Free A Gentle Grace (Wedded Women Quartet) by Jillian Eaton

“Either tell me what you want to tell me, Lady Gates, or do me the great pleasure of disappearing entirely,” he growled. “I have no patience for your games.”
    Josephine gave a haughty toss of her head, but when she lowered her chin he saw a smile lurking in the corners of her mouth. “We were all under the impression that Grace would have to win you back, but that is not the case, is it Lord Melbourne?”
    “Win me back?” Of their own accord his fingers closed around Josephine’s exposed shoulders and he gave her a little shake. “What do you mean by that? Damn you, tell me!” 
    “And ruin all the fun?” One slender eyebrow arched. “No, I do not think I will. Enjoy the rest of the ball, Lord Melbourne.”
    Cursing under his breath, Stephen released her. It would be a waste of time to question Josephine further. She would only tell him exactly what she wanted to, nothing more and frustratingly less. Raising her fingers to her forehead in a mock salute, Josephine spun on her heel and sauntered away, leaving Stephen to sort out the sentence that had struck at his heart like a sledgehammer.
    We were all under the impression that Grace would have to win you back, but that is not the case, is it ?
    Not the case, is it ?
    Is it ?
    What the bloody hell did that mean ?
    There was only one way to find out. Jaw clenched, arms stiff at his sides, stomach twisted in knots, Stephen struck out across the ballroom. He cleared people from his path with one murderous glare after another and no one was so foolish as to dare speak a word in his direction. He was a man on a mission, and that mission was – had always been, really – Grace.
     

 
     
    CHAPTER NINE

     
     
    There was a reason Grace possessed such a fondness for pastries. She allowed her friends and family to think it was because of her perpetual sweet tooth, and while that was certainly true, it was also not the whole reason, nor even the half of it.
    No, the real reason she adored pastries was the memory they evoked. One bite of the thinly layered dough to the fruit filling within and she was a young girl again, entertaining her first gentleman caller on the veranda of her parent’s modest country estate while her mother peered anxiously through the window and her father oh-so-casually cleaned one of his rifles in the drawing room.
    Of course her first caller it had been Stephen.
    It had always been Stephen.
    Even now, four years removed from the moment that had changed the course of her life forever, Grace was able to recall every detail with absolute clarity as she nibbled on the edge of a sweet raspberry tart. Quite cognizant of the damage the delicious pastry could do to her ivory gown, she wrapped it in a cloth napkin and wandered to the rear of the supper room where a small collection of mismatched tables and chairs had been set up.
    She sat gratefully, her feet and ankles already weary from being pinched in her too tight dancing slippers, and while the ton mingled all around her, oblivious to one solitary female of nondescript appearance, she ate her raspberry tart and remembered her first kiss.
     
    Stephen had come to call exactly one week after the Grandhill’s picnic. He showed up quite unexpectedly at half past one in the afternoon with a bouquet of wildflowers in his hands and a smirk on his face.
    The butler ushered him in to the drawing room, where he was served weak tea and stale scones – the cook had taken ill two days before, and Lady Deringer’s cooking skills paled in comparison – while Grace changed dresses upstairs and her mother attempted to do something to tame her wild curls.
    “No, no, no, not the yellow muslin! The blue , Grace. The blue! It matches your eyes,” Henrietta all but shrieked as she yanked a hairbrush through Grace’s hair hard enough to bring tears to her eyes.
    “But I have grass stains on the blue one.”
    Henrietta paused mid yank, her eyes bulging. “Grass stains? How in heavens did you get grass