Grace Under Fire Read online

  Grateful as she was to Lady Aberdeen for preserving her reputation—and perhaps even improving it—Grace was flabbergasted by this turn of events. For if Lady Aberdeen had, indeed, followed her, Colin, and Atticus from the ballroom, then she knew precisely what had transpired…and it had surely not been the cutting set-down the countess had described. Lady Aberdeen’s reputation as an upstanding matron of the ton was even more sterling than Grace’s should now be tarnished.

  Why on earth would such a woman concoct a patently false tale to protect a young lady she scarcely knew and could have no particular interest in keeping from harm? If anything, the countess should be trumpeting Grace’s fall from grace from the highest peak, not attempting to sweep it up beneath her voluminous skirts.

  But Grace had no opportunity to discover her unlikely guardian angel’s motives. Before she knew what was happening, she was fielding introductions to the eligible male relatives of the matrons who now found her “worthy” of the affections of their sons, nephews, or cousins. Soon, her dance card for the rest of the evening was full and she was being whirled about the floor by one gentleman or another, leaving her dizzy and…deflated.

  She should be overjoyed. Her parents certainly would be when they heard she had danced (and failed to tread upon) two barons, one viscount, one heir to an earldom and the younger brother of a duke. For the first time in her life, she had what she had always coveted—the right sort of attention, from the right sort of people.

  And all she wanted was to know when she would once again have the wrong sort of attention from the very wrong sort of men.

  Colin stretched his legs toward the hearth and accepted the tumbler of whisky Atticus handed him. Relief washed through his limbs at the safe, familiar surroundings of his library, its walnut shelves lined with hundreds of books that spoke volumes but demanded no answers. With books, there were no expectations and no judgments.

  God, he hated Society. He would never have suffered tonight’s gathering, rife with sly glances and whispered innuendo, if Atticus hadn’t been so certain about Grace Hannington.

  Now, with the earthy-sweet taste of her fresh on his tongue and her authentic, unguarded response to their combined touch at the forefront of his mind, Colin shared his best friend’s belief. He only hoped Lady Grace would be willing to trade respectability for pleasure…and eventually for love.

  Atticus leaned against the mantel, grabbed the iron poker from its filigreed stand, and stirred the embers. Although he was making an effort to appear relaxed, his stiff posture betrayed his physical discomfort. “Perhaps we should have pressed her harder. We could have been halfway to Gretna Green by now,” he muttered.

  “And your cock would be appeased instead of hard as that poker.”

  Atticus looked up from the sparking bits of wood with a scowl. “You’re no better off than I am,” he observed, casting a meaningful glance at Colin’s crotch.

  “Never said I was. But you were right. She needs to choose us for the right reasons, not because we forced her hand.”

  “And if she doesn’t choose us?”

  Colin could only shake his head. “I don’t know. But let’s give Abby a chance to do her part before we assume the worst, shall we?”

  Atticus set the poker back in its place and scowled. “I just hope she doesn’t do her part too well.”

  Openmouthed with surprise, Grace shuffled through the stack of calling cards and invitations, counting them a third time.

  Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.

  With a small oomph, she collapsed onto the settee and looked at her mother in disbelief. “Are you quite certain these are all for me?”

  Mama patted her carefully coiffed hair with unconcealed glee. “Of course, they are. You were the belle of the ball, my dear. I knew the day would come.” The way she primped and preened, one would think her daughter’s dubious—not to mention entirely fictional—achievement was her own.

  Grace looked down at the surfeit of envelopes and cards clutched in her hand and tried to compass this sudden shift of fortune. Six calling cards from the gentlemen she’d danced with last night, another six from the matrons who had come to her aid, and four envelopes containing invitations she had yet to open.

  All because Lady Aberdeen had inexplicably lied on her behalf.

