Chapter 18

Grace woke in a haze of happiness. It had been a perfect night. She could feel the sun’s rays warming her as she remembered everything that had happened the night before.

Philip had revealed that full part of his most seductive side. She had no idea he could be so… scandalous in his touches though she had loved every part of it. Even after they had made love, he’d stayed inside her for some time, kissing her, even asking if she was sore.

They had risen and cleaned themselves up before he pulled her back down to the bed again. They’d fallen asleep as nighttime came, tangled in one another’s arms.

Grace had a vague memory of him nuzzling her in the night. He had lightly kissed and nipped her neck, finding her lips too, trailing his fingers through her hair and down her spine to the arch of her back.

She reached out across the bed, lifting the bed sheet in search of him, yet all she found was the sheet. There was nobody beside her.

Abruptly completely awake, Grace’s eyes shot open. She sat up in the bed, clutching the sheet to her breasts to keep herself covered as she looked around the room.

The pillow beside her had a divot, showing where Philip had indeed spent the night with his head beside her own. Yet there was no other sign of him in the room. If he’d collected his clothes before leaving, then he’d even done that neatly and soundlessly. The cupboards and bureaus were all closed with no sign of having been rifled through.

“Did I imagine it?” Grace whispered aloud to the empty air, wondering if that sleepy memory of being nuzzled was a work of her imagination.

Perhaps she was wrong. Maybe after they had gone to sleep, he had retreated from her, pulling back. She couldn’t even be certain that he had spent the whole night beside her, despite his possessive words last night and declaring that she was his.

Those words could have been all in the heat of the moment, like the kissing marks he left on her skin. Perhaps as desire had left him, he’d understood his mistake.

Grace suddenly scrambled out of the bed. She still clutched the bed sheet to her body and ended up tripping on the very end. She fell to her knees then stood again, keeping that bed sheet as close as she could, hurrying toward a mirror on the far side of Philip’s chamber.

The sight of her reflection made her stumble again.

She looked nothing like the Grace she knew. This Grace had wild hair, mussed not just from sleep but Philip’s hands. Her face was glowing pink, and on her neck, she could see the sign of another one of those marks he had left upon her skin.

“Damn you, Philip,” she muttered, trying her best to remove the mark by wiping her neck though it did nothing. “Mark me then runaway at your first opportunity!”

She hated what he had done though she couldn’t hate him. She just wanted him back again, wanted him back in that bed.

“Your Grace?” a sudden voice called from outside the door.

Grace froze, fearing it was the butler or valet had come to find their master. They’d certainly get a shock if they heard her reply instead.

“Your Grace?” the voice said again. “The Duke asked for breakfast to be prepared for you downstairs. Shall I arrange a bath in your room first?”

Her stomach knotted tight as she hid her face in embarrassment. Of course, the staff would know where she was. It was the morning after her wedding night.

“Yes please,” she called back to the voice.

“Very well, Your Grace.” Then footsteps sounded, and whoever the bearer of that voice was, they were gone.

In the ensuing silence, Grace turned back to face the mirror. Though she looked at her rumpled reflection, she noticed what was missing this time. Philip should have been there. Her husband should still be there with her, yet there was something in what that voice had said which told her all she needed to know.

Philip asked for breakfast to be prepared for me. He’s gone, hasn’t he? He’s left the house already.

* * *

Grace found the next few hours passed by in a whir. She had her breakfast and was promptly introduced to all the staff by her new housekeeper, Mrs. Williamson.

The elder lady, stiff with a back as rigid as any metal pole, showed no sign in her firm upper lip of being disgruntled at Grace’s clumsy ways though Grace had a feeling she knew what the lady truly thought. Mrs. Williamson was probably like Grace’s mother, expecting any duchess to be as grand and formal as it was physically possible to be.

She and Mrs. Williamson ran through the running of the house and discussed if Grace would like any changes to the way her home was done. She made minute changes, for everything seemed to be in very good order, and she simply asked for breakfast to be arranged for a touch later, so she would have time for a walk first thing in the morning.

