Never a Gentleman (34 page)

“You can surely afford me this much, Diccan,” she said, her voice suddenly thin.

Diccan thought he would never forgive himself for that. He tilted his head, tapping his glass against his chin as if considering.
“I can afford disobedience and humiliation? I think not. How would it look if, after all I’ve sacrificed for her, my wife
simply walked off? Why, it could ruin my reputation as the most desirable man in Europe.”

Behind him, he heard a smothered titter and knew that when this was over he would personally destroy Letitia Thornton.

“I won’t punish you this time, Grace,” he said. “Your friends may stay. The house can’t be left empty, after all. But you
will return home. When I get back I will make up for my unforgivable lapse and examine the details of your dowry with your
solicitor. And that includes whatever it is you’ve been hiding from me in those crates.”

She backed up, as if guarding a baby from a wolf. “No.”

Diccan lifted an eyebrow. “No?”

“Are you sure she hasn’t been stealing from you?” Smythe asked in languid tones. “Maybe she thought to meet her lover here
and spirit your valuables to the Continent before you knew it.”

He would destroy Smythe right after Lydia Thornton. “Grace?” he asked.

She straightened, a soldier facing a firing squad. The two other women came to her side and took up similar stances. He had
eyes only for Grace. Was he ridiculous to hope she saw through his words? That she would just
believe he didn’t mean any of this, even though there was no proof?

“You may take the house,” she said quietly. “You may even have Epona, although she’ll never let you on her back. But I’ve
spent my life gathering what’s here. It’s mine, and I’ll burn it before I give it to you.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Grace,” he snapped, losing patience. “What can you possibly have that’s worth such melodramatics?”

“Silver,” Thornton said, his voice thick with delight. “Gold. The Hilliard family jewels. Smythe’s right. Better take a look.”

Diccan didn’t answer. He stalked up, suddenly as curious as his friends to see what his wife thought worth defending as if
it were an infant. Pushing her aside, he reached into the crate, wanting this at an end. Wanting desperately to be away from
her stricken face. Grace tried to shove him back. She actually cried out. He grabbed the first thing he felt and pulled it
out.

A pillow.

An emerald green silk pillow with gold tassels and an ornate gold needlwork peacock. Diccan stared at it as if would explain
itself. He threw it down and reached into the crate again, only to come out with more of the same: pillows in jewel tones,
a sinfully soft gold paisley Kashmiri throw, seemingly endless lengths of silks in hot colors: orange, pink, chartreuse, yellow.
He walked to the next crate, and the next, only to find them precisely packed with more pillows, more fabric, glints of brass
and beads and bangles. He even saw a girdle worn for belly dancing.

“What the hell?”

He recognized it all, of course. The booty of an oriental
merchantman. The interior of a vizier’s tent. The color and texture and sounds of exotic lands most people could never even
hope to see.

He stepped to the next crate to find beadwork. Basketwork. Fringed doeskin so soft and white it seemed like something out
of fairytale. Furs and feathers and fabrics from America. Lifting out a red woven blanket, he stepped back, his breath caught
somewhere in his chest. He looked to his wife and saw the jagged edge of grief in her eyes, and he knew. He had just violated
her in the most terrible way. He held in his hands the secret heart of Grace Fairchild.

Grace, who had spent her life in grays to support her father, who had squeezed herself into pastels and propriety to please
him, kept her true soul hidden away in closed packing crates in the middle of Berkshire.

Color. Texture. Richness. The jewels of the earth and the arts of humankind, handmade in lands far from England. Boxes and
boxes of them, lovingly gathered, packed away over the years until she could recover them. And he had not only exposed that
frail beating heart to the vultures, he had tossed it thoughtlessly on the floor.

“Good Lord, Hilliard,” he heard Thornton sneer. “It’s worse than burglary. I think your little wife is going to set up shop.”

Diccan saw the words impact Grace like a fatal blow. Dropping the blanket, he slowly turned, quizzing glass once again up.
“I believe I told you once before, Thornton. There are certain things I simply cannot allow.” His eyes narrowed as Thornton
stiffened. “Surely you understand.”

The fat peer flushed. “Quite. Quite. Just fagged, don’t you know. Lot of driving. Parched.”

