Chapter 23

“Your Grace.” The butler placed the silver tray down on the table and escaped the room fast.

Philip had barely looked up from his breakfast in time to see the butler make his quick exit. It was an unusual thing.

For a second, Philip just looked around the dining room, wondering what could have possibly spooked his butler into making the quick exit. He could have put it down to the butler wanting to give him and his wife some privacy as they were newlywed, but Grace hadn’t yet risen.

Philip had to fight a smile just at the thought of Grace. After what they had shared on his hearth rug, neither one of them had been in a hurry to go to bed. They had retired to their separate bedchambers with Philip very acutely aware of just how close Grace’s chamber now was to his.

He hadn’t yet seen her that morning though he was still planning to hold to his promise of that ride and picnic today.

It’s the very least I can do, isn’t it? After how I behaved last night.

He sipped his coffee and turned his attention to the silver tray that the butler had brought in, presuming something on this tray was the source of the butler’s consternation. There were a couple of letters addressed to Philip, the addresses all written in formal hand. He identified them all with ease as correspondence with his business associates.

However, at the bottom of the pile, there was a long thin white sheet of paper, folded up neatly into three sections. The black ink across the surface told Philip at once what it was. Too small to be a newspaper and too large to be a pamphlet, it had to be a scandal sheet.

He snapped it up, in danger of dislodging all of the letters as his eyes darted down the scandal sheet.

He found the problem straight away. Printed in black and white was Grace’s name.

‘The new Duchess of Berkley is already making an exhibition of herself, it seems. Though naturally, she has never been one whose name has been out of these sheets for long. The only blessing her mother can take comfort in is the fact that she at least didn’t trip up and fall on her face last night at the ball.

Entering on the arm of her new husband, the Duke of Berkley, a poor man who must have felt heavily rushed into this marriage, the Duchess wore an audacious gown indeed. As so many ladies were keen to point out last night, she did not opt for the fashionable pastel colors but something infinitely bolder that made many men turn away in shame.’

Philip paused, disgusted at the words, for one thing, they were a lie. Every man who saw Grace couldn’t help but stare at her in that beautiful gown. She was hardly dressed like a harlot. Oh no, she had simply worn a gown that was stunning.

The writer must be jealous.

He went on, eager to read what else they had to say of his wife.

‘Yet the Duchess did not limit her embarrassment of her new husband to her choice of gown but to a dance too. Perhaps there is trouble in paradise already, for the Duchess was seen to flounce from the floor mid dance. When her husband hastily hurried her out of the assembly rooms a few minutes later, one can only conclude that he had been embarrassed by her enough for one night.’

Philip screwed the scandal sheet up into one hand. It became a tiny ball before he stood and reached toward the fireplace which had been lit this morning in the dining room. The unusually cold morning was proving most convenient as Philip thrust the scandal sheet into the fire and watched it burn.

The pages, filled with ink, became nothing but black ash. Snatching up the poker, Philip stabbed at those ashes, making sure the words were gone for good.

“Philip?” Grace’s voice made him turn around sharply.

She stood in the doorway of the dining room, already in her riding habit, ready for their excursion. The way her hands fidgeted, fingers tangling together, and how she watched the fireplace showed to him that she may have been there for more than just a minute, watching him.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing.” He strode away, back to the table, and snatched up his coffee cup, drinking it hurriedly just so he had something else to do other than look at her with guilt.

I was the cause of that story, not her. I was the one who made her walk away mid dance then demanded that we leave. This is my doing.

“Well, that sounds like a truth, doesn’t it?” she said with full irony, walking toward him. She picked up some toast from his plate that he had not finished eating and nibbled at the edge. The idea of sharing his food was strangely warming. He stood beside her, watching her. “What is wrong?” she asked, more tentatively this time.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Ah, are we back to you refusing to have a conversation with me again?” she said tiredly, dropping the crust back down to his plate. “I thought we had dispensed with that last night.”

“Don’t remind me of last night if you wish me to behave,” he said in a husky tone. With her sharp voice, they had seemed on the precipice of another argument, but his words dispelled it momentarily, and she smiled.

“You can tell me things, Philip. I don’t want you to think you can’t.”

“You really want to know?” he scoffed, that anger returning tenfold. Why did the scandal sheets always have to come back around to plague him? They were an internal constant in his life, a forever torture! “The scandal sheets have written of you again.”

She flinched as if she had been struck, her eyes wide.

“Those damn writers,” he muttered. “Do they have nothing better to do with their lives than write of others? Perhaps their lives are so interminably boring, it’s all they can think to do.”

“This is why you’re angry. I’m sorry. I broke your rule.” She stiffened, guilt spreading across her face. “Maybe I should not have worn that gown. It probably got their attention in the first place.”

“What?” He looked away from his coffee cup, staring at her in confusion. “Good Lord, Grace, you should be able to wear whatever you like. It’s not up to them what you wear. That’s not what’s wrong.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice a touch quieter now.

“I mean I intend to find who did this, and I will make them pay.” He turned and stared into the fire where the ashes of that scandal sheet still remained. “You’re beautiful, Grace. You should show off more.”

She said nothing. When the silence stretched, he noticed it and looked toward her.

She was staring at him in a way he could not decipher, those honey eyes wide, and her lips opening and closing of their own accord, as if she couldn’t quite fathom what exactly she should say.

“I… erm…” She managed eventually. “Did you still want to go for that ride?”

“I do.” He nodded at the table. “Eat something more before we go, and I’ll arrange for a picnic to be made.”

“Very well.” She took her seat and pulled forward her plate, avoiding looking him in the eye now.

