by Gayle Callen
Two more days left to the challenge. He sensed it might be all he had left with her. Was that what he wanted?
Grace spent the morning listlessly answering letters from friends back home. She didn’t want to go out and risk Jenkins and Daniel coming face-to-face over her in public. The only bright spot to her day was Edward’s obvious happiness. He was whistling whenever he walked by the library where she was working. When she’d asked him about the ladies he’d met, he said it was too early to discuss it, but the smile on his face almost brought tears to her eyes. At least one of them was happy. He left before luncheon, and she was miserably alone again.
As she’d known he would, Daniel came to visit her in the afternoon. With sudden inspiration, she left him waiting a long time for her in the drawing room. The piano took up much of the space, and she wondered if it drew him. She cautiously crept to the doorway and peered in. Daniel was standing at the window, but she saw him look over his shoulder at the piano. She leaned back against the wall before he could see her, and then a few minutes later, she looked in again. He was rifling through the sheet music that she’d left out.
Once again, she leaned out of sight, unable to keep a silly grin from her face. She’d been right about him and his music. But more minutes passed, and he didn’t play. When she looked in again, he was pacing.
Disappointed, she took a deep breath, shook her skirts into place, and serenely walked in. “Good afternoon, Daniel.”
He stopped and stared at her, and she found she couldn’t remember what she’d meant to say. The awareness between them always caught her by surprise, as if she kept expecting it to lessen. He looked down her body, and she let herself look down his.
“I have not changed in just one night,” she said softly.
He came toward her. “Which is a good thing. I don’t suppose you’d close the door.”
“No.”
He shrugged and stopped before her. “I can still taste you,” he whispered wickedly.
Heat rose inside her, and she knew she was blushing.
“I want to taste you everywhere.” His voice was low and urgent, as if he hadn’t meant to say those words but couldn’t help himself.
She could have swooned. She had to stop this before she fell into his arms in broad daylight.
“I’ve sent for refreshments,” she said, striving for a normal tone.
He arched a brow, giving her a slow smile. “Your defenses can’t work.”
She lifted her chin. “They have so far.”
“True.”
When he came toward her, she stepped away, toward the piano. “I saw you looking through the sheet music.”
Wariness appeared briefly in his eyes, before his usual polite mask settled into place. It bothered her that he felt he had to hide what he was thinking from her.
Of course, she was hiding many things from him.
“And don’t tell me you don’t listen to music because your mother doesn’t,” she continued calmly. “That just doesn’t ring true to me. Surely the fact that your father was a composer, and that he died when you were so young, makes more sense.”
He opened his mouth, but whatever he meant to say, he seemed to think differently. “You’d think so,” he began, “but that’s not true. I was proud of my father’s music. It was what I had left of him, and playing it made me feel closer to him at first.”
She held her breath, and then finally encouraged him with, “At first?”
She kept expecting him to laugh away her concern, to pretend it didn’t matter. But they stood facing each other in the center of the drawing room, and he didn’t retreat.
“Is this what you need from me, Grace? Painful truths from my past?”
“I don’t know why I need it, Daniel. But…” She trailed off uncertainly. How could she tell him that he needed to understand himself?
“Very well, then you’ll hear it,” he said without expression. “I think I gave up music because of Mother, not my father.”
She frowned. “You’ve already said that your mother won’t listen to music anymore, and that you—”
“Let me finish. When my father died, my mother didn’t know how to handle her grief. She’d spent her married life at one with her husband’s artistry, full of the same passion for creating music as he had. But where he succeeded, she never had, though she tried in so many different ways. And she seemed fine with that, as if someday she would learn enough to succeed at her dream. When my father died, I don’t know if music provided a bridge to his memory, but for whatever reason, she immersed herself in it for months. I barely saw her, except at meals, and even then she would be distracted, as if she could not escape whatever feverish energy she’d created. This went on for months.”
Grace barely breathed, so afraid of interrupting Daniel’s confession. He hadn’t given up music because he associated it with his father or because of the rumors of his mother being a murderer—music had taken away his mother at a time when he needed her the most.
“When at last she finished the symphony she was composing, she was exhausted and beginning to come to terms with my father’s death. She hadn’t necessarily meant for the symphony to be exposed to the world, but a friend showed it to a conductor without her knowledge, and suddenly she was being hailed as the next great musical genius.” He smiled wryly. “And I was angry.”
“You were young and confused,” she said softly, touching his arm. “You’d lost your father, and I’m sure it seemed like you’d lost your mother, too, since she was so preoccupied.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t want her to go back to something that had hurt her—hurt us.”
“You stopped playing because you didn’t want to remind her about music,” Grace said, “in case she’d become caught up in it again. Were you worried she would?”
