Chapter 5

“Violet, please,” Grace urged as the pair of them returned to the ballroom.

“You have my word,” Violet promised. “I won’t say anything. But dear God, Grace, of all the people in the world, I was hardly expecting to return to that lawn to find you in the arms of the Duke of Berkley?”

“Well, it’s hardly something I expected either!” Grace needed to talk about this, to find out exactly how much Violet had seen when she had first returned to the lawn. Had she seen in what a passionate way the two of them had been locked together in that kiss?

“I have to go.” Violet motioned across the room. Her husband, the Duke of Barlow, was doing his best to signal to her slyly. “We’ll talk about this, all right? But please, be careful, Grace.”

“What does that mean?” Grace did not get an answer to her question though. Violet hastened off to meet her husband across the ballroom, and the two of them left.

Standing at the side of the ballroom, Grace stared at the empty space left behind by Violet. She didn’t want to look around, fearful that she might meet the gaze of the Duke of Berkley again.

Why did he do that?

Grace lifted her hand and trailed her fingers across her bottom lip, still stunned at the sensation he had caused. He, of all people, she had not expected to be her first kiss. Though she knew she would be lying to herself if she did not admit she had loved every second of it.

The passion with which he had kissed her, even the flirtation he had offered before clashing his lips against her own had been a thrill. She had felt heady, as if she had drunk five glasses of wine and not just the one she’d had.

Was he going to kiss me again?

The way he had wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close made her feel quite powerless, thrillingly so, for which she was ashamed. Apparently one good kiss and she was willing to be as pliable as clay in the Duke of Berkley’s hands.

“Well, did you do it?” Celia’s voice suddenly disturbed her.

“Do what?” Grace dropped her hand and flung herself around. Celia stopped beside her, a curious look in her eye.

“With the Marquess of Morton. Did you…” She paused, looking around to make sure no one was paying attention to them before she whispered the next word. “Kiss.”

“Oh, no.” Her words made Celia’s shoulders slump.

“No? Well, we’ll simply have to find you someone else to kiss.”

“That won’t be needed.” Grace reached out and caught Celia’s wrist. She dragged her to a corner of the room, far away, determined for no one at all to have a chance of overhearing what she had to say. “I still kissed a gentleman.”

“How thrilling.” Celia’s eyes lit up. “And do I get to know the name of lucky gentleman?”

“If I tell you, you cannot tell Eleanor.”

“Why not? Why…” Celia froze, that light fading from her eyes. “My God,” she muttered suddenly. “Are you telling me that you kissed her brother?”

“Celia!” Grace waved a hand madly at her, urging her to be quiet. “Not so loud.”

“That wasn’t loud. It’s a wonder I didn’t scream it in amazement though, I’ll say that.”

“Please, don’t say anything to anyone, especially not Eleanor,” Grace begged, taking hold of Celia’s hand again but with desperation this time. “If she hears of this…”

“What of it? Eleanor might think it quite amusing, knowing her.”

“He won’t want Eleanor to know. God, you should have heard him, Celia, going on about how he had to protect his sister’s reputation. That I was a risk to her reputation as we’re such dear friends.” The words escaped her fast, blurting them out in her desperation to tell Celia all.

“He said that?” Celia’s eyebrows shot up. “The irony when you consider that there were two people in the kiss between you. Did he kiss you first? Or did you kiss him?”

“Celia!”

“What?” Celia asked innocently.

“He kissed me.”

“How interesting.”

“No, it’s not interesting. It’s very much un-interesting!” Grace countered to which Celia smiled with mischief. “Damn your dares. I wish I had never accepted the challenge.” She started to pace on the spot, turning around in mad circles. “That never, ever should have happened.”

“Well, it did, and you have my word that I won’t say anything to Eleanor.” Celia spoke slowly then raised her hand and tapped her chin in thought. “But how can you not find it interesting that he kissed you, Grace?”

“Please don’t do this, Celia; it meant nothing. We despise each other; everyone knows that! When he saw what I was trying to achieve with Lord Morton, he kissed me just to make sure I didn’t compromise my reputation with any other gentleman. He didn’t want me to be seen kissing another. It was all about… reputations,” she muttered the latter word icily, suddenly feeling a hatred washing over her.

