My Fair Spinster

by Rebecca Connolly

  Izzy rolled her eyes with a sigh. “She is not the only one fascinated by him. Alice Sterling asked about him just the other day.”

  “Lord, save the man from the Sterling machinations,” Elinor prayed aloud.

  “You like Alice,” Prue reminded her.

  Elinor nodded once. “I do. Just not for Andrews.”

  “Oh, now we’re more particular, are we?” Edith asked with a laugh, squeezing Grace’s hand. “Or do you just object to anything Sterling?”

  Elinor scrunched up her face. “I like Lord Sterling. And Tony and Georgie, of course.”

  “They send their love, by the way,” Izzy broke in, looking to Grace with a warm smile. “They’ve heard everything.”

  Grace nodded, her cheeks oddly feeling chilled rather than warm. “And, how are they?”

  “Large,” Charlotte replied with all her usual frankness. “Well, Georgie is, anyway. I imagine Tony is the same size as before. But the doctor says she’s a month away from delivery at least. So much for an accurate confinement.”

  “I’m sure she’ll not mind it,” Prue murmured, smiling to herself. “Time in the country with her husband will be a precious thing.”

  Charlotte eyed Prue suspiciously. “Something to say there, Mrs. Vale?”

  Prue’s cheeks flamed brightly. “N-no,” she stammered, lowering her eyes. “I only love being in the country with my own husband.”

  “As do I,” Izzy sighed. She tossed her copper curls and grinned at the lot. “Husbands. Wonderful for the constitution.”

  “Sometimes,” Edith muttered to Grace. “The loss of mine did my constitution a world of good.”

  Grace bit back a laugh and nodded.

  “Grace,” Elinor said suddenly, her voice surprisingly gentle, “may I ask you something rather impertinent?”

  Having anticipated something of the sort being brought up during this visit, Grace nodded, her throat drying as her hands curved more tightly against each other.

  “Careful,” Charlotte murmured, watching Grace.

  Elinor nodded once. “I know that something happened with your father, and that something passed between you and Aubrey, but there’s been no word of the details. I don’t want to pry into your personal matters, but…”

  “That’s what you’re doing now,” Charlotte pointed out with a laugh.

  An embarrassed smile spread across Elinor’s face, and she turned apologetic as she took in Grace once more. “If you can bear to, will you tell us what it is?”

  It was astonishing to see and hear Elinor behave more like one of their group than like the zealous admirer she had once been. She’d recently discovered a new level of maturity, though it was not always present, and the promise of a wiser, more sensible version of her in the future was encouraging.

  Had it been Elinor alone that had asked, Grace might have put her off. But in the presence of the others, and with their influence to temper the less mature aspects of Elinor’s nature, she was willing to open herself to the vulnerabilities of the past few days.

  She nodded, and quickly related the experience with her father’s discovery of her involvement with the Spinsters, the Chronicles, and her fault-finding in general, as well as Aubrey’s confession of his opinion there. She’d been avoiding thinking too much about the topic, fearing her lingering resentment would outweigh her good sense, and that the feelings of betrayal would spring up once more.

  Worse than that, she feared she would miss Aubrey more fiercely than she already did, even with the betrayal, resentment, and dismay over the whole thing. She ached to see his face, to touch his hand, to share a smile, and her lips burned to murmur apologies over and over, though she wasn’t entirely sure what she would be apologizing for. He had betrayed her, there was no doubt, and she had been right to confront him.

  But she was sorry for all of it and wanted him near her.

  The others were quiet, strangely without any sort of indignation themselves.

  “Well, he’s not wrong,” Charlotte finally said, nodding thoughtfully.

  Grace stared at her, stunned by the admission from her, of all people. More bewildering, she saw the others in the room nodding, as well.

  “What?” she cried, looking from one to the other in quick succession.

  Charlotte smiled at her confusion. “Do I shock you? I should be raging in a towering fury and rising to our defense, should I not?”

