Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

L ucien had always craved the peace the first hours in the country offered, away from the crush of people, the thick coal smoke, the constant demands on his time, purse, and the decisions to be made.

But there was no respite to be had today.

Leaving his coach behind, he rode his favorite Turkoman gelding along paths he hadn't taken since boyhood. Even a condemned man was allowed solitude to make peace with his fate before he mounted the gallows, he told himself as he crested the hill. But when he saw the lake below, his whole body stiffened.

Children, he thought, grinding his teeth. Why did it have to be children today of all days? He could hear their shouts, glimpse hats made of folded newspaper as boys raced about in chaotic glory flinging something at each other, dodging, reminding him of his childhood, his sisters and brother…

He turned the horse away from memories hot as an iron brand, but before he could urge Atlas into a canter, the lakeside shrieks changed. Piercing, raw, with a hysterical note that sent chills down Lucien's spine.

"Help! Help!"

He wheeled Atlas back toward the lake, seeing three small boys clustered on the shore, one sobbing as someone near the lake's center thrashed wildly. Lucien glimpsed a flash of white face and arm. "Bennet! It's got me…" a feminine voice cried just before her dark head disappeared under the water.

Lucien swore and spurred his horse toward the lake at a run.

Triumphant, Grace waved Lord Admiral Nelson above the water so Bennet could see his beloved toy before she dove beneath the surface again, indulging in a few moments of freedom. The glide of the water against her skin as she swam was a blissful release, all of her cares seeming to slip away in this glorious, weightless world. She could hear muffled sounds—the boys shouting, a splash that no doubt meant one of them had fallen in. With a hard kick she propelled herself upward, the lakeshore a blur through streaming water and a tangle of sodden hair. One. Two. Three. All boys safe on the shore. She grinned, made a show of splashing in the game they loved. "It's got me! Pulling me down!" She plunged under again, saw something churning toward her. What on earth? She instinctively started to kick away, but a strong arm shot out amidst a flurry of turbulence and clamped around her waist. Grace gasped in surprise, sucking in lungful of water. Her captor pulled her against a hard-muscled body, yanking her upwards. Her head broke the surface and she emerged coughing, sputtering. She glimpsed the harsh planes of a masculine face. She kicked harder, fighting to get free.

"Let go—" she tried to choke out, but his fingers only dug deeper into her waist.

"Quit flailing," a rough voice ordered just as the toy soldier in Grace's hand collided with the man's face. She heard a grunt of pain, but instead of loosening his hold, he held on, crushing her against him until she could scarce breathe. When he started towing her toward shore, she realized he thought he was saving her.

She'd be lucky if he didn't drown her instead!

Cheeks hot with embarrassment, she pushed one more time at his chest, but it was hopeless. When she could finally touch the lake bottom, she scrambled to get her feet underneath her, explain she was fine but couldn't catch her breath. As he dragged her up out of the water, her legs tangled with his. She stumbled and he caught her, tight in his arms. Her breasts flattened against the hard wall of his chest. The heat from his body burned through the barely-there covering of her chemise. Awareness jolted through her.

She pulled away and he finally let her stagger back a step. But her bare feet slipped in the mud, and she started to tumble backwards. He grabbed her arms with strong hands, steadying her.

Despite being half-blinded by her tangled hair, she knew where her ‘rescuer's' gaze was fixed. The sodden muslin sheathing her body was all but transparent, clinging to her chill-hardened nipples. The man released her, but the damage had already been done. Every inch of her was visible. She hastened over to the cast-off frock that was pooled on the ground. Dropping the metal soldier, she scooped up the fabric, clutching it in front of her in a belated effort to hide behind her discarded clothing.

Fortunately, the boys didn't note her discomfiture. The little rogues were doubled over, laughing.

Grit from the churned-up water still blurred her vision as she turned back toward her ‘rescuer.' His face was obscured behind one large hand as his fingertips explored the line of blood welling on his cheekbone.

