"Oh, how clever!" Elizabeth said approvingly. "Amelia, wouldn't you agree?" Without waiting for an answer, she turned back to Grace. "It was your idea, wasn't it?"
Grace opened her mouth to retort that she would have happily handed them over, but just then Thomas walked past the open doorway to the sitting room.
Conversation stopped. Elizabeth looked at Grace, and Grace looked at Amelia, and Amelia just kept looking at the now empty doorway. After a moment of held breath, Elizabeth turned to Amelia and said,
"I think he does not realize we are here. "
"I don't care," Amelia declared, and Grace believed her.
"I wonder where he went," Grace murmured, although she did not think anyone heard her. They were all still watching the doorway, waiting to see if he'd return.
There was a grunt, and then a crash. Grace stood, wondering if she ought to go investigate.
"Bloody hell," she heard Thomas snap.
Grace winced, glancing over at the others. They had risen to their feet as well.
"Careful with that," she heard Thomas say.
And then, as the three ladies watched in silence, the painting of John Cavendish moved past the open doorway, two footmen struggling to keep it upright and balanced.
"Who was that?" Amelia asked once the portrait had gone by.
"The dowager's middle son," Grace murmured. "He died twenty-nine years ago. "
"Why are they moving the portrait?"
"The dowager wants it upstairs," Grace replied, thinking that ought to be answer enough. Who knew why the dowager did anything?
Amelia was apparently satisfied with this explanation, because she did not question her further. Or it could have been that Thomas chose that moment to reappear in the doorway.
"Ladies," he said.
They all three bobbed curtsies.
He nodded in that way of his, when he was clearly being nothing but polite. "Pardon. " And then he left.
"Well," Elizabeth said, and Grace wasn't certain whether she was trying to express outrage at his rudeness or simply fill the silence. If it was the latter, it didn't work, because no one said anything more until Elizabeth finally added, "Perhaps we should leave. "
"No, you can't," Grace replied, feeling dreadful for having to be the bearer of such bad news. "Not yet.
The dowager wants to see Amelia. "
Amelia groaned.
"I'm sorry," Grace said. And meant it.
Amelia sat down, looked at the tea tray and announced, "I'm eating the last biscuit. "
Grace nodded. Amelia would need sustenance for the ordeal ahead. "Perhaps I should order more?"
But then Thomas returned again. "We nearly lost it on the stairs," he said to Grace, shaking his head.
"The whole thing swung to the right and nearly impaled itself on the railing. "
"Oh, my. "
"It would have been a stake through the heart," he said with grim humor. "It would have been worth it just to see her face. "
Grace prepared to rise and make her way upstairs. If the dowager was awake, that meant her visit with the Willoughby sisters was over. "Your grandmother rose from bed, then?"
"Only to oversee the transfer. You're safe for now. " He shook his head, rolling his eyes as he did so. "I cannot believe she had the temerity to demand that you fetch it for her last night. Or," he added quite pointedly, "that you actually thought you could do it. "
Grace thought she ought to explain. "The dowager requested that I bring her the painting last night," she told Elizabeth and Amelia.
"But it was huge!" Elizabeth exclaimed.
"My grandmother always favored her middle son," Thomas said, with a twist of his lips that Grace would not have called a smile. He glanced across the room, and then, as if suddenly realizing his future bride was present, said, "Lady Amelia. "
"Your grace," she responded.
But he couldn't possibly have heard her. He was already back to Grace, saying, "You will of course support me if I lock her up?"
"Thom - " Grace began, cutting herself off at the last moment. She supposed that Elizabeth and Amelia knew that he had given her leave to use his given name while at Belgrave, but st
ill, it seemed disrespectful to do so when others were present.
"Your grace," she said, enunciating each word with careful resolve. "You must grant her extra patience this day. She is distraught. "
Grace sent up a prayer for forgiveness as she let everyone think the dowager had been upset by nothing more than an ordinary robbery. She wasn't precisely lying to Thomas, but she suspected that in this case the sin of omission could prove equally dangerous.
She made herself smile. It felt forced.
"Amelia? Are you unwell?"
Grace turned. Elizabeth was watching her sister with concern.
"I'm perfectly fine," Amelia snapped, which was enough, of course, to show that she was not.
The pair bickered for a moment, their voices low enough so Grace could not make out their exact words, and then Amelia rose, saying something about needing some air.
Thomas stood, of course, and Grace rose to her feet as well. Amelia passed by and even reached the doorway before Grace realized that Thomas did not intend to follow.
Good heavens, for a duke, his manners were abominable. Grace elbowed him in the ribs. Someone had to, she told herself. No one ever stood up to the man.