  Grace had lain awake until well past dawn, her mind twisting itself into knots in an effort to fathom the why and wherefores of the countess’s actions. Even when she had given up, she’d been unable to sleep, her body heavy and raw with the memory of her encounter with Colin and Atticus. Only after she had given in to the shameless need puckering her nipples and throbbing between her thighs and relieved the tension with her own fingers had she been able to drift off into slumber.

  Though it had hardly been restful, for her dreams were rife with erotic images she would never before have been able to imagine in words, much less visualize in excruciating, tantalizing detail. Two men touching her nude body, caressing and kissing her, anywhere and everywhere. They licked and nibbled at her mouth, her nipples and the sensitive flesh of her sex, massaged the firm globes of her breasts and buttocks, rubbed the rigid evidence of their arousal against her belly and backside…

  “Aren’t you going to open them?” Her mother’s eager question interrupted Grace’s inappropriate woolgathering.

  She blushed, grateful that her mother could surely not guess where her thoughts had wandered, then blushed hotter as it occurred to her to wonder whether her mother and father had ever… But no. That was entirely impossible, something she would prefer to die than contemplate.

  “Yes, of course, Mama.” She might be clumsy and ill-at-ease at Society events, but she had always been obedient.

  Dutifully, she unfolded the envelope encasing each invitation and read it aloud to her mother’s crows of delight.

  “An at-home to be held by the Honorable Mrs. Thomas Darby next Tuesday beginning at three o’clock p.m.”

  “That should be quite nice,” Mama commented, “but perhaps you should not respond just yet.” In the polite but cutting language of societal hierarchy, Grace knew this meant her mother considered the Darbys socially acceptable, but only just. She wanted to be sure Grace was not committed to a less-than-ideal engagement in the event something “better” came along.

  “A party at Vauxhall Gardens, hosted by the Earl of Wesmouth, a week from Wednesday.”

  “Lovely,” her mother squealed. “And the earl is yet unmarried.”

  And, Grace thought with a shudder, with his potbelly and the tufts of hair that stuck out over his ears, he resembled nothing so much as a potted plant. His conversational skills did little to dispel the impression.

  “A fancy dress ball at Buckingham House in two weeks’ time.”

  “Buckingham House!” Mama exclaimed, clutching at her heart. “To think you have been invited there.”

  While Mama continued to wax rhapsodic over the prospect of attending a ball hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Buckingham—“She is royalty, you know! And they have the most amazing gardens!”— Grace opened the final invitation and read it silently. Her eyes widened, and her pulse stuttered with excitement.

  Countess Aberdeen requests the honor of a private audience with Lady Grace Hannington at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon.

  It was not merely the prospect of at last learning why Lady Aberdeen had covered the truth to save her reputation that made Grace’s heart beat erratically. No, it was what was written in a slashing, unquestionably masculine hand upon the tissue paper that had been placed inside the thick parchment.

  Please come. C

  Chapter Six

  Grace folded her trembling hands in her lap while she perched stiffly on the high-backed chair in which the footman had directed her to sit while awaiting her hostess. If her stomach had not been tied in knots of anxiety and anticipation, she might have found more appreciation for the elegant appointments of Lady Aberdeen’s formal sitting room. But rather than admiring the curved
arch of the fireplace with its intricately carved floral motif or the sumptuous furniture upholstered in stripes of royal blue velvet alternated with red-and-gold brocades, Grace’s attention was entirely occupied in wondering where Colin and Atticus might be hiding. And when they would appear.

  She had worn her favorite gown for the occasion, knowing the buttercup-yellow silk especially flattered her coloring. It was, of course, far too formal a gown for an afternoon engagement; her mother had argued strenuously in favor of a pale green muslin day dress with tiny embroidered pink flowers for the occasion, but Grace stood her ground. She wanted to look her best for her men.

  Her men. Dear Lord, did she already think of them as such? She had not even decided she would accept their outlandish proposal. In fact, she was quite certain she should not.

  And yet, she had to see them. Speak with them.

  Touch them.