Apparently, Lord Admiral Nelson's sword had found its mark. Thank God it hadn't been a little higher, or the man might have been missing an eye.

Sick with embarrassment, Grace fixed her gaze on the fabric bunched at her chest. "We were just-just playing a game. I'm so sorry for the misunderstanding."

He cut her off, his voice iron hard. "There was no misunderstanding . These lads were screaming for help. They said you were drowning." He gestured to the boys who huddled together beside their stockpiles of mud-pies.

"Actually The HMS Victory came apart, and, it was Lord Admiral Nelson who was drowning," she tried to explain. "I was being pulled under by our sea monster."

Oh, God. She sounded like a madwoman. Stiffening her spine, she craned her neck back and took her first full look at her rescuer. Ebony hair, eyes like blue flame, a blade-straight nose and lips curled in a scowl that could turn people into stone.

Oh, no. Not him. Anyone but him!

"L-Lord Everdene." Her voice came out in something resembling a squeak.

He stared in disbelief. She had never seen Lucien Harcourt shocked. Hadn't known he could be. But the expression on his face might have made her laugh—had she not been perishing from humiliation because he'd been staring at her breasts.

"I know you!" He pointed an accusing finger at her, and it was as if every misstep she'd ever made was writ plainly on her face. "Lady Grace ."

The emphasis on her name felt like a slap. The boys in her childhood had often taunted her about it. She'd been awkward as a new filly, all elbows and spindly legs. Doubtless, Lord Everdene remembered just how pointy those elbows were. When the local dancing master had held fetes for his students, he'd always paired her with him. The result: Everdene had viewed her with cold disdain. She'd trod on his toes—on purpose.

But this was no irritated boy standing before her. Lucien Harcourt had grown into a formidable man. He stood, stripped to his shirtsleeves, the fabric of his soaked shirt clinging to every rippling muscle, his horseman's thighs encased in buckskin, his stockinged feet squishing in the mud. A lily pad drooped over one iron-stiff shoulder.

"At least your memory is intact." she said, trying to drag the tattered remnants of her dignity around her along with her dress. "Not only am I Lady Grace, I can swim perfectly well. My brothers and I were only playing a game. This was all a mistake."

"It was no mistake ." He wheeled on the boys, his glare piercing. "You three tricked me on purpose. You watched me take off my boots." He looked at gleaming Hessians that now lay in a heap, caving in one wall of Ethan's fortress. "You boys had every chance to warn me off." The viscount took a menacing step forward.

Only then did Grace notice the clump of mud in Avery's hand. She started to shout a warning, but it was too late.

Avery flung the mudpie.

Grace watched in horror as it flew through the air, catching Harcourt on the right side of his jaw with a sodden smack. Ethan and Bennet followed their captain's lead, scooping up handfuls of mud as Lord Everdene stalked toward them.

"Stop! Ethan! Bennet! No!" Grace cried out as the missiles hurtled toward the viscount, striking him in the chest and thigh with alarming accuracy.

She dove between the boys and the man who looked ready to murder them with his bare hands. "This was just a case of boyish mischief," she pleaded. "Surely you indulged in some pranks yourself." She swallowed hard. Had he? At the moment he looked as if he'd never smiled in his whole life. "Or—or your own brother did so…" She was babbling, but he really was quite alarming.

She flattened her palm against Lord Everdene's chest, could feel his heart hammering, his muscles shifting. "I give you my word the boys will be made to see the error of their ways," she vowed. "I promise I will…"

"Flog us?" Bennet suggested, trying to be helpful. "Tie us to the yardarm?"

Ethan nodded. "That's what Lord Admiral Nelson would do."

"Enough, boys!" Grace cried, eyeing Lord Everdene warily.

With a fierce control more terrifying that simple outrage, the viscount stripped the soaked cravat from his neck, then used it to wipe the mud and blotches of blood from the wound on his face. His blue eyes seared lightning hot.

