Stone grinned proudly. “My Clara is certainly a force to be reckoned with.”
Surprisingly so, considering Miss Catchpole was only aged eighteen to Stone’s almost forty.
“I attribute her courage and fortitude to the Duchess of Weston’s school for young ladies, which the duke’s daughter and Clara attended in Portsmouth,” Stone continued affectionately. “As well as teaching a young lady her own worth, it is the first teaching establishment I have ever heard of that actually tutors those young ladies in pleasures of the flesh. Both male and female.”
Gray was relieved he had not been sipping his brandy when Stone made this announcement; otherwise, he felt sure he might have choked on it. As it was, he almost choked on his own saliva. “You cannot be serious!”
“Perfectly,” Stone confirmed, completely unabashed. “If Clara and I are blessed with daughters, I can only pray that the school is still running when they reach a suitable age to attend.” He gave a smile of satisfaction at the thought of the daughters he and his future bride might produce together. “Clara’s cousin Rachel also attended the school,” he added softly.
This time, about to take a sip of his brandy, Gray was totally unable to stop the indrawn breath that resulted in his sucking the liquid down rather than drinking it.
The next few minutes were taken up with Stone slapping Gray heartily on the back as he choked and spluttered on the fiery liquid which had tried to enter his lungs rather than his stomach.
Gray’s throat was sore and his eyes red and still leaking when he finally regained a modicum of control. “I believe you did that on purpose.” He glared at the other man.
Stone’s expression was so innocent, it could only have been feigned. “I merely mentioned that Miss Banford, my soon-to-be-cousin-by-marriage, attended the same school as my beloved Clara and their good friend Lady Clarissa Noble, the Countess of Harrogate.”
Gray glowered. “Why should that information be of concern to me?”
“I have no idea.” The other man shrugged. “Only that it is,” he added softly.
Challengingly?
Despite Gray’s own fantastical daydreams earlier, Lord Stone could not really think that Gray could ever have any serious intent where Rachel was concerned? The mere idea of it was ludicrous. Rachel’s parents were titled and wealthy, as well as valued members of Society. Whereas Gray was neither titled nor of Society. As for wealth…
No, Gray had nothing, absolutely nothing, to offer Rachel.
Chapter Four
“How did you persuade Lord Stone to step down from his high principles and allow a relationship between the two of you?” Rachel prompted Clara curiously.
Her friend turned from observing her reflection in her wedding gown. The two young ladies were currently in Clara’s bedchamber. Rachel had assisted her cousin in donning her white wedding gown and veil of satin and lace after her Aunt Catchpole had been forced to flee the room in floods of tears at being faced with the reality of it being “her baby’s wedding day.”
Rachel was wearing a bridesmaid gown of the palest cream, a perfect foil for her creamy complexion and dark blonde curls.
“Dogged determination,” Clara answered her ruefully.
She frowned. “And that worked?” She was responsible for initially instigating those invitations for Grayson to join her parents for dinner, but this past week, Grayson had continued to refuse them, claiming estate business of one kind or another prevented him from joining them. As a consequence, Rachel had managed to arrange several “accidental” meetings between the two of them in the past few days, all to no avail, as Grayson remained steadfastly polite and distant toward her.
“No, but seduction did,” Clara answered her with a grin. “Ezra can be an extremely stubborn gentleman, but he met his match in me,” she added with satisfaction.
Rachel chewed on her bottom lip. “I am not sure seduction would work on Mr. Long.”
Clara gave a giggle. “Seduction works on every man, if approached and carried out in the manner the Duchess of Weston taught us all at school.”
Rachel felt the warmth of color enter her cheeks merely thinking about those lessons in physical pleasure she, Clara, and Rissa had attended while at the duchess’s school for young ladies. “Mr. Long is so…prickly. That was not an invitation for you to make a joke about pricks,” she cautioned Clara as her friend’s wickedly mischievous expression indicated she might.
Her cousin gave a delighted chuckle. “Today is my wedding day. Tonight is my wedding night. I believe I am allowed to think about pricks, or at least one prick, today of all days!”
Rachel chuckled along with her for several seconds before sobering. “Today is also the end of an era,” she said sadly. “First Rissa married, and now you,” she added wistfully.
Clara clasped both Rachel’s hands in her own. “Rissa and the earl will visit her father and stepmother often. Indeed, they are at Weston Park now, ready for Christmas. Ezra and I will live on the estate next to your parents.” She gave Rachel’s hands a squeeze. “Be assured, wherever your life takes you, the three of us shall remain friends. Always.”
Rachel nodded before straightening her shoulders. “Dogged determination, you said?”
“And seduction if that fails,” Clara confirmed, that wicked light once again in her bright blue eyes. “But only as long as you are sure you are really set on Mr. Long,” she added seconds later.
Rachel thought back to the last three weeks of knowing him, of realizing in that split second, when she first gazed upon him standing between her and the stampeding bull, that his heroics alone had stolen her heart. That love had only deepened the previous week when Grayson had assisted Clara in saving Lord Stone from the demented man set upon killing him. Grayson was a hero worthy of being loved.
