A few minutes later her mother returned downstairs, accompanied by John.
“He’s tremendously brave,” the duchess was saying, her voice catching.
“He may well regain his eyesight,” John said encouragingly, patting her hand. “I have heard of similar cases in which sight was lost from a cannon flare rather than a physical injury.”
“I just can’t bear it,” her mother said with a little sob. “His parents will be devastated. And they’re not even due back in the country until August! James will have to send someone after them immediately.”
She collected herself. “Featherstone, please send a message to Lords, asking His Grace to return. And send a carriage to Dr. Pinnacle in Harrogate Street, with a request that he attend us immediately. Queen Adelaide herself told me that Pinnacle is a genius when it comes to ocular matters. He lives in Mayfair; with luck we’ll catch him at home.”
As Featherstone began sending footmen hither and yon, the door opened again; it was Lily, returned from a ride in the park. A moment later, having heard the news, she was rocketing around the drawing room, touching things lightly. That was what Lily did when she was nervous.
John, laughing, followed her around the room, teasing her as she rearranged her mother’s china ornaments.
The doctor arrived and was escorted upstairs. Grace just sat on the sofa, her knees clamped together, her hands shaking. She couldn’t bring herself to speak. She didn’t belong here, in this too-bright room full of people speaking too loudly. She should be with Colin.
It seemed hours before the doctor clattered his way back down the stairs, accompanied by her mother. Grace jumped to her feet.
The doctor was shaking his head. “I really cannot say what will happen, as I didn’t dare to remove the bandage. But unless you can make your patient lie still in a dark room, Your Grace, he may well be permanently blind. In this sort of case, the patient must be protected from all disturbances, and repose in full darkness for six weeks. From what I understand, Captain Barry has had no proper care to this point. He should have had the bad blood let out after enduring that cannon flare, though luckily he seems lucid enough.”
“We’ll keep him in bed,” her mother promised. “And in the dark.”
When the Duchess of Ashbrook took that tone, she was never disobeyed. Colin would be flat on his back if she had to tie him to the bedposts.
“You won’t have a problem for the next twenty-four hours,” the doctor said, pulling his cape over his shoulders. “I gave him some laudanum. Given his size”—he said it distastefully, as if his patient was a giant of some sort—“I gave him a double dose. You will find him docile for some time, Your Grace, and I would be happy to visit tomorrow and administer the same again.”
The duchess’s brows drew together. “Did he agree to this medicine, Doctor?”
Dr. Pinnacle apparently caught the dangerous note in her voice.
“It was best for the patient,” he said, putting on his gloves. “There are times when a doctor must overrule a patient for his own good, and this was one of them.”
The duchess said nothing, but the moment the doctor left, she raised a finger in Featherstone’s direction. “Be so good as to find another ocular expert, if you please.” The butler nodded, bowed, and backed through the door.
“I suppose we might leave now,” John said with a kind of relentless cheer that grated on Grace’s nerves. “Everything is well in hand. Captain Barry will likely sleep well into tomorrow.”
“My mother always has things in hand,” Lily said, rearranging the ornaments on the mantelpiece again. “Where are the two of you off to?”
“Lord Burden-Sisle has kindly agreed to allow us to view his collection of Constable watercolors,” John replied. “Would you like to join us?”
Lily wrinkled her nose. “Absolutely not. It sounds horrendously boring. I can’t imagine how you’ll survive, John.”
“There are only six watercolors and some preliminary sketches,” he said.
“But Grace takes forever to look at even one picture,” Lily complained. “Haven’t you seen how she peers at paintings, and then stands back, and then peers at them again? I was near to weeping with tedium the last time we went to the National Gallery.”
Grace stood up. “John, if you’ll forgive me, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the collection at the moment.”
“But Lord Burden-Sisle made a special appointment,” John protested. “He is expecting us.”
“Lily will go with you in my stead.”
Something in Grace’s face caused Lily to leap to John’s side, taking his arm and smiling up at him with her most dazzling smile. “You will take me, won’t you, John?”
He scowled at her. “Not if you ply your wiles on me. I’m to be your brother-in-law, not one of those foolish puppies whom you dazzle in the ballroom.”
“Shame!” she cried, drawing him toward the door. “I’ll have you know that my swains are very intelligent men. I can’t imagine why you would slander them in such a fashion.”
He looked back, but Grace shook her head, so he bowed and left.
Four
This time, Grace didn’t wait for a moan through the wall. She ran up the stairs and straight into Colin’s bedchamber. The room was in darkness, thick velvet curtains pulled across the windows; the only light came from a single lamp, turned down low. She took a deep breath, closed the door, and leaned back against it.
This was madness. Yet she couldn’t stop herself.
Colin was not lying in bed the way the doctor said he must.
He was seated at a chair before the fireplace, almost as if he were staring at the empty hearth.
“Colin,” she whispered.
He turned his head, slowly, far more slowly than he had earlier. She realized that his hands were gripping the arms of his chair as if he were in a ship on a tossing sea.
“Who’s there?” he said, growling it.
