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

tongue so slowly it became two. “Grace,” he said again, and she felt the press of his hand as surely as he must have felt the answering tremble of her fingers. “It is a lovely name. A fitting one as well.”
    At that she smiled tentatively and ducked her chin in an effort to disguise the emotions that were running rampant across her countenance. Unlike her dear friend Catherine, Grace had never been able to conceal what she was feeling. If she was happy she looked happy. If she was sad she looked sad. And if she was falling head over heels for a perfect stranger… Well, she was not quite sure what that looked like precisely, but she did know she did not want him to see it!
    “If you think my name is fitting than you do not know me at all,” she murmured, peeking up from beneath her lashes. “I am quite certain my mother tempted fate when she chose the name for me, as I am far from graceful. Did your mother do the same with you?”
    “I am named after my great grandfather, a noble man of upstanding moral character,” he drawled. “So yes, I suppose you could say she did tempt fate.”
    Grace blinked. “Are you admitting you do not have upstanding moral character?”
    “It is not something I have ever been accused of possessing, thank God.”
    “You are quite candid,” Grace observed.
    The stranger grinned, revealing a dimple high on his left cheek that did the silliest of things to Grace’s belly. “A high compliment indeed, my lady.”
    “And very evasive.”
    “Evasive?” One eyebrow arched. “How so?”
    “Well, you know my name. My Christian name,” she said in a whisper, “and I do not know who you are at all.”
    His thumb played across her knuckles, gliding over the thin linen of her glove so lightly as to barely be felt. “Stephen Melbourne, Earl of Terraview, my lady. It is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
     

 
     
    CHAPTER FIVE

     
     
    Using the temporary uproar caused by Stephen’s sudden appearance to her advantage, Grace slipped out of the room via an open door that spilled directly into a poorly lit hallway. A thick carpet of indiscriminate color muffled her footsteps as she scurried away with all haste, not caring where she was going, only knowing that she needed to escape.
    Out of breath and barely holding back the sobs that were building like a dam in her chest she stumbled into an empty study and slammed the door shut behind her. Her knees threatened to buckle as she leaned up against the door and she clung weakly to the brass doorknob, drawing strength from the sturdy metal fixture even as her thoughts whirled in a thousand different directions.
    Stephen was back .
    And oh, the pain of that knowledge was like a knife to her chest. A knife that did not enter cleanly, but rather one that angled in from the side, shredding and slicing and scarring as it went. Pressing a fist between her breasts Grace drew in a ragged breath and stepped further into the empty room.
    It was small, but elegantly furnished, with a long mahogany desk and floor to ceiling shelves lined with books and other glittering treasures, a painful reminder of how her own father’s study had looked before they were forced to sell everything off bit by bit.
    Because of me , she thought brokenly as she sagged into one of the two leather chairs that faced the desk and drew her knees up beneath the voluminous skirt of her gown. Because Stephen lost interest in me, as everyone always warned he would. Because he cast me aside as if I was nothing, as if I were no one, and he never came back.
    Until now.
    Now, when she was finally on the precipice of moving on and forgetting him, he had returned. The bastard. The awful, wonderful, heartless bastard who she hated almost as much as she loved.
    Burying her face in her hands, Grace bowed her shoulders and wept.
     
    When Stephen finally found Grace, she was curled up asleep in Lord Markham’s study. Beyond the room the ball continued, marked by raised voices