"I truly am sorry, my lord," Grace stammered. "We were just having an outing and my brothers got carried away with their game as children do. They had no idea who you were. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience."

"Inconvenience." He enunciated the word, sharpening each syllable as if it were a knife. "I have a vital meeting to attend at Everdene Hall and my horse has run off. Perfect. This is just perfect."

Grace swallowed hard. "If you come with us to The Willows, I'm sure we could loan you a horse."

"You have done quite enough."

Bennet and Ethan shrank back as Lord Everdene retrieved his boots, shaking off the dirt, then stuffing his sodden, stocking-clad foot into each one. As he yanked the Hessians into place, they made a wet, slurpy sound so like a bodily function that Avery actually snickered. Grace shot him a quelling glare.

"I am sorry, my lord. Boys, apologize right now."

There was a murmur that might have been an apology—or the first salvo in a war.

Lord Everdene snatched his very expensive coat from the ground, and with a parting glare, stalked off.

Grace stared at him until he disappeared from view, then she buried her face in her hands. After a moment, she spun around to face the three culprits who appeared far from contrite.

"Whatever possessed you to do such a thing? Fling mud at Viscount Everdene, no less?"

"He was shouting at you," Avery declared with a pugnacious tilt to his chin. "And he had mean eyes."

True enough. The look on the viscount's face could have matched that of any dragon.

She turned her glare onto the younger two. "Bennet and Ethan? What were you thinking?"

"Avery did it." Ethan looked at his brother and little Bennet nodded.

Exasperation welled up in her. "If Avery flung himself out of the tower window, would you boys do it, too?"

"Yes," Avery said, unrepentant. "But they'd try to jump farther and land harder."

"Gather up your things," she said. "We're going home."

She could only hope that her stepmother's luncheon had gone flawlessly. At least her brothers' talent for mayhem had been loosed far from The Willows. Perhaps Helen had been wise to lock the parlor's door.

A hard expression crossed Avery's face as Grace herded the boys toward the servant's entrance, and she thanked God she'd gotten the lot of them out of the house before the guests arrived. If they were in luck, the luncheon might be over and Helen might have retired to her room to bask in her social triumph. She paused and looked around. There were no carriages visible.

Now, if she could only could get the wee rogues up the stairs before Helen saw them. She was desperate to turn them over to one of the maids to be bathed and dressed and hopefully barricaded in the nursery while she went to her bedchamber, sank into a hot tub and tried to scrub this day from her skin and her memory.

Not that she'd be able to forget the scene at the lake with Viscount Everdene. It felt as though Lucien Harcourt had imprinted himself on her body. Even now she could feel his chest, the racing of his heart against her breasts, his long, strong legs propelling them through the water as she sputtered, and desperately tried to break free, to explain…

What her stepmother would have to say about this little escapade, Grace could only imagine. Heaven help her if anyone else found out, she thought as the boys started squabbling beside her.

She turned to them, making sure she had their full attention, then put her finger to her lips. "We need to be very quiet, so no one hears us go in."

Bennet furrowed his little brow. "But Papa says we mustn't sneak." The other two nodded in agreement.

Now they find their conscience? She closed her eyes for a moment, took a calming breath, then chose her words carefully. "Just this once. Everyone has been so busy with Helen's luncheon we don't want to disturb them."

Avery shouldered his way in front of his brothers and Ethan shoved him. "Oww! You stepped on my boot!" he squawked.

Avery shoved back. "I did not!"

Grace sucked in a breath, thinking they were done for, desperate to calm the storm. "We're going to sneak into the house, as if we're spies carrying secret missives to the nursery. If we fail, Wellington will lose the battle of Waterloo."

Their eyes lit up. Bennet looked down at his toy soldier. Avery and Ethan put their fingers to their lips. Grace gave a silent sigh of relief then peered into the hallway. Seeing it was clear, she signaled for the boys to follow her in. Maids and footmen raced about, so harried they barely noticed the muddy, sodden crew making their way to the back stairs. But as Grace and the boys rounded a corner, they nearly collided with Pevensey, the butler more rattled than she had ever seen him.

