With This Kiss Part 6

And he didn't feel brotherly toward her. Not at all.

A couple of weeks later, the HMS Daedalus encountered the Loki, a Baltimore clipper slave ship.

This time, when the smoke cleared, Captain Barry didn't walk out unscathed. His second-in-command, Lieutenant Philip Drummond, a.s.sumed command of the vessel, and carried out plans that Sir Griffin Barry, with approval of the Royal Navy, had put in place long ago: If Captain Barry was injured, he wasn't to be dropped off on sh.o.r.e to recover. Nor was he to wait about for a British naval ship to fetch him home.

Captain Drummond put ash.o.r.e at Casablanca, where he bought the fastest clipper he could find, hired a crew, and had the wounded captain carried aboard, accompanied by his personal batman, Ackerley. And then he and all his men lined up along the gunwale in a salute, and he was the only one who didn't have tears in his eyes as they watched one of the golden twins being taken away on a stretcher.

But when Drummond turned back to the deck, he was captain of the Daedalus.

Ten.

January 1837 The day that Colin's letter arrived was not a happy one for Grace, especially when Lily asked her if she'd like to read it. Grace saw pages and pages covered with Colin's spiky writing and shook her head.

She went upstairs and sat down, refusing to cry. She was the daughter of a duke. She was not a dying swan who would spend the rest of her life mourning a man who didn't love her.

That afternoon she dressed with special care for a drive with Lord McIngle. She selected a new and especially flattering pelisse, made from violet cashmere, with black braided silk trim and a wide black velvet belt with a silver buckle.

Just before His Lordship was due to arrive, she popped into her mother's sitting room to show herself off.

"You look exquisite, Grace," the d.u.c.h.ess exclaimed, getting up from her desk. "And even more important, you look happy."

"I am better," Grace said stoutly. "I'm not the first to have suffered through a childhood infatuation. Colin never even kissed me, so I haven't the excuse of saying I was misled."

Her mother gathered her into her arms. "I knew that Lily's letter would feel hurtful." And then: "But I am glad to hear that Colin didn't give you reason to believe that his affections matched yours."

"Quite the opposite. All those years, he never wrote me back more than a line or two. He didn't seek me out when he was on leave . . . not to mention the fact that he fell in love with Lily. I feel like such a fool, Mother!" It burst out of her.

The d.u.c.h.ess leaned back, her hands on Grace's shoulders. "You are not a fool, darling. It is never foolish to love a good man. I'm just sorry that he didn't reciprocate your feelings-and even sorrier that your father and I didn't cut off the correspondence years ago."

"I do believe my letters were healing. So I'm not sorry I wrote them."

The d.u.c.h.ess looked at her searchingly. "You are such a good person, Grace. I don't know how your father and I managed to produce such a generous, wonderful young woman."

"Don't forget fanciful. I made up a whole romance in my mind. When Colin didn't answer a letter, I would make up the answer he should have sent me. Before I knew it, I was in love."

"I do wish I could have spared you that lesson," her mother said. "Especially your pain in seeing that letter he wrote to Lily."

Grace shrugged. "It forced me to realize that I can't hide from the truth. There's a glaring contrast between the four-line letters Colin wrote me, and the five-page letter he sent Lily. He must truly love her."

"I'm not so sure that I agree about Colin's feelings for your sister. Your father and I are agreed that he is not the person with whom Lily should spend her life. But the more important thing, darling, is that you find someone who will realize precisely how precious you are. It's obvious to everyone, for example, that Lord McIngle is wildly in love with you."

"He is, isn't he?" It was quite nice to see John's eyes light up when she entered a room. "I know this is petty, Mother, but I so appreciate the fact that John has never even looked in Lily's direction."

"John, is it?" her mother said teasingly. "Your father and I like your John very much. We would be very happy to have him join our family."

Lord McIngle arrived so promptly to take Grace for a drive that one might think his carriage had been lurking around the corner.

But no, Grace thought, John McIngle would always be on time. She could count on him. He was steady, and warm, and unfailingly respectful.

John had been wooing Grace for quite a while now, so she knew the pattern of their afternoon excursions: John would tool his curricle to Hyde Park, where they would make a circuit, stopping to greet friends.

Grace's shyness had prevented her from forming many intimate friendships, but John was so convivial that all of London adored him, or so it seemed. She found herself chatting and laughing with his friends as if they were her own-and, indeed, some of them were becoming so. It felt wonderful.

