The Disgraceful Lord Gray

by Virginia Heath

  ‘Yes. But I had worked it out for myself well beforehand. It doesn’t take a genius to see what is plainer than the annoyingly intact nose on Hargreaves’s face.’

  Her hand slipped from his sleeve and she sighed. ‘I had hoped it wasn’t common knowledge.’

  ‘It isn’t. Perhaps I am a little more perceptive than most guests.’

  ‘Or more likely, they are all far too polite to gossip about us within earshot.’

  ‘You can trust me to keep your counsel. I’m good at keeping secrets.’ Never a truer word was spoken and once again his mission and his conscience were misaligned. ‘Does your uncle know of his wife’s infidelities?’

  Her gaze flicked to his briefly and she shook her head, bemused. ‘Indeed, you are perceptive. For I am sure there has been more than Mr Hargreaves. He is just one of a line spanning many years. But to answer your question, who knows? Like our guests, I have always been too polite to ask my uncle or confront my aunt. My uncle never utters her name in my presence unless he has imbibed too much after dinner. Then he calls her a cold, callous, self-serving and unfeeling witch. He hates her, when he never hates anyone, and I have no idea why. But it is deep-rooted and heartfelt. And if my aunt mentions him, it is also to criticise. Theirs is an odd relationship. One I am not entirely sure I understand, but alas there is fault on both sides so I try not to judge. He despises her and treats her with disdain; she disrespects her vows and fills her life with people who treat her better than he does. Yet neither seems inclined to separate as so many other unhappy couples do all the time. Uncle Edward cannot bear the sight of Caro and has more than enough money to set her up in her own household—but doesn’t. Nor, to my knowledge, has she ever asked him to. I have never understood what exactly it is that holds them together—but I’ve never really thought it’s my place to say.’

  ‘Marriage can be a fraught institution.’ His close brush with it had been—well, before it had even started. ‘Whether the couple marry for love or for other reasons.’

  ‘Is this another of our casual, platonic conversations, Gray?’ The wry smile was mischievous. ‘Only it feels a tad too personal for two people who are actively avoiding each other. At least I was avoiding you—as per the terms of our agreement, of course.’

  ‘I was avoiding you, too, until that buffoon followed you across the lawn. Then my ingrained, long-forgotten gentlemanly manners kicked in and I came to rescue you. Now that I am assured you are safe from further inconvenience, as per the terms of our agreement, I shall bid you good day, Miss Cranford.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘It’s Thea. And I am curious. Seeing as you know so much about my situation, surely it’s only fair you tell me a little bit about yours?’ She watched him pause mid-step before warily turning around. At the last moment, he pasted his customary cocky expression on his face and that made her more intrigued. Whatever was in his past was something he was reluctant to talk about. She felt that in her bones.

  ‘Further questions surely fall outside the parameters of our truce, as we dally longer than necessary.’

  He was right, but suddenly the truce was as restricting as the silly corset Harriet had bought her. She wanted to know more. Oddly wanted to spend more time with him. ‘Yet you have asked more than your fair share, nonetheless. You have already teased out the shocking state of my aunt and uncle’s marriage, my fear of my finances and my abhorrence of unworthy, greedy men like Mr Hargreaves. I am merely seeking reciprocal knowledge in kind. For the sake of balance. It strikes me, we might have something fundamental in common. I am jaded and wary of romantic attachments to men because too many than I care to count have grievously disappointed me by being fortune hunters. You are jaded and wary of romantic attachments with women because one of them has grievously disappointed you because...? It wasn’t meant to be really tells me nothing at all.’

  Beneath the seemingly relaxed posture, those impressive shoulders stiffened and his spine became straighter, yet despite his obvious reluctance to talk, he stared her straight in the eye. ‘I was young, foolish and caught up in the romance of it all. The sickness passed.’

  ‘She broke your heart. To smithereens. Your own words, Gray, not mine. Who was she and what happened?’