"Lady Grace, young sirs." Pevensey scanned the lot of them.

Grace felt as if she were suddenly six years old and caught stealing jam tarts. She gave an apologetic smile.

Unperturbed, Pevensey directed them to the back stairs. "I will have baths sent up the moment the maids are able. And, Master Bennet, I took the liberty of placing your toad in a bucket in the scullery," the butler told the boy with tender solemnity. "It is, perhaps, a better home than a sugar bowl." The elderly retainer's eyes hid a twinkle.

"Toad?" Grace said, looking at Bennet.

"Poor Trevor!" he moaned. "I forgot all about him!"

"You what?" she queried, telling herself it couldn't be all that bad. Helen had kept the parlor key on the ribbon around her neck. There was no way the boys could have made mischief.

"I put him there for safekeeping when he crawled out of my pocket."

A growing sense of dread filled her. " Which sugar bowl?"

"Boys!" came their father's dooming command, reverberating from somewhere down the corridor. "Present yourselves. Immediately!"

Bennet cowered behind Ethan who huddled near Avery. It was Avery who alarmed Grace. He didn't look nearly surprised enough for comfort.

She followed the trio to the east parlor.

Helen was gathered in Papa's arms in the midst of the chamber she'd arranged so carefully. Broken china was being carried out on trays. Footmen tried to set fallen chairs upright. Flowers spilled from vases, like fallen soldiers after a battle.

Grace's stomach hollowed out. "The door was locked," she said more to herself than the other five Elliots. "I saw the key on a ribbon around Helen's neck."

"Tell your sister what happened," Papa boomed.

Not that she needed much illumination. Between toads in sugar bowls, the carnage of china and the absence of guests, she could well imagine.

Ethan looked up at her, always first to confess. "It was Avery's idea," he blurted.

Avery jabbed his elbow into his brother's ribs, but Ethan went on. "A maid left the window open to air the room and Avery boosted Bennet in."

So Bennet had dragged himself, belly first over the windowsill, Grace thought. No wonder he'd smudged the front of his jacket.

Helen dissolved into tears at the boys' confession.

Dismayed, Bennet ran over to Helen, flinging his muddy little arms around her and buried his face in her cream-colored skirts.

Obviously encouraged by the impact of his revelations, Ethan burst out, "And that's not all. Avery threw mud at a viscount !"

Helen's jaw dropped, her face paling. "Oh, no…"

Grace, feeling a stab of terror that Ethan would comment on her state of undress during the mud-pie altercation, broke in hastily. "Lord Everdene happened upon us at the lake and there was—was some confusion…" An image flashed into her mind, Lucien Harcourt's body, his soaked shirt clinging to every muscle, a dusting of dark hair visible through the thin fabric, ending in a shadowy ribbon that arrowed down to the waistband of his riding breeches.

Grace hadn't expected to feel such a visceral reaction to the sight, but she and Lucien Harcourt might as well have been naked on that lake shore, two thin layers of linen between them, her breasts unbound, nipples puckered tight from cold.

"Everdene?" her father's voice jolted her from the memory, his face stricken.

Helen wailed. "You let them throw mud at the Earl of Ravenscroft's son? How could you let this happen, Grace? I'll be ruined for all society here! I must go to Everdene Hall."

"No!" Grace exclaimed in horror. If Helen discovered that Lucien Harcourt had seen Grace in her chemise, it would be the stuff of nightmares. The new Lady Elliot would merrily turn Grace into one more crocodile bride snapping at the Elusive Viscount's heels. "I'll make it right myself. I promise."

She pictured Lucien Harcourt, standing on shore, blood trickling from the small cut on his sharp cheekbone, the planes of his face so severe, even she had been a little bit afraid.

There was no help for it now. She would go to Lucien Harcourt herself. She would have to face the tiger in its den.