Before Philip left the room, he glanced back, staring at her in wonder. What exactly about what he had said had startled her so much? What was it she was feeling now as she firmly avoided looking at him and stared down at her plate? Her slice of toast was abruptly the most interesting thing in the entire room to her.

Philip left the room and hastened down the corridor, fortunately finding the butler at the very end, who was giving some instructions to two of the footmen.

“Horace?” Philip called, needing to speak with him.

The butler bowed and sent the footmen on. When he stood straight, Philip caught that look of fear and understood. Horace had not wanted to bring that scandal sheet to Philip’s attention, fearing what would entail in his mood.

“Would you do me a favor?” Philip asked.

“Of course, your Grace.”

“Any further scandal sheets that mention my wife, would you put them in my chamber please? I don’t want her to stumble upon them and be upset.”

Something in his words seemed to soothe the butler, for he smiled.

“Yes, of course.”

“Thank you, Horace.” With these words, Philip turned away and hastened to find his riding jacket. He caught sight of Grace again through the doorway of the dining room, who was now slowly sipping her tea and staring into the distance.

Philip felt a longing to know what she was thinking about so avidly.

* * *

“Race? You wanted to race me?” Philip asked with a deep laugh.

Grace smiled at the sound. She was discovering there was something unique about Philip when astride a horse. He was not as stiff as when he walked, nor as proper and refined. He’d shed his jacket, now that the morning dew had heated up into a pleasant day. With his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, he was quite the informal picture.

This new Philip was easier to talk to, even easier to provoke and tease.

“And you think you could beat me, do you?” Philip asked, tauntingly, as they trotted alongside each other on their horses.

They had already explored the lower grounds together, and Philip was now steering their path toward the trees in the parkland. Here, it felt like they were a world away from London, rather than just on the very edge of it.

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Grace said with a delighted smile. She had threaded some of the cow parsley and rosemary flowers they’d found on their ride through the bridle of the horse. This scent wafted up to greet her as she teasingly steered her horse a few steps in front of Philip’s. “Yet if you are so confident that you will lose and you wish to maintain your dignity in not losing to your wife…”

She trailed off, looking back at Philip with a taunt in her tone. He was smiling too now.

Something had changed in this last hour of exploring the estate together. There was an ease in one another’s company that had only been there before when they were making love.

“On the count of three?” he said, moving his horse to stand alongside her own. “First one to the top of the hill wins. One…”

“Two…” Yet she hadn’t even got to three before his horse leapt forward. “Oh, you cheat!” she called after him, flicking the reins and racing after him. She could hear his rumbling deep laugh sounding from far ahead of her.

She wondered how she had gone so long without hearing him laugh in such a way. When in her bluestocking group with Eleanor and her friends, not once did she hear his laugh echoing from another room in the house. He was always quiet, always reserved, never this… free.

She flicked the reins harder as they reached the hill and began to climb. Her horse, stronger, lither, and also carrying the lighter load, managed not only to catch up to his but also to streak out in front of his. She looked back at him victoriously then concentrated on her path ahead, streaking through the trees as quickly as she could, jumping tree roots and fallen logs.

When she appeared on the crest of the hill, she slowed her hose, ambling the mare around in a circle to face Philip as he appeared through the trees.

“You cheated,” she accused him with a mocking glare.

“You still won.” He smiled. “I had to try something to win.” He trotted the horse near to hers. “Picnic?”

Grace nodded and slid off her horse. The two of them moved around one another, setting up their picnic with ease, and leaving the horses to graze on the grass at the top of the hill. With an extensive view of not only the house and estate but London too before them, they sat together, eating their lunch.

“Well? What do you think?” he said, nodding at the horizon.

She saw an opportunity to tease him more as he leaned on his elbow on the ground and tore up a pork pie, handing her half to eat.

“I think that you and I are able to enjoy one another’s company without rules between us.” Her challenge made him look at her, offering the smallest of smile though he said nothing on this subject.

He still intends to keep to some rules, doesn’t he? He still wants to part from me after a month.

Yet Grace was finding this very notion of parting from him a very difficult one.

That morning in the dining room when he had defended her, talking staunchly of how mad he was at the writer of the scandal sheet and that she should be able to wear whatever she liked without consequences, she had been stunned.

She saw what Eleanor had spoken of the night before.

“He especially seems to me to be more demanding when he’s trying to protect people around him.”

Grace wondered if she was now one of those people he was so keen to protect. She found herself moving to sit that bit closer to him, wanting to be near him.

“Here, for you.” He passed her a small box from the picnic basket.

“What’s this?”

“Open it.” He urged with a wave of his hand.

She pulled back the box and found inside was a small book. It was a delicate thing, tiny even, no bigger than the palm of her hand. The leather binding was pressed with flowers and tiny leaves of herbs. The botanical drawings were astounding in their detail.

“I realized something,” he said, not really looking at her as he spoke but tearing up another pork pie. Like with the last, he shared it with her, not keeping anything solely for himself. “I never gave you a wedding gift. Not a proper one. I hope you like it.” He still looked down at the pork pie.

Is he nervous?

She had never seen Philip anything but confident and in control. He cleared his throat, looking very keen to move on fast.

“So, what do you think of the view from your new home?”

“I think it’s beautiful.” She ran her hand over the botanical book, wondering when exactly Philip had learned about her love of plants and her interest in recording them on pages. “The book, Philip. I love the book.”

She smiled at him. Inside, there was a warmth growing toward Philip. It was a shocking and all-encompassing feeling, much greater than she had been prepared for. It was something she found difficult to put into words at all.

“I’m glad,” he said, still not looking at her. “Now, where shall we ride to this afternoon? We need a re-match of our race at some point, and this time, I shall win.”