A Measure of Deceit

by Jess Michaels

  He slung an arm around Connor’s shoulders and dragged him to a settee by the fire where he helped to remove Connor’s suddenly stifling jacket. Connor allowed his friend to do it, mostly because the room had begun to spin.

  “Why are you being so nice?” he asked. “You’ve hardly spoken to me since my meeting with Lyndham and Northfield a few days ago.”

  Adrian’s lips thinned. “I recognize the interest will fade the longer we go from a book from the Lady. I have decided to wait that out, as well as your foolishness.”

  Connor shook his head. “Well, you will hate what I did tonight, almost as much as she did, if that is your view.”

  Adrian stared at him. “What you did? She? What did you do?”

  “I told the ton that the Lady is writing another book. I’ve had ten offers of financial backing since.”

  Adrian shoved off the settee and staggered to his feet. “You did what?”

  Connor nodded. “Yes, that was her reaction as well.”

  “Who?” his friend asked, his voice shaking.

  “Grace.” Connor drew in a sharp breath after he said her name, as if the air would lessen the pain in his chest.

  Adrian pondered that a moment and shook his head. “I can only imagine Grace is the woman you so proudly declared as your lover. But I’m more interested in this lie you told. It is a lie, isn’t it? The Lady has no intention of writing another book. I saw the letters.”

  Connor stared at him. “You went through my things?”

  Adrian ignored the accusation. “Is it true?”

  Connor took a moment, then shook his head. “It’s not true.”

  “Damn it, man!” Adrian raked a hand through his hair. “Not only did you renew foolish interest in that stupid woman, but when it comes out that you lied, you’ll undermine our entire endeavor. We’ll be a laughingstock, more than we already are with your mooning about after anonymous whores.”

  Connor jumped up and moved on Adrian. He grabbed his friend’s collar and dragged him closer. “Don’t fucking talk about her like that.”

  Adrian stared at him as the tension in the air hung thick around them. Finally, he reached up and tugged his collar free.

  “You’re drunk. Go to bed.”

  Connor puffed out his chest, spoiling to hit something, someone, anything, anyone in that moment where his emotions were still raw both from the encounter with his father and the truth from Grace’s lips. But Adrian would offer him no satisfaction. He merely walked away, back to his desk, where he sat down and began to scribble in a ledger.

  Connor blinked as a little clarity seeped in around the edges of his pain. He had just threatened his friend.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

  Adrian nodded without looking up. “That you are.”

  Connor flinched at the dismissive harshness of Adrian’s tone. He deserved it. Hell, perhaps his father was right. Perhaps he deserved all of it.

  Or had never deserved any of it. He could scarcely tell anymore when all the lies piled up on each other and made the future, the past, the truth so hard to see.

  Through the murk and mire, he could only be certain of one horrible fact:

  He loved the Lady and the Lady was Grace, a woman who stymied and challenged and moved him more than he could have ever imagined was possible.

  And yet he could have neither of them. Not now.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Be prepared for anything and everything…and anyone.”—The Ladies Book of Pleasures

  It had been two days since Grace had last seen Connor walking out her door, filled with anger because of her lies and defensiveness over his own. Two days which had been filled with torment and recall of every horrible moment of their final exchange.

  And now Grace sat in Isabel’s parlor, drinking tea with her and Jacinda, as if nothing had changed. When that couldn’t be further from the truth. Everything had changed. She had changed.

  “I truly hesitate to ask this,” Isabel began with a heavy sigh.

  Grace lifted her gaze from her teacup and found Jacinda and Isabel staring at her. Their concern and their love for her was evident by their expressions, as was their compassion and friendship.

  She also saw that despite her every attempt to hide what she felt, she had failed.

  “Please don’t ask,” she whispered as she set the cup aside and covered her eyes. “I’ll only tell you.”

  Her response elicited twin gasps from her friends, and she smiled through her heartache. “Gracious, I’ve shocked you,” she said with a humorless laugh.

  “It isn’t that,” Isabel began, then shook her head. “No, it is that. Grace…”

  She trailed off and Grace forced herself to look at them again.

  “I know. I’ve always hesitated to share much of myself, even with you two, who I love and trust more than anyone…nearly anyone in my life. I’ve held myself separate from you, kept you just outside the circle of my heart. I have been the worst of friends.”

  Jacinda made a pained sound and grasped both of Grace’s hands with such strength that she winced. “You are the best of friends. You’ve provided a kind ear and good counsel to us both. We only want to give the same in return.”

  “You may regret that offer when I have finished,” Grace said. “Because what I have to say is far worse than any problem either of you has ever brought to me. You may not even wish to remain friends with me when I’ve told you what I’ve been hiding.”

  Jacinda and Isabel exchanged a glance before Isabel nodded and got to her feet. She crossed to the sideboard and swept up a decanter of sherry.

  “If it’s all that bad, I believe we have gone past the limits of tea,” she said as she poured a very large glass for Grace. “You had best start talking.”

  Grace sipped the alcohol as she pondered how best to explain something she had been lying about for years. In the end, there was only one way. And it was as painful as a stab to the heart.

