A Measure of Deceit

by Jess Michaels

  The door to the plain chamber opened and Maura stepped inside. When she saw that her mistress was awake, she dropped the towels in her hands and rushed to the bed.

  “Your Grace!” she cried out. “Please don’t exert yourself.”

  “Maura,” Grace whispered, her throat dry as a desert.

  “Let me get you water,” her maid said and poured a glass from a table beside the bed.

  Grace drank it greedily and then lay back, exhausted from the effort. “Where am I?”

  “Mr. Sheridan’s home,” Maura said, sending her a look from the corner of her eye as she set the glass down.

  “Connor!” Grace tried to sit up again. “Is he—”

  “He’s fine except for a rather rakish cut on his cheek,” Maura said. “You saved his life, my lady. And he has sat vigil by your bed since the doctor removed the bullet from your shoulder two days ago. Mr. Sheridan and all your friends. He was only dragged from the room half an hour ago because he looked a fright. But if you promise not to move too much, I’ll fetch him…and the others.”

  Grace nodded and Maura leaned down to squeeze her hand. “I’m so glad you’re all right, my lady.”

  “Thank you.”

  Her maid slipped from the room and Grace groaned. She shuddered to think what she must look like after two days unconscious. But she had a sneaking suspicion that Connor wouldn’t give a damn.

  The door flew open a few moments later and he rushed into the room. His own appearance proved her lack of a need to fear her own. He had two days of rough beard on his cheeks and his hair was wild as he stalked across the room and lay down beside her.

  He cupped her cheeks and then his mouth was on hers, wild and filled with all the fear he must have felt as she slept.

  He broke away finally and put his arms around her, all the while careful not to jostle her shoulder.

  “My God, I thought I’d lost you,” he murmured.

  She buried her face against his neck, reveling in the smell and the warmth of him. “I thought I would lose you,” she retorted.

  “And so you were so foolhardy as to take a bullet?” he asked, looking down at her with a scolding expression.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t even think about it.”

  He blinked. “Of course you didn’t. My brave, brave Grace.”

  She smiled. “Not so brave, Connor. Tell me, how is my driver?”

  “Johns is doing well,” he reassured her. “And Pierce’s burial will take place shortly. His child has been taken care of by the other servants in your household.”

  Tears filled her eyes and she choked on a sob. “Be certain they charge every cent to my household and if he needs a place to be interred, I will provide that as well.”

  He smoothed her hair back. “Always saving everyone else.”

  “Except Smallshaw. He’s…he’s dead, isn’t he?”

  He nodded, his lips thin. “Yes. And good riddance. You must never feel sorry for shooting him, Grace.”

  “I won’t,” she promised. “I wish I hadn’t had to, but he left me no choice. He would have murdered us both even if there was no escape for him. A mad dog must be put down, that is the way of it.”

  “Yes.” He sat up and extracted himself from her arms. She watched him leave the bed and pace the small room restlessly.

  “What is it?” she asked, almost afraid of the answer.

  He drew in a long breath. “Grace, when I watched you fall, a bullet meant for me in your body, I saw my own life flash before my eyes. I hated anything associated with my father for so long, and I childishly lumped all people of station into his sphere. But the moment you wrote me, my Lady with her shocking book, my thoughts began to erode.”

  “Connor—”

  He held up a hand. “Wait, please let me finish.”

  She nodded.

  “When I actually came into Society, I admit I was arrogant and judgmental. But then I met you, I met your friends, I saw that people are, at their core, people. This horrible thing with Adrian proved that. He, a man of my level, was twisted and made evil by hate. And men like Seth and Jason…they have titles, but they were willing to risk themselves for you…for me. Because we are truly friends.”

  “They are the best of men,” she said softly.

  He nodded. “Yes. They are. And I knew that, I saw that in their words and their actions, in your words and actions, and yet I was still willing to throw away my feelings for you, a life with you, because I held our worlds so separate.”

  She flinched as she recalled that moment. “You don’t need to remind me,” she whispered.

  He moved toward her, his hands out. “But I do. I need to remind both of us how utterly blind and rash I was not a week ago. Because I watched you lunge to protect me from a bullet. You weren’t a duchess in that moment; I wasn’t a bastard child who didn’t fit into your world. You were a woman willing to die for a man she loved. And I was the man lucky enough to love her in return.”

  She clenched her hands before her throbbing heart. “What are you saying, Connor?”

  “That nearly losing you in such a permanent way has made me realize that I can’t live without you.” He knelt beside her on the bed and took her hand, lifting it to his heart. “Class or no class, title or no title, I love you with all my heart. I want to wake up with you beside me every day, I want to go to sleep curled around you every night. I want to grow old with you, have children with you, spend every day making up for my idiotic behavior. I want to marry you, Grace.”

  He stopped talking, and for that she was happy. She didn’t think she would have been able to focus anymore after that stunning declaration. She stared at him, so handsome even with the new addition of a sharp line of a cut down his cheek. A cut received in the service of saving her life.

  Because he loved her. That was something she had never doubted, but something that hadn’t been enough until this very moment when he declared that it was. That it would be. Forever.

