Untouched

by Anna Campbell

  The man who stood before her wasn’t the bitter, angry monster who populated her nightmares. The earl walked with a stick and deep lines marked his face. There was more gray than black in his thick hair.

  He was her father, yet not her father. Then the familiar ironic smile flickered briefly and he wasn’t a stranger any more.

  She straightened her shoulders and met his eyes with a direct look. She had a right to be here, even if he wanted to banish her back to obscurity. But bravado didn’t disperse the haze of uncertainty, grief, guilt, and resentment in her heart. And love. In spite of everything, love lurked too.

  For a charged moment, they stared at each other, father and daughter. Only a few feet separated them, but it might as well have been a chasm a mile wide.

  “Have you no greeting for your father, girl?” He didn’t sound angry and his stare seemed questioning rather than accusatory.

  Unthinkingly, she sank into a curtsy. “Good afternoon, sir,” she said in an unsteady voice.

  When she rose, she was dismayed to see tears in the dark blue eyes that were faded copies of the ones she saw in the mirror. She’d always favored her father’s looks, with her dark hair, pale skin, and indigo eyes.

  “Sir? Is that the best you can do, Grace? After all this time?” he asked hoarsely. The hands he placed on his stick trembled. He’d always moved quickly and vigorously. It was a shock to see he used the stick for support, not fashion.

  “I don’t…don’t know what you want.”

  She heard him draw in a shuddering breath. “First, a warmer welcome than I’ve received.”

  “As you wish.” Hesitantly, she approached. He was stooped enough now for her to reach up and press a kiss to his cheek. It was a brief salute. Once, she’d have thrown her arms around him in an extravagant hug. But those days were gone.

  “I’m glad to see you, Father.” It was true, although the changes in him cut to her soul. Even after a few minutes of his company, she could see this man was different from the one she remembered. For a start, he was willing to unbend enough to speak to his errant daughter. She stepped back. “Did Uncle Francis tell you I was here?”

  He’d closed his eyes when she kissed him as if the gentle salute hurt. Now he stared fixedly at her. She wondered what he saw. At least she was dressed like a lady, not the beggar she’d looked when she’d arrived at Fallon Court. That in itself made her feel a fraud. She was a beggar.

  “No, Vere wrote to me at Marlow Hall. Thank God he did. I came as soon as I got the letter. I’ve looked for you for the last five years, child.”

  Her father had looked for her? None of this made sense. When he’d barred her from his house, she’d had no doubt that his decision was set in marble.

  Yet now he said he’d sought her out.

  Bewildered, she wondered what had changed, when he’d changed. Was it after Philip’s death? Although neither had mentioned her brother’s name, the tempestuous, beloved ghost hovered so tangibly, she could almost touch it.

  But no. Her father said he’d started to search for her five years ago. Philip had been alive then and galloping headlong toward ruin in the fleshpots of London.

  The earl had relented for Grace’s sake, not just because he’d lost his only son and turned in desperation to his one remaining child.

  “You said you never wanted to see me again.” She couldn’t stifle a hint of bitterness. Her marriage had been irresponsible, reprehensible, she recognized and regretted that. But her beloved father’s implacable rejection had opened a wound that had never healed.

  She saw him whiten at her tone. “I said many things that afternoon. At the time I meant them but I quickly repented of my harshness. Within a year, I came to York and approached Paget about helping you both, finding him a position on one of my estates so at least you could live in some comfort. But he threw my offer back in my face.”

  Her father had swallowed his pride to the point where he’d extended the hand of friendship to Josiah? Grace felt lost in a world that bore no relationship to the one she thought she inhabited.

  She spoke through a throat tight with distress and twisted her hands in her skirts to hide their trembling. “You didn’t ask to see me?”

  “Your husband said you’d turned your back on your family forever and looked forward to a new and better life with him. He said you despised the Marlows and everything we stood for.”

  She could imagine how self-righteous Josiah had sounded when he’d told her father those lies. “And you believed him?”

  The earl’s mouth turned down. “I had no other option. You hadn’t written to us since your marriage or tried to see us.”