I was honest when I told him I hated him. I do hate him.

Though she’d had no answer for him when he’d threaded that arm around her waist and pointed out that she said she hated him but could not pull back from him.

“Still, maybe there’s something more to this,” Celia whispered.

“No, there isn’t. Celia, you may not have seen him and I together as much as the others have, but even you must have heard of how he hates me. He despairs of my clumsy ways, of how I turn up in the scandal sheets when I have fallen out of the carriage instead of stepping down, or when I embarrass him in person by turning up at his house with my gown covered in mud.”

Grace sighed, wondering why the thought of him despising her so much now strangely bothered her. It irked, like an itch deep within her gut that could not be scratched. “He hates me; I am sure of it.”

Celia was no longer smiling. She looked quite resigned and nodded slightly.

“Oh, and he hates you and your dares as well by the way,” Grace added hurriedly. Celia’s smile returned in an instant. She smirked but said nothing more to their conversation. She simply linked arms with Grace and drew her away across the room.

For the rest of the evening, Grace avoided looking any other gentleman in the eye in case she came face to face with the Duke of Berkley again.

* * *

Philip tore the shirt off his body. He turned in the boxing room he kept at the back of his house, only known to his staff and a few friends.

With his torso exposed, and only wearing his trousers and low-cut leather boots, he faced a leather bag that swung from a hook in the ceiling. Curling his hands into fists, he took a wide stance and began to strike the bag.

The first few punches did nothing to relieve the tension that was bristling through him. It took about five more hits before he was thoroughly in his stride, striking out continuously, feeling the venom and fury pumping through him.

All night long, Philip had been unable to sleep. Each time he closed his eyes, he either saw himself and Grace together in his bed with him exploring beneath those ridiculous gowns of hers, or he saw the two of them together as they kissed.

“Stop… thinking… about… her…” he muttered the word between each one of his hits, doing his best to try and release the fury in him.

All his life, he had been calm and composed. He knew how to dignify himself, how to carry himself and be proper. The first time he had ever lost control was when he had learned about the debts his father had left him in. That fury had been all consuming.

After that, to release his anger, he’d got into a fight once in the streets. It ended badly, but the thrill of the fight had been enough to ignite a fire for the sport.

He occasionally crept out to the darker edges of London to watch games tucked away in wooden warehouses. He didn’t bet as others did — he was there to watch the fight.

This boxing room was his secret release. He came here when he was angry, and he came here when he was aroused, trying to fight off the demon in his back.

He tried to retreat from the bag, shaking his arms out to loosen the tautness of the muscles in his arms, but it swiftly returned. With it came the image of Grace and the way she had been leaning toward Lord Morton.

She should never have been that close to him.

As Philip saw himself crashing his lips against his sister’s most annoying friend, he struck out at the bag yet again. He pummeled it now, as if it was a thing that refused to submit in a fight. Again and again, he struck until he wound himself and had to back up, the sweat beading down his chest.

A whistle sounded from the far side of the room. Philip looked around, his eyes slipping to the doorway where he saw his friend standing, leaning on the doorframe.

Aaron Baxter, Duke of Rawley, had returned from his life as a soldier only recently. His scarred face, testament to the battles he had faced on the continent, was turned toward Philip.

“Good morning to you too,” Philip said as he noted the sound. “How did you get in?”

“Your butler let me in. Phil, if you need a parrying partner, you know you can ask me.”

“Thanks, but you’re a soldier. I’d end up more scarred than you.”

Aaron didn’t crack a smile, but Philip knew that was his way. Aaron rarely ever smiled at anything. He was still, defiant, reserved, but Philip liked him all the same.

They understood each other and had known each other for so long now, they fell in step with one another in great ease when Aaron returned from his battles.

“Besides, you could have done me a greater favor by coming to the ball last night. I would have preferred that to being punched in the face.” Despite his words, Philip turned and pummeled the bag again.

With his footsteps covered by the sounds, Aaron crossed the room.