  The hand on his left side closed into a fist as he gazed heavenwards, then he raked that same hand impatiently through his hair and gazed at her levelly as if he had made an unpleasant decision to take vile medicine and was determined to get it over with. ‘Her name was Cecily. Her father’s estate bordered ours. We grew up together.’ The staccato sentences were matter of fact. Almost clinical in their delivery. ‘Her mother and mine were great friends. Cecily and I were inseparable.’

  His childhood sweetheart then. ‘You loved her.’

  He sidestepped her comment. ‘We made plans and promises. Far too many of them with hindsight and, like a fool, I believed them to be as real for her as they were for me. But, alas, I was mistaken. When my father brokered the suggestion behind my back that she marry my older brother, Cecily was given the choice by her father. Me or him. She chose him.’

  ‘Because of the title?’

  ‘No doubt. And the promise of the greater fortune, although I wasn’t destined to be poor. My maternal grandfather had left me a generous bequest that had been held in trust until I became of age, but that paled into insignificance against the stately grounds of Talysarn and all the riches which would come with it.’ His fingers went to play with his cuffs. A tiny, nervous gesture for a man who usually exuded confidence. ‘My father told me the news in his customary cold and dictatorial way, expecting me to stand aside and accept the decision made by two peers based on what suited them, not me. As I’m sure you would expect, I exploded and immediately rode like a man possessed directly to her house to rescue her, assuming she would be as distraught by the outrage as I was, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t even particularly apologetic either. Circumstances change, she said, and she would be a fool to turn down such an advantageous offer. Needless to say, her life then went one way and mine quite another.’ He shrugged as if it was of no matter, when Thea knew it was and her heart wept for him. He had suffered a triple betrayal. His father, brother and sweetheart had all simultaneously stabbed him in the back. ‘At the time, I thought myself devastated. Now I am merely philosophical about the experience.’ He was lying. She knew it because his unwavering silver gaze faltered and for a moment he refused to meet her eye.

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Two weeks shy of twenty-one. So you see, it really was a very long time ago.’ Coincidentally, around the same time as he would have taken control of all those funds left in trust. Without thinking, Thea found her palm smoothing down his arm in sympathy as several pieces of the puzzle fell firmly into place. ‘And, with hindsight, much too young to have been seriously considering marriage.’

  ‘Oh, Gray—that must have been quite a year.’ Aspects of his character now made sense. Of course he would prefer to live in the moment when all those longed-for plans of his youth had been crushed in the worst possible way. ‘To lose your love, all those hopes and dreams and your fortune in one fell swoop.’

  She felt the muscles bunch under his coat. Then heard him exhale slowly before they relaxed. ‘Clearly I am not the only one of us who is perceptive. Yes, like a fool I thought Cecily would reconsider if my riches superseded my brother’s, when I should have thanked her for her shallowness and moved on without a backward glance. Any woman who puts money and social status above love isn’t really the sort any man should give his heart to.’ Or vice versa. Another thing they had in common.

  ‘And then they banished you.’ It beggared belief. To be left reeling and floundering at such a young age. So vulnerable and alone. Thea instantly hated his awful family and the loathsome Cecily. If she ever met the witch, she would receive the full extent of Impetuous Thea’s acid tongue and worse. Much worse.

  ‘I was
never banished. Disowned—yes. My father could not stand the scandal. But I left. Ran as far away from them all as I could get. I didn’t want or need the reminders. Of all the skewed decisions I made that fateful year, it is the one that turned out to be for the best. Bizarrely, it made me. I grew up. Learned things about myself I never would have learned any other way and it allowed me to get the perspective I couldn’t find here in England.’ His eyes flicked to her before wandering to fix on something in the distance. ‘But despite what you are obviously thinking in that overly suspicious brain of yours, I am over it. I would never have come back otherwise. Now, can we dispense with all this heartfelt honesty? By my reckoning we are now even and thus never need to discuss anything beyond the superficial and polite ever again. We really do need to work harder on this truce of ours, else it will collapse before it has had a fighting chance to get going.’

