often different
men. But she’d grown up around strategy, and she recognized the maneuver, no matter that this lurker was in mufti and not
in Rifleman green.

“Have you seen the man who lurks on the street around the house?” she asked Harper as they set out for a ride.

Only the man wasn’t there. He seemed to slip away every time there was a witness, and then smile when he returned. It was
beginning to unsettle her, stealing her comfort. She wasn’t mad. But the more she questioned other people, the more they looked
at her as if she were. And the more they did, the more she fought the growing urge to keep looking over her shoulder.

Lady Castlereagh didn’t see the man either when she stopped by. But she was distracted by the news she had to deliver. “My
dear, I’m afraid it has been brought to my attention that you are caring for patients in the Army Hospital,” the grande dame
said over tea in Grace’s new blue salon. “Donating sums is fine, of course, but there has been talk that you care for common
men in ways that must shock and dismay any woman of breeding. It’s simply not done, Grace.”

Teapot in hand, Grace paused. “I am doing nothing different than I did in the Peninsula.”

“But now you are married to a rising diplomat,” the
sharp-eyed woman said. “He might not have much standing yet, but he has potential. You don’t want to destroy his chances.”

And so the next day Grace informed the head matron that instead of caring for the soldiers whom the
ton
had forgotten, she must sit in her pale blue rooms sipping tea with women who didn’t like her.

It was there Diccan’s mother found her four days later, to deliver the worst blow of all. Sweeping into the room like a winter
storm, Lady Evelyn barely waited for Grace to order tea before attacking. “I know you can’t help it, considering who your
mother is,” she said in her most arch voice as she settled on the cream sofa. “But I cannot allow you to make the Hilliard
name a byword.”

Grace felt her ire rise. “I have already quit the Army Hospital, if that is what you mean.”

Lady Evelyn huffed impatiently. “I have no interest in your little hobbies. It is your amours I speak of. Even your mother
didn’t flaunt her affairs while she was married.”

Grace found herself blinking, completely flummoxed. “My
what
?”

But she had to wait for the answer. Just then her new butler entered and served tea. Grace saw Lady Evelyn’s lip curl when
Roberts limped by, his head tilted just a bit so he could see out of his good eye.

It was all Grace could do to keep from giving the woman a piece of her mind. Grace was particularly proud of Roberts. Three
weeks ago he had been one of her patients, just as two of the footmen had been. One of the grooms had lost a hand at Vimiero
and the gardener, his leg on a ship of the line. And Diccan’s mother had the gall to find them distasteful?

“Well, I don’t have to wonder why Diccan chooses never
to be home, do I?” Lady Evelyn asked the minute the door closed behind Roberts. “How can you allow such a creature to be in
his employ?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Grace retorted dryly. “Christian charity, perhaps?”

If it were possible, his mother grew colder, her eyes glittering.

“You were speaking about something before Roberts came in,” Grace said, rather than have to respond to another set-down. “What
was it?”

Lady Evelyn reached for her teacup. “Your behavior. Did you truly think the
ton
would countenance your disappearing every morning with a man who is not your husband?” Her face creased with distaste. “You
don’t even have the saving grace to have good taste. He is
scarred.
But then, after seeing
that—
” She gestured to the closed door. “I’m not really surprised.”

Grace found herself on her feet. “Thank you for your concern, Lady Evelyn. I realize you took time out of your busy schedule
to see me. I know how glad you’ll be to have concluded your business.”

She caught Lady Evelyn with her cup in the air. Grace simply waited, her stare implacable.

Setting the cup down, Lady Evelyn rose to her feet like a queen serving sentence. “You think I won’t cut off my son to protect
the Hilliard name? Please don’t be so foolish.”

Which meant that if no one else ruined Grace for her friendships, Lady Evelyn would be pleased to do it herself.

“Since I respect your son so much,” Grace conceded, her hands clenched so tightly her knuckles hurt, “when I ride in the country
I will limit my companions to my groom, who is an old retainer.”

Lady Evelyn responded with a barely raised eyebrow. “Your faithful groom, who would think nothing of accompanying you to a
tryst? I think not.
Ladies
ride in the park.”

By the time Grace ushered the old besom out five minutes later, she felt as if she’d been run over by a gun carriage. “Roberts,”
she told the butler, staring bleakly at the closed front door. “I need to send a message to Major Kit Braxton.”

Kit came within the hour. Grace received him in the increasingly claustrophobic blue parlor.

“Kit, I’m afraid I won’t be able to continue our morning rides. They’ve been… remarked upon.”

He frowned. “I don’t understand.”

So she explained, smiling as if it didn’t matter.

“There isn’t a damn thing wrong with our rides,” he protested.

Grace shrugged. “Nevertheless, I must end them. I’m trying so hard to fit in, Kit. I can’t let Lady Evelyn destroy everything.
And she would, without hesitation.”

Kit jumped to his feet and began to pace. All Grace could seem to see was his empty right sleeve, the ropy scars along the
side of his face and neck that betrayed the terrible injuries he’d suffered at Toulouse. Lady Evelyn would waste not a thought
on what her slander would do to Kit. A
scarred
man. One of the most valiant men Grace knew.

“How
dare
she?” Kit demanded. “You’re the innocent one in all this.”

“Oh, Kit.” She actually smiled. “You grew up in this society. When did you begin to believe it was fair?”

His answering grin was a bit bashful. “Point taken. But Grace, I didn’t come all the way home to help you just to stand aside.”

Grace felt her breath catch. “What do you mean, ‘to help me’?”

She realized then that Kit had said more than he’d intended to. An unnatural red crept up his neck. “You need support right
now. That’s all I’m going to say.”