“It’s me, Grace.” She walked over to him. “How are you?”
“What did they give me to drink?” He spoke through clenched teeth.
“Laudanum.”
A flash of betrayal crossed his face.
“The doctor gave it to you,” she cried. “We wouldn’t have done it. He feels you should stay in bed.”
He reached toward her, found her wrist, and gripped it. “I don’t know whether I’m dreaming this or not,” he muttered.
“You are not,” Grace said, looking down at the way her small wrist disappeared in his hand.
He gave a sharp tug and she sat down on his thighs.
“Colin!”
“Are you a dream or not?”
“I most certainly am not! I’m Grace. Don’t you remember me?” She was starting to babble.
“You’re betrothed to McIngle, and God knows what he would think of the fact you’re in a man’s bedchamber.”
“I’m breaking off my betrothal,” she blurted out.
He said nothing to that. She shouldn’t stay here, perched on his legs. Under her bottom she could feel his thighs as he shifted. He was all muscle, contained power.
Yet he was home safe. The bolt of joy that hit her was so intense that it swept away her panic about the state of his eyes.
“You should leave,” he said, ignoring her announcement.
“What happened to your eyesight?” she asked, desperate to stay on this side of the door rather than on the other.
“A cannonball exploded directly in front of me,” he said, his voice flat and uninterested. “The flash blinded me. I should lie down now.”
She stood up, feeling a pinch of anger, but it was nothing new. He’d been rejecting her for years. The fact that he was pushing her away now was unsurprising.
She stepped away, and he stood up as well, but then he swayed slightly, his big body quivering for a moment.
“I’ll help you,” she said, taking his arm the way John had.
“I know where the bed is,” he said, sounding even groggier
than he had a moment earlier. He turned in the wrong direction. “I found my way to this chair from the bed after the doctor… What did the doctor do? I don’t feel well.”
“That’s not the right direction.” She tugged on his arm.
If the truth be told, she was still in love. She was greedy to be with him, to be next to him. She didn’t care that he was blind. She didn’t care if he never regained his sight, if he growled at her. Maybe she could take a position as his housekeeper, and he wouldn’t realize who she was.
“You smell good, like a girl I once knew, but that was a dream,” he said, sounding tipsy, like Fred after he drank too much punch.
Grace gave him a little tug. “Your bed is this way.”
His hip was pressed against hers, causing little ripples of fire to spread over her skin.
“Colin,” she said, realizing that her voice had become husky and low.
“The bed,” he stated. His arm went around her waist and he hauled her closer to him. “You have beautiful curves.”
He really sounded inebriated. The drug must have taken hold.
“This way,” she whispered, gently tugging him again. She managed to get him to walk a few steps, and then he toppled forward onto the bed and rolled on his back.
The door opened. “Grace!” She’d never seen her mother look so irate. “Out of this room, at once. Colin’s incapacity is no grounds for discarding every rule of polite society.”
“I’m coming,” Grace said, shaking out a blanket and spreading it over Colin. He was so large that his feet stuck out the bottom.
“Grace!”
She turned her head and smiled giddily. “He’s home, Mother. He’s home, safe and well. I’m sure his eyes will heal. And if they don’t, it doesn’t matter because he won’t be dead. He’s home.”
The duchess came to stand at her shoulder. Even with the bandage, Colin looked outrageously handsome, his lips cherry dark and full. “He always was a gorgeous young man.”
“He still is,” Grace snapped.
“I didn’t mean that he wasn’t. I’m worried for him. His life will be difficult indeed if he doesn’t regain his sight.”
“He will heal.” Grace reached out and soothed the blanket over his shoulder. “Everything will be different now he’s home.”
Her mother looked at her, and then turned on her heel. “I think we’d better go to my sitting room and have a talk.”
Grace pulled the blanket a little higher and made sure that Colin’s arm was comfortably tucked against his body.
“Grace.”
She followed her mother.
Five
By the time Grace reached the duchess’s sitting room, she was feeling quite peaceful. She knew what she had to do, although, unfortunately, her mother would not approve.
“If it has even crossed your mind that you will throw yourself at that young man’s feet,” the duchess said the moment Grace entered the doorway, “I will personally bundle you into a carriage and send you to the country!”
No, her mother would surely not approve. Grace sat on a sofa, never mind the etiquette that insisted she should not sit before her mother did, and stated flatly, “I cannot marry John.”
Her mother sat down beside her. “Darling, Colin wasn’t a good prospect even before he was injured, much though I love him.”
“He will regain his eyesight.”
“That doesn’t mean he will fall in love with you.”
Grace swallowed hard. Her mother was not the sort of person who lied to make a person feel better. You could trust her to tell the truth, even if you might not wish to hear it.
Now the duchess leaned close and gathered Grace in her arms. “We never told you children the reason I threw your father out of the house after just two days of marriage, but it had to do with believing that he didn’t love me. I would never wish that horrible experience on one of my children.”
Tears threatened. Grace couldn’t pretend, even to herself, that Colin loved her. Three hours earlier, he had turned his head in her direction and then away, without even asking how she was. He hadn’t congratulated her on her betrothal. She was nothing to him. Less than nothing.
