Saving Grace (Fair Cyprians of London 1)

“Which letter?”

“The letter about going to Florence.”

Grace saw cognition register in David’s unseeing gaze as he asked, slowly, “So Grace agreed to let you photograph her provided you kept my secret?”

Laurence nodded but David couldn’t see. “Answer me!” he said harshly and Laurence burst out angrily, “Grace came to my studio and I arranged her as I would any other model.”

David obviously saw where this was going. Angrily he said, “Only you coerced her to remove her clothes.” The bitterness in his tone grew. “And she did because she thought it was the only way to keep my letter … my secret … my hopes safe from my mother.”

Laurence’s silence was answer enough.

Holding her breath, Grace watched David battle the silent fury within before he screamed, “And then you raped her!” Seizing his cousin by the shoulders he raised him with unnatural force and slammed his head into the floor.

Grace watched the violence with grim satisfaction, Laurence crying out with pain as David shouted, “You raped her and made her pregnant! Mama dismissed her. She had nowhere to go. Her life was destroyed because of you! All our plans were destroyed because of you!”

“David, stop!” Suddenly Grace was frightened by the extent of his rage as he continued to pound Laurence’s head upon the floor. His strength was being channelled from forces greater than any of them could control and Laurence’s life was in danger unless David could be calmed.

The sound of the door grinding open and Mrs Willowbank’s shock

ed cry made David drop his hands.

“My God, what is happening?” Mrs Willowbank rushed forward as David rose from Laurence’s chest. With a cursory glance at Grace she spat, “And you … Miss Fortune or whoever you are, get out! You’re the cause of this, aren’t you? I paid for a high-class prostitute, not a common whore.”

“How dare you, mother?” David warned in a low voice.

Mrs Willowbank spun round. “I want the slut out of here.”

“She’s not going anywhere.” David had risen. He stood, tall and straight. Confident. He took a challenging step forward and reached out for Grace, who stepped thankfully into his embrace. “This is not Miss Fortune and you will treat her with respect.” A flicker of emotion crossed his face. There was a fraction of a second’s uncertainty as he glanced across at Grace, almost as if she might object, before he pushed back his shoulders and said, “Miss Fortune is going to be my wife.”

“Your wife?” Mrs Willowbank gave a shout of hysterical laughter. “Have you taken leave of your senses? She’s addled your brain. Why, this creature has walked off the streets—”

“Where you and Laurence condemned her.” David’s voice shook but there was a hard, threatening edge that made even his mother flinch. “Laurence raped her then you dismissed her. I hope you’re ashamed. Yes, this is Grace who used to work at Barton Manor, and as today I came into my majority and can do what I like, I’m going to marry her.”

***

The silence that followed the eventual departure of Mrs Willowbank and Laurence was a welcome contrast to the earlier shouting and shrieking. David’s mama was not one to be crossed but, as he’d reminded everyone as he’d thrust the message Grace had written under his direction into the hands of one of the goggle-eyed servants, he was no longer a minor.

Now, with the tyrants gone, Grace and David clung to each other in the window embrasure, dazed but only too conscious of their fragile togetherness.

Too fragile to risk or take for granted.

“There was something about you that felt so right from the moment I touched your hair,” David whispered, nuzzling her neck.

She was respectably dressed. It had taken a while but he’d laced her back into her corset and helped her into her clothes and now she could pass for any of the fine ladies Mrs Willowbank might have introduced to her son.

A powerful joy took hold of Grace which even after her hard years she was not jaded enough to dismiss as ridiculous and ephemeral, though she still felt she was inhabiting a dream.

“Where would you like to go for your wedding tour?” David asked. “Your wish is my desire. You can be my eyes. My muse.” His excitement was infectious. “I will mould every delectable curve of yours in clay and through you I will realise my dreams of being an artist.”

“I want to go to Florence,” she whispered.

She drew in her breath at the sound of footsteps, doubt warring with hope that her future was more than empty promises.

“The magistrate is here.” David kissed the top of her head, dismissing her earlier concerns as he added with a laugh, “Vengeance is not to be feared from your excellent procuress Madame Chambon once I generously settle her bill.”

“For the prime article your mama procured,” Grace murmured, suddenly as conscious as she’d ever been of what she was.

What she had been.