by Ella Edon
Thomas closed his eyes. "Grace, I would do no such thing."
"But you have done exactly that thing! You know – you must know – how I feel. How could you mistake it?"
He tried to speak, but she turned around and held up her hand. "I would wait for you, Adam," she said, struggling to keep her voice from shaking. "If you must go home and help your family, there is no one who would understand that better than I."
"Oh, Grace . . . there’s nothing I would like better than that."
"Then – perhaps later – when all is resolved with your family at your home – oh, I would love living far out in the country. I could help you – I would do anything for you."
But all he could do was stand and shake his head. His conscience stabbed his heart once again, for not only had he harmed Grace – whom he was beginning to love – he had harmed himself, as well. He had gone too far in misrepresenting himself to her, and now he did not know how to resolve his predicament.
The only thing he did know was that he could not play the part of Adam Wheeler for one moment longer after tonight.
She walked away and stood with her back to him, resting one hand on the bark of an apple tree. "I should have known that all of this was just a lark to you," she said, her voice low and trembling. "I should have known that such a handsome man as you – coachman or no – will easily find a far more attractive and higher-status woman to actually marry. Someone like Merope Robbins, no doubt."
His own anger began to rise. "Grace! I am here for you."
She whirled around. "No, you are not here! You’re leaving! You just said you were leaving forever and you said it more than once! There is no mistake!"
"Please. You must understand. There is nothing I can do. I must go."
"Then take me with you!"
"Grace, that is impossible!"
Both of their voices were becoming louder. Thomas heard a door fall shut from somewhere near the cottage and knew that this must be resolved now, or else it never would be.
"Come with me," he said tersely. Walking fast, Thomas held Grace by the arm and walked her towards the far end of the orchard. There was nothing out there, but grass and fields and distant forest, all of it well out of sight of the cottage.
Grace stood out beneath the brilliant white moon as it shone down through the apple blossoms, and turned to face Adam with her blood thoroughly up.
"I have wept until I can weep no more," she told him. "I have been insulted, so deeply that it no longer matters. You say you’re offended because I deceived you about who I really was – yet you deceive me about leaving forever, well aware that I knew nothing of that! You let me – you let me throw myself at you – so I suppose I cannot blame you for thinking I required no respect."
She turned her back on him again, but stood with her head up. "It seems that I have no more tears to give you, Adam Wheeler. It seems I have nothing to give to you at all . . . nothing that you truly want outside of a bit of amusement, until you have better to play with."
Adam caught hold of her and forced her to turn around and look at him. He had something of a surprisingly anguished expression on that handsome face, with pain and confusion in his eyes. It was as if he wanted to say something . . . but he did not, and in a moment, he fell silent and looked away.
"You knew you were leaving, even while we were lying on the banks of the river!" Grace cried, throwing her head back so wildly that her hair came loose and fell tumbling down her back. "You knew when we danced together on the banks of the river at the second assembly ball! How could you not tell me that all of that meant nothing at all? How could you think it would mean so little to me?"
"It meant a great deal to me, Grace. It still does! Your beauty, your sweetness, your very complete honesty . . . at least, as far as the way you felt towards me. There was no artifice in it. You loved a coachman for himself, not for whatever fortune he might have. That was worth everything. Everything."
"Not if you’re leaving," she moaned, trying to turn away from him again. "Oh, not if you’re leaving! If you leave me forever, it was all worth nothing!"
Suddenly, he seized her hard and pulled her close against him. Grace felt like a little rag doll with no will of her own, crushed to his chest until she could feel the beat of his heart. Her head fell back and then his lips were pressed against hers, warm and soft and insistent all at once.
The blood pounded in her ears. A sense of heat began flooding through her body and her knees felt weak, as though they might give way . . . but it did not matter because she was held securely in his arms while he kissed her and kissed her again and again, from her mouth to her neck and back up to her mouth.
He would never let her fall.
In a moment, Grace reached up and got her arms around his neck, holding him just as tightly and kissing him in return. It seemed that she could not get enough of this and could not get close enough to him, though she continued to try and pressed her whole body hard against his.
Suddenly, he wrenched himself away from her. He still held her by the arms and Grace would have fallen if he had not. She could only stare up at him, her lips parted, trying to draw breath, watching as he seemed to be doing the same and feeling the great tension flaring throughout his body.
"Grace," he said tightly. "I don’t think you realize how this will end. I do not think this is what you want."
"Is it not?" she whispered, her breath still coming hard. "And yes, I do know how it would end. I’m young, but I am not ignorant. I would never have come out here alone with you otherwise."
Then she turned away from him again. "But you are right. If we have no future, then there is no reason for me to be here with you."
