“Lord Sheene!” Kermonde’s tone was peremptory.
“I’m coming.” But he didn’t move. Instead, he reached out to take Grace’s hand again. She knew she should pull away but she couldn’t. If he kissed her, she’d shatter into a thousand pieces. But he merely looked at her with his familiar grave attention. He spoke very slowly. “If I prove my worthiness over a year, will you believe in my steadfastness?”
“A year?” She hadn’t expected to haggle. She wasn’t sure what she had expected. He’d never been likely to say yes and go meekly away.
“Yes, a year,” he said curtly. “Will that convince you?”
“You’ve already given up so much of your life,” she stammered. “Don’t waste another year on a futile bargain.”
“You’re the one setting conditions, Grace. I’ll marry you tomorrow and let the rest be damned. I have no doubts, as long as you love me.”
Outwardly he was calm but she knew he hid a titanic storm of emotions. How could he not after tonight? His sudden release. His uncle’s death. The shooting of Monks. Now this clash with her. He’d been through so much. Too much.
“Sheene!” Kermonde said sharply. Clearly ducal tolerance had reached an end.
Matthew didn’t even blink. “Grace?”
He had to go. Powerful men worked on his behalf. She couldn’t allow him to jeopardize that. She gave a jerky little nod. “If you feel the same in a year, ask me again. Don’t consider yourself bound. I told you, Matthew—you’re free. Of your uncle. Of your bondage. Of me. If you think of me with occasional gratitude, that’s all I ask.”
A pathetic lie. And one she could see he didn’t for a moment believe.
“A year then.” He spoke as if he closed a financial transaction.
“There can be no contact between us.” While she died slowly of loneliness and he discovered he wanted a world that contained no trace of Grace Paget. The inevitability made her belly twist with anguish.
“Agreed.” His voice was clipped. “I won’t write or try to see you. You have twelve months to mourn Josiah and decide what you want. You have your bargain. But never imagine for an instant that this is ended. You and I have unfinished business, Grace.”
With focused ruthlessness, he lifted her hand and quickly stripped away the glove. She should protest. This moment would just become a bitter memory to taunt her.
When he bent over her hand, his long hair fell forward to hide his face. He pressed his lips to her bare palm and she couldn’t stifle a sigh of pleasure. Impossible not to remember nights when he’d kissed each inch of her. Every cell o
f her skin remembered his possession. Every cell of her skin longed for him to take her again. But it could never be.
Tears blurred her last image of him as he lifted his head and stepped back with a formal bow. How she loved him. She would never love another.
He turned away and at last strode across to Kermonde. He held himself straight and moved with an unhindered confidence she’d never seen in him before. This was a man ready to embrace his challenges. Embrace and conquer.
Only when Kermonde’s carriage left in a clatter of hooves and wild cracks of the whip did she realize he’d taken her glove with him.
Chapter 29
A pool of afternoon sunlight warmed Grace on the cushioned window seat inside Marlow Hall’s Chinese summerhouse.
She stirred from her troubled doze. She’d dreamed. The dream that still visited with heartbreaking frequency although almost a year had passed since she’d seen Matthew. The dream where his long, powerful body drove into hers, where his arms lashed her close, where his deep voice whispered love.
She whimpered. Her cheeks were sticky with tears. How she hated to wake to a cruel present and the desolation that ran beneath her new life. The grief never faded. Slowly, reluctantly, she opened her eyes.
Matthew stood between the open red lacquer doors at the top of the summerhouse steps. Under one arm, he carried a slim mahogany box.
She exhaled on a soft startled gasp. Graphic, carnal images from her dream flashed behind her eyes and sent heat rushing to her face.
His intent, unblinking stare didn’t shift from her. How long had he watched?
His physical impact was astonishing. In their year apart, she’d forgotten quite how handsome he was. A slight breeze ruffled his thick dark hair, now cut in a fashionable style. With a pang, she remembered his wild black locks drifting like warm silk across her wrist while he’d kissed her hand in farewell. She couldn’t imagine this dauntingly elegant man clutching her with such desperation. She couldn’t imagine him clutching her at all.
After months of thinking of him, dreaming of him, longing for him, now that he was here, he seemed a stranger.
Awkwardly, she sat up. She felt ill at ease, at a disadvantage, sluggish with sleep. She swiped a shaking hand across her cheeks to hide her humiliating tears. She forced her lips into an uncertain smile of greeting.