A Gentle Grace (Wedded Women Quartet) Read online

  A Gentle Grace is a work of fiction

  All of the characters, organizations, and

  events portrayed in this novel are either products

  of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © by Jillian Eaton 2013

  All Rights Reserved.

  Except for use in any review, the

  reproduction or utilization of this work in whole

  or in part in any form is strictly forbidden.

  http://www.jillianeatonbooks.blogspot.com

  Other Titles by Jillian Eaton

  A Brooding Beauty

  A Ravishing Redhead

  A Lascivious Lady

  The Winter Wish

  Praise for the Wedded Women Quartet

  “I thought [A BROODING BEAUTY] had a wonderful blend of story, heat, and love." (Lisa, Rogues Under the Covers)

  “[A RAVISHING REDHEAD] is my first book from this author and it won't be the last. Once I got started reading I couldn't put it down." (Laurie, Bitten by Paranormal Romance)

  “…I recommend this series to anyone who enjoys cute love stories and who wants a darn good read." (Jessica W, Goodreads)

  For my girlfriends who brought

  the ice cream. You made

  everything better.

  I love you.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Burn it,” Josephine said with conviction.

  “Lock it away in a box,” Margaret suggested.

  “Give it to me,” Catherine said kindly.

  Wordlessly Grace looked up from the letter she clutched in her hands to the three women who hovered over her wearing varying expressions of concern. She managed a small smile, but it fell far short of her dark blue eyes and felt unnaturally heavy on her lips.

  Her mouth had become more accustomed to frowns than smiles as of late, and the tiny muscles screamed in protest when she tried to pull them upwards. Giving up, she let her lips fall flat, and tried her best to ignore the quick glance exchanged between Margaret and Catherine.

  “I do not know what to do,” she confessed in a whisper, lifting the letter from her lap to press it tightly against her chest. The parchment crinkled, but she paid it no mind. The letter could be torn in a thousand, nay, a hundred thousand pieces and she would still be able to recite every last word.

  Without warning Josephine reached forward and plucked the letter from her grasp. Crossing the parlor in three quick strides the fair haired, violet eyed beauty held it dangerously close to the flames that licked out from the hearth. “Burn it,” she repeated, her mouth settling into a mulish frown. “It has been nigh on three months without a single word. He is not coming back, Grace, and you would do well to erase him from your thoughts completely. Starting,” – her hand inched closer to the fire – “with this damned letter!”

  “Josephine,” Grace gasped, scrambling to her feet. The toe of her boot caught on the edge of the Persian rug that was stretched across the oak floorboards and she went flying forward, arms wind milling helplessly in the air. With a cluck of their tongues Margaret and Catherine caught her simultaneously, each grasping an arm and hauling her upright in a move well conditioned by practice.

  “There, there,” Catherine soothed, patting Grace’s shoulder. “Josephine is not going to burn your letter, dear. Isn’t that right, Josephine?” Easily the sternest of the four women, Catherine’s startling sapphire eyes brooked no nonsense as she glared daggers at her friend.

  With a reluctant sigh Josephine pulled the letter back from the fire and returned it to Grace. “Here,” she said grudgingly. “Although you really should stop reading it. Bury it in the ground and be done with it. Be done with him. He truly is gone, my dear. And no matter how many times you read that blasted letter he is not coming back.”

  “Most definitely not,” Margaret agreed. Releasing Grace’s arm, she flounced around to the side and collapsed backwards into a velvet upholstered loveseat. Her left hand ran absently along the armrest and light from the fire reflected off her wedding ring, highlighting the emerald that complimented her riotous mane of bright red curls. “He was a rascal and a rake,” she continued, lifting one eyebrow, “and you are well done to be rid of him. All things considered, he did you the favor by disappearing.”

  Clasping her hands behind her back, Grace drew in a deep breath and finally managed what felt like the first genuine smile in weeks as she faced her three closest friends. Since they had attended the same finishing school, Catherine, Margaret, Josephine, and Grace had become sisters in everyway save blood. They had seen each other through fiancés, weddings, second weddings, babies, and – her smile fell away – unspeakable heartbreak.

  “I just want to know if he is all right,” she said softly, dropping her gaze. As it always did when she thought of Stephen her stomach did a slow, slippery role and she automatically swallowed back the lump that formed in her throat. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes and she rubbed them briskly away while the ladies pretended not to notice. They loved her – something they had told her a hundred, nay, a thousand times over – but they simply could not understand why she still loved Stephen. To them he was a horrible man who had broken their dear friend’s heart. But to her… Oh, to her he was the man she had dreamed of spending the rest of her life with.

  Three months had passed since Stephen unceremoniously broke off their engagement in the letter she held clutched so tightly in her hands. Three months of wishing and hoping, of wondering and waiting. For the first four weeks she had sat all but unmoving in the loveseat that Margaret now occupied, convinced that at any moment Stephen would come calling and everything would be explained away. He had gone to visit a sick relative. He was a spy for the King. Anything – anything – would be better than her deepest, darkest fear. Her fear that he simply did not love her, did not want her, and leaving her was as easy for him as putting a quill to parchment.