  “I see you’ve made yourself at home, my dear.”

  Grace startled so violently at the bright sound of Lady Aberdeen’s voice pealing through the silence, it was all she could do to maintain her precarious seat on the chair.

  “Yes, my lady, thank you,” she answered, starting to her feet to give her hostess a proper curtsy in greeting.

  Lady Aberdeen, clad in a dark blue frock trimmed with ivory lace, her graying brown hair covered with an ivory cap with matching blue trim, waved her hand. “Oh, no, don’t get up. I think we can dispense with the formalities under the circumstances, don’t you?”

  Biting her lip, Grace nodded and settled back onto her chair. The circumstances were certainly extraordinary. Her cheeks heated as it dawned on her that this august matron probably had a very good idea of what had transpired in that retiring room. How mortifying!

  In a rustle of skirts and petticoats, the countess seated herself on the settee, her posture erect and dignified as the queen’s. “I imagine you have a few questions.”

  When Grace nodded, not quite trusting herself to speak without revealing much more than she ought or asking the question that plagued her the most, Lady Aberdeen continued, “Very well. First, you probably want to know why I lied on your behalf.”

  “Yes, very much,” Grace affirmed, her voice cracking a bit from disuse and nerves.

  “And the answer is, because I could.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

  “Young ladies should not have their futures determined for them simply because they make a single error in judgment.” A wistful smile softened the older woman’s sharp gray eyes. “Once upon a time, when I was about your age, I made a mistake. A mistake that decided my marriage…and my future.”

  Grace’s jaw became ever so slightly unhinged. “But surely you cannot be unhappy. You are well-respected and well-liked.”

  The countess shook her head. “No, I am not unhappy. Not now. But it took me some time to come around to that point of view, for you see, my indiscretion didn’t lead to my marrying the man I believed I wanted, but the one I sought to avoid.”

  “You did not wish to marry the earl?”

  “I’m afraid not,” the older woman said with a chuckle. “At the time, I was enamored of a young ne’er-do-well pianist and composer of whom my parents thoroughly disapproved. When I was caught sneaking off with him one night, my parents, horrified and concerned for my future, quickly arranged my marriage to Aberdeen, who was willing to have me despite the possibility that I might be ‘soiled goods.’ And although I eventually came to esteem my husband and appreciate my life as a countess, I often wonder what might have happened had I managed to escape with the man I loved. There is more to life, you see, than respectability.”

  Grace tried to sort through the countess’s seemingly circular reasoning. “So, you were trying to save me from Lord Fitzgerald and Mr. Stilwell, and yet you are not happy that you were saved? I’m afraid I don’t quite follow.”

  “One benefit of being a person of advancing years, my dear, is that one is rarely required to make sense. However, it was not my intent to save you from happiness, but rather to give you the opportunity to decide where your best chance of happiness lies. And that can only happen if you are free to choose without the stigma of a compromise hanging over your head.”

  Grace’s eyes widened with comprehension. And gratitude. Yet, something still puzzled her.

  “Col—that is, Lord Fitzgerald. You must know him.”

  “Rather well, in fact,” the countess confirmed. “Few people know it, but Viscount Fitzgerald is my first cousin’s son. After his parents died, he and Atticus…but here, they can tell you about that themselves.”

  Lady Aberdeen looked away from Grace, and she followed the line of her hostess’s gaze. Any remaining questions she had died on her lips. Her mouth dried, and her stomach dropped into her slippers.

  For there in the doorway stood Colin and Atticus.

  She knew right then from the way they looked at her, their handsome features so dissimilar in construction yet so identical in intensity of expression, that Lady Aberdeen’s efforts on her behalf had been in vain.

  It was too late for choices. They were already her men. And she was their woman.

  After delivering Colin and Atticus a stern warning not to debauch Lady Grace in her absence, Lady Aberdeen—or Abby as they had always called her—left the room, closing the door behind her.