“I am, yes,” she finally answered her cousin firmly.
Clara nodded. “Then today is the perfect day to further your cause. Men might like to appear cynical about such things, but everyone is affected by a wedding,” she explained at Rachel’s puzzlement. “Perhaps it is the handsome groom, the blushing bride, or the sheer beauty of the vows they exchange, but I refuse to believe anyone who attends a wedding can remain unaffected. Even the eminently practical Mr. Long,” she added teasingly. “At the very least, you can demand he dance with you at the party after the wedding breakfast.”
Exactly what Rachel had been thinking!
“You are not leaving already?”
Gray came to an abrupt halt on the snow-dusted pathway leading away from the back of the church. Having dutifully attended his employer’s wedding ceremony, he had now thought to be able to leave undetected by taking advantage of the other guests’ attention being currently diverted with watching the bride and groom drive off in their carriage from the front of the church. They were not going far, only the half a mile or so to where the reception was being held for them at the home of the bride’s aunt and uncle.
Gray had not taken account of the beautiful Rachel Banford in his plan to avoid attending the wedding reception.
He closed his eyes and counted slowly to ten before opening them again and turning to face the beautiful young lady who haunted his nighttime dreams and his every waking fantasy. Even more so since Ezra Long had informed him of the unusual lessons taught at the Duchess of Weston’s school for young ladies, of which Gray now knew Rachel had been a pupil.
The things Gray had imagined sharing with Rachel, of having her do to him and him to her, had kept him awake every night since while he had stroked himself to completion. Sometimes more than once.
He had also lived in trepidation these past five days of having another visit from the Duke of Hawkwood. He had only felt able to breathe more easily again once he learned from Lord Stone that Hawkwood and his duchess had departed Weston Park two days ago, presumably to spend Christmas at one of his estates with the rest of the Stirling family.
Meeting Hawkwood again had shaken Gray, as well as causing him to look
constantly over his shoulder. Learning of the other man’s departure had been bittersweet. On the one hand, Gray was relieved Hawkwood was no longer in the vicinity to churn up memories best forgotten. On the other, it had felt strangely warming to be able to talk to an old friend, one who knew who and what Gray had once been.
Having already agreed to stand for Lord Stone at the church, Gray had no choice but to be present for the service today. But sitting at the front of the church earlier beside Lord Stone, the titled and Society guests seated behind him, had served as a stark reminder to Gray as to how much his life had changed and how futile his fantasies were in regard to Rachel. He could only ever be a diversion to her, someone for her to flirt with and practice her womanly wiles upon, in the full knowledge of how unsuitable he was to be anything else in her life.
“I thought it was tradition for the best man to make a speech at the wedding breakfast?” Rachel prompted again.
Gray’s expression hardened as he met her enquiring gaze. “I have fulfilled my main obligation as Stone’s best man. Besides, I seriously doubt my absence will be noticed.”
“I shall notice.”
“That is because you are—” He broke off, a frown appearing between his eyes when he saw how Rachel was shivering beneath the delicate shawl she wore over her long-sleeved gown to ward off the cold. “You should not linger out here in this weather.”
“I wished to know where you were going.”
“I have work to attend to,” he bit out harshly.
“Surely a few hours of eating and dancing after the wedding would not—”
“I have no time for such frivolous activities,” he dismissed scathingly.
Her brows rose. “Eating is a frivolity?”
Gray glared his irritation. “You know very well I was referring to the dancing.”
The cream lace-and-satin skirt of the bridesmaid gown floated about Rachel’s legs as she walked slowly toward him, stopping only when she stood inches in front of him, a bonnet of the same material and color framing the beauty of her face. “And how should I know that?” she prompted.
His mouth twisted. “Possibly because you are not stupid.”
Her head tilted. “I believe that to be a compliment, coming from you, and yet it is hard to tell when the words were spoken so aggressively.”
“Coming from me?” he repeated softly.
Her pouting lips curled up into a smile. “Everyone knows that it is very difficult, almost impossible, to find oneself in the good graces of Mr. Grayson Long.”
His scowl deepened. “Everyone knows this…?”
Her eyes glittered with mockery. “We will not advance very far in this conversation if you are going to continue answering me by repeating part of my previous comment.”
Gray’s nostrils flared. “You should leave now and join the rest of the wedding party on their way to your parents’ house.”
Rachel shook her head. “The carriages will all have left, and I had already informed my mother I prefer to walk home. It is the reason she gave me her shawl to wear.”
He scowled. “She should not have agreed to your walking home alone at all.”
“It is not far, and I explained I needed this time of solitude in order to come to terms with losing the second of my two closest friends to matrimony. Besides”—her green gaze mocked him—“I believe you and Lord Stone have successfully routed the neighborhood of madmen bent on revenge!”
Gray knew she referred to one man who had attempted to harm her cousin Clara and then a second man, just weeks later, who had wished to do the same to Lord Stone.
He gave an acknowledging nod. “But I do not see how you can have lost your cousin when she will now be living permanently on the estate adjoining where you live with your parents.”
She shrugged. “I shall not always live there.”
