“Yes, I suppose you are commanding of your person during our lessons. But every other time I can safely count on whipping the breeches off you because of your lanky, skinny legs.”
He chuckled at her and tapped his finger on her nose. “Think what you must. I shall never win a debate with you. But I am glad to hear you consider me graceful on the dance floor.”
“I never said you were graceful. I said you were commanding.”
“That is the same as being graceful.”
“No, it is not. Graceful means to move smoothly with clean, imperceptible movements.”
He knew he had her now. “Ah, but with you in my arms, I am full of Grace. Therefore, by definition, I am Grace-full.”
She gave him a small smile and said, “You will always be full of grace in that sense.”
“Did you just admit defeat?” he teased.
Grace said proudly, “I did not, and I shall not. I was only saying that I will always be your friend.”
He didn’t know why—perhaps it was the rare success in a debate that gave him the confidence—but he paused and then said, “Someday, Gigi, there will be someone who will take you away from me. He will be bigger and braver than me. I shall fight him off with a stick, but he will stake claim on your heart, and he will no longer let us be best friends. What we have cannot last forever.”
“You sound like you are saying goodbye.”
“No, I am just being realistic. Your father will arrange a smart match for you once you have your coming out, and you will be the happiest debutante in London’s upper ten thousand. I shall demand to be best man at your wedding, of course, but at some point, what we have shared these many years will no longer be.”
“How will I know he will make me happy?”
“He will be big and brave. He will be everything you have ever wanted.”
“Promise?”
“I promise. You will see. Keep your eyes wide open.”
“What if I never find him? What if I end up a spinster?”
He tapped his finger on her nose and lightly said, “Then I will marry you.”
She laughed and said, “Us? Marry? Never.” Her tone had been somewhat forced, as if she lacked confidence in her own declaration. It filled him with the slightest amount of hope. But what if she had meant it? What if she could never see him differently? The hope disappeared.
She quickly turned and headed home. She left him standing there hearing her words echo in his heart. He would never be more than a friend.
CHAPTER 4
Gavin was startled from his thoughts by a knock, which sent his already quickened heart galloping. He called out, “Enter,” and began to shuffle papers on his desk to make it look as if he hadn’t been daydreaming.
“Gavin?” Her feminine voice brought his heart up to his throat, and he looked toward her. She had stopped a few feet inside the door. Her strawberry-blonde hair picked up the sun from the window, and her eyes looked concerned.
He stood and bowed, then forced himself to stop staring at her smooth, pale, ivory skin. It was beginning to be rich with color again. “Yes, Gigi?”
“I hope I did not say something wrong at breakfast. You seemed upset when you left.”
He smiled at her. “Not at all,” he insisted. “My mother enjoys monopolizing conversations, and I could see my presence was no longer required. You do not need my help finding a match. She knows far more about such things than I do.”
“All right, if you say so.” She was turning to go, but he sensed she was still uncomfortable about something.
He called after her, “Do you still play chess?”
She turned back around, lifted her chin, and replied, “I do not play chess; I win chess.”
He smiled at her and said, “I have not been beaten in years. Now, do tell me if you still require to be black.”
“Of course I do. I like to give my opponents the illusion that they start out ahead.” She tilted her head in an adorable way that said, “Defy me if you dare”. He dared.
He couldn’t help but smile. “I remember. Shall we?” He motioned to the side table, and she hobbled fairly smoothly over to a chair. Her ankle was already much better.
He quickly reached for his boxed set and handed it to her. For a moment, he was mesmerized watching her slender fingers quickly set up the pieces.
He walked around to the other side of the table and reached behind him, out of habit, to flip up his tailcoat before sitting down—only to remember he had taken off the confining garment. He laughed and sat down.
Grace looked up at him and asked, “What is so funny?”
He chuckled again. “I just realized that I am not properly clothed to entertain a lady, but then I remembered I am perfectly clothed to spend time with Gigi, my friend.”
*****
“You have never cared much for propriety,” Grace replied. “But I assure you, I am a lady now, regardless of whether or not you wish to acknowledge it.”
He shifted his position a little and said, “I did not mean to imply that you are not a lady, Grace. Of course you are. But if I were to treat you like an eligible lady from the ton, I could not be alone with you now. I could not have carried you upstairs last night. The fact that we are best friends means I get to do all of that and more.”
Grace tried not to smile. It was true; they had been in all sorts of improper circumstances. “So, are you saying that I have already been compromised?” she said with as serious face as she could muster, “Thank you for the warning. I shall attempt to keep intact what is left of my reputation.”
He laughed again, his chest and waistcoat straining to burst. “Well then, Gigi, it is a good thing you are just my friend, for I would hate to give rise to any more rumors about me. My family’s reputation is already quite solidly set as less-than-reputable these days.” Then he leaned forward with a flirtatious grin and added, “When word gets out that you are staying here in my house, people are bound to make assumptions about the two of us, Gigi. You know little of my reputation.”
She looked him straight in the eye and challenged him in more ways than one. “Make your move.”