  “I am in love with him.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence, and then it was Jacinda who leaned in, exploring Grace’s face as if to see some evidence of this terrible affliction. Finally, she leaned back, apparently satisfied with whatever she saw.

  “So quickly?” her friend said, shooting a side-glance at Isabel, who was still just staring at Grace, her mouth partly open in surprise.

  Isabel gathered herself enough to shake her head. “You’ve only just met the man. Not that I can talk, but still.”

  Grace drew a long breath. The next part was going to be the hardest. If she hadn’t already lost her friends with her reticence, when she finally confessed it was likely only going to be worse.

  But there was no going back now. She straightened up and began to tell them everything. Everything, from the moment she had decided to write her book to the moment she had revealed that truth to Connor in anger. And when she was finished, she leaned back on the settee, exhausted by it all, and waited.

  Her friends stared at her, their faces twin expressions of utter shock. But she couldn’t tell if it was angry shock or pleased shock or betrayed shock. It seemed they had learned from her to protect their emotions.

  “Please say something,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes that she tried to blink away, but couldn’t stop one from trickling down her cheek. “Tell me I haven’t lost you as I’ve lost Connor due to my actions.”

  Isabel shook her head and Grace’s stomach turned. The countess had been the most vocal about Grace’s inability to reveal herself; Grace recognized their friendship was the one most teetering on the edge.

  “You little goose,” Isabel said softly. “How could you believe you could ever lose us?”

  Grace hurtled herself at Isabel, and tears she hadn’t shed for years finally slipped down her cheeks as she clung to her friend. Behind her, she felt Jacinda slide her arms around her and the two women simply held her while every emotion she’d ever forced herself to hide seemed to come bursting out of her in that in
stant.

  It took a while to compose herself, but when she did and extracted herself from her friends’ arms, she actually felt…better.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you,” she said. “I saw you fall in love with the help of the book, Isabel, and I was so happy for you. I couldn’t resist giving a copy to Jacinda and hoping for her to find some happiness.”

  Jacinda’s eyes went wide. “You were the one who gave me the book for my birthday?”

  Grace nodded. “I realize at the time you thought it might be someone’s cruel joke and I felt terrible. But then you and Jason were together and in love and I couldn’t have asked for more.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything then?” Jacinda asked.

  Grace shrugged. “You two would wax so poetic about the Lady and her influence on you, it became more and more difficult to tell you. What was I to do, simply blurt out that it was me?”

  Isabel laughed. “That’s what I would have done, but I suppose I can see it from your point of view. Plus, since Connor himself told us that the Lady has been threatened, I understand why you would protect your secret.”

  Jacinda leaned forward. “Yes, Connor. Let’s return to that subject.”

  Grace sighed. “Yes, that subject. You see now why I could fall in love with him. It hasn’t been fast at all. I fell in love with him bit by bit with every letter we ever exchanged. Meeting him, having him be…well, exactly who he is…it’s only solidified what I already knew. In fact, my feelings were—”

  She cut herself off because she already felt so vulnerable saying these things out loud. But Jacinda covered one hand and Isabel the other, and somehow she carried on.

  “A few months ago, I cut off all contact with Connor as the Lady,” she admitted. “I realized how much I cared for him and it—it frightened me.”

  Isabel nodded. “Having these feelings can be terrifying. Both Jacinda and I had our struggles when we recognized how we felt for our husbands.”

  “But it was different for you,” Grace insisted.

  “Of course it wasn’t,” Isabel said. “I was barren and Seth needed a child—there was no greater obstacle.”

  Jacinda nodded. “And Jason was my friend and a rake of the utmost degree. He planned never to marry. We both had obstacles, but we both also had something else.”

  “What is that?” Grace asked, hoping it was something she could find herself.

  “A friend,” Isabel said with a soft smile. “A friend named Grace who told us to stop being ninnies and go after what we desired. And her book told us the same. How could we deny such good advice?”

  Grace laughed despite herself. “Well, I don’t have a friend named Grace to give me guidance. And I read that book so many times during the editorial process that I promise you I do not wish to go mining it for inspiration now. So what am I to do?”

  Jacinda slid closer and looked into Grace’s eyes. “Stop being a ninny and go after what you want, Grace.”

  “This man obviously cared for you as the Lady, if the way his eyes lit up when he talked about you were any indication,” Isabel continued. “And he wouldn’t be so angry about your betrayal if what was between you since his arrival in Society was only physical. Take the chance, Grace. Open your heart. Yes, it might be broken, but it might also be filled in a way you never could imagine.”

  “Tell him,” Jacinda said, and Isabel nodded and repeated the order. “Tell him.”

  Grace swallowed. “What if I can’t?”

  Jacinda tilted her head. “Darling, you aren’t afraid of anything.”

  “I am of him,” Grace admitted, more words falling from her mouth again. Now that she had opened herself, it seemed she couldn’t close off again. “I’m afraid of what he sees in me, what he wakes in me, what he makes me feel.”

  “Then it’s all the more reason to tell him,” Isabel said. “Think about it, won’t you? I would rather see you regret something you did do than something you left unsaid.”