Thomas shot her a dirty look, but he obviously realized that she was in the right, because he turned to Amelia, nodded his head the barest of inches, and said, "Allow me to escort you. "
They departed, and Grace and Elizabeth sat silently for at least a minute before Elizabeth said resignedly,
"They are not a good match, are they?"
Grace glanced at the door, even though they had long since departed. She shook her head.
It was huge. It was a castle, of course, and meant to be imposing, but really.
Jack stood, open-mouthed.
This was huge.
Funny how no one had mentioned that his father was from a ducal family. Had anyone even known? He had always assumed his father had been the son of some jolly old country squire, maybe a baronet or possibly a baron. He had always been told that he was sired by John Cavendish, not Lord John Cavendish, as he must have been styled.
And as for the old lady. . . Jack had realized that morning that she had never given her name, but surely she was the duchess. She was far too imperious to be a maiden aunt or widowed relation.
Good Lord. He was the grandson of a duke. How was that possible?
Jack stared at the structure before him. He was not a complete provincial. He'd traveled widely whilst in the army and had gone to school with the sons of Ireland's most notable families. The aristocracy was not unknown to him. He did not consider himself uncomfortable in their midst.
But this. . .
This was huge.
How many rooms in the place? There had to be over a hundred. And what was the provenance? It didn't look quite medieval, despite the crenellations at the top, but it was certainly pre-Tudor. Something important must have happened there. Houses did not get this big without stumbling into the occasional historic event. A treaty, maybe? Perhaps a royal visit? It sounded like the sort of thing that would have been mentioned in school, which was probably why he didn't know it.
A scholar he was not.
The view of the castle as he'd approached had been deceptive. The area was heavy with trees, and the turrets and towers seemed to twinkle in and out of sight as he moved through the foliage. It was only when he reached the end of the drive that it had come completely into view - massive and amazing. The stone was gray in color, with a hint of a yellow undertone, and although its angles were mostly squared off, there was nothing boring about the facade. It dipped and rose, jutted out and swept back in. No long Georgian wall of windows was this.
Jack couldn't even imagine how long it would take a newcomer to find his way around inside. Or how long it would take to find the poor fellow once he got himself lost.
And so he stood and stared, trying to take it in. What would it have been like to grow up there? His father had done so, and by all accounts he'd been a nice enough fellow. Well, by one account, he supposed - his Aunt Mary was the only person he knew who'd known his father well enough to pass along a story or two.
Still, it was difficult to imagine a family living there. His own home in Ireland had not been small by any standards, but still, with four children it often felt as if they were constantly crashing into one another.
You couldn't go ten minutes or even ten steps without being swept into a conversation with a cousin or a brother or an aunt or even a dog. (He'd been a good dog, God rest his furry little soul. Better than most people. )
They had known each other, the Audleys. It was, Jack had long since decided, a very good - and very uncommon - thing.
After a few minutes there was a small flurry of movement at the front door, then three women emerged.
Two were blond. It was too far away to see their faces, but he could tell by the way they moved that they were young, and probably quite pretty.
Pretty girls, he'd long since learned, moved differently than the plain ones. It did not matter if they were aware of their beauty or not. What they weren't was aware of their plainness. Which the plain ones always were.
Jack quirked a half smile. He supposed he was a bit of a scholar of women. Which, he'd often tried to convince himself, was as noble a subject as any.
But it was the third girl - the last to emerge from the castle - who captured his breath and held him motionless, unable to look away.
It was the girl from the carriage the night before. He was sure of it. The hair was the right color - shiny and dark, but it wasn't such a unique shade that it couldn't be found elsewhere. He knew it was her because. . . because. . .
Because he did.
He remembered her. He remembered the way she moved, the way she felt pressed up against him. He remembered the soft breath of the air between their bodies when she'd moved away.
He'd liked her. He didn't often get the chance to like or dislike the people he waylaid, but he'd been thinking to himself that there was something rather appealing about the flash of intelligence in her eyes when the old lady had shoved her at him, giving him permission to hold a gun to her head.
He'd not approved of that. But he'd appreciated it all the same, because touching her, holding her - it had been an unexpected pleasure. And when the old lady returned with the miniature, his only thought had been that it was a pity he didn't have time to kiss her properly.
Jack held himself quietly as he watched her move in the drive, glancing over her shoulder, then leaning forward to say something to the other girls. One of the blondes linked arms with her and led her off to the side. They were friends, he realized with surprise, and he wondered if the girl - his girl, as he was now thinking of her - was something more than a companion. A poor relation, maybe? She was certainly not a daughter of the house, but it seemed she was not quite a servant.