Ah
, she thought, feeling even lower.
He thought to protect her from the mistress. Just how much more pitiful could she become?

Getting to her feet, she took Kit’s hand. “If you want to help, do me two favors. Find out who that man is who is following
me. And take me for a ride in the park this afternoon.”

He searched her face, as if reassuring himself that she would survive.
Oh,
she thought, keeping her smile solidly in place.
She would survive. She always did. But, Christ, it hurt.

Finally he kissed her cheek. “I’ll be by at four.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d also appreciate the loan of a horse.”

That brought him to a halt. “What about Epona?”

She kept smiling by force of will alone. “Epona is going home.”

It took her two hours to work up the courage to face Harper with the news. She walked out to the mews to find him grooming
her girl.

“You can’t really mean to send her back, lass,” the Irishman protested, his homely features screwed up in distress.

Grace felt as if her heart were being torn out. Epona whickered, and Grace stroked her silky nose. “I can’t keep her here.
If I can’t give her a good run, she’ll waste away. You know that.”

She knew he did. Epona lived to race. If Grace limited
her to Hyde Park, she would ruin her. She just wished Diccan hadn’t been thoughtful enough to bring her up here. It was so
much harder to send her back. Grace thought it might just be the thing that broke her.

“Sure, you’ll not let those sharp-nosed tabbies keep you from ridin’ altogether,” Harps protested, his blunt hand against
Epona’s withers.

“Of course not. But in the park. Chaperoned. At a walk, just like every other lady of the
ton
.”

Harper cursed as if she said she was going to be clapped in irons. She might as well have been.

“I don’t like leaving you,” Harps said. “Not with himself workin’ so hard to shame you.”

“I can’t trust anyone else to see her safely home,” Grace said, staring out to the late flowers in her back garden. “Besides,
Harps, there’s nothing you can do. I have to work this out for myself.”

Harper snorted. “Oh, there’s somethin’ I can do, all right. I guess ’ll just leave it to the lads.”

She faced him, her voice unyielding. “Not them either.”

He didn’t say a word. She couldn’t. So she walked away, and thought she could hate Diccan for this. She wasn’t sure how much
more she could lose. Lady Castlereagh had taken her work, and Diccan’s mother had taken her escape. And Diccan? He might very
well have taken her hope.

She had been abandoned before, and she’d lived through it. But she’d always had work to occupy her, the open country to soothe
her, her horses to set her free. Now she had nothing.

That wasn’t right, she thought as she returned to the blue parlor that seemed to have become a prison. She had her friends.
But her friends couldn’t fill the growing emptiness
inside her. They couldn’t replace a husband who had suddenly found something better to do than be with his wife. A husband
who had made it so much worse by softening her defenses with attention before turning away.

And what was she to do with all that inconvenient longing? She’d been living on hope that soon he would find his way back
to her bed. How could he want to, when his mistress had joined him? Grace had seen her once, a lovely armful of blond, as
her father would have said. A laughing, sensual bonbon, the type of woman who would make even Kate pale in comparison. How
could Grace hate him for wanting her? How could she ever think to compete? How long could she try?

She revisited that thought the next morning when she came down to breakfast to meet Diccan coming in the front door.

“What’s this about you sending Epona away?” he demanded. “I just brought her up for you.”

He was still in his evening clothing, rumpled and smelling of smoke and brandy, and unbearably appealing. At least, Grace
thought wearily, he didn’t smell of perfume. She might just have coshed him over the head with one of the brand-new Wedgwood
urns if he’d come home smelling of perfume.

“I can’t keep her here if I can only ride her in the park,” she said, standing a step above him. “And for now, I can’t ride
her anywhere else unless you’re with me. People have been talking.”

“Well,
damn
people!” he snapped, throwing down his top hat so hard that it bounced on the black marble floor.

Grace couldn’t take her eyes off of it as it rolled toward her feet. “You might want to pick that up,” she said, beset
by the strangest urge to giggle. “Roberts only has sight in one eye. He’ll never see it against the marble.”

“That’s another thing,” Diccan snapped, walking right up to the stairs where she stood. “What are you doing hiring a one-eyed
butler with a limp?”

His words, so closely mirroring his mother’s, widened the crack in her resolve. “Ah,” she said, feeling suddenly hollow and
cold. “You see my point about sending Epona home. Just as with Roberts, people must have enough time to overlook my more unsightly
flaws before they accept me.”

And before he could argue, she swept past him and into the breakfast room, not bothering to mask her lurching gait. She prayed
he didn’t follow.

He did, damn him. But he came only as far as the doorway. “Grace. I’m sorry. That was ugly of me. It’s just… I’m really tied
up in something right now, and it’s destroyed my patience.”

She couldn’t bear to face him again, so she focused on settling into her seat. “Of course. Will I see you at the Lievens’
tonight?”

For a long moment she was answered only with silence. Then Diccan sighed, as if he had no strength left. “Of course. I have
an appointment first, though. Will you go with Kate?”

Benny, the new second footman, arrived to pour her morning coffee.

“I imagine she’ll take me up,” Grace said, pouring cream into slow eddies in her coffee.

“Wear your bronze tonight,” he suggested. “I particularly like it.”

Of course she wore the bronze. She wished she had the fortitude to tell him to go to the devil, but she kept hoping. And,
just when she despaired, he kept being kind.

She did have a moment of hesitation. It was in the afternoon, when she called for Schroeder to help her change. There wasn’t
an answer for the longest time, and then Grace heard a knock on Diccan’s door and Benny’s voice. A murmur, an anxious query,
a woman’s chuckle.

Schroeder. Grace recognized the timbre of her voice. How had Benny known to look for her in Diccan’s room?