  Well, not to be so predictable in expectation, but she had rather expected something of that sort, and nodded in exasperation.

  “Were the comment from your father alone,” Charlotte explained, seeming to choose her words with great care, “and combined with the insults he felt necessary, I would do so. I’d spit at him, if I thought I’d be able to control myself. I’m not at all agreeing with his ignorant assessment.”

  That was a relief, to be sure.

  “But where Aubrey is concerned,” she went on, her eyes seeming to lose focus as she spoke, “I cannot wholly disagree. There is no proof, to be sure, that your association with us is limiting your prospects for matrimony, as we cannot say what would have happened had we not adopted you into the ranks. But anyone can see that it does not help matters.”

  Again with the nods around the room, and Grace’s confusion began to ebb.

  Izzy turned towards Grace in her chair, her sweet smile more motherly than ever. “We were not a popular set before you joined us, you know. That was why we banded together. Charlotte is the exception, as she could likely commit murder and still have courtiers.”

  They all laughed, and Charlotte dipped her chin in an attempt at demure acknowledgement.

  “But,” Izzy said, sobering, “you were different. We wanted you as our friend, but we never expected you to remain with us for this long. Surely, someone would have snatched you up, even Georgie suspected that. Yet here you are, as unmarried as we ever were. And the only thing that changed in your situation, dear, was your friendship with us.”

  Grace shook her head, swallowing hard. “I wouldn’t give it up,” she confessed thickly. “Not for a single day or a single moment. This friendship has meant more to me than I can ever say.”

  “Amen,” Edith murmured, rubbing her hand and seeming to be fighting her own emotions, as well.

  Prue scooted closer and laid her head against Grace’s shoulder. “And we would never give you up. I am sorry it has caused you pain, but I cannot regret having you with us.”

  “Stop!” Elinor cried, wiping at her eyes. “I didn’t mean for us all to confess undying friendship as though we were parting ways!”

  Charlotte laughed and made a shooing motion as though to send the emotions on their way. “You are absolutely correct; we must stop this sentimental nonsense this very moment! Away with our more feminine tendencies!”

  Grace sighed and looked up at the decorative ceiling, not a single hint of age or decay upon it. “So, what you’re saying,” she asked of the room as a whole, “is that I was wrong to be so cruel to Aubrey and to have mislaid all good sense and judgment in feeling betrayed by him?”

  “I’m not sure I would go that far,” Charlotte told her with a slight squint. “Surely, he could have lied to your father or come up with some great heroic defense.”

  “Oh, please,” Edith scoffed as she sat forward and poured herself another cup of tea. “The man has a moral conscience, and he was pressed into this whole mess by her father and by Georgie, if not us. He can hardly be blamed for being honest, especially when we all know good and well that his heart is no’ in the same place as her father’s.”

  Grace winced with a faint hiss and looked down at her feet, her toes rubbing anxiously together in her slippers.

  “Grace…” Charlotte said very slowly.

  She looked up at her friend in hesitation.

  Charlotte’s dark eyes were all too knowing as they looked at her. “Did you make the mistake of thinking Aubrey had been a puppet of Terrible Trenwick all along and hadn’t been truthful in his beha
vior with you?”

  Grace bit her lip, feeling the tears beginning to rise.

  “Oh, Grace,” Prue murmured beside her, rubbing her arm. “That’s not Aubrey.”

  “No indeed,” Izzy agreed, looking as though she might leap from her seat and hug Grace again. “Aubrey adores you; anyone could see that. He would never have treated you so ill. Have you forgotten how he fought against finding fault with you?”

  “I don’t know what to believe,” Grace whispered, her jaw quivering. “Everything has grown so twisted and confusing, so distorted with my father’s manipulations that I cannot see clearly anymore. I want to think… I want to hope…”

  She couldn’t finish the thought, couldn’t dare to voice the cries of her heart.

  What if she was mistaken there? What if he would break her after all?