  “Naturally you want to know how he is faring, because you are a good and kind hearted person,” Catherine said loyally as she walked to a small table in the corner of the room and poured herself some tea. Raising the blue and white porcelain cup to her lips, she took a small sip. “But you must begin to look to the future, dear. With the Season starting next week—”

  “Oh hang the bloody Season,” Josephine interrupted. Circling around the loveseat in a flurry of yellow skirts, she perched on the armrest beside Margaret. “All the men who will be in attendance are either randy young bucks or old enough to be Grace’s grandfather.”

  “Not all of them,” Catherine said. “And how else is she supposed to find a husband?”

  “Why does she need a husband?” Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, Josephine raised her voice over Catherine’s sputter of indignation and turned her head to speak directly to Grace. “You do not need a husband, dear. No woman does. It is a myth perpetuated by men to trap us into loveless marriages.”

  “You have a husband,” Margaret chimed in.

  “Do not remind me,” Josephine said with a dramatic sigh. There was no mistaking the fond curve of her lips, however, nor the sparkle that lit up her eyes at the mere mention of her beloved Traverson. Having recently reconciled after a period of time spent apart, the two were nearly inseparable. He was in Paris at the moment, attending some “dreadfully boring bug lecture” as Josephine so eloquently put it, and as a result she had been staying with Grace and her family since his departure. Margaret and Catherine had arrived in London just yesterday, their own husbands in tow, and would be remaining for the duration of the Season.

  Observing the sheer happiness that radiated from her friend, Grace could not help but feel a pang of jealousy. Had Stephen not left
her she would look as Josephine did now: blissfully happy without a single care in the world. Instead, every smile was forced. Every laugh strained. Some mornings it was even difficult to get out of bed knowing that she would have to face the day without Stephen in it. Knowing that she would not hear his husky voice against her ear, or have his arm curve around her waist, or feel his lips—

  “Grace, are you listening? Grace? Grace!”

  Blinking slowly, Grace flushed as she realized all three women were staring at her. Pressing a cooling hand to her burning cheeks, she struggled to push any wayward thoughts of Stephen aside and focus on the matter at hand. Whatever it happened to be. “I… Yes? What is it?”

  Studying her closely, Catherine slowly repeated her question. “I asked if you were planning on attending the Markham’s ball tomorrow eve.”

  “Well I am certainly not planning on attending.” Josephine sniffed and the layers of crinoline beneath her dress rustled loudly as she crossed her ankles. “The last time I attended one of her soirees she had the gall to accuse me of flirting with her husband—”

  “You were flirting with her husband,” Margaret reminded her.

  “—and she asked me to leave!”

  With the gritty resolve of a mother separating two sparring children, Catherine clapped her hands to draw the attention back to herself. “Josephine, you were flirting with Lord Markham, in addition to every other man in attendance. Margaret, do not antagonize her. Honestly, you two. My daughters have better manners! Now, Grace… Are you, or are you not planning on going to the ball?”

  “I am,” Grace said with great reluctance. She was not happy about it – would rather walk off a cliff into a pit of snakes, to be quite honest – but her sister Rosalind, who had recently celebrated her sixteenth birthday, would be making her debut at the ball and Grace was to be her chaperone. There was nothing quite like watching after your younger, more beautiful sister to let you know you were firmly ‘on the shelf’. At least it would give her an excuse to play the wallflower and decline dances… not that she expected any offers for her card to be made. Grace’s very name was synonymous with clumsiness, particularly when any type of physical coordination was required.

  Men tended to avoid her like the plague for fear she would step on their toes or cause them to fall which, to be fair, had only happened twice. It was her own rotten luck that one of the men had been none other than the Duke of Northwood, and once he had put out the word that she was graceful as an ox on ice skates, her dance card had failed to garner a single signature. Perhaps, if she was more comely or possessed a significantly richer dowry potential suitors would have been able to overlook her two left feet; unfortunately, such was not the case.

  With the exception of her clumsiness, Grace was painfully ordinary. It was not something she minded. She rather liked her long dark hair and pale blue eyes, but when it came to the Ton black haired, blue eyed women – most of them far more fetching than she – were a dime a dozen. Her father was an Earl, but he had inherited the title from a distant Uncle who had squandered away all of his money years before. As a result the Deringer family, while technically members of the elite upper class, were clinging to their social status by their fingertips.

  It had not always been that way. Two months ago their financial future had been secure. Grace had not fallen in love with Stephen because of his great fortune, but it was certainly not something her mother had overlooked. Lady Henrietta Deringer had been beside herself with glee when her eldest daughter became engaged to one of England’s most sought after bachelors, and equally devastated (for more reasons than one) when the wedding had been called off.

  Now the family’s hopes lay with Rosalind, who, with her sparkling lake blue eyes, gleaming mane of blue black hair, and svelte figure was anything but ordinary. Her odds of finding a favorable match during her Season debut were quite high, and as a result no expense had been spared. The coiffures had been wiped clean to afford her brand new wardrobe, complete with a dozen ball gowns, countless accessories, and so many new shoes she could not possibly hope to wear them all.