After driving once around the park, they would retire to Gunter's Tea Shop for an ice. But this time, John handed Grace into the curricle and asked, "Do you mind if I take you on a short excursion to one of my favorite places in London, Lady Grace? It is entirely respectable, I a.s.sure you."

Grace smiled at him with genuine pleasure. He was such a nice man. No woman in the world could be offended by a question asked by a man with such adoring eyes. "I would be most happy, Lord McIngle."

"John," he reminded her.

"John," she repeated.

He didn't drive terribly far, and then stopped the curricle in front of a small church called Grosvenor Chapel. His tiger took the reins, and John helped Grace from the carriage. They walked silently through the nave and out a side door, into a pretty little walled graveyard. There was no sense of grief here, just the buzzing of honeybees, happy to have found so many rosebushes in the heart of London. A narrow brick path wound its way between the gravestones.

"How beautiful!" Grace exclaimed, her fingers twitching because she was so sorry not to have her sketchpad and a pencil. She looked up at John. "How on earth did you find this exquisite secret?"

"My mother is buried here." His expression was not at all tragic, but boyishly wistful. "I always visit her when I am in London; I have the feeling she is happy here."

"What a lovely thought," Grace exclaimed, thinking how adorable his matched set of dimples were.

Then he took both her hands in his. She looked up with a start. The sun was shining on his hair, playing on his thick curls. His voice was as earnest as his eyes were yearning.

"I knew from the moment that I saw you that you were the woman I wanted to spent my life with, and that my parents would have loved you as much as I do. Lady Grace, would you do me the inestimable honor of becoming my wife?"

PART TWO.

One.

Grace told herself frequently how happy she was to be engaged to Lord McIngle-John, as he insisted she call him. He was a good man, with a lovely voice and brown eyes. She liked his dignity, she liked his kindness, and she thought they would be very happy together. She especially liked the fact that he had an estate in Scotland.

Scotland was a long way from London. Far enough that a woman could nurse a broken heart until she forgot all about it, until the laughter of children and the kisses of a loving husband wiped away the stupid infatuations of her youth.

John often arranged small treats for Grace, things that he knew she would enjoy. Most importantly, he didn't pretend that painting was only a lady's pursuit, as watercolors were for most young ladies. One day he gave her a miniature of Sir Walter Raleigh, a delicate painting of the slender, lovelorn aristocrat.

"He understands you," her mother said, deep approval in her voice. "This is a precious antique, Grace. He truly loves you."

"I know he does," Grace replied, keeping her voice light and happy.

"He's a good choice," her father told her. "A good man."

Both her parents had a little knot in their brows every time they looked at her, but by the time a month had pa.s.sed, Lord McIngle-John-had become a welcome addition to their family.

Lily teased him mercilessly, calling him Old Sobersides. She was the only one who argued with Grace. "He's not a good choice for you," she insisted. "He respects you too much."

"Respect is good," Grace said, thinking of how Colin slighted her letters. "I want respect."

"It's not enough."

"He loves me!"

"Not the right way."

Finally Grace turned on her sister in a rage. "Don't you see, Lily? Must you make me say this aloud? No one will ever love me in the right way, not in that feverish way that men fall in love with you. I'm not that sort of woman!"

Lily cried, and Grace ended up crying, too.

Sobersided John thought she was pretty. He kissed her frequently (if respectfully), and she enjoyed it. He gave her a new set of paints. The morning after that gift, she handed Colin's paints to her siblings, and used John's instead.

Later that night she stole back the most beautiful blue, the lapis lazuli. She put it in a drawer with her lingerie and pretended it wasn't there.

The day John gave her a sable paintbrush, she told her parents that they should set the wedding date.

Two.

Only a few days out of Casablanca, a storm blew them off course. Colin lay in the dark, counting the days as they pa.s.sed. He was out of the navy, honorably discharged. He should be glad about that.

He was safe, if not entirely sound. He should be glad about that too.

He was going home, to England, to Grace.

And that's where any happiness died. By now Grace might have married McIngle.

He had had a plan to steal her away from McIngle before he was injured.

But now . . .

He was a selfish a.s.s, but he wasn't a complete b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He couldn't steal her from her fiance when he wasn't a whole man.

The thought made his headache worsen. The doctor had instructed the mate to give him a dose of laudanum every morning and night to control the headaches and (he suspected) to keep him tamely in bed. He didn't care. His idiot batman, Ackerley, periodically appeared by his bed and told him to open his mouth, and he did.