“For a while,” he admitted. “And then I was sent to school. The first time I came home, I ran to the music room, but the sheets still covered everything.”
“Like they do now.”
He nodded.
“Do you ever wish that you—or she—would rediscover music?”
But that was one step too far. He only grinned and reached for her, pulling her against his body.
“I am an adult now. There are more pleasurable things to do with my time.”
His breath on her face, his warm, hard body the length of hers was once again stealing away her will, her resolve to resist him. He leaned down to kiss her, and she let him, glad that he’d shared something so private with her.
“Get your hands off my sister!” Edward’s voice thundered.
Grace stumbled backward and saw Daniel’s face become impassive.
“Banbury,” Daniel said, as if they’d just met pleasantly on the street.
Grace turned to face her brother, guilt and worry clogging her throat, making it hard to speak. “Edward, it was only a kiss.”
“It’s more than that, and I know all about it,” Edward said, stalking into the room and passing her to face Daniel. “Jenkins approached me at my club.”
Grace groaned, knowing that Mr. Jenkins had chosen his revenge well. “Edward—”
But he ignored her to say to Daniel, “I can’t believe I was beginning to trust you and your so-called advice.”
“I have never steered you wrong,” Daniel said calmly.
“No, you were only trying to distract me while you pursued my sister. My God, did you even tell her what crude right you’d won from my mother?”
“No,” Daniel said.
But Edward had turned away from Daniel in time to read Grace’s expression and see the truth. A bleak sadness crossed her brother’s face. “Grace, why didn’t you tell me? Were you embarrassed?”
She raised a hand to stop Daniel from speaking. “I was hurt and humiliated, Edward,” she said. “Daniel and I had agreed that we would not marry. I didn’t think it mattered.”
“Not mattered?” Edward cried. “Our mother tried to give you away like you were property
!”
She put a hand to her mouth and felt the first tears leak from her eyes.
“It’s like a sickness that even I can’t avoid,” he continued bleakly. “I have tried so hard to put it aside, and though some days it’s easier than others, I still was able to do it. But Mother didn’t even try.”
“And can you trust your restraint so well already?” she asked. “I don’t even trust my own.”
“You don’t gamble,” he scoffed.
But then comprehension raced across his face, and he turned angrily back to Daniel. “It’s you, isn’t it? You are the man testing her restraint. My God, I trusted you, when all along you’ve been trying to bed my sister.”
“Edward!” Grace cried.
Daniel stepped toward her brother, and suddenly she could see the terrible result if she let them at each other.
“Daniel, you must leave!” she said heatedly. “This does not concern you. This is about the lack of trust between my brother and me.”
As she’d guessed, that made Edward turn back toward her, his expression affronted. “Grace, what are you saying?”
She took his hand and realized he was trembling. “Daniel, please leave.”
He nodded to them both and left the room. Grace and Edward were frozen in place until they heard the front door close on the ground floor.
Grace took Edward’s other hand, and she was at least relieved that he didn’t pull away. “I haven’t told you everything, it is true,” she said, her voice shaking. “I didn’t want you to know what I had to do to retrieve the violin.”
“Oh, Grace.” He winced and closed his eyes. “Not that damn violin again.”
“It was all we had, Edward! The property was gone. I could find employment, but you—”
“You don’t think I can work if I have to?” he demanded, trying to pull away from her.
She clutched his hands harder, needing to be connected to him. “But I didn’t want you to have to! You’re a gentleman, Edward, and I wanted you to be able to live the life you’ve grown up in, just like our father. The money from the violin would help.”
“You told me you could persuade him to give it back to you,” he said, his face paling. “Grace, what did you promise him for the violin?”
She took a shocked breath. “You think I would sell myself for it? Edward, I would never—”
“Then what? I didn’t buy that balderdash about redeeming him from the beginning. I thought you were wasting your time. But that was only a convenient lie to mask the truth, wasn’t it.”
“It was desperation on my part, yes, but I truly believed it could work. He’s a good man, Edward, and if I could have made Society see that—”
“Grace, tell me the truth!”
She jerked at his harsh tone, stung. Tears were flowing freely down her face, stinging her eyes, dripping to her bodice. “He didn’t need a wife, but he wanted a mistress,” she said raggedly.
Reddening, Edward turned toward the door as if meant to defend her against the world, but she had a death grip on his hands.
“Listen to me! I refused, of course, and he knew I would. He was trying to provoke me because it’s what he does best. I told him he could never convince me to be his mistress. He thought he could. One thing led to another, and we agreed on a—a challenge.”
“A wager, you mean,” Edward said.
The disappointment in his face broke her heart.