  Grace, on the other hand, would be wearing all of her dresses from last Season. Even if there had been money to afford new – which there was not – she would have declined. She was not a frivolous woman by nature, and got along quite well with her small collection of gowns. To her mind exchanging one shawl for another was enough to turn an entire outfit on its head, and she had never possessed the patience one needed to stand for hours to be measured and fitted.

  “What are you going to wear?” Catherine asked. Crossing the parlor with the tea tray, she offered a cup to Margaret, who declined, and a cup to Josephine, who accepted but not before adding a pinch of amber liquid from the small silver flask she procured from the pocket of her cloak.

  “What?” she said defensively when Catherine sighed and shook her head. “If you hadn’t notice it is quite cold outside. I need something to warm me up before I return home.” Today was her last day staying with the Grace. Her husband was scheduled to return late in the evening, and Josephine wanted to be present to greet him when he arrived.

  Margaret rolled her eyes. “Josie, you are drinking hot tea.”

  “And now I am drinking hot tea with scotch.”

  Fighting back the second genuine smile that had curved her lips in weeks, Grace sank into a leather chair dyed a sumptuous red – one of her mother’s favorite colors – and clasped her hands together on one knee. “I have not decided yet,” she said, answering Catherine’s question. “Most likely the blue gown with the white trim.” It was a simple dress, quite old fashioned in design with a modestly high décolletage and long, draping sleeves that were long out of favor.

  “And will you put your hair in pig tails and skip instead of waltz?” Catherine asked. At Grace’s querying glance she threw her hands up in the air and muttered something unintelligible under her breath while Margaret, her gray eyes widening, sought to explain.

  “What I am sure Catherine meant to imply is that your blue gown, while quite… er…”

  “Blue,” Josephine supplied helpfully.

  “Yes, while quite blue, is not quite fitting for the occasion. Surely you have something more suitable? Something, well… Something…”

  “Something you did not wear when you were sixteen. What?” Josephine asked when Catherine and Margaret both glared. “No use beating around the bush. I hate to be the one to tell you this, my dear, but if you have any intention of catching a man’s attention it is going to quite the uphill battle with the dresses you have been wearing as of late. Your fiancée left you, Grace. He did not die – although I certainly would not complain if he did. There is no reason to dress yourself as if you are in mourning. If anything, losing Lord Melbourne is a thing to be celebrated!”

  “Josephine,” Margaret hissed.

  “No, no, she is right,” Grace said hastily. It was far better to let her friends think she was wearing old, worn out dresses because she was sad rather than the truth: that there simply was no money to purchase new. Grace loved the three women before her more than life itself, but she could not withstand any more of their pity.

  She knew they did not mean for her to see, but how could she miss the sympathy in their eyes when they looked at her? And she would have to be blind not to notice how at least one of them had made it a point to check in on her every single day since Stephen’s leaving, always inventing some excuse as to the reason for their visit even as they took the cook aside to quietly ask if she had been eating, and checked with the maids to see how often she was leaving the house. “I will find a gown that is much more suitable,” she continued, forcing a smile. “It will be a grand surprise. Just wait and see.”

  “Henry and I could take you in our carriage,” Margaret offered, referring to her husband, the Duke of Heathridge. “It would not be trouble at all. Why, it is practically on the way—”

  Grace held up her hand. “No, it is not on the way,” she said emphatically
. “It is, in fact, quite out of the way. Now I want you to stop it. All of you!”

  Three jaws dropped open simultaneously. Grace felt a twinge of guilt for raising her voice, but for some reason she could not stop the next few words from spilling out of her mouth, nor contain the anger that coated them. “I am not a child to be watched over! I… I am not the first woman to be left in the lurch, nor will I be the last. It is… It is HIGH time I start looking after myself again which means that… Well, it means that all of you will have to leave!” Breathless, she stopped herself short, and when she saw the hurt on Catherine’s face felt instantly contrite. Shoulders drooping, she mumbled, “What I meant to say is that—”

  “What you mean to say,” Josephine interrupted as she stood up, “is that we have long overstayed our welcome.” Acknowledging Grace’s grateful glance with a little wink, she pulled a sputtering Margaret to her feet and marched towards the door. “Catherine, come along. Our dear has decided to stand on her own two feet again. She no longer needs us.”

  Alarm fluttered in Grace’s breast and sent chills of panic racing down her spine. What had she done? She could not get through this on her own. She needed her friends. She was not outspoken like Josephine, or independent like Catherine, or smart like Margaret. She was the sweet one. The clumsy one. The one most easily forgotten unless she was with the three women who were currently making a hasty retreat. “Oh, no, I do not want you to leave, truly I—”

  At the front door Josephine turned and, placing both hands on Grace’s trembling shoulders, stared her straight in the eye. “Grace, we love you. And we support you. But you are right. We have been coddling you incessantly and it needs to stop. It is time for you to sink or swim, darling. Talk to you soon.” Pressing two quick kisses to Grace’s cheeks, Josephine spun on her heel and flounced out with Margaret and Catherine right behind her.