On the first day Grace did not appear, Hugh was grateful that at least one of them had enough sense to create some distance between them. They both needed time to allow their passions to cool, to take a measured look at how to behave with each other, to determine how they would present themselves in the company of others.
On the second day, when he didn’t see or hear from her by evening, he began to worry. But his sister assured him that Grace was well. She was dividing the time between her sitting room and the libraries. The two women had been eating lunch in Grace’s suite and each day they’d walked on the bluffs along the river. Their guest was trying to regain her strength, she told him.
By dinner the third day, he was finding her absence sorely trying. Baronsford was a large place, but not so large that a guest could go unseen and unheard, especially when he deliberately went looking for her in the places she was known to frequent. Unless, of course, she’d chosen not to be found by him. And his sister was no help, for she’d spent all of Thursday at the tower house with Violet.
On the fourth day, after a restless night, Hugh came down to his study at dawn, determined to put an end to the madness. She was clearly trying to offend him. If she thought she was going to remain in hiding until the week was up and then slip off to Antwerp, she was seriously deluded. She had nothing to fear from him. He was no predator, though he was beginning to feel like one. If she wished never to repeat what they’d shared by the loch, he would respect and abide by her decision. But that shouldn’t stop her from having a civil conversation with him. He wanted to see her face, hear her speak, look into her beautiful eyes. He wanted to wonder about the direction of her thoughts as she watched him whenever she thought he was unaware. He was only looking to spend some time innocently enjoying Grace’s company.
“Very well, that last is a lie,” he muttered to himself, glaring out at the murky morning sky. But unless something had changed, he was still the master of Baronsford and he still had a sister. There was no reason why he shouldn’t employ the help of . . . Jo, Mrs. Henson, someone to bring about some encounter with Grace.
All schemes forming in his head were immediately laid aside. Outside the study windows, he espied the golden curls of a woman wandering along the green paths of the walled gardens. It was an hour before the gardeners would start their day’s work. The household was only beginning to stir when he came down the stairs.
With the heavy drapes shielding him, he watched Grace’s every step as she drew closer. Her face was lifted to the sky, and like a wine connoisseur he sipped at her beauty. The generous lips, the angle of her jaw, the blond hair that refused to be tamed. But there were other things he noticed too. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her midsection. Even as he watched, she dabbed under each eye. Tears, he speculated. She was clearly upset. Maybe she grieved some loss. Hugh’s thoughts immediately turned to her memory. Perhaps she’d regained what she had forgotten. It was possible that this was the reason for their estrangement.
Perhaps Jo was right all along. Grace was attached to someone else.
The thought of losing her landed like a sharp jab.
“Stop,” he murmured. This was all conjecture. He was a judge. He was no carnival mind reader. One did not assume. She was the only one who could set him straight. He needed to talk to her.
* * *
Mariah Douglas knew.
The letter from Nithsdale Hall had arrived late yesterday. Anna delivered it to her room with a questioning look, and for the longest time Grace simply stared at the heart and crown on the wax seal.
As she broke open the letter, a cold sense of ruin descended on her. From the moment Mrs. Douglas looked at her from that carriage, blemishing that glorious day, Grace had been waiting for this moment, knowing it would come. Resigned to her fate, she read it.
Without question, Mrs. Douglas knew, although there was a cleverness in her wording. She relayed her meaning without overtly revealing anything.
How charming to find a beauty with such elegant Parisian profile in the rustic wilderness of the Scottish Borders.
In another line, the modiste mentioned the Baronsford ball, writing that Grace’s willowy physique would be perfect for a dress she’d seen once on the dames du palais of the Duchess of Parma at a very memorable occasion some years back.
And then the description of the dress:
Because haute couture is a particular interest of mine, I find I rarely forget a dress when it suits the wearer perfectly. I can see it now—the white satin petticoat with the delicately embroidered designs of golden wheat entwined with grapes and vine leaves. The matching sleeves, falling in waves and set off by white bows. The pale green body of Lyonnais silk with a darker green border of silk satin, also worked with gold cord and matching wheat and grape leaves. So lovely. So unforgettable. But I digress, and since you have never seen it and will have little chance in your present situation to ware it . . .
But Grace had seen the gown. She’d worn it to the reception at the Hôtel de Ville after the baptism of Napoleon’s son. The deliberate misspelling of “wear” could not be missed either. Mrs. Douglas was telling Grace that she recalled their introduction down to the smallest detail.
The rest of the letter showed no hint of a threat, but seemed to offer an olive branch. Mrs. Douglas mentioned her travels on the Continent since the war, the friends she’d made, and how old foes are now the closest of allies. She closed the letter saying that she had made a habit of taking a walk each morning—unaccompanied by Lady Nithsdale—in and about Melrose Village and that she’d greatly enjoy Grace’s company if she chose to join her.
Grace looked up absently at the blanket of lowering clouds. How truly insignificant Mrs. Douglas’s discovery was when weighed against the tragic twist of fate that now threatened to tear her heart in two.
Hugh’s wife and child died, alone in their misery, sick with no loved one to tend to them . . . while he struggled to get to Vigo. Jo’s words echoed in her brain. He couldn’t reach them.
Many times her father had told her about that great victory over the British. How the cavalry under his command had circled to the south of Corunna to cut off any escape. How he’d harried the flank of the entrenched English army while they tried to withstand the frontal assaults from the north. The enemy had been trying to hold out, waiting for more ships to arrive from Vigo, for more reinforcements and cannon to bombard the French while they escaped by sea. But the British ships did not come. Widespread sickness had delayed them. And as the fighting raged, her father had cut off all messengers, all riders, trying to slip through. He’d stopped them all.
“And Hugh was one of them,” she murmured. Trying to reach his sick family.
Her own father had stopped him from reaching them.
The rain began to fall, mingling with the tears on her cheeks, and she pulled the shawl around her. Anguish cut into her like a knife. She was no innocent daughter of some military officer. She was the flesh and blood of the man responsible for the loss Hugh suffered.
Grace heard the heavy footfall of boots on the path leading to the garden. It was Hugh.
* * *
A few scattered drops, and then the sky opened.
Hugh hurried into the garden, his gaze scouring the area where he’d seen Grace from his window. She was nowhere in sight. Moving quickly between fruit trees and flower beds, he searched the next path, checked under the arched trellises of roses not yet in bloom and spring-flowering clematis. The rain was still coming down hard as he strode through a fragrant lane of lilac, purple and white, in the direction of the grape arbors.
When he found no one there, he turned in frustration, running his hand through his hair and trying to imagine where she would have gone to escape the falling rain.
He caught sight of her on the path beyond the walls, glancing over her shoulder at him before slipping through a side door into the house.