If Mrs. Williamson thought it strange for a duchess to take a walk so early, with the intention of going alone, she at least had the decency not to show it in her face.

“Your Grace?” Mrs. Williamson called through the doorway just as Grace sat down in her new drawing room. She’d huffed and plopped herself down on a settee, dissatisfied with Philip’s persistent absence and the inability of any staff member to tell her where he had gone. “You have visitors.”

Grace sat forward as two young women walked in.

Diana was the first, scurrying forward, her usually demure smile full and excited today. Behind her walked Tabitha, who could not stop looking around her, drinking in the sight of the ground Duke’s house in awe.

“Oh, Grace.” Diana flung her arms around her as she stood. “I am so happy to see you.”

“And I you.” Grace clung tightly onto her friend. In that moment, there was something incredibly comforting about seeing Diana again. She was a warm and trusted presence in a house she did not know.

“We had to come and see you.” Diana stepped back, holding her hand tight. “I hope you do not mind us coming so soon after the wedding?” She looked around, clearly expecting to see Philip though she soon stopped when she realized he was not there.

“Of course not. I am glad to see you both,” Grace assured her.

“I’ll fetch some tea, Your Grace,” Mrs. Williamson called from the doorway.

“Thank you.” Grace pulled Diana into the rococo settee beside her as Tabitha finished her circuit of the room.

“Goodness. What a home you now have, Grace,” Tabitha said in awe, choosing another chair nearby. “It is quite staggering.”

“Yes. It is.” Grace suddenly felt awful. She knew she should be grateful for calling such a house her home now, but in truth, she had barely acknowledged this was the case. She had been too busy thinking about where Philip had run off to.

“Are you all right?” Diana asked, holding her hand tight. “Where is your new husband?” She looked around, as if expecting him to manifest from the shadows at any moment.

“He’s… gone.” Grace struggled with the words.

“Gone?” Tabitha repeated, a look of horror taking over. “You do not mean he has run out on you already!?”

“What? No!” Grace countered quickly. “I mean simply that he left the house early, and he… well, he did not tell me he was going before he left.” She was hardly going to declare that she had been in his bed at the time, and that was why his lack of a goodbye stung so much.

Why didn’t he say goodbye?

“I wonder.” Tabitha tapped her chin in thought.

“Wonder what?” Grace asked. “Don’t keep us in suspense, cousin. Please, what are your thoughts?”

Tabitha looked uneasy, shifting in her seat. She looked around the room, checking the open doorway to ensure that Mrs. Williamson was not about to return any time soon before she returned her focus to Grace and Diana.

“Dukes are entitled men, after all,” she whispered, as if afraid to say the words. “What if… I mean, you do not think…”

“Out with it, Tabitha,” Grace begged. “I’m on tenterhooks here.”

“Well, do you think he could be having an affair?” Tabitha asked, her voice shaking on the latter word.

Grace felt she had been kicked squarely in the gut. Tabitha looked dutifully gob smacked at her own thought, but the fact that Tabitha could suggest it made Grace feel even worse.

Even Tabitha doesn’t think I am enough to hold Philip’s interest.

“Ha!” The sudden laugh made Grace jump, she was so surprised. She turned to see Diana holding a hand over her mouth. Usually so quiet, bursting laughter from Diana of all people was something of a surprise.

“You made my heart nearly leap out of my chest,” Grace murmured, pretending to faint and prompting Diana to giggle a little.

“It’s just the idea is mad,” Diana went on. “The Duke would have to work fast to find a lady to have an affair with so quickly, would he not?”

“Perhaps he already had a lover when they wed yesterday,” Tabitha suggested uncertainly, her hands fidgeting together. “I mean only to put you on your guard, cousin.”

“The idea is madness,” Diana went on with surprising vigor. She seemed to realize what she was doing a second later, her cheeks blushing pink as she bent more toward Grace to talk quietly. “It would be nonsense to suggest the Duke of Berkley could do of such a thing.”