“Excellent thought,” Diccan retorted, arms out to
shepherd all the guests back out of the gallery. “Sadly, Grace isn’t a tippler. But I saw a snug little inn back in the village
that will do.”

He had to get them out of here before he gave himself away by losing his temper. He had to have the time and space to make
sure Grace went back to London.

“Discretion and valour, my dears,” he said, chivvying them back outside. “You can enjoy a late lunch while I finish this with
my wife.”

“It looks to me like you’re in full retreat, Diccan,” Letitia simpered.

Diccan quirked an eyebrow. “I simply reserve the right to deal with my wife in private,” he said as he guided her outside.
“You understand, Letitia. After all, how would you feel if Percy here chastised you in public for that latest little gambling
lapse?”

Thornton went puce. “Gambling? Letitia, what have I told you?”

Letitia glared daggers at Diccan, but she said not another word. That was left to Minette, when she saw them outside. “She
doesn’t come with us, the cripple? Oh, that is good. It hurts me such the most to look at her.”

He didn’t even bother to answer.

“You do need to settle this,” Smythe said gently so the others couldn’t hear. “You need all your concentration soon for the
honor I’m about to bestow.”

Diccan went very still. Every one of his instincts told him that he was about to receive the payoff for all those weeks of
hell. “Honor?” he asked, striving to sound intrigued.

Smythe smiled. “I could do no less for a friend. Especially one who hates Wellington.”

“And one who can be trusted to control his own family?” Diccan asked.

Smythe chuckled and Diccan joined him as they both climbed into the coach. Diccan knew without doubt that the entire mission
balanced on Smythe’s invitation. And yet, he couldn’t focus on it as he should. His mind was on his wife as he’d last seen
her, posture regal, eyes desolate. How could he ever make it up to her? How could he expect her to allow him to?

He had an inkling of how successful he was going to be at that when he returned to Longbridge an hour later on a job horse.
He was still a hundred yards from the house when Grace made her opinion known in no uncertain terms. He heard a sharp crack,
and his hat flew from his head.

His horse shied. He hauled it to a stop, nervously scanning the horizon for enemies. He shouldn’t have wasted the effort.
His wife, decked out in her Guards jacket, was standing on the roof reloading a Baker’s rifle. Standing shoulder to shoulder
with her, all armed, were the Harpers, the frail Indian woman he’d seen, and a dark man in purple turban and magnificent beard
who dwarfed them all.

“Grace,” Diccan called, sitting very still. “Stop being petulant.”

She shouldered the gun. “I’m not being petulant, Diccan. And you’re not getting my house.”

I
f Grace hadn’t been armed, Diccan might have laughed out loud in pure frustration. Of all the outcomes of this trip, this
was the last one he could have envisioned. But then, he was dealing with Grace, and when had he ever expected her to follow
the rules?

All the time
, he admitted to himself. It had been his greatest mistake. Nudging his horse closer, he kept his eyes on the various weapons
that were being brandished on the roof. “If you’re all up there,” he challenged, “who’s keeping me from the front door?”

Harper let loose a shrill whistle. Immediately the front door swung wide to reveal a pack of men in a variety of tattered
uniforms, brandishing everything from Brown Bess muskets to pitchforks.

“They’re helping me with the gardens,” Grace said.

Of course they were. The idea of law wouldn’t hold sway with men who owed Grace their living. She’d probably had them all
eating out of her hand within five minutes of meeting her. And Diccan couldn’t explain why she would be safer in London, because
she probably wouldn’t
be. But if she was away, he’d worry constantly. If she were home, with his people, at least he had marginal control.

“Grace, please,” he called, bareheaded, so she could presumably see his sincerity. “We can’t talk like this for all the county
to hear.”

She tamped a bullet home and pulled the ramrod up out of the gun, her actions smooth and quick. “I don’t remember expressing
a desire to talk,” she said evenly.

“I can have the constable here in twenty minutes to force you out.”

It was her turn to smile, and he saw that warrior in her again, which aroused him more than anything had in a week. Lord,
it even seemed as if her hair was redder. “Would you like another demonstration of how proficient I am with a rifle?” she
asked.