“I believe I shall.” He moved his pawn. “So, tell me, Gigi; we have talked a great deal about our time growing up together but very little of the last ten years. You seem different.”
She made her move without flinching at his words. “And I doubt you are still the same person I grew up with.”
“True. I am not even the same person I was six months ago.”
He moved again and motioned for her to continue. Talking to him was not a chore. That much had not changed. She moved another pawn, freeing up her bishop. “How so?” she asked.
He brought his hand to his chin. “Well, it is not me who has changed,” he said, “so much as everyone else. People have different expectations of me now that I am titled. I would still much rather be Gavin Kingston, nothing more than the second son, instead of ‘His Grace, the Duke of Huntsman’.”
“But you were always titled. Why is ‘Your Grace’ so much worse than ‘Lord Gavin’?”
He had been studying the board and looked up at her briefly, his eyes flashing momentarily with sadness. He moved his knight then leaned back and said, “Because every time I hear that title, I am reminded that my father and only brother are dead.”
For a moment, neither said anything. “I am so sorry, Gavin,” Grace murmured. He nodded wordlessly, and they played in silence. She sensed that he was not ready to discuss their deaths, so she directed the conversation elsewhere.
“I was very close to my parents,” Grace began, “my mother especially. Her death was very hard on me. You did not get to see her fighting spirit. When Father died, a whole new woman emerged. She was no longer timid or afraid. She was forced to support herself and three daughters on a fraction of her income. My father left us a small lump sum and an annual payment of just a few hundred pounds. Luckily, he also bequeathed the country home in East Sussex, although it was r
ather run down. My mother put thousands of pounds into repairing it, and then we lived there with just a maid, a cook, and a manservant.”
“Sounds like it was rather hard for you.”
She made a move that took his knight. “In some ways, it was good for me. I no longer lived the leisurely life of a gentleman’s daughter. I had to work and clean and even help cook. I had to do everything I could; we all did. My days were not spent embroidering or endlessly arranging flowers. Instead, I knelt in the garden and dug for potatoes. No kid gloves needed there.”
He smiled at her and said, “I have never known Gigi to wear kid gloves.”
“Yes, you did. When we danced, the dancing master made us both wear gloves.”
“Not the last time.”
Her heart started racing, and she worried he would see it bouncing in her chest. “No, not the last time.”
Once again they played for a few minutes silently.
He made a move and said, “Check.”
For a moment, she was convinced he had seen right through her, that he had somehow witnessed her thoughts drifting back again to that last lesson. Then she realized he was referring to the game. She moved out of check. Out of habit, she reacted defensively, turning the topic back to him. “Your father and Spencer died six months ago?” she probed.
She looked up to see his reaction. He seemed to be studying the board intensely. It was as if he had not heard her at all until, finally, he made a move and then leaned back and replied, “Yes. It was a carriage accident. At least, that is what you will hear in public. The truth is far more painful.”
Grace observed how she could win in two moves with her rook. She was not one prone to pity, but she moved her knight instead; she didn’t want the game to end yet.
Gavin’s thoughts seemed to pour out of him as if he were desperate to share. “Spencer was a rogue,” he began, “no doubt about it; even that term seemed too soft a description. He had a good heart, but knowing that the title and estate would pass to him, no matter his course in life, was simply too much freedom for him. Do you remember how Spencer and Father fought about his inattention to his studies and his lack of interest in the estate?”
“Yes.”
Gavin moved his rook again and took one of hers. Surprisingly, she found she didn’t mind. She quickly made her next move and gave her whole attention to the man who sat in front of her. “The life of leisure was the only thing that mattered to Spencer,” he continued. “And me. I always mattered to him. He often travelled to meet me at port, even when I was only docked for the day. His friends were my friends. In truth, besides my shipmates, he was the only true friend I ever had. He never neglected me, never excluded me, even at Eton. So, even though I did not agree with his incognitas or the hired prime articles who accompanied him wherever he went, his lifestyle never cut up my peace.”
“So, he was a womanizer?”
“A selective womanizer. Those who made their living that way, mistresses for hire or ladies of the night—yes, he used them. But he always treated ladies of the ton with respect. As far as I know, he never ruined any of them. Am I making you uneasy? Sometimes I forget that you are a lady and not just my friend. Perhaps I should not be discussing this with you.”
With anyone else, she would have been uneasy, but not with Gavin. They had always been completely honest with each other. She trusted him. “The only thing that makes me uneasy is that you forget I am a lady. I do not mind being called your friend, but things are different than they were ten years ago.”
“Yes, I am well aware that you are a lady now. It would be impossible to forget.” He shifted in his chair and refocused on the chessboard. He seemed to have a bit of color in his cheeks, but she couldn’t imagine why. Was she being too honest? He made his move and continued. “One day Spencer was accused by the Earl of Longmont of compromising his daughter.”
She took his bishop in her move and asked, “Did he?”
