A Gentle Grace (Wedded Women Quartet) Read Online Free PDF

fading. “Now you are humoring me, sir, and I do not take kindly to it.”
    “Because I said you were intelligent?” he asked incredulously.
    Grace shook her head.
    “Witty?”
    Another shake.
    “Charming, then.”
    She pursed her lips.
    “Surely you have not taken offense to my calling you beautiful. Was I too forward?” His voice dropped to a whisper, as if he were admitting something very grave indeed. “I tend to be that way on occasion.”
    Grace nodded. “I can believe that.”
    “But you do not believe you are beautiful?”
    “No,” she corrected with the tiniest of frowns. “I know I am not. Kindly save your mindless flattery for some other unsuspecting lady. I am not interested.”
    For too long Grace had floundered under the false flattery of her peers. She was not blind. She knew her middle was a little too plump, her lips a little too thin, her eyes a little too pale… She was no great beauty, and after years of being forced to disguise her flaws with powders that made a muddle of her complexion and corsets that were much too tight, she had finally gathered the nerve to tell her mother the hell with all of it. Well, perhaps not those exact words had been used (Grace was not quite that brazen), but her point had been made nevertheless. She was done dressing to impress. A man would love her for who she was or he would not love her at all, thank you very much, and this man – this handsome, mysterious stranger – could take his empty compliments to the devil himself for all she cared.
    Grace expected him to be put off by her bluntness – a trait which men did not seem to find very appealing in a lady – and crossed her arms while she waited for him to turn heel and stalk off. She did not expect him to throw back his lion’s head and roar with laughter, but that is exactly what he did. He laughed until tears gathered in the corners of his brilliant green eyes and he had to wipe them away with the cuff of his very fine jacket.
    “Are you addled?” she wondered out loud, which only served to send him into another fit of laughter while Grace looked on, growing more bemused by the second.
    “I have never,” he said once his laughter had finally subsided, “met another woman quite like you before. Pray, tell me your name.” Abruptly earnest, he stepped towards her and extended his hand, palm up, long fingers slightly curled in silent invitation.
    The stranger did not wear gloves, as proper gentleman did, although that did not take Grace by surprise as she had already decided he was no proper gentleman. She hesitated before placing her hand – covered, of course, in white gloves of the softest linen – ever so lightly over his. Their eyes met, and Grace drew in a sharp, sudden breath as she felt a tingle race from her head all the way to her toes. She started to snatch her hand back, but with a cluck of his tongue the man closed his fingers, effectively locking their palms together.
    There was heat there, more heat than there should have been, and even though Grace knew the proper thing would have been to demand her release or call for help, she could do nothing save gaze upon her captor in stunned silence.
    Was this what it felt like, she wondered dazedly, to fall in love at first sight? She had heard women murmur about the phenomenon amidst themselves more times than she could count; their faces always alight with a soft rosy glow and their eyes sparkling bright with hope and promise.
    Grace did not feel like she was glowing or sparkling. She felt as though she had taken a hard kick to the chest, so quickly had all of the air fled her lungs, leaving her gasping for air like some landed fish. 
    “Your name,” the man repeated softly. “What is it?”
    “Grace.” The moment her name was past her lips she winced, regretting the informality even as the stranger seemed to savor it as one would a particularly decadent piece of chocolate.
    “Grace,” he echoed, rolling the one syllable off his