  What if she was too late?

  “Don’t tell me,” Charlotte murmured in a voice filled with mischief, “that the man did not leave you with some idea as to how he truly feels. I saw the waltz between the two of you, and as someone who was keeping a weather eye open, I can promise you that your father was nowhere to be seen during that whole dramatic venture. No one is that talented an actor, Grace Morledge. Especially not someone as without social graces and ambitions as Aubrey, Lord Ingram.”

  “Oh, Charlotte,” Izzy groaned as she sat back against the settee, shaking her head in despair. “Must everybody’s motivations be driven by societal ambitions?”

  “Of course!” came the scandalized reply. “What other motivation could there possibly be?”

  A banter-filled discussion commenced on the topic, leaving Grace to puzzle over her thoughts.

  To be seen in the depths of complete adoration, Grace Morledge…

  I could never marry a man who does not know how I prefer my porridge…

  A thousand memories flooded her mind, a thousand looks and smiles, and moment after moment when her heart had soared. When their wits had battled, when they had laughed, when they had raced on foot or on horseback. When they had talked of the country, played each other in various games, when he had held her in his arms and kissed her with a tenderness that at once broke her heart and made it whole…

  Oh, how she loved him! With a depth and a pain that seemed to wrack her frame with a delirious sense of joy.

  And how she prayed she might have the chance to tell him.

  “Let’s try this again, shall we?”

  Aubrey shook his head as he held his breath, entering Trenwick House for the first time in almost two weeks. He’d have returned sooner, though business had kept him out of London when word had reached him that he ought to do so.

  Allies were a blessed thing indeed.

  No matter, he was even more prepared this time than he had been before, and there was no chance of being waylaid by Trenwick this time.

  The man wasn’t even at home, if his ally had been accurate, which he presumed to be the case.

  She would never have been mistaken about this.

  Bennett nodded his welcome, smiling in a manner that surely betrayed all butlers everywhere. “My lord. Will the blue room do?”

  “Whatever you think best, Bennett,” Aubrey demurred in an attempt to hide his pleasure at the change in the man.

  The blue room it was to be, and within Aubrey waited, shaking his head as his heart skipped every other beat.

  “Steady on, Ingram,” he muttered to a potted plant. “She might ask for your head on a pike.”

  Not particularly likely, he supposed, but Grace was always surprising him.

  Soft footsteps met his ears and he turned, exhaling very briefly.

  Grace entered, looking more demure than he had seen her in some time, her gown a silky shade of grey that would have commanded his attention had her eyes, lips, and blush not done so.

  “Aubrey,” she greeted, curtseying to a depth he did not deserve, and he bowed in response.

  “Grace.” He nearly choked on her name, but smiled instead. “I’d hoped you would receive me.”

  She nodded, lowering her eyes. “I’d have received you sooner, had you come.”

  His heart leapt to his throat, and his gaze turned adoring, though she would not see it.

  Now they were getting somewhere.

  “Well, I would have come sooner, certainly,” he told her, keeping his tone as casual as it had been in days past. “Only I’ve just recently returned from the country and wouldn’t have been near enough to do so.”

  One corner of her mouth lifted in a faint smile. “It seems everyone was in the country lately. My father was visiting also. What took you there?”

  “Meeting with your father, as it happens.”

  Grace’s head shot up and her eyes searched his. “What?”

  Aubrey nodded in confirmation. “Your father and I met in Derbyshire.”

  Her high brow furrowed, somehow sending a ringlet near her ear dancing. “But you were both in London, why would you meet in Derbyshire?”

  “Well, he insisted I had to physically inspect a place before I made purchase of it,” Aubrey exhaled noisily, shaking his head in some annoyance, “so there was an entire drive out to Derbyshire, and then I had to meet my estate manager at Breyerly to make him aware of the situation, and then came the drawn out process of walking through Withrow, which was wholly useless, as I remembered every detail…”

  “Withrow?” she cried, her eyes wide, her breathing less than steady.