She adjusted the straps of her bonnet, and then she (What was her name? He wanted to know her name) pointed to something in the distance. Jack found himself glancing the same way, but there were too many trees framing the drive for him to see whatever had captured her interest.
And then she turned.
Faced him.
Saw him.
She did not cry out, nor did she flinch, but he knew that she saw him in the way she. . .
In the way she simply was, he supposed, because he could not see her face from such a distance. But he knew.
His skin began to prickle with awareness, and it occurred to him that she'd recognized him, too. It was preposterous, because he was all the way down the drive, and not wearing his highwayman's garb, but he knew that she knew she was staring at the man who had kissed her.
The moment - it could only have lasted seconds - stretched into eternity. And then somewhere behind him a bird cawed, snapping him from his trance, and one thought pounded through his head.
Time to go.
He never stayed in one spot for long, but here - this place - it was surely the most dangerous of all.
He gave it one last look. Not of longing; he did not long for this. And as for the girl from the carriage - he fought down something strange and acrid, burning in his throat - he would not long for her, either.
Some things were simply untenable.
"Who was that man?"
Grace heard Elizabeth speak, but she pretended not to. They were sitting in the Willoughbys'
comfortable carriage, but their happy threesome now numbered four.
The dowager had, upon rising from her bed, taken one look at Amelia's sun-kissed cheeks (Grace did think that she and Thomas had taken quite a long walk together, all things considered), and gone into a barely intelligible tirade about the proper decorum of a future duchess. It was not every day one heard a speech containing dynasty, procreation, and sunspots - all in one sentence.
But the dowager had managed it, and now they were all miserable, Amelia most of all. The dowager had got it into her head that she needed to speak with Lady Crowland - most probably about the supposed blemishes on Amelia's skin - and so she invited herself along for the ride, giving instructions to the Wyndham stables to ready a carriage and send it after them for the return journey.
Grace had come along, too. Because, quite frankly, she didn't have any choice.
"Grace?" It was Elizabeth again.
Grace sucked in her lips and positively glued her eyes to a spot on the seat cushion just to the left of the dowager's head.
"Who was it?" Elizabeth persisted.
"No one," Grace said quickly. "Are we ready to depart?" She looked out the window, pretending to wonder why they were delayed on the drive. Any moment now they would leave for Burges Park, where the Willoughbys lived. She had been dreading the journey, short though it was.
And then she'd seen him.
The highwayman. Whose name wasn't Cavendish.
But once was.
He had left before the dowager emerged from the castle, turning his mount in a display of horsemanship so expert that even she, who was no equestrienne, recognized his skill.
But he had seen her. And he had recognized her. She was certain of it.
She'd felt it.
Grace tapped her fingers impatiently against the side of her thigh. She thought of Thomas, and of the enormous portrait that had passed by the doorway of the sitting room. She thought of Amelia, who had been raised since birth to be the bride of a duke. And she thought of herself. Her world might not be quite what she wanted, but it was hers, and it was safe.
One man had the power to send it all crashing down.
Which was why, even though she would have traded a corner of her soul for just one more kiss from a man whose name she did not know, when Elizabeth remarked that it looked as if she knew him, she said, sharply, "I do not. "
The dowager looked up, her face pinched with irritation. "What are you talking about?"
"There was a man at the end of the drive," Elizabeth said, before Grace could deny anything.
The dowager's head snapped back in Grace's direction. "Who was it?" she demanded.
"I don't know. I could not see his face. " Which wasn't a lie. Not the second part, at least.
"Who was it?" the dowager thundered, her voice rising over the sound of the wheels beginning their rumble down the drive.
"I don't know," Grace repeated, but even she could hear the cracks in her voice.
"Did you see him?" the dowager asked Amelia.
Grace's eyes caught Amelia's. Something passed between them.
"I saw no one, ma'am," said Amelia.
The dowager dismissed her with a snort, turning the full weight of her fury on Grace. "Was it he?"
Grace shook her head. "I don't know," she stammered. "I couldn't say. "
"Stop the carriage," the dowager yelled, lurching forward and shoving Grace aside so she could bang on the wall separating the cabin and the driver. "Stop, I tell you!"
The carriage came to a sudden stop, and Amelia, who had been sitting face front beside the dowager, tumbled forward, landing at Grace's feet. She tried to get up but was blocked by the dowager, who had reached across the carriage to grab Grace's chin, her long, ancient fingers digging cruelly into her skin.
"I will give you one more chance, Miss Eversleigh," she hissed. "Was it he?"
Forgive me, Grace thought.
She nodded.