  Grace covered her eyes with both hands and sighed. Why did she have to have such reasonable friends who gave such excellent counsel? She knew she had to at least try to take their advice or risk losing a man who had changed her to her core.

  And even she knew that was something worth keeping.

  Connor leaned over his desk, reading and rereading the same line in a manuscript without truly comprehending what was on the page. He let out a sigh as he shoved the papers aside. This was as it had been for two days. Two days since Grace had destroyed his world by admitting what he should have seen the moment he laid eyes on her:

  She was the Lady. His Lady.

  “Good God, the way you moon over a woman,” Adrian said without looking up from whatever he was working on.

  Connor glared at him. They had not exactly been on friendly terms in the past week, but the tension between them had been even worse since his unfortunately drunken encounter with Adrian the night he’d learned the truth. Things between them were coming to a head, problems he had forced himself to ignore for years. And he wasn’t ready to deal with them, not on top of everything else.

  “Do shut up,” he hissed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You don’t know anything about it.”

  “I know more than you think,” Adrian said back, his tone mild and his eyes still firmly on the work before him.

  Connor pushed from his desk and paced to the window. Outside was his small garden, green and filled with sunlight. How dare it be so happy and bright when he felt like he was drowning? Shouldn’t the weather be gloomy to match how he felt?

  There was a knock on the chamber door and he turned toward it with relief. At least when he was talking, he could pretend he was fine.

  Higgins stepped into the room with a tray of tea and cakes. After he set it down on the sideboard, he turned back and held out a letter to Connor.

  “This came for you.”

  Connor took the missive and nodded. “Very good. Is there anything else?”

  The butler indicated the negative and left Adrian and Connor alone again. Although he wasn’t hungry, Connor poured a cup of tea, absently adding milk as he looked at the folded sheets he had been given. The address had been written very ill.

  He set the milk down and broke the seal on the pages. As he read, he frowned.

  “What is it?” Adrian asked, joining him at the sideboard. His partner grabbed for one of the biscuits on the tray.

  “Another letter to the Lady,” Connor said with a frown as he read the ugly words. “This time even more threatening. It references her writing another book, so the word must be spreading.”

  “In the same hand as the others?” Adrian asked, seeming less than concerned.

  Connor examined the writing. “It’s hard to say, but I don’t think so. There are obviously many who feel compelled to menace her.”

  He swallowed as he refolded the page and walked across the room to open a drawer where he kept the rest of the letters that spewed hate against her. It was a deep drawer and more than halfway full. He shut it as if he could block out what was hidden there.

  There were many who threatened, but this one was particularly vile. The man who wrote it promised punishment, rape, even death to the Lady if she didn’t desist in her plans for another book and if the books that still existed weren’t stripped from the bookstores that dared carry the tome.

  They were words that had been written before, but now that he knew her identity, now that someone was threatening Grace, the anger he felt as a result was multiplied.

  His only comfort was that the writers of the nasty notes didn’t know who she was. They could only make empty threats to him.

  “You seem especially troubled by this message,” Adrian said, stirring his tea as he returned to his desk.

  Connor shrugged. “The hatred toward her is not unexpected, I suppose. When one threatens an institution, a way of life and thinking, one is bound to make enemies galore. But the violence of the threats seems to be increasing. I can’t help bu
t be troubled by that.”

  Adrian leaned back. “Perhaps we should consider what the letter says.”

  Connor wrinkled his brow. “What do you mean?”

  “I assume it contained more calls for the Lady to desist, for us to withdraw the remaining books.”

  Connor shuddered. “That is generally the theme, yes. But you screamed at me last week for not standing up for what you consider right and yet you would advocate us destroying the book because it ruffles the feathers of a few angry men?”

  Adrian arched a brow. “The Lady would no longer be in danger.”

  “But no one knows who she is,” Connor said, almost sagging in relief at that thought. And with the knowledge that he could afford to hire a few discreet men to watch over Grace and ensure she was protected. He would see to that straight away.

  “But what if they uncovered her identity?” his friend pushed. “This lie about her writing a new book could inspire that. But if you do as the letter says, she would soon be forgotten.”

  Connor stared at his friend. Adrian had never given a damn about the Lady except to speak ill of her. Could it be he truly worried about her welfare?

  Adrian laughed as if to counter Connor’s silent question. “And if you were no longer concerned with her, perhaps you would have more time and concentration for publishing something with substance.”

  Connor squeezed his eyes shut. There was the truth. Adrian was singing the same song he’d sung for years. A tune growing thin and irritating with age.

  He had been friends with Adrian for years. Since he first arrived in England, actually. They had bonded over their disgust with the Upper Ten Thousand and the social injustices they saw around them every day. Adrian was passionate and not of the nature to back down or change his mind, even when offered evidence that countered his stance.

  Worse, his views were becoming more radical. He advocated violence—hell, he had begun to act in violence, if the throwing of the glass not long ago was any indication. Adrian was changing and not in good ways. They were drifting apart and Connor couldn’t even be sorry about it because he was changing too.