  He pretended not to hear her. “I don’t know where your father found that estate manager of his, but the man is utterly worthless. It’s no wonder the estate is failing and left to rot. Gads, once we get our hands on it in truth, we’ll show the neighborhood what a fine place it is, mark my words. Thank God the papers have all been signed, I wouldn’t trust the pair of them with it for another day at most.”

  Grace swayed where she stood, then cleared her throat and took one step towards him. “Aubrey. Stop.”

  He swept his hands behind his back and tilted his head in inquiry. “Yes?”

  She blinked twice, then laced her fingers together, trying to hide the fact that they were tight and clenching. “You purchased Withrow.”

  “I did,” he replied simply.

  “From my father.”

  “He did own the place, so yes.”

  There was brief flash of irritation, which made him grin. “Why?”

  He let the grin spread. “Why what?”

  Grace stepped forward again, still too far away from him. “Why would you purchase a failing estate left to rot that neighbors your own? It has nothing to recommend it and offers no benefit to you whatsoever. Why would you throw your money away?”

  Aubrey waited just one moment, collecting himself. “Because I love you, Grace Morledge. Because Withrow is your home, failing or not, and I could not let someone take that from you.”

  “You… you what?” she breathed, color vanishing from her cheeks.

  “Love you,” he repeated, taking a step closer to her. “Quite desperately, as it happens. You can imagine my distress as I realized I had to find faults in the woman I love. I thought the Lord would smite me for it.”

  Grace exhaled roughly, almost gasping as she stared at him. “Aubrey…”

  He stepped closer, sobering just enough to be as sincere as possible. “I came here today to report my findings. On your examination, that is. I have completed my assessment, and believe the results are conclusive.”

  He heard her sharp inhale, and the pain behind it. Then she suddenly was as composed as an actress of the stage. “I see. And you’ve told my father?”

  “Not at all,” Aubrey replied at once. “I promised to tell you first, and so I shall. Then we may decide together what to tell your father.”

  Grace frowned, the cool composure cracking in her confusion.

  Aubrey smiled again, shaking his head at the goddess before him. “Grace Morledge, I did find flaws in you that it seems the world has missed. I know better than anyone
that you are not the embodiment of perfection, and I can tell you why. For starters, you can’t dance the quadrille without stepping on toes.”

  Grace’s brows shot up. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You are an abysmal lawn bowler,” he went on, “and even worse at billiards. You cheat at cards, and you do it better than I do.”

  She was beginning to smile now, and it warmed him to his core.

  “The hair at your right temple does not match your left, but one has to brush your hair back to notice,” he confessed. “And I may be the only person on earth to know that. You laugh far too much, and look far too attractive when you do, which renders the observer inconveniently breathless. You are too witty for convention, too intelligent for discretion, and too beautiful for all decency.”

  Her eyes began to shine with a light he’d missed the last two weeks, and one he’d spent every day of those two weeks yearning for.

  “But I can’t tell your father or Georgie or Miranda any of this,” he confessed, spreading his hands out, “because I don’t see these as faults. Not a single one. Each and every one of these things made me fall even more in love with you.”

  “Aubrey,” Grace whispered shakily.

  He shook his head, giving up his teasing pretense entirely now. “And if the Spinsters truly are what kept you from getting married, then I will thank God every day for Georgie Sterling.” He stepped forward, nearly to her now, hiding nothing at all from his gaze. “Without her, someone else would have married you, and I would never have known how perfect my life could have been.”

  She bit down on her trembling lower lip, those dark eyes welling with unshed tears that undid him.

  “The greatest flaw in you, Grace Morledge, is that, for better or worse, my heart lies in your possession. It is a lifetime with me that I am offering. And that is a damn shame.”

  “No, it isn’t,” she whispered, smiling at him fully. “And it’s not a flaw.”

  “I’m the fault finder. I would know.”