A Measure of Deceit

by Jess Michaels

  “I don’t want to be seen as weak,” she said, not looking at him.

  He shook his head. “Submission is not about weakness, Grace. In fact, I think it takes a great deal of strength, of bravery, to turn over your every pleasure to another person. To trust that you will be protected and that your lover will give you your every desire, even those you do not know you want.”

  “I can’t change who I am.”

  “I would never ask you to do so.” He moved closer and reached out to trace a finger over the smooth curves of her body. “Think of how arousing it will be to have this secret, Grace. In public, you will be no different. You will still be the bold duchess the ton respects. And yet, as you stand there with your spine so straight and your opinions so strong, you’ll know that when you come to your bed, you will surrender all of that. To me.”

  She clenched her legs together with those words, with the way he swirled his fingertip just around the pink areola of her nipple. God, but she was responsive, built to be possessed. And he was so very happy to be the one to awaken that side of her.

  “In fact,” he continued, “think of how arousing it will be when you see me at those public events. How politely we will treat each other, when you know that the moment the others cannot see us, I will master you.”

  She tensed, and the pleasure went out of her face in that instant.

  “You…you intend to continue on in Society?” she asked.

  He flinched at her tone as much as her question and removed his hand from her breast. She might surrender to him in her bed, but she still remained in one of the two groups of Society. There were the ones who wanted him around like a circus sideshow, to be used for what he knew. If they ever received that information, he would be ousted in a moment.

  The other group was those who didn’t feel he should be in their sphere at all. Some because of the book he had introduced into their lives…some because he was not considered a gentleman. He wasn’t considered worthy.

  He pushed off the bed and grabbed for his trousers. As he shoved them past his hips, he said, “My being in Society seems to be a problem for you.”

  She sat up, using the coverlet to shield her body as she watched him. “It isn’t that,” she began.

  He turned on her as he began working on his shirt. “Then what is it, Your Grace?”

  Her face fell when he called her by her title, although he wasn’t certain what else he could do when faced with the fact that she felt him beneath “good company”.

  “I…it’s…” She had a helpless look on her face, but she couldn’t deny his charge, nor ease the sick feeling deep in his stomach.

  “I see,” he said, his voice as hard and as cold as he could make it. He shoved his boots on, not even bothering to fasten them as he gathered the rest of his things up. “Good night, my lady.”

  He moved to the door, but she bolted up. “Connor!” she cried out.

  He stopped, but refused to turn back as he said, “What?”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Those two words, perhaps meant to help, only stabbed deeper. But he refused to let her see that.

  “Don’t be,” he said with a shrug. “I will be at Lord and Lady Redfield’s ball tomorrow night. It will be up to you if you acknowledge my presence there or not.”

  He said no more and left her with no opportunity to speak, but departed the room and shut the door behind him. He stalked down the hallway, frustrated. He had spent his life being treated this way and yet somehow, with Grace, it mattered.

  And it couldn’t matter.

  Chapter Nine

  “A battle of wills can mask the deepest of passions.”—The Ladies Book of Pleasures

  Grace drew in what was meant to be calming breath and smoothed her hands down the line of her gown. It was her best dress, one that she had been told by numerous parties showed her figure to its best advantage. And yet the man who she sought at Lady Redfield’s ball already knew the lines of her body.

  Right now she doubted they would move him.

  Connor had been so angry when he left her the night before. And not just angry, but…hurt, though she didn’t know how she would have the power to cause him pain. After all, he had no idea of the relationship they truly shared.

  Which, of course, meant he couldn’t understand why his presence amongst her friends and peers made her so uncomfortable. It had nothing to do with his rank and everything to do with her secrets.

  She had wanted to tell him that, but cowardice had stopped her. She had allowed him to leave in anger and had regretted it in the nearly twenty-four hours since that moment. She hadn’t slept, had hardly eaten…

  “Hello? Oh my dear, Grace, please come back to us.”

  Grace blinked and turned to find both Isabel and Jacinda staring at her. Isabel’s face was a mask of confusion, while Jacinda had a knowing gleam in her eye.

  “I have never seen you so…out of sorts,” Isabel said, tilting her head. “Are you well?”

  “I’m fine,” Grace lied, just as she had lied many times before, only this time the words seemed to stick in her throat. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “And why is that?” Jacinda asked, blinking with innocence, even though her tone was filled with wickedness.

  Grace narrowed her eyes at her friend. “Well, dearest Jacinda, I was only thinking of the conversation you and I were having when you visited me yesterday afternoon.”

  At that, Jacinda blanched and her gaze darted toward Isabel. It was clear she hadn’t yet told Isabel about her pregnancy.

  Isabel folded her arms. “What in the world are you two going on about? I don’t like being left out of these things.”

  Jacinda caught her breath and turned toward their friend. “Well—I—”

  Grace rolled her eyes. Poor Jacinda didn’t want to tell Isabel such a secret here in the middle of a ballroom. Grace took a quick glance around and then whispered, “I’m having an affair with Connor Sheridan. Jacinda found out when she called on me yesterday.”

  Isabel’s eyes went wide as saucers, even as Jacinda tossed Grace a grateful look.