  She’d always imagined that if she ever met her father again, he’d be angry, as he’d been angry after her elopement. But instead, he was just so wrenchingly sad and she didn’t know how to react. His sadness weighed down her heart until it felt like a massive stone inside her.

  “You told me not to,” she said, fighting the urge to touch him, comfort him.

  A faint smile crossed his face although the deep sorrow remained. When he dredged up a touch of the dry humor she’d loved as a girl, she thought her heavy heart would break. “So obedient at last, daughter. You were never the most biddable chit. A pity this was the one time you should have ignored my command.”

  “You sounded like you hated me,” she said in a hollow voice.

  “I was angry, disappointed.” He took a step in her direction. “But I never ceased to mourn the break with you. You’d always been my favorite, you know.”

  Yes, she had known. She’d mistakenly assumed that her father’s indulgence would extend to forgiving her unfortunate marriage, but she’d been tragically wrong.

  Except that her father had forgiven her, it seemed.

  Josiah had never told her that the earl had tried to make peace. Perhaps her husband had been afraid she’d abandon him and return to her earlier life. Perhaps they’d both have been better off if she had. They’d never known a moment of true happiness in their marriage. Her love for Matthew shone a stark light on the sterility, emotional and physical, of her life with Josiah.

  The earl was still speaking with an urgency she’d never heard from him before. “Then five years ago, I tried to make amends again, hoping your resentment had softened with time. But you’d disappeared. The shop in York was derelict and none of your neighbors knew where you’d gone. I’ve searched high and low, had my men asking after you in every bookshop in Britain. I’ve even had my agents checking in America.”

  “I was in Ripon,” Grace said. “Until a few weeks ago, anyway.”

  “Ripon…” The earl paled until he was the color of new paper and staggered back as though she’d hit him.

  “Are you all right, my lord?” Grace surged forward to support her father but at the last moment, hesitated. Would he want her help?

  He quickly found his balance but she noticed that the hands on his stick were white-knuckled with tension. “You were only thirty miles from Marlow Hall? All this time?”

  “Yes, on a farm. Sheep.” Grace’s mouth flattened in a wry line as she spread her hands in front of her so her father could see. “Here are the scars.”

  “Heaven curse me.” His face retained its unhealthy pallor while his voice was gruff and shaking with emotion. He clutched the stick as though it was all that kept him upright. “My little girl with a workman’s hands. I’d brought you up fit to become a duchess. What have I done? What have I done? How can you ever forgive me, child?”

  How she hated to see her father like this. And the fault, after all, was hers. She twined her hands together in front of her and forced herself to speak.

  “I think…” She mustered all her courage and went on. “I think it is for you to forgive me, Father.” This time, the word father emerged without strain.

  His face contorted with emotion. “Oh, Grace, my dearest girl, I forgive you with all my heart, as I hope you will in time forgive me. I’ve been such a fool but I hope the
years have made a difference to the man I was. I hope they’ve taught me wisdom.” He paused and extended his arm. “Walk with me back to the house, daughter?”

  Grace caught a flash of painful vulnerability in his face. She was astonished to realize that even now, he was far from confident she’d accept his escort. The Earl of Wyndhurst she recalled from her girlhood had always been utterly sure of himself.

  She took a deep breath, knowing the rest of her life hinged on what happened now. A smile would reassure her father but she couldn’t summon one, no matter how she tried.

  The earl had made mistakes. So had she. Both of them had paid a heavy price for their sins, if what she saw now was any indication.

  When she spoke, her voice was calm and sure. “I’d be honored, Father.”

  The bedroom was dark as Grace crept inside. Perhaps her mother was asleep, although it was only mid-afternoon. On the long carriage journey up from Somerset, she’d learned from her father that the countess spent most of her days dozing in her closed room. It seemed such a tragic contrast to the vibrant, vital woman Grace remembered.

  Quietly she shut the door behind her and immediately the stuffy atmosphere became a terrifying reminder of Lord John. Her heart raced and the breath caught in her throat. She fought the trapped feeling that threatened to suffocate her.