But there was an unexpected side effect to laudanum. As he slipped in and out of sleep, he discovered that he was able to relive Grace's letters as if he were part of the events she had described in them. They were so vivid that he found himself in the drawing room, standing beside the duke and laughing when they realized that young Brandon had turned every one of His Grace's neck cloths to sails for his toy boats.

He sat by Grace's side as she painted naughty chickens, and watched with her as Lily flew about the ballroom, laughing her gilt laughter, the laughter of a woman who has never known pain or fear.

Grace knew both pain and fear. She knew them because of him. In his dream, he danced with her, holding her tenderly and dancing slowly. Not like the whirling waltz he shared with Lily, but a waltz in which every touch fired his blood. Because it was a dream, a laudanum dream, suddenly they were at Almack's surrounded by pretty ladies. Yet all the women faded into a kind of blurred prettiness, because the only woman in the room who mattered was Grace.

Her hair was wound high on her head with ringlets falling down her back. Her gray eyes smiled at him with a look that said she found him as delicious as he found her. They turned in the dance again, slowly, and his thigh brushed her slender leg, sending a flare of pure erotic heat up his groin.

He bent his head and brushed her lips with his. They were soft, rosy pink, and she was blushing because he was creating a scandal by kissing her in public. But he didn't care about society. The only person he cared about was in his arms, and he found himself tilting her head, hungry for her, near to growling . . .

The ballroom disappeared and they were on the lawn before the lake, under the spreading willow tree where he had watched her paint. But this time, rather than hugging him, she was lying on her back, laughing up at him. He had thrown all her hairpins into the lake, and bright strands of her hair were wound in his fingers.

He felt mad, crazed with pa.s.sion and love and hunger. Grace looked into his eyes, and she saw the raw feeling that he couldn't control. She did something with the bodice of her dress and suddenly the whole garment disappeared.

And there she was. Pink and sensual and loving, pulling him down to her. He didn't have clothes, either, and their bodies met with lovers' joy, with a delirious pleasure. He couldn't pause to enjoy it, not with this pounding, driving need to be inside her, to own her, to know that she was his, rather than McIngle's.

He reared over her, savage and fierce, knowing his eyes were blazing down at her. All he wanted in life was to possess the woman who lay beneath him, who held his heart and soul in her hands. Her legs fell open, welcoming him. She was wet and sweet, and at his touch she arched her neck, a broken cry coming from her lips.

She understood, she loved him anyway . . .

Just like that, the moment slipped away and he was back in Almack's, standing against the wall.

Grace was dancing a slow waltz, but it was with McIngle. She was smiling at the Scotsman, and there was all the warmth and love in her eyes that Colin had always a.s.sumed was his. a.s.sumed like a fool, because he didn't understand what he had, and what he wanted.

He should have crawled to her feet every time he returned to England. He should have written back to every one of her letters, three or four pages to each of hers.

He should . . .

The laudanum dream was fading, and he grasped at it, trying to keep the bright image from evaporating, because even though Grace was dancing with McIngle, he could still see her, watch her smile, that quiet smile . . .

She was gone.

He woke, feeling the pitching motion of the ship taking him back to England. In his dream, he had been whole and untouched.

Now he was back to himself.

He could never go to sea again. Over the years he had won three purses while in the Royal Navy. He was far wealthier than he had ever imagined. Still, he couldn't take Grace from McIngle. When she saw him like this, she would leave McIngle, if they weren't already married, and come to him out of pity.

He would rather die.

He got out of bed, tripped on something, and fell to the floor. It knocked the wind out of him; when he recovered enough to push himself up to a sitting position, he discovered that he'd knocked over his chamber pot, and that he was wet.

He was . . . what he was.

It was over. He had p.i.s.sed away the best thing that had ever happened to him-the love of an intelligent, funny, and utterly sweet woman-because he couldn't see outside his own stupid head.

It took painful, slow thinking, but he came to some conclusions.

One was that he couldn't take laudanum, not unless he wanted to dream about making love to Grace, only to wake with tears on his cheeks. A second was that he would rather die than have Grace come to him out of pity. He had to rebuff her, for her own good. Even if he spent his life knowing what an a.s.s he'd been, mourning her, it was better than tying her to a husk of a man.

He discovered that making his way to the floor and pushing himself straight-armed up from the floor, over and over and over, allowed him to doze.