  “This must be how you felt when you declared you loved me and I couldn’t formulate an answer,” he said, teasing though there was worry in his gaze.

  She smiled. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make you wait. I just…I didn’t expect to wake up to this. Unless I’m still asleep.”

  He laughed. “No. Not asleep.”

  She nodded. “Good.” She squeezed the fingers that still clung to hers and whispered, “I love you. You know I love you and I always have. I always will. Yes, we have differences, but if we didn’t than life wouldn’t be interesting. And I look forward to spending every day of the rest of our lives discovering and negotiating those differences. Because I will marry you.”

  He let out a little bark of joy and his mouth returned to hers, gentle this time, seeking and giving as they melted together. Finally, she drew back and settled into his arms.

  “You know, I never liked being a duchess much,” she admitted. “I always liked just being Grace.”

  “My Grace,” he whispered. “My Lady. Forever.”

  Epilogue

  “Is there such a thing as a happily ever after, as the fairy tales try to tell us? This lady isn’t certain. But if we do not strive for it, reach for love in all its forms…what is the point of living?”—The Ladies Book of Pleasures

  Six months later

  “A girl,” Grace cooed as Jacinda placed her newborn daughter into her friend’s arms and backed away, beaming at Jason.

  “Her name is Iris,” Jacinda announced.

  “And she is as beautiful as her namesake,” Connor said, reaching down to stroke the baby’s velvety cheek.

  Of course the little girl turned into his fingertip immediately. Grace’s husband of just a few months had that way with women. Especially her.

  Isabel came forward and grinned. “She has your eyes, Jason.” She looked back at Seth. “Bring Thomas to meet her—they’ll be spending a great deal of time together.”

  Seth stood, gathering up the seven-month-old baby who was playi
ng on the floor in front of him. As Seth came closer with the baby, Grace felt a little twinge of sadness. Thomas was the child of her late footman, Pierce. After much discussion, Seth and Isabel had taken the child in and adopted him as their own. She had never seen her friends so deliriously happy, but the little boy, with his jolly smile, did sometimes remind her of the awful events of the past summer.

  But the bitter was always tempered by the sweet, and as the child giggled and reached for the new baby, Jason tsked at him.

  “No ideas, Tommy.”

  Isabel and Jacinda’s gazes met and Seth began to laugh. “Oh, Jason, you’ve put an idea in their heads.”

  “We could betroth—” Isabel began and Jacinda nodded.

  Grace handed Iris back to her mother with a laugh. “Honestly, you two, that sounds like the beginning of a book.”

  Now all eyes in the room moved to her and she raised her hands in surrender. “Not written by me! I am retired.”

  “Much to the chagrin of the public, who continue to write letters to my office trying to find out why you changed your mind about your second book,” Connor added.

  She rolled her eyes playfully. “And then they buy your other titles, so you see what a good businesswoman I turned out to be. And now I’m going to the terrace to escape the lot of you.”

  She gave Connor a look as she slipped from the room and within a moment, he followed her out to the veranda. Wordlessly, he slipped an arm around her waist and drew her against him.

  “Mrs. Sheridan,” he said as his mouth brushed over hers.

  She lifted to meet him, feeling his hand glide down to cup her backside possessively. Even after a few months of wedded bliss, where she had surrendered everything she had and more to him, her blood heated.

  “You are a cad,” she whispered.

  He squeezed gently. “I know. You bring it out in me.”

  He wrapped his arms around her. “Are you happy?”

  “For them? Over the moon,” she said.

  He embraced her a little harder. “I meant, are you happy? You’ve been out of Society for a few months, living in a far less exalted manner. I wondered if you think of your old life, especially when you come here with your friends who are still titled.”

  She looked up at him. “I’m surprised you would ask me, Connor,” she said softly. “Don’t I show you enough that I am so very happy to be yours? Don’t I explain by my actions and my words, every day, that I’m so happy to be your wife, that I don’t miss being the cool duchess?”

  He smiled. “You give me everything every day, my love. But I thought I’d make certain.”

  She smiled up at him, then peeked over his shoulder. In the parlor behind them the other two couples were busy likely plotting a marriage in twenty years. Grace laughed as she took her husband’s hands and led him around the terrace to a darkened corner where they wouldn’t be interrupted.

  “If you want to be certain,” she whispered as she reached for the buttons of his trousers. “We could do a check right here, right now.”

  His eyes went wide for a moment, then fluttered shut on his moan as she cupped his cock and it hardened beneath her palm.

  “You’re right,” he breathed as he began to push her skirts up. “That would be the only way to be perfectly certain we’re on the same page. Now open your legs.”

  The order brought a rush of heat to her already wet sex and Grace did as she was told. And as he took her, she clung to him and smiled. Her life had changed in every way that was real and important. And as her friends before her had done, she whispered, “And all because of a book.”

  A lady in the ballroom…a lover in the bedroom.