  Atticus smiled at the lovely, final sound of the solid, heavy oak thudding against the door frame.

  Of course, Abby had to know that her charge was in very grave danger of being thoroughly debauched, but she also trusted that neither Colin nor Atticus would directly disobey her. Which meant they would, at a minimum, avoid relieving their beloved of her virginity. Anything short of that, however, was fair game, provided Grace agreed.

  And judging by the soft, hungry look in her eyes, she would agree to just about anything. That expression turned Atticus’s mind to dark, dirty thoughts—thoughts of every delicious, decadent pleasure they would teach their redheaded goddess to give and to receive.

  Lust flared to life, weighing thick and heavy in his loins, and at the most inopportune moment possible. He and Colin both needed to keep their heads—the ones they used for thinking, at any rate—long enough to explain to her who they were…and why. They owed her that much.

  To allay his arousal, he thought of Latin. There was nothing quite so effective for snuffing desire as declining nouns.

  Except the Latin word that first popped into his mind was not a noun, but a verb.

  Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant.

  No help, that.

  He tried to think of other, less arousing words. The ones that came were no better. Verbs like capere and osculare and futuere. To take, to kiss, to fuck. Nouns like os, mentula, cunnus—mouth, cock, cunt.

  Fortunately, Colin saved him by dousing him in a substance more effective than either Latin or cold water ever could be—history.

  Their history.

  “Atticus told you when last we parted that we would explain our past. How we came to be the men we are. That is, if you wish to know.”

  God, Atticus needed to hear no more than that to be drained of his burgeoning desire.

  The memories were vivid and brutal, even at nearly twenty years’ distance. Their mothers weeping in terror while Colin’s father pleaded for their lives. His own father shoving them from the carriage into the brambles beside the road and telling them to run into the woods, to never look back no matter what they heard. The horrifying crack of gunshots and the acrid scent of gunpowder. And overhead as they ran, the denuded branches of trees reaching down toward two frightened, newly orphaned boys like the claws of hungry beasts.

  “Of course, I wish to know.”

  “Then you are still considering our proposal?” Colin pursued, folding his lanky frame into the settee next to her, his knees nearly touching hers.

  Grace worried her lower lip with her front teeth before saying, “I believe I am doing rather more than considering.”r />
  Elation and triumph rushed through Atticus’s veins, reducing if not eliminating the pain of discussing the past. He had been right. Lady Grace Hannington was their perfect mate, a lady strong enough to disregard the dictates of society in favor of her own happiness.

  Colin’s sober expression didn’t alter, but Atticus could see the glint of impending victory in his best friend’s eyes. But then, he knew Colin’s thoughts and emotions as well as his own. As if they were his own. And so, when Colin’s eyes met his, he knew his friend meant for him to sit down and assist him in the telling of their story.

  A story they’d never fully shared with anyone save Abby, who as Colin’s only living relative had taken them in after they’d been found, wet, cold and on the brink of starvation, in the wilds of Derbyshire. And he doubted even Abby fully comprehended what had happened to them during that lonely, terrifying week.

  When Atticus was seated, Colin began, “Atticus and I grew up together. His father was my father’s land steward and most trusted servant. Since we are only a few months apart in age, it was natural that we would play together despite the differences in our social standing.” Colin took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring. “When I was ten and Atticus eleven, our fathers grew suspicious of the estate manager at one of our lesser properties and decided to travel there unannounced. En route, our coach was attacked by a band of highwaymen.” His voice faltered.

  Atticus took over even though speaking the words scraped his throat like a sharpened scythe. “The highwaymen dragged Lord Fitzgerald from the coach and demanded he hand over all our money and valuables. The next thing we knew, he was begging for our lives. My father, perhaps guessing Lord Fitzgerald would not succeed, opened the door on the opposite side of the carriage and shoved both Colin and me out, telling us to run and not look back.” That was as far as he could go.

  He looked at Colin. Your turn.