“Well, I assume you’re so angry as you’ve already read the scandal sheets this morning then,” Aaron observed, coming to the side and holding the bag in place. “Again.” Aaron nodded at the bag. “This time, widen your stance further.”

Philip did as Aaron instructed. The bag was easier to hit now with Aaron taking the brunt of the force and refusing to let it move. With the wider stance too, he was able to recoil faster, to come back with fresh punches. After a few strikes, Philip turned away.

The fury he felt was now purely aimed at himself.

I never should have lost control like that with Grace. I should have kept her at an arm’s distance as I have done for the last three years.

“Wait…” Something clicked in his brain. “What do you mean scandal sheets?”

“You haven’t seen them?” Aaron asked, releasing the bag. “You haven’t seen what they say about you?”

At Philip’s obvious look of confusion, Aaron reached into a pocket and pulled out a scrap of folded paper.

“Brace yourself,” Aaron warned coolly.

Philip glanced at Aaron, noting the serious look that was somehow even more tense than it normally was.

He carries the war with him wherever he goes. I know that.

Philip dragged his gaze back down to the scandal sheet and read.

‘Well, there is a surprise in our midst this morning! Someone at the summer ball last night decided to take a turn in the garden for some fresh air when they came upon a scandal unfolding before their eyes.

Lady Grace, a lady who has been mentioned in these pages more than once for her rather unorthodox manners, has transgressed in a way that perhaps will not surprise many though the gentleman she was seen with will surely shock everyone.

Lady Grace was seen clasped in the arms with none other than her dear friend’s brother, the Duke of Berkley. My informant tells me they were tucked secretly away in the garden under the moonlight, and by the strength of their embrace, she would have called them lovers.

Anyone who might have thought Lady Grace and the Duke of Berkley indifferent to one another for their different manners is clearly mistaken indeed. With such scandal unfolding, one has to wonder if the Duke of Berkley intends to step forward and protect Lady Grace from further disgrace, or if he will let her reputation slip even further than it already has done?’

The piece went on in great detail of what the two of them were seen doing together. The kiss was known; they had been seen.

The curse which escaped Philip’s lips was sharp indeed, so sharp that the poor maid who scurried into the room at that moment jumped in alarm though it had no effect on a hardened soldier like Aaron at all.

Aaron grabbed Philip’s shirt off the nearest hook and threw it at him. Philip pulled the shirt over his head as the maid began to make her way toward them, flushed in the face.

“Well?” Aaron said to Philip in an undertone so the approaching maid couldn’t yet hear. “Is it true?”

Philip didn’t need to answer with words. He looked at his friend, and Aaron nodded.

“You were seen,” Aaron hissed in a low tone. “I thought you were a man of discretion.”

“I always have been.” Philip was beginning to think he should have changed his ways.

When he was younger, he had been something of a rake though as Aaron had said, always discreet. That had calmed down in recent years as Philip tried to battle with the struggling finances that his father had left him. Perhaps the amount of pent-up frustration from not having a release in so long was why he had transgressed so far with Lady Grace last night.

“Your Grace.” The maid had reached their side. She bobbed a curtsy, still flushing bright red in the face.

“Yes?” Philip said, trying to keep his voice calm though inside, he was raging.

What the bloody hell am I going to do now?

He crumpled the scandal sheet in his hand, balling it up until it was a tiny ball that he could press between his forefinger and thumb. In his concentration on the paper, he didn’t even pay attention to what the maid said to him.

“What was that?” He jerked his head toward her, listening this time to what she had to say.

She looked nervously between him and Aaron, clearly uncomfortable to be in the room when Philip was plainly so furious.

“You have a visitor, Your Grace,” she said meekly.

“Who?” Philip and Aaron asked in time with one another.

A face cut across his mind. Philip had a wild idea for a second that Grace was the one to come and see him. Did she sit in his drawing room now, a crumpled mess? Had she come to fling herself upon him and demand she remedy her reputation?

Grace would never do that. She wouldn’t ask anything of me; she said as much.

Though strangely, the image of Grace flinging herself in need at him was really rather pleasing.

“It’s your sister.”