  Thea didn’t call him on it, suspecting he was partially over what happened yet intrinsically scarred by it at the same time. It was the easy, confident, charming Gray smiling at her now, although he was different and always would be. She understood there was a deeper, more sensitive human being under all that swagger. A complicated man of many layers who had lived a much harder life than she could possibly imagine. A man who had been a scandal, weathered it and emerged as someone she could respect. A man she was coming to like a great deal. Yet another thing which surprised her, when it had been an age since any man had piqued her interest enough for her to care about them on any level. ‘Now I see we have a great deal in common. One way or another, money has changed us both and not necessarily for the better.’

  His warm palm softly captured her hand where it still rested on his arm—it was a friendly gesture, not the least bit flirtatious, but to her surprise she wanted it to be. She certainly felt his touch everywhere. ‘Things happen for a reason, Miss Cranford. Every trial and tribulation leads us to the path we were meant to take.’ He was coincidentally leading her back up the path to the lawn and the rest of the guests. Back to the safe haven where their cosy intimacy had no place and temptation was well out of reach. However gentlemanly he was attempting to be, she knew it was himself he was ultimately protecting. She bothered him. Their fledgling relationship bothered him. His feelings towards her scared him. Feelings he would rather deny than articulate; run from rather than pursue.

  ‘It’s Thea. And I suspect our truce has unexpectedly made our path veer in a very different direction from the one for which it was intended, for I am convinced we were never destined to be polite, indifferent acquaintances, Gray. I am coming to believe we were meant to be friends.’ Or more. Not only Impetuous Thea hoped they would be more.

  His step faltered again and he glared in mock affront. ‘Fate can be such a cruel mistress.’

  * * *

  ‘There you are!’ Gray dropped the leather satchel on the kitchen table at the exact moment Lord Fennimore burst through the door, tugging ineffectually at the thoroughly ruined cloth at his neck with one hand while clutching a fresh cravat in the other. ‘Where the hell have you been? And what the hell have you been doing at such an ungodly hour?’

  ‘My job, sir.’ Without being asked, Gray briskly removed the hopelessly knotted disaster from his superior’s collar and then set about tying the new one. Not one of the King’s Elite could tie a damn cravat to save their lives and whenever they were on a mission they had to forgo servants. Spare beds were always better occupied by agents, so Gray often found himself acting as a valet. ‘I took advantage of the prolonged absence of Gislingham’s constantly hovering manservant and broke into his private apartments before dear Bertie comes back.’ An idea which had come to him after hours of staring at the ceiling thanks to a certain redhead he couldn’t seem to forget or avoid.

  Were they friends now? If they were, he was supremely uncomfortable with the concept. As much as he found her surprisingly easy to talk to, the level of honesty he confided in her bothered him. She had made him talk about Cecily, for goodness’ sake, for the first time in almost a decade and without that much pushing. The words had come, jagged and dry like rocks in his throat, then once they had, more tumbled out. It was unnerving. More unnerving was how much lighter he felt as a result of it all. Lighter and worryingly hopeful, and unfortunately, those niggling hopes all seemed to involve her in some way. He didn’t want to be Thea’s casual acquaintance. Friend. He wanted to kiss her again. Take her to bed. Make plans. Blasted plans, for pity’s sake! No wonder he couldn’t sleep!

  ‘Good God, man! You might have told me! Were you seen?’

  ‘Of course I wasn’t seen. But with eagle-eyed Bertie away all week, it was too good an opportunity to miss. I found Gislingham’s study, picked the lock on his desk and borrowed a few of the papers concealed in a strong box within it. I was careful to take only a tiny, random sample and hopefully I’ll be able to return them before his sentry returns and our dastardly Viscount will be none the wiser.’

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘Hard to say. It was too dark to read them properly and I didn’t dare risk a light. Stocks and bonds mostly. Some accounts, I believe, and some private correspondence.’ Most particularly, a thick stash of letters tied with ribbon had sat in that dusty strong box, kept quite separate and secure from the plethora of everyday correspondence in the unlocked drawers. ‘I’m hoping there is enough to give us a flavour of what he’s up to and perhaps throw up a name or two to investigate. Something tangible which will stop the blighter continually running rings around us.’