“He swears he did not, and he refused to marry her. The earl challenged Spencer to a duel. He immediately told my parents, which is how I learned about it. My father agreed to serve as second, confident that he could prevent the duel from actually happening. But my father always thought too much of his title. On the morning of the duel, while my father tried to reason with him, the earl lost his temper and shot him in the chest. The duel had not even begun. The surgeon did what he could, but he could not save him.
“The earl fled in his carriage amid the commotion,” Gavin continued. “When my father died, Spencer took off after him. They tell me he was driving like a Corinthian in pursuit. The carriage turned and lost control, throwing him. His injuries were extensive. He did not last to see the next dawn.”
Grace reached over and placed her hand on his. “I am so sorry. To lose both of them in the same day in such horrid accidents must have been a shock.”
He looked down at her hand, squeezed it once, and then pulled his hand back, withdrawing it to his own territory. There was a bit of silence as he made his next move and then weakly said, “The death of my father was no accident. I still intend to find the Earl of Longmont and hang him for murder. He has not been seen since that morning. Rumors are that he fled to Italy. His daughter was indeed compromised, but I swear to you that it was not Spencer. If Spencer said he did not do it, then he did not do it.” Although the words sounded like a grand mission, his tone spoke of how futile his hopes were.
She worried if reaching for his hand had been inappropriate. She took a breath and looked away from his beautiful brown eyes, which were threatening to swallow her whole. They had a power and passion in them that were unfamiliar in Gavin’s face.
She made her move quickly, but as soon as she let go of the piece, she realized she had left the rook exposed and endangered her queen. How could she have been so careless? She determined to concentrate harder in order to get his king. His skill was markedly improved from ten years ago. Her queen would probably be taken if she did not find a way to escape the trap he had set.
He indeed took her last rook and then looked up at her suspiciously with one eyebrow raised. With a smile, he interlaced his fingers in front of him.
“Perhaps I have been distracted from the game,” Grace admitted. “I was thinking only of you.”
“Thinking only of me? A penny for your thoughts!” he asked with a confidence that was not there moments ago.
She suddenly realized how that sounded. “Certainly not,” she said. “You already think too highly of yourself as it is.”
He grinned wide enough to make her blush with heat. “Yes, many people cannot help but sacrifice their queen when I speak—I believe the Prince Regent was tempted to do so once. Tell me, Gigi, do you just like sad stories or have I really captured your queen with my skill and charm?”
“My queen is not yours yet.” Her face colored even more but this time with a bit of anger because he was mocking her. Her only option was to sacrifice a knight to save her queen. “You may have my knight.”
“Is that a promise?”
His pompous smirk needed to be rubbed off soon. “What do you mean by that?”
“You just told me I could have your night. I say we practice those dance lessons in the ballroom. If I am going to find you a husband, I need to know what skills I have to work with. I would hate to think that your training is limited to those lessons from ten years ago.”
“Very well, you may have my night. My one aching left foot is up to it if your two left feet are.”
“Touché!” He made one move and stood up.
“Where are you going?” Grace asked.
“That is checkmate. You were so worried about losing your queen that you neglected your king.”
CHAPTER 5
Grace stared at the chessboard, worry etched in every corner of her face. Gavin felt a twinge of guilt for winning.
“Do not be a sore loser, Gigi. Surely you have grown out of that by now.” Gavin watched her flush even redder. “I am sorry,” he a
dded. “It was unfair for me to distract you.”
He had always softened the blow when she lost, as he knew just how painful it was for her to admit defeat. Grace was the kind of girl who excelled at everything she put her mind to. She never held herself back from a challenge. It didn’t matter that she was a girl and two years younger and in a dress. No matter the challenge, she fought with a spirit of endurance and self-sacrifice that only Grace had.
Just as he was about to offer a rematch, there was a familiar, patterned triple-knock on the study door. He turned to find his friend, Kenneth Silence, letting himself in, closely followed by a frustrated Mr. Robison.
Silence and the poor butler, Mr. Robison, were engaged in a long-standing war. It was Robison’s job to announce guests before they entered, but Silence, determined to announce himself, always managed to weasel his way ahead.
“Silence, Your Grace,” Robison called out, rushing into the room.
Silence’s laughter rolled, and he replied, “Robison, I am impressed! Not many servants would dare hush their masters so boldly.”
“Your Grace, I would never attempt such a thing,” Robison quickly added. “Mr. Silence is here, as you can see. Shall I bring in refreshments?”
Gavin chuckled and said, “Yes, please do.”
“And bring some sherry,” Silence requested. “I see there is a lady here, and if she has spent any time at all with Kingston, she is surely in dire need of fortification.”
“I do not require sherry,” Grace replied.
“No?” Silence asked. “Have you given up the drink like Kingston?”
Gavin cleared his throat and stood up. “Grace,” he said, “I would like to introduce you to Spencer’s close friend, Mr. Kenneth Silence. Silence, this is Miss Grace Iverson.”
She stood and curtsied, “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Silence.”
“Please, call me Silence. Everyone else does.”
Grace smiled back, far too wide for Gavin’s taste. “But then what shall I say when I need you to stop talking?” she asked. “Must I really stutter, ‘Silence, Silence!’?”
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