“What do you mean—” Gray broke off, his mouth firming as he realized she was no doubt referring to a time when she would marry and, in all probability, leave the area to live somewhere else with her husband. He was surprised how disturbed he was at the thought of Rachel married to another man. “Of course you will not,” he said evenly.
“And I did not mean I have lost my closest friends in the sense of proximity but in an emotional one.” Rachel sighed. “As cousins of the same age, Clara and I have been friends for many years, and then this past year, we have become close to Rissa—Clarissa Spencer, before she became the Countess of Harrogate,” she explained. “The two of them are now married, and their priorities have also changed, their loyalty now being to their husbands and their marriages. As it should be.” She nodded.
“As your own will one day be.”
She lowered her lashes, making it impossible for Gray to see the emotions in them. “Possibly.”
“The three of you attended the Duchess of Weston’s school for young ladies, did you not?”
Rachel eyed him from beneath the thickness of her lashes. He was dressed rather finely today, in a tall black hat, a dark gray superfine, silver waistcoat over white linen, and pale gray pantaloons tucked into highly polished black boots. He looked very handsome and aristocratic.
There had also been something in Grayson’s voice when he mentioned the duchess’s school, almost an inference of some kind.
Rachel’s brow cleared as a possible reason for that occurred to her. “You have been talking on the subject with either Lord Stone or the Earl of Harrogate,” she said knowingly. “Or possibly even the Duke of Weston.”
Color bled along the sharpness of Gray’s cheekbones. “I am barely acquainted with either the duke or the earl.”
Rachel bit her top lip to hold back a smile. “Then your informant was Lord Stone. I would be very interested to know under what circumstances such a conversation took place,” she drawled.
The flush in his cheeks deepened. “I assure you there was nothing disrespectful in our discussion.”
Rachel laughed. “Oh, I do not think for a moment Lord Stone would ever behave in the least ungentlemanly toward Clara. He obviously adores her and would not stand to hear any gossip or slight against her.” She eyed Grayson shrewdly. “Even so, I would still wager Lord Stone has revealed to you something of the teachings at the duchess’s school?”
Gray, deeply wishing he had never started this conversation, wondered if it was too late for him to continue to walk away, both from Rachel and from answering her questions. The answer was, of course, that it was too late for him to do either of those things.
He straightened his shoulders. “I am sure the Duchess of Weston’s teachings have only the welfare of her pupils in mind.”
Rachel eyed him teasingly, that wicked glint back in her eyes. “And the gentlemen with whom they are intimate.”
Gray swallowed hard after his mouth suddenly filled with saliva at thought of those intimacies. Intimacies he could so easily imagine sharing with Rachel. “The Duchess of Weston is obviously a lady ahead of her time.”
Rachel chuckled warmly. “I am not quite sure what you mean by that, but I assure you all the duchess’s pupils adore her. To now see her so happily married, and with a baby son of her own, is of great joy to us all.”
Gray felt chastened. As he should. The subject was slightly uncomfortable for him, but even so, he should not have given the impression he believed there was anything wrong with the duchess telling her pupils of the physical pleasures to be given and taken between a man and woman. Indeed, the three gentlemen he knew to be on the receiving end of those teachings, namely Weston, Harrogate, and Lord Stone, all looked extremely happy and content with the women they loved and who loved them.
He bowed stiffly. “I meant no criticism of the lady.”
“Of course you did not,” Rachel dismissed with a laugh. “The duchess is the most delightful of women. It is no wonder the duke so obviously adores her. Another pupil of hers, our friend Manda, is now married to Lord Alexander Stirling, the brother of the Duke of Hawkwood,” she added almost questioni
ngly.
Because she had seen Gray and Hawkwood talking together five days ago and was curious as to the extent of their acquaintance?
If that was the case, Gray had no intention of satisfying her curiosity.
He nodded his head in acknowledgment. “I did not know that.” Good God, it seemed there was a veritable rash of these forward-thinking young wives now emerging into Society. Ones who promised to take over the ton by storm once they were old enough to become the matriarchs of that society.
Rachel chuckled, as she seemed to read some of his thoughts, before quickly sobering again. “Grayson.” She reached out to take his bare hands in her gloved ones as she looked up at him appealingly. “Will you please, please join me in walking to Banford Manor so that we might dance together later, at least?”
Dance together at least?
In view of her earlier teasing, Gray stopped himself from repeating those words out loud.
Although he could not help but wonder what other things Rachel had in mind that the two of them might possibly do together beyond that at least.
Chapter Five
“Grayson?”
He blinked, shaking his head as he refocused on the living, breathing, desirable young woman standing in front of him asking him to accompany her to her parents’ home and later dance with her.
He should not agree, for her sake as much as for his own.
He should not…
“Very well,” Gray finally conceded heavily. “But it will be for one dance only, and then I must return to my work at Stone Manor,” he warned as her expression brightened in triumph. “And I prefer to be called Gray rather than Grayson,” he added as he saw the way Rachel had flinched at his abrupt dismissal. But the use of the formal Grayson reminded him all too forcefully it had once been his title rather than his first name as it was now.
Rachel’s head tilted to one side as she studied him. “Is that what your friends call you?”
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