  A Moment of Passion

  © 2014 Jess Michaels

  The Ladies Book of Pleasures, Book 2

  When Lady Jacinda unwraps a scandalous birthday gift, she’s sure the anonymous giver is playing a cruel joke. The Ladies Book of Pleasures may be responsible for one gossiped-about marriage, but for a lady ruined by a rogue and shunned by society, Jacinda is doomed to a lonely, loveless future.

  Worse, as she pages through the volume of passionate promises, she is observed by the wicked and dangerous Duke of Carnthorn—and now he is stalking her as a possible willing victim of his shocking preferences.

  Jason, Earl of Northfield, is having none of it. Jacinda, keeper of his most painful secret, is a friend he will not abandon to a wolf like Carnthorn. As they embark on a pretend courtship—for her own protection, of course—their proper decorum in public melts into wicked passion in the bedroom.

  But even as real feelings begin to develop between them, Carnthorn is watching. He is not convinced. And he is determined to possess Jacinda, no matter whom he has to destroy…

  Warning: This book contains friends turning to lovers, a highly erotic secret affair and a wicked villain who will destroy what he cannot have.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for A Moment of Passion:

  “What did you tell him?” she whispered.

  Jason swallowed, his gaze darting from hers. “Jacinda, I told him that you and I were courting.”

  She staggered backward as shock overcame her. She found herself pressed against the edge of her bed and reached back to steady herself on the mattress.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked. She had to have heard him wrong. Misunderstood in her upset. Either that or this entire exchange was a nightmare.

  He nodded. “It was said without thinking, I admit that much. But since it was said, I have had a great many hours to think about what I’ve done. I think it could actually play into your advantage. I have a proposal for you—will you hear it?”

  Her eyes widened. “A proposal?”

  He shook his head as if he realized how his statement could have two meanings. “A proposition.”

  Jacinda was shaking like a leaf, but she managed to speak even though she could hardly draw air into her lungs. She motioned to the one sad little chair beside her window. As Jason took the uncomfortable spot, she moved the bench from her dressing table over and sat across from him.

  “Explain,” she said, wishing she sounded calm instead of shrill and desperate.

  “You want a different life, and I know why,” he said with another brief glance around her barren chamber. “But I think you can have what you desire without turning to the life of a mistress.”

  “Because no one would want me?” she whispered, the sting of that thought pricking her even though she should have been accustomed to such pain.

  He shook his head. “I think Carnthorn has proven that isn’t true, and I’m certain there would be several men who would take that opportunity were it offered. I want you to consider my plan if only because once you became a mistress, you couldn’t return to this life.”

  She thought about that a moment. “You are correct. I cannot picture my father welcoming me home. He put me out over the Incident, and that was far less scandalous than what Carnthorn proposed. But how would being courted by you change my life?”

  He straightened up and grinned, and her breath caught, only this time it was for a pleasant reason. Jason was so devastatingly handsome, she could hardly take it.

  “I am the most eligible bachelor in London,” he said.

  She couldn’t help but laugh. “And the most modest.”

  He shrugged. “Modesty is overrated. Everyone knows I have vowed never to wed.”

  Jacinda pursed her lips as she recalled his long-ago confession. “Yes?”

  He smiled. “Can you imagine the fervor that would surround a woman who tempted me to change my mind?”

  She cocked her head. “And?”

  Jason leaned in. “Jacinda, other men would want her.”

  Jacinda stared at him as his meaning became clear. “You are saying some other man would suddenly want to marry me because you claimed you did?” she said with a disbelieving shake of her head.

  “When I got my new phaeton, seven other men got the same one because they saw me dri
ving it in the park,” Jason said with a laugh.

  “And you think it would be the same for a woman?” Jacinda replied, still not believing that could be true.

  “They will take an interest in you. I would guarantee it,” Jason said. “And I’m certain at least one would offer for your hand in order to obtain the object of my desire.”

  Jacinda blinked. It had been years since she was seen as a viable wife in Society. Even when she had been seen as eligible, men hadn’t exactly been fighting to pursue her.

  “And what if you are wrong?” she asked softly. “What if no man will wed me, even after you make a show of pursuit? Will the option Carnthorn presented still be available?”

  Jason’s jaw tightened, as if this line of conversation displeased him. “You are determined to consider it still?”

  “I must,” she whispered. “You do not understand my position, Jason. I have been a prisoner for years and someone offered me a key to my cell. I cannot overlook it.”

  He pushed from the chair and paced the room, quiet. She didn’t interrupt whatever his thoughts were, but held her breath and hoped he would give her some answer she desired.

  Finally he turned to her, his face hard in a way she had never seen from him. In the firelight, he looked like a different man than her jovial friend. Her sex twitched at the sight, and she turned her face so he wouldn’t see just how far she had fallen.

  “If you wanted to take a man as a protector, as your lover, I’m certain this ruse with me would make that easier as well,” he said. “But are you truly ready for such a step? You told me that you knew where passion went and you didn’t want it. I’m afraid it would be required for a mistress.”

  Jacinda stood and moved toward him. He was standing next to her bed, and she reached out to pick up the book. “This could teach me to be ready, couldn’t it?”

  His eyes widened as she held it up for him to see. “So that’s what you were reading while you were…”

  He trailed off, and she stopped walking toward him.