  The marchioness blinked several times before she said, “Well…well, that is certainly unexpected.”

  Grace felt her shoulders roll forward as she thought of her conversation with the man just the night before. “Yes, to me as well. Everything about the man is…unexpected.”

  Isabel nodded slowly. “I see.”

  “You see what?” Grace said, her tone laced with laughter even though she didn’t feel particularly joyful.

  “That you seem a little confused by this affair.” Isabel shrugged. “It’s the first step, you know.”

  Grace rolled her eyes. “The first step to what?”

  “Deeper feelings,” Isabel said matter-of-factly. “Though I have a hard time imagining you surrendering to such things.”

  Grace winced. “I do feel, you know.”

  Isabel sucked in a breath. “Of course you do, I know you do. I only mean you don’t ever show your heart, or any weakness. Even when Leo died, you—”

  Grace lifted a hand. It seemed she was destined to analyze her life with her late husband far too much as of late. That exercise brought back pain she fought hard not to experience.

  “I felt when Leo died, I assure you. Just because I didn’t choose to roam the countryside weeping doesn’t mean I wasn’t stabbed in the heart by his loss.”

  Jacinda drew back. “You never said anything, even to us. We both wanted to be there.”

  Grace ducked her head at that soft admonishment. She knew she locked others away, even those she loved deeply. She was better at being a problem-solver than asking others for help when she was at her lowest. An issue of control, Connor would probably say…and then he would steal that control and she would like it.

  Except he might not ever do it again.

  Isabel shook her arm. “Great God, there you go again, roaming off into your own thoughts. This is worse than I
thought. I need a drink to manage it and so do you. Jacinda, would you like something?”

  Jacinda shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”

  Isabel shrugged. “I’ll be right back.”

  When Isabel disappeared into the crowd out of earshot, Jacinda leaned in. “Thank you for saving me from her questions earlier. I shouldn’t have teased you when I have my own secrets to keep.”

  Grace shook off thoughts of her own worries and fell into her comfortable role of confidante. She touched Jacinda’s arm gently. “You must tell her some time, my dear. The longer you wait, the more she will be hurt.”

  Jacinda nodded. “I know, I know. And I will tell her.”

  Grace smiled. Jacinda had grown by leaps and bounds, thanks to the love of her new husband, but there were moments when her hesitance returned. Like this one.

  “Would you like me to be there, to help?”

  Relief passed over her every feature. “Oh yes, please!”

  “Tomorrow afternoon?” Grace suggested. “At your home?”

  Jacinda nodded. “I’ll arrange it.”

  As she said the words, Isabel came trailing back through the crowd with two drinks on her hands. She smiled as she handed one over to Grace.

  “I hope it isn’t too watered down,” Isabel said as Grace took a sip. “Because your quarry is here.”

  Grace stiffened and forced herself to swallow the liquid past her suddenly tight throat. As it burned into her stomach, she said, “My quarry?”

  Isabel tilted her head. “Please. You know exactly who I mean.”

  Grace hesitated and then said, “Where is he?”

  Isabel grinned in triumph and motioned toward the crowd. “Standing beside the dance floor,” she said. “With five or six ladies hanging on his every word.”

  Grace stared where her friend had indicated and couldn’t help but narrow her eyes as Connor came into view. He was heart-stoppingly handsome in his formal attire. Certainly he looked as though he fit into the room. But she was not the only woman who had noticed that. Isabel was right that Connor was surrounded by a gaggle of beautiful women who were all preening around him.

  Jacinda leaned in. “Seth and Jason are heading this way. We could send them to claim him.”

  Grace didn’t look at her friend, but kept her gaze on Connor.

  “No, thank you,” she said as she handed over her glass to Jacinda. “I can do my own claiming.”

  Without waiting for an answer, she stalked across the room toward him, intent on doing just that.

  Connor had been infinitely aware of Grace from the moment he walked into Lady Redfield’s party nearly an hour before. He’d watched her every move, her every expression, even while keeping a distance from her. After last night, he intended to keep that distance.

  But now he watched her walking across the room on a stride filled with purpose and his heart—and cock—stirred. Especially when she stopped in front of him and the handful of ladies whose names he didn’t even remember. She gave him an appraising glance up and down before she locked her gaze with his.

  She didn’t spare a glance at the other women as she said, “Excuse me, ladies, but Mr. Sheridan has promised me this dance.”

  He almost laughed at her boldness. As dominant as he was, he truly liked her independent nature, and this new possessiveness was also quite welcome.

  “Indeed, that is true, Your Grace,” he said with a slight bow to the ladies he was abandoning. “Good evening.”

  He offered his arm to Grace and led her to the dance floor, even as the women behind them grumbled their displeasure at his departure. Their upset didn’t move Grace, for she said nothing as they took their places amongst the couples. The orchestra began the first strains of a waltz and Connor tucked his arms around her and spun her into the crowd.

  “I thought you didn’t like me in your world, Your Grace,” he said softly.

  Her expression faltered slightly. “Just Grace, please.”

  He smiled. “Grace.”