And yet she felt such a wave of love for him, the ungrateful beast, that she could hardly bear it. “He’s hurting,” she said, the words tumbling out. “I know him, Mama. He hated being in the navy, and the fact that he never got injured made it worse.”
“How so?”
“He felt guilty just for surviving. They died all around him, you know. His men did. And they cried out for their mothers. He couldn’t bear it.”
The duchess’s arm tightened. “That’s terrible. I could see he was unhappy, but I had no idea he was so tormented.”
“I don’t want to love him.” Grace stared down at her fingers, twisting together. “I hate the fact I love him, and you’re right to say that he doesn’t love me.”
Her mother sighed. “I wish you were a little girl again so that I could give you a kiss and make it better.”
“He’s not in love with me,” Grace repeated, “but I’m in love with him. That’s the way it’s been for my whole life, and it won’t change. I almost feel as if I’m cursed.”
“No!”
“Colin walked into the house today and my heart leapt, even though I saw he was blind in the same moment. I don’t care about anything other than the fact he’s home. I wouldn’t care if he had lost a leg or both arms. It wouldn’t be right to marry John, feeling the way I do.”
“I’ve occasionally thought that John would be perfect for Lily,” the duchess said thoughtfully, stroking Grace’s hair. “He’s steady and kind, and she needs both. And he’s very intelligent.” She left the corollary unspoken.
Grace shrugged. “As long as Lily doesn’t marry Colin. I think of that, and I feel like a madwoman, Mama, I really do. Absolutely cracked.” Her voice wavered, and she swallowed before adding, “I’ll never love anyone as I do him. I’m not a baby, and I’ve loved him for years. He’s all there is for me.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks, and her mother handed her a perfectly pressed handkerchief embroidered with the Ashbrook crest. “Did I ever tell you about the time when your father and I were both young, and he had to lie in a darkened room or risk blindness?”
“No.”
“Your father does not like to stand still for five minutes, let alone weeks. I fell in love with him sitting by his bed, and I never recovered from it.”
“How old were you?”
“Ten or eleven, I think.”
Grace was quite unsurprised to find that she and her mother fell in love around the same age. “Mother,” she said, straightening her back, “I intend to bring Colin to Arbor House.”
Her mother’s face fell. “Oh, darling, I can’t accompany you just now.”
“I shall take him by myself.”
“I know Colin is a family friend, but you are a young lady. Your maid would be an adequate chaperone for the journey, but you could not reside in Arbor House with him, given that his parents are not in residence.”
“I can, and I will.” Grace folded her hands.
“You will be compromised!”
“Yes.”
A fascinated expression replaced her mother’s frown. “Dearest, you do understand the implications of what you are saying?”
“I will not allow Colin to blunder about the country unable to see.” She took a deep breath. “I mean to seduce him if I am able.”
“Oh my goodness,” the duchess said faintly. “Gentlemen aren’t like servants, you know. You can’t simply order them to do your bidding.”
“What is the worst that could happen? He will reject me. Again. But at least,” Grace said fiercely, “I will have fought for him. I have to do that, at least.”
“But—”
“I shan’t marry anyone else,” Grace said, cutting her off. “I expect it won’t be so terrible being an old maid, unless Colin marries Lily. But I know him, Mama. If he do
esn’t regain his sight, he won’t willingly marry either of us. He wouldn’t want to be a burden.”
Her mother was silent. Then: “I wouldn’t be surprised if Colin isn’t secretly in love with you. You wrote him all those charming letters for years. He may well need a little push, though seduction, Grace, is going too far, as I hope you realize.”
“Yes, Mama.”
She was never any good at lying. Her mother shook her head. “You are very like me, do you know that?”
Grace smiled. “Yes.”
“I think there’s a good chance that Colin will not agree to being accompanied by you.”
“He certainly will not. I think it would be best if he were put in the carriage now. If he doesn’t wake for hours, it will be too late to cavil.”
“Colin is nothing if not honorable,” the duchess pointed out. “The mere journey will compromise you, so there’s no need for drastic measures. You can have a proper wedding night.” She stood up and rang the bell. “In fact, I’ll have our solicitor quietly obtain a special license and send it after you.”
“I won’t marry Colin unless I have managed to seduce him,” Grace stated. “The last thing I want is a husband who was forced to marry me.”
Her mother opened her mouth, but their butler opened the door. “Featherstone,” the duchess said, “I believe that this regrettable dose of laudanum can be put to best use by bundling Captain Barry into the carriage and dispatching him to Arbor House. The doctor ordered complete rest and darkness, and this house is far too active. He will be more comfortable there.”
Featherstone nodded. “I’ll order the traveling carriage, Your Grace.”
“Oh, and do tell Lady Grace’s maid to pack her things. She will accompany him to the country.” The butler showed not a flicker of surprise. He was, above all, a servant of the Duchess of Ashbrook.
“Darling,” the duchess continued, turning back to Grace, “I have just realized that it might be best if Colin had left by the time your father returns.”