She heard the sounds of fabric rustling, and turned to see that he was taking off his long coat and spreading it out on the grass. "Please sit down with me, Grace. We should talk once more before I must go. I don’t want to leave you this way. I do care for you and I do not want this."
Then why are you doing it? she wanted to wail, but kept her silence instead and sat down on one end of the coat.
Adam sat down across from her at the other end of the coat. Again, he seemed to want to speak, but again he only fell silent.
Grace closed her eyes and forced herself to speak. "Please listen to me, Adam. And allow me to finish. If I wait, I may not be able to – to get through it."
She took a deep breath, and very hesitantly, reached out to take his hand. "If this is truly the end, and I will not ever see you again, then I wish for you to stay right here with me this night. Stay here, and . . . and finish what we have already started."
His expression was one of surprise and confusion – even shock. "Grace. Dear Grace . . . if I am going away, surely this is not the course to take. Surely, you would not want to be with a man you were never to see again."
She managed a wry smile. "Don't you see? That is exactly why I do want this. If you are to leave me forever, then I wish to have this one night with you."
"Oh, Grace. Surely this is the first night for you."
She raised her chin. "It is. Of course, it is. I am not a wanton."
"I know you’re not. But – should that first night not be spent with your husband?"
She closed her eyes, feeling her anger begin to rise again. "You still do not consider the entire situation. Have you forgotten what happened in the town yesterday? You need only look at your bruised and battered hands to recall it."
He clenched his fists briefly, as if to hide them, but went on listening to her.
"My reputation has been ruined. I have been revealed as an imposter, just as you said. What sort of husband do you think I will find now, since everyone knows what I did? That I tried to represent myself as something that I was not – and that my whole family helped me with the deception?"
He only shook his head. "Surely this would not be the answer. Surely you would only regret this, later on."
Her grip tightened on his hand. "The kind of man who would marry
me now will not be the kind of man that I would ever want. Most likely, I will never marry at all. This will almost certainly be my one chance – my only chance – to be with a man I love. Will you take that away from me?"
He only stared at her with real anguish on his face, as she looked at him in the light of the rising moon as it filtered through the sweet white apple blossoms.
"Please, Adam," she went on. "That is why I want you, only you, to be with me on this night. Can you not understand that? Please . . . take me for your own, here, now, before I lose my resolve, and before you are gone forever."
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Miss Miller Meets Earl Worthington At Last
Thomas finally felt the full weight of his deception fall down squarely on his shoulders. Never had he thought it would lead to something like this. This kind young woman had fallen in love with his disguise, and – almost worse – he had fallen in love with her.
But not as himself.
Slowly, he got to his feet. "There is something you must know, Grace. Something I have been – keeping from you."
She frowned, and also stood up. "Keeping from me? I don't understand."
"Please don't misunderstand me," he said, taking her hands in his own. "I believe the love between us has become mutual. You are beautiful and kind, and everything I ever hoped to find in a wife."
Grace closed her eyes and looked down. "Then why – why do you not want me? Why are you leaving me here?"
"Because . . . there’s something you do not know about me."
She paused. "I thought you were angry with me because you did not know my true situation. What could you possibly be keeping from me?"
Thomas closed his eyes and spoke quickly. "Because, Grace, I am not who I said I was. I am not Adam Wheeler."
She pulled her hands away and took a step back. For a moment, a trace of fear crossed her face. "What do you mean?" she asked, and her voice began trembling. "What do you mean, you are not Adam Wheeler?"
"There is no Adam Wheeler," he admitted, very quietly. "But there is . . . a Thomas Worthington."
"Thomas – Worthington?" Her mouth opened and she shook her head, staring at him. "You are not saying – you are not telling me – "
"Yes, Grace. I’m telling you that I am the earl."
For some time, she simply stared at him. Then, to his surprise, she actually burst out giggling. "I suppose you can be whoever you like! If being a coachman does not suit you, why not be an earl? How on earth would I know?"
All Thomas could do was nod in silence, and let her say whatever she wanted to say. It wasn’t like he didn't deserve it.
"I remember – I remember what happened at the last assembly ball," she said quickly. "How so many of the folk there, on getting a glimpse of you, felt certain you were Earl Worthington in fancy dress. Yet, I vouched for you and laughed and said you were merely a coachman! And I believed you!"
"Grace – "
"And Mr. Clarke, the master of Feathering Park. He vouched for you, too! How could that be? How could he not – " Her eyes opened wide. "Because he was an accomplice to your little jape, wasn't he?"
