Griffin Stone:Duke Of Decadence

They had received word from Griffin after the rescue of Michael, Lord Maystone’s grandson, had been as successful as they had hoped. Sir Rupert Colville was also now in custody, and the other three gentlemen had been on their way to London to reunite the little boy with his parents.

Bea had resigned herself to not seeing Griffin again now that he was returned to London.

‘His Grace asked for you specifically, My Lady,’ the butler now assured her.

‘Then you may show him in, Shaw.’ Bea nodded.

She turned to quickly check her appearance in the mirror, her mouth having gone dry at thoughts of seeing Griffin again.

At thoughts of the heartache of the two of them meeting and greeting each other as if they were polite strangers.

When that was the last thing they were.

Or ever could be, as far as Bea was concerned.

Her heart almost jumped completely out of her chest as Griffin strode purposefully into the room, not pausing at the doorway but heading straight over to where Bea still stood near the window.

He looked so dark and handsome in his perfectly tailored black superfine, worn with a grey waistcoat and grey pantaloons, his black Hessians gleaming.

So dearly beloved.

‘Your Grace.’ Bea affected a curtsy, head bent so that Griffin should not see the tears of happiness glistening in her eyes just at the sight of him.

‘Bea?’ Griffin gave a dark frown as he reached out to place a hand beneath the softness of her chin and raise her face so that he might better see her expression.

These past ten days had been both very successful and equally frustrating.

Maystone’s grandson was reunited with his ecstatic family.

Several more of the conspirators to liberate Bonaparte were also now in custody.

The Corsican was well on his way to his remote place of exile.

The English Crown and its people could breathe easily again, for a time at least.

Griffin had also informed Maystone that he had carried out his last mission for the Crown, and intended to retire to his estate in Lancashire.

All of those things had been positive.

The negative had been Griffin’s own enforced separation from Bea. Days and days when he had not so much as been able to set sight on her.

Days when she would no doubt have been left to her own thoughts for hours at a time, and have decided that Griffin Stone, the gruff Duke of Rotherham, had no place in the life she now led in quiet solitude with her guardian.

Griffin’s own newfound freedom, from believing that the unhappiness of his marriage had been his fault, and that he was also responsible for Felicity’s suicide, now sat light as a bird upon his shoulders. Most of all, he now accepted that he could never have made someone like Felicity happy.

The knowledge that Michael had not been the love of Bea’s life after all, but Maystone’s grandson, had come as even more welcome news. Michael had become a spectre in Bea’s dreams only because of the warmth of her heart, her concern for a little boy she had believed to be orphaned, like herself.

That knowledge was the only thing that had kept Griffin sane as he’d dealt with all the other matters in need of his attention before he was free to return to Lancashire.

To return to Bea.

She looked so very beautiful. She was wearing a gown he had never seen before. No doubt one of her own, which had now been delivered from the house in Worcestershire. A gown of the palest blue silk that made her skin appear both pale and luminescent.

Her face appeared a little thinner than Griffin remembered, but that was surely to be expected after the upset of the previous weeks. And the added knowledge that it was her own aunt who was responsible for her abduction and the beatings she had received while held prisoner in the filthy woodcutters’ shed.

One of Griffin’s last instructions, before he’d departed Stonehurst Park in the company of Christian and Maystone ten long days ago, had been for that shed to be burnt to the ground. That not a single sliver of wood was to remain.

And now here was Bea, looking more beautiful to him than ever.

But with a new wariness in those deep blue eyes as she looked up at him questioningly.

Griffin did his best to gentle his own expression, when what he really wanted to do was take Bea in his arms and kiss her until they were both senseless. A move guaranteed, he suspected, to increase rather than lessen that look of apprehension!

‘Are you well, Bea?’ he enquired guardedly.

Bea had managed to blink away her tears, and she now offered Griffin a reassuring smile. ‘I am perfectly well, thank you. Sir Walter has proved to be an amiable companion these past ten days.’

Griffin removed his fingers from beneath her chin but still studied her intently. ‘You are comfortable here, then?’

She moistened her lips before speaking. ‘Sir Walter is my guardian. Where else should I go?’