Grace couldn’t answer. Her tongue had been tied tight by the thought of Philip being wrapped in another woman’s arms at that very moment, whispering mine in her ear as he had done in Grace’s.

“Why is that?” Tabitha asked.

“Because he’s too proper.” Diana shrugged, as if the matter was obvious. “Grace, you and I have only known the Duke of Berkley from a distance these last few years, but have we not heard Eleanor talk of him countless times? Has she not said repeatedly how the most important thing to him is his reputation and his propriety?”

“Yes.” Grace nodded. She also couldn’t deny that everything she had learned of Philip since had -reinforced that idea. It was just that alone, Philip could be quite a different man.

“A man like that is hardly going to risk his reputation by having an affair, is he?” Diana countered.

Grace nodded again though less enthusiastically now. She had to agree Diana had a good point. It would be a wild risk for a man like Philip to take.

“Oh, on the subject of his propriety, there is something I must talk to you about.” Grace pulled on Diana’s hand, urging her to look away from the daggers she was now throwing with her gaze in Tabitha’s direction. “He has stipulated some certain rules.”

“What rules?” Diana asked uncertainly.

“Well, I am not allowed to appear in the scandal sheets again. He has made that plain, and though we are a marriage in name, for convenience, he has also made it clear that he intends for us not to spend too much time together.” Her mouth felt suddenly dry, and she looked at the doorway, longing for Mrs. Williamson to return with that tea.

“That is a rule?” Tabitha asked in dutiful outrage. “Goodness. It really is a marriage of convenience.”

Hearing Tabitha say the words stung Grace all the more, and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The night before when he had made love to her, it hadn’t felt anything like convenience.

The gentle way he had kissed her neck and told her she was beautiful before tangling his fingers with hers, offering comfort when she was nervous about being completely bare with him, suggested a greater warmth of feeling between them.

Perhaps I am wrong.

“Well, if you want to attract his attention, Grace, I know what one of our friends would say.” Diana sat taller, her cheeks blushing already before she had even said the words.

“What?” Grace urged her on.

“Celia, not me, I strongly emphasize this — but Celia would suggest that if you would like to get his attention, then you have to start breaking his rules a little. That is what you want, isn’t it? Not to be ignored by him.”

“What? Oh, think carefully, cousin,” Tabitha pleaded in her sweetest and most concerned tone. “You were so much against this marriage. Do you even really want his attention? It would be a dangerous path to go down indeed!”

Grace smiled when she looked between the two women. She knew how fortunate she was to have them both in her life. Their advice came from a place of love, of concern for her, yet their advice was completely different.

“I thank you for your words, both of you,” Grace whispered to the pair of them. “You are right, Tabitha, I didn’t want this marriage to begin with, but now, I am here, and I don’t see a way out of it.”

“There is a way out. Remember what we talked of.” Her eyes went wide as she clearly referred to the annulment.

I cannot have an annulment now. I don’t even want one.

If there was a chance that Philip would make love to her again as he had done the night before, why would she turn her back on that?

“This game has started now. Maybe Philip thinks that I will play by his rules, but you are right, Diana. I should have no intention at all of doing so.”

Diana clapped her hands together, looking quite delighted with this plan.

“Then you will play at his own game?” she asked excitedly. “Pray, start tonight. The assembly at the Almack’s Assembly Rooms should certainly be a good opportunity. You both have to be there.”

“Very true,” Grace murmured with a nod.

Yet if she was going to play this game as well as she hoped to, she knew that she needed another’s advice. Diana was too shy to help on this score, and Tabitha was still so against the idea of this marriage that she certainly wouldn’t help with this either.

No, there was only one person who could help Grace now.

As she sat forward, purpose in her countenance, Diana looked delighted and Tabitha more terrified than ever.

“I think this afternoon I shall call on Celia,” Grace said with finality. “Maybe she could help me in this game.”