"I’m sorry. Yes, he was. But it’s not his fault. It was my idea, and mine alone. I promise you— I am indeed the earl." Thomas kept his voice steady and low. "My mother is Lady Worthington. The ponies you saw, both Oriole and Woodlark, are her ponies."
"A coachman could still have been driving them, just as you said."
He paused, thinking, and then spoke again. "Je suis qui je dis que je suis. La prochaine fois que vous me verrez, je me présenterai sous le nom de Thomas."
She caught her breath. "I know only a few words of French, but that – sounds accurate."
"How many English coachmen do you know who are fluent in French?"
"I know none, but I am only a servant girl. There could be many."
He sighed. And then she watched in astonishment when he sat down on the grass, took off his left boot, and poured out a little handful of pebbles.
"Adam walked with a limp. The earl does not." He replaced the boot and stood up. "You see?" Thomas walked from one apple tree to the next, as sound as any fine racehorse.
Her eyes were wide once more, but she just watched without saying a word.
"One more thing." Thomas rolled back the left sleeve of his shirt from the wrist to the elbow. "I have had this since I was a youth and took a fall across a gravel road."
The underside of his forearm was quite scarred and pock-marked, the way gravel might do. "When you meet the Earl Worthington – and meet him, you shall, at the third and final assembly ball – I will show you this same scar on my arm. There is no chance of anyone else having the same."
But Grace ignored the scars. "You meant to introduce yourself to me as the earl – at the next assembly ball – as though I had never met you before? Were you so certain that I would not know?"
"Because, Grace . . . it has long been my experience that people see what they are told to see. What they expect to see. Not one person who knows the earl recognized me while I was Adam Wheeler.
"But how could I possibly not know it was you? After – after dancing at the ball – and waiting in the governess car in the ford – and after our time out on the riverbank – " Her voice began to break. "How could you think I would not know a man with whom I had been so close?"
"I hoped that you would not know. I hoped that, on meeting the earl at the next assembly ball, even if you suspected, you might simply dismiss it as impossible. And then . . . then, Grace, I would have asked you to marry me."
He tried to reach for her, but she pulled away. "Ask me to marry you? If I had accepted, would you have told me the truth about your ruse and that we had indeed met before?" Grace shook her head. "We are quite the artful pair, are we not? We have done naught but fool each other, no one else!"
Thomas kept silent, even though the world was threatening to spin right out from under him. It was only meant to be a little lark, he wanted to tell her. I just wanted to find someone who might care for me and not only for the earl. But his small deception was no longer under his control. Never had he thought it might come to something like this.
"Or would you have just gone on letting me pine after Adam Wheeler, with everyone who knew me thinking I had forgotten all about him for a wealthy titled man! I thought – I thought that was the very thing you were trying to avoid!"
She began to pace beneath the trees. "How dare you be angry at me for deceiving you," she whispered. "At least I had a reason to do so! I was protecting my father and the rest of my family…"
His irritation was beginning to rise again, both at Grace and at himself. "I was also protecting myself and my family. I had a reason, too."
"I suppose you did. And I see it now! It seemed an ideal way to go out and find little servant girls who would throw themselves at you! Do you not have enough of those at your great estate? I know what can happen when the master is not a good man. It didn’t happen to me, but some of the others in the house – some of my friends – " Grace hid her face in her hands, fighting back the tears.
Facing her, Thomas placed his hands on her arms and tried as best he could to steady her. "I can only tell you, Grace, that I did not do this to hurt you. Or to hurt anyone. I never dreamed that my little ruse would become so complex. I promise you, I did not."
Thomas drew her against him and put his arms around her, and then closed his eyes as she rested her head against his chest. "I only hoped to find a companionable woman to marry and find comfort with. I didn’t count on falling in love. I have never been in love before, so I suppose I can only plead ignorance . . . but not any longer."
Then he drew back a little, and looked down at her. "Grace," he said. "Grace. There is a way to solve this, now and for always."
She raised her tear-streaked face to him. "How? I don't understand . . . I thought you said you were leaving."
"Adam Wheeler is leaving. Earl Worthington is not." He took her hands between
his own again. "Marry me, Grace Miller. Marry me, and then we need never be separated again."
She began to draw back from him, letting go and backing away until she was standing against one of the apple trees. "What are you saying?"
"I am quite serious, Grace. You are the one I have hoped to find all my life. I am both comforted by your presence and excited by it. I do not ever want to be without you again. Even your family has earned my respect by the way you have all tried to help each other even in the hardest of times."
He walked to her and took her hands once more. "Marry me. Neither you nor anyone in your family will ever need worry about anything again. A place will be found for all of them. But do not leave me, Grace. Not now. Not ever."