  Then the familiar scents of roses and beeswax surrounded her and dissipated the choking panic. The combined scents transported her back to childhood and brought tears to her eyes. Because she had moved a thousand miles beyond that spoiled, innocent girl who was lost forever.

  The smell made the past so close, so tangible. She took a deep breath and leaned against the door. It was too dark for her to see the beautiful inlaid pattern of musical instruments in different woods. But the child inside her remembered the violins and flutes on the back of the door. Just as the child remembered the soft blues and pinks of the floral carpet on the floor and the blue silk hangings that shrouded the high, elaborately carved bed on its platform.

  “Who’s there?”

  Even her mother’s voice was different. High-pitched and querulous. She was only fifty but she sounded like a frightened old woman.

  Grace couldn’t speak over the grief clogging her throat. This was wrong, so wrong.

  The bedclothes rustled as her mother shifted nervously on the mattress. “Who is it? Is that you, Elise? If you’ve come to dress me for dinner, I don’t think I’m up to going downstairs tonight.”

  Her mother never ate meals in the dining room anymore. She’d heard the bewildered love and sorrow in her father’s voice as he described his wife’s behavior since Philip’s death. Learning of her mother’s total retreat from life had filled her with guilt and piercing sadness.

  It was worse standing in this room now and seeing for herself.

  “Elise?”

  “It’s…” Grace stopped and tried again. “It’s not your maid, Mamma.”

  The figure in the bed lay so still that Grace could almost touch the silence. Then, so softly that she hardly heard the word, “Grace?”

  On trembling legs that she wasn’t sure would support her, Grace stepped forward. “Yes, Mamma. It’s Grace.”

  “My little Grace…” Another rustle of the bedclothes. Then in a stronger voice. “I’m dreaming, aren’t I?”

  It was so hard to force words out. “N-no. I’m really here.” Her strange paralysis shattered and she dashed across the carpet to fall to her knees beside the bed. “I’m really here, Mamma.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Her mother rolled over onto her side and reached out to stroke Grace’s face as if only touch could confirm her presence. When Grace felt the dance of those loving fingers across her cheek, she closed her eyes.

  She was home again.

  Grace sucked in a shaky breath. Even through the shadows, she could see how sunken and pallid her mother’s face had become. The scraggly strands of long hair that escaped her cap were gray and lifeless. The last nine years hadn’t been kind to the Countess of Wyndhurst. Little trace remained of the celebrated beauty who had married the earl and reigned from Marlow Hall as queen of county society.

  “I thought I’d never see you again,” the countess whispered in a broken voice.

  “So did I.” The words emerged thickly, indistinctly.

  “Why didn’t you come when…when Philip died?” A trace of anger. “I needed you, Grace, and you weren’t here.”

  Why hadn’t she come? Josiah would have forbidden her but she could have disobeyed him. In her heart, she’d defied him for so many years by then, disobeying him in reality wouldn’t have made things worse between them. She’d thought her father hated her, but she should have been brave enough to face his anger. She could have at least tried.

  She’d been wrong. And cowardly. And cruel.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a broken voice. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I miss Philip so much.” Tears began to fall from the countess’s dull eyes. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I know, Mamma, I know,” Grace murmured, rising to sit on the edge of the bed. Curled up under the covers in her delicate white nightgown, her mother seemed as small and fragile as a sparrow. Very gently, Grace encircled the frail body with her arms and cradled her mother against her.

  For a moment, her mother’s thin form was tense, as though she were unused to human contact. Then she bent her head to Grace’s shoulder and burst into an exhausted fit of weeping.

  Grace’s hold tightened and she leaned her cheek against the lace of her mother’s cap. She had so much to say, there was so much she wanted to know. But she stayed silent.

  She’d always loved her mother—she’d loved her whole family, although it had been a thoughtless, selfish love. What she’d learned about love from Matthew gave her the wisdom to know that for the present, silent comfort was what her mother needed.

  Eventually, her mother stopped crying and raised her head. Grace was so used to the gloom by now, she had no trouble reading the expression on the countess’s face. She looked tired and sad, but there was a peace there that had been missing before.