  So Gray had hauled himself out of bed, determined to do something practical with the insomnia, even if that something took him within feet of the siren tucked up in her own bed asleep. Not that he had ventured up to her floor at all, despite knowing there was potential evidence about nefarious shipping investments stuffed at the bottom of her trunk. There was foolhardy and then there was madness. A sturdy plaster ceiling, wood and bricks had served as a necessary barrier. One that blocked out any hint of alluring jasmine in the air. But still he had felt her and the pull of those damned invisible cords, and that alone had tortured him.

  He stepped back to assess his work and tweaked the folds of the cravat. ‘Where are you off to at this ungodly hour?’

  ‘Riding. With Harriet...’ Lord Fennimore’s suddenly jerky movements and sheepish tone were not like him. He looked hilariously awkward. Gray bit his lip to stop the bark of laughter escaping. ‘You should come, too.’

  ‘You want me to come riding with you and Lady Crudgington? I doubt the lady in question will be pleased to see me—not when she seems very taken with you, sir.’

  ‘She’s bound to bring a chaperon of her own and a thoughtful gentleman brings another to show that he would expect the proper proprieties to be adhered to!’

  ‘You want me to chaperon you?’ The laughter escaped then and earned him a glare. ‘How...quaint.’

  ‘That is the correct way of doing things, young man, and therefore that is exactly the way this shall be done! I shall use the opportunity to pick her ladyship’s brains about Gislingham and you will ride at a respectful distance behind!’ He marched out, slamming the door behind him.

  Wearily, Gray set about fixing himself some coffee to prepare himself for the ordeal and sat drinking it while watching his dog eat breakfast, trying not to hope that Thea would be the other chaperon. Because he couldn’t afford to indulge that whim. Not when the blasted woman had already crawled under his skin and made a home there. Friends! Not while he still had the remaining shrivelled, battered remnants of his heart. Those bludgeoned pieces had taken many years to heal and wouldn’t survive another pummelling. Thea was just too tempting. Tempting enough to make him want to dismiss his painful past out of hand and plunge headlong into...what? Nowhere he was in a hurry to go to again. To take his mind off the unthinkable and frankly irrational thoughts it kept dwelling on, he decided to do something practical.

  * * *
>
  By the time Lord Fennimore was back, snapping orders and generally complaining about Trefor, Gray had relaid the fire, hauled in a day’s worth of logs and made two rounds of toast and slathered them in butter. The pair of them ate in silence, as was the old curmudgeon’s way, but he could see the man was also nervous and found himself intrigued at the idea. The unflappable head of the King’s Elite, a man who loathed pointless socialising, most people as a matter of course and had always been content with his crusty old bachelor ways, was in a total flap over a woman. Life certainly liked to throw up surprises.

  If nothing else, following the pair of them would be hugely entertaining and, while Gray had never been a letter writer, because he didn’t really have a soul to write one to any more, he fully intended to fire off a brace of letters to his friends and comrades Warriner, Leatham, Flint and even Hadleigh, regaling them with the unheard-of, miraculous phenomenon as soon as it was over. Lord Fennimore was nervous because he was courting! He couldn’t resist a little dig to test the theory.

  ‘You are not wearing that coat, are you?’

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Black? Perhaps a little staid for a vivacious woman like Lady Crudgington? If you’re intent on wooing her—only for King and country, of course—it sends out the wrong message. Black is for funerals and formal dinners, not invigorating gallops across the dewy, dawn-kissed fields...’ Biting the inside of his cheek, he enjoyed watching the old man stare down at his attire and dither.

  ‘Yes...you might be right. What should I wear? The green?’

  ‘Green will complement your eyes.’ Eyes that instantly narrowed at the sight of his uncontrollably twitching lips.

  ‘Get your fun elsewhere, Gray! This is business. Pure and simple. If the lady has an interest in me, I’d be a fool not to take advantage! She is detached enough from Gislingham not to offend him and close enough to be useful. That is exactly what being a good spy is all about, rather than alienating the villain’s closest living relative with your crass and improper and unwelcome seductions. Choose your opportunities wisely! Something I despair of you ever learning. Go sort out the horses! She will be here promptly at seven!’ He stomped off indignantly, but came back to the stable with a face like thunder, wearing the green coat and smelling uncharacteristically of expensive cologne.