“I suppose it was another thing your father’s men made you practice.”

She smiled. “95th Rifles. They trained me to pip an ace at four hundred yards. If you don’t return to your friends, I’ll be
happy to show you.”

“They’re not my friends.”

“What?”

He pressed his knuckles to his head, as if it would ease the ache behind his eyes. How could he make her do what he needed,
when he was on her side? When he thought she looked bloody magnificent up in the sunlight in her old red Guards jacket? God,
he could still see her deep in the night, riding him like a hunter heading for a fence, her head thrown back, her eyes wide,
laughing. He’d seen her dimples again, those shy twins that only peeped out when she let down her guard.

She’d let down her guard. And he’d punished her for it.

“Grace, please. You know that everything isn’t always as it seems. Can I at least explain?”

“Will you tell the truth?”

He almost winced. “Of course.”

She nodded absently, tucking her gun under her arm like a man on the march. “Well, that will be a novelty. I don’t think I’ve
been told the truth since the bishop pronounced us man and wife.” She paused a moment, seemingly struck. “You don’t think
he lied, too, do you?”

“No, Grace.” It was Diccan’s turn to smile. “No matter how it grieves you, Cousin Charles is far too cognizant of his stature
as Archbishop of Canterbury to go about performing illegal marriages. You are, indeed, my wife.”

She nodded slowly. “And I stand on the roof of your house. On your land. Eating your food. I did get the message, Diccan.
Even so, if you try and force me out of this house, I’ll put a bullet in you.”

Diccan looked up, ready to argue, when he caught the hollow look of loss in Grace’s eyes. It struck him, a physical blow to
the gut. He wanted so badly to tell her he understood. That he never would have allowed that carrion in the house if he’d
known about her treasures. But he couldn’t say a word. Not out in the open.

“Can we call a truce until I can speak to you?” he asked. “I promise not to notify the constable if you promise not to let
one of these lads skewer me with a pitchfork.”

For a long moment, he wasn’t sure she’d answer. She just stood up there, the sun glinting brightly off her hair, her eyes
narrowed in concentration, her friends silently watching.

Finally she sighed and set down her gun. “Don’t move.”

With a battalion of old soldiers holding him in their sights
?
Not likely
, he thought.

Within minutes, the group in the doorway parted to let Grace through. Diccan swung from his horse and met her at the bottom
of the stairs.

“All right,” she said, her calm belied by the high color on her face. “I’m listening.”

She was suddenly so close he could smell the exotic floral scent of her soap. She’d lost weight, and she looked paler. At
the same time, she had a curious glow to her, a life he hadn’t seen before, as if London had been sapping it away like a pernicious
leech. He wanted to hold her and tell her that he liked this Grace. That he would never hurt her. He wanted to make love to
her again. Not sex. He’d had sex with Minette. But he doubted Grace would stand still while he explained the difference.

There was so much he needed to say that he couldn’t think of anything. He cast a quick look to the roof. “Who are your friends?”

She blinked. Then she, too, cast a quick look up. “Harper you know. And Breege, his wife. Radhika and Bhanwar Singh. Bhanwar
is my chef.”

“Nonsense. I recognize the turban and beard. Bhanwar is a Sikh warrior.”

“That, too.”

“He must be devoted to you to have left India behind.”

She shrugged. “It was better than being killed for taking the local mughal’s concubine.”

Had she spent her whole life taking care of people, he wondered? Had she ever wanted anything for herself but the security
to open those boxes inside her house? Suddenly he wanted to know. He wanted to know everything he hadn’t thought to ask before:
what her dreams were, her desires, her solace. What excited her and what eased her
soul. He was ashamed to admit that even after these last weeks, he really didn’t know any of it.

God, he wished he could just take her hand and walk in that house, and the hell with the Rakes and the Grenadiers and the
blasted government. Let someone else risk their lives to protect England. Leave him alone to become acquainted with this complex,
compelling woman.

It made him feel no better to know that he couldn’t. More was at stake than his peace of mind, or even his wife’s. So he had
to force her back into this bad fit of a marriage and slog on until the time he could explain it all. Until, he hoped, she
forgave him.