  “Open the curtains, Grace. I want to see my daughter.”

  “Yes, Mamma.” Grace rose and threw back the heavy draperies so that bright light flooded the room, banishing the darkness.

  Chapter 27

  Kermonde’s carriage lumbered along the track to the estate Grace had fled four months ago. In the Morocco leather interior, tense silence reigned. Grace was masked and sat opposite the duke. Beside her, her father stared broodingly out into the twilight.

  She nervously twisted her gloved hands in the skirt of her dark green merino traveling dress. Her heartbeat drummed so loudly in her ears, it drowned out the carriage’s endless creak. The cloudy sky and thick trees crowding the road turned the evening into deepest night. She shivered, trying not to read the darkness as an omen of looming disaster.

  What had happened since she’d last seen Matthew? Was he fit? Was he unharmed? Was he alive? Dear God, let her not be too late. Four months was a long time, even for someone who hadn’t counted every frustrating minute as an hour.

  When the duke’s men had finally found Dr. Granger, the sham physician confirmed he’d seen Matthew recently. He’d said nothing else to ease her fears. Reading the doctor’s testimony included in her godfather’s letter, she’d choked with sick, impotent anger. Dr. Granger had boasted of beatings, purges, bleedings, and blisterings he’d administered to the adolescent marquess. The memory of Matthew’s ruined back tormented her. Now, graphic knowledge of the abuse he’d suffered as a youth sent nightmares to shatter what little sleep she snatched.

  Dr. Granger claimed he’d only examined his patient on his latest visit. But had Monks and Filey continued the doctor’s cruel methods under Lord John’s orders?

  She’d begged her godfather to send someone to spy on the estate, but Kermonde had been reluctant. If Lord John caught a whiff of the plot against him, he could spirit Matthew
away beyond chance of rescue.

  “Peace, child. Everything will reach a satisfactory conclusion.” Her father placed one large hand over her restless fingers. He must have watched her long enough to guess the dizzying swirl of dread and doubt inside her.

  She turned her head and met his eyes in the dimness. “I hope so.”

  Once she’d have scoffed at the suggestion that her father would support her through her quest. But many things had changed, including her status as a penniless and friendless widow. Now she was openly acknowledged as the wealthy heiress, Lady Grace Marlow. Even poor Josiah’s name had faded into oblivion. The thought made her sad, as if her husband was the same failure in death that he’d been in life.

  But Josiah’s ghost was a pale insubstantial shadow. Its melancholy whispers were inaudible beneath her clamoring anxiety for Matthew.

  “Grace, I’d rather you waited in the coach where you’ll be safe.” Kermonde clutched a leather strap as the vehicle lurched into another pothole.

  This argument had gone on for weeks but Grace had remained obdurate. After so many months receiving secondhand news or no news at all, she needed to see Matthew with her own eyes. Her only concession to her godfather was that for discretion’s sake, she’d agreed to wear a mask and keep silent. The world must never discover Lady Grace Marlow had been mistaken for a common harlot.

  “Francis, let the chit be.” Her father pressed her hand then let her go. “We’ve gathered more men than Wellington had at Vittoria. Can’t you see she’s set on having her way?”

  Behind Kermonde’s luxurious equipage traveled a dozen horsemen and two coachloads of armed retainers. Bringing up the rear, another carriage contained two royal physicians. King George had been furious when he learned of Matthew’s ordeal. The late Lord Sheene had been a great friend, advising him on his art collection. What had clinched His Majesty’s interest, though, were the brilliant botanical articles. Thank heaven she’d stolen them.

  How her father had changed, that he was prepared to defend her so openly. Behind the mask, tears prickled her eyes. But the warmth was fleeting. Fulfilling as her reunion with her mother and father was, her thoughts never strayed far from Matthew. She wanted to look into his eyes. She wanted to hear his deep voice with its undercurrent of wry amusement. She wanted his scent. She wanted to touch him. Only his physical presence would silence the demons howling in her heart, insisting she couldn’t save him.