  “It turns out I do not mind it as much as we thought. Though you will have to be trained in whom to speak to. You could do far better than Lady Emma and Lady Lucille.”

  “Were those their names?” he asked mildly. “What of the others?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose you were fine with the others gathered around you, admiring you like a peacock in the gardens.”

  “Am I the peacock in this scenario, or are they?” he teased.

  She smiled and her face lit up. “Take your pick. Either description fits.”

  “I happen to agree with you that I could do better, and I have,” he drawled, letting that accent he had fought to hide come to the forefront. When she shivered in response, he grinned.

  “You are a cad,” she said, but there was no heat to the admonishment. In fact, he could see she was trying not to laugh.

  “Indeed, fair lady. Which is why I most definitely don’t belong here.” He said the words flippantly, but watched her reaction. Her smile faded in an instant.

  “Connor,” she said slowly, “when I expressed concern over you being in Society, it has nothing to do with rank or some ridiculous thoughts on the purity of class. You don’t…you don’t know me very well, but I assure you that is not my nature. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you the same, some with quite a bit of vitriol.”

  He nodded. Now that the heat of the moment had passed and his emotions were more under control, he could see she wasn’t lying. And Lyndham and Northfield had both said as much earlier and neither one of them seemed the kind of man who would lie, even to make a friend look better.

  “Then why do you seem so perturbed by my entering your sphere?”

  She swallowed hard. “Perhaps because you challenge everything I present to Society about who I am. Perhaps because I fear someone else will see that and take advantage.”

  He arched a brow. “I doubt anyone could ever take advantage of you, my lady.”

  “You see me for who I really am—” she shifted, “—apparently. What if someone else did the same?”

  “Aye, but I’m a special case,” he said softly. “Have you ever met another man like me?”

  She pursed her lips at his arrogance and the spark of challenge returned to her gaze. That spark which he so desired.

  “A Scot, you mean?” she said with a quirk of her brow. “One or two.”

  He tightened his hand at her waist, and she sucked in a breath at the possessive touch. “A man who can make you forget yourself.”

  She shook her head. “I have not forgotten myself entirely,” she protested. “The song is about to end.”

  He blinked. While he had been accusing her of losing track of what and where she was, he had done the exact same thing. Now he looked around to find the other couples dancing but sometimes looking at them, likely because the tension between them was palpable. A fool could feel it.

  She leaned in as the last strains of music floated over the couples. “Meet me in ten minutes in the music room. It is down the hall from the ballroom, the third door on the left.”

  She didn’t wait for his response, but pulled from his arms and gave a proper curtsey. Then she turned on her heel and slipped away into the crowd, leaving him randy, ready and as intrigued by her as he always was.

  Chapter Ten

  “A quick assignation with a lover can be quite invigorating.”—The Ladies Book of Pleasures

  Grace almost danced her way into the music room. She had never felt so giddy, nor so wicked. But then, she had never been so bold.

  Oh, she was willing to give her opinions, even unpopular ones, and knew full well that she was seen as a strong and probably too-independent woman in her circles.

  But she’d never whispered to a lover right in the middle of a dance floor to meet her, nor called for a rendezvous in the midst of a ball.

  The door behind her opened and she spun around to see Connor standing in the bright light from the hallway behind him. He smiled and then stepped inside, clos
ing the door and leaving them with only the moonlight streaming in from the large window.

  “Won’t someone discover us?” he said, his voice rough in the darkness and heavy with the accent that made her weak and wet.

  “Not unless they followed you,” she said, moving toward him a few steps. “Lady Redfield has never played music in her life. All these instruments are for show.”

  Connor looked at the large piano and the harp in the room and shook his head. “I shall never understand you idle rich.”

  Grace was happy the darkness hid her expression. She suddenly longed to tell Connor that she wasn’t idle. That she rose every morning at dawn to write in peace, that the living she’d earned from the book he helped her publish had paid for that castle in the North Country he’d been so interested in that first night at Isabel’s home.

  But she couldn’t. So he believed her to be as foolish as Lady Redfield.

  “You are suddenly quiet,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.” She shook her head and began to turn away, but he caught her elbow and drew her back to face him, then closer, into his arms, into his heat, into that space where she forgot everything, including herself.

  She looked up into his face, half-shadowed in the dim light. In that charged moment, she flashed to every letter they had shared, to the comfort he had offered her, the friendship. And since she had met him face-to-face, the pleasure.

  And she realized she was in love with him. She had been in love with him for at least a year. Meeting him had only solidified and intensified those feelings. Feelings she didn’t want, because they weren’t something he’d ever share. He didn’t know the truth about who she was. And he never would.

  “What is it?” he whispered, his voice laced with concern.

  She lifted to her tiptoes and kissed him instead of answering. In that moment, she feared she might confess the truth, which would do nothing to help her situation. But touching him would. Or at least it would ease the sting of knowing how she felt and that she could never speak it or have it returned.

  When her lips met his, his arms came tighter around her. He cupped her backside and lifted her, allowing her to feel his arousal even as he kissed her long and hot and hard. She heard her own needy moan and wrapped her arms around his neck to return the kiss, to demand more. It was all she could have and she was starved for it.