“Oh Grace, I thought you were immune to the terrible need Mother and I share.”
“I am—or I was. But it…seemed so easy to win! He said that he could seduce me into willingly being his mistress, and I told him it was impossible. After everything that had happened to me with Baxter Wells, I thought this was too easy to win. And we’d have the violin, Edward. Its purchase would let us have our own home again.”
“Are you saying that he has not—that you have not—”
“No! Tomorrow is the last day of the challenge, Edward, I promise.” But right now didn’t seem the best time to say that she wanted to keep seeing Daniel, that she loved him, that she didn’t know if she even wanted to resist him anymore.
“Then don’t see him again.”
“I can’t do that! It was part of the agreement, and we’ve both kept to the terms.”
He covered his face with his hands. “Oh Grace, you’re doing this for me. How can I bear it?”
“I’m doing it for both of us,” she said softly. “Let me finish this, Edward. I know what I’m doing.”
“You can’t trust him. He’s probably only assisting me with investments to soften you.”
“But he never brags about it, or uses it to sway me. I drag those explanations out of him. He’s an honorable man, Edward.”
“And you’ve fallen in love with him.”
She opened her mouth, but how could she lie anymore, when there were still other things she hadn’t told him?
“Tell me, Grace, tell me what you feel.”
“I think I love him,” she whispered, then hurriedly continued, “but I am not so foolish as to think he loves me. I don’t know what will happen. But Edward, let me finish this. Promise me you won’t try to stop me.”
He searched her eyes, and she saw him stiffen, his mouth flattening. “Very well. I promise. But he’ll hurt you, Grace. You’ve thought yourself in love before.”
“I know.” She hugged herself. “I don’t know how this will end, but Edward, I have to try.”
Edward turned away and strode out the door.
Daniel was waiting for Banbury in the shadows of the town house. He felt responsible for Banbury’s problems and couldn’t just let him go off and do something thoughtless. He followed Banbury to his club, where, to Daniel’s relief, Banbury drank but did not enter the gaming room. Daniel couldn’t watch him all night, so at last he went home. He knew deep inside that Banbury wasn’t finished, that there was still a confrontation to come.
Had Grace told him everything? Daniel had been relishing his pursuit of Grace, but when he put himself in Banbury’s place, he knew the man would feel betrayed.
And after midnight, when someone pounded on the front door, he knew just who it was.
Daniel sent his butler back to bed and opened the door himself. Banbury launched himself into the entrance hall, and Daniel fell backward with him on top. They rolled around on the floor, knocking over a table, crashing a vase, landing a few punches, but Banbury wasn’t exactly sober, and Daniel was holding back.
At last Banbury came up on his knees, his chest heaving as he struggled to breathe. When Daniel offered him a hand up, he ignored it and rose unsteadily to his feet. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, but there was little damage. Daniel moved his jaw experimentally, but it seemed in working order.
“Stop seeing Grace,” Banbury said, his voice husky.
“I can’t.”
Banbury closed his eyes for a moment, his expression grim. “She told me about the challenge. How dare you use an innocent woman for your pleasure!”
“I can’t talk about this with you, Banbury.”
“Damn you, do you love her?”
Daniel froze, surprised that for a moment, he didn’t know what to say. “No.” But saying that one word made him feel hollow, uncertain. He couldn’t explain what Grace was to him, what he wanted her to be beyond his mistress.
Now he’d lost Banbury’s trust—and he’d never had Grace’s.
“It’s over after tomorrow?” Banbury asked.
“The challenge is.”
“And will you stop pursuing her?”
“Don’t ask me to lie to you, Banbury.”
The other man stared at him grimly, then turned and walked out the door.
Daniel paced for two hours, and then went back to the Banbury town house. He let himself in the back door, moving through the dark halls until he reached Grace’s door. When he went inside, she was sitting in the window seat, looking out over the courtyard garden.
The candlelight sh
owed her pale face, the dark smudges beneath her eyes. But her voice was calm as she said, “Did he come after you?”
Daniel leaned back against the door. “He did, but we only exchanged a few blows. He wants me to stop seeing you—”
“As if that is his decision to make!” Grace interrupted.
“I refused.”
She eyed him speculatively. “Can’t let the challenge go?”
“One day from its completion? I think not. And you can’t either.”
But he found himself holding his breath. Would she end it? Was she so distraught over being discovered that she could not continue?
And what would he do then?
Before she could answer, he decided to distract her. “You heard your brother mention a Mr. Jenkins as the man who told him about what I’d really won.”
She nodded, but warily.
“Then you’ve guessed that he’s one of the men I gambled with against your mother.”
She nodded again.
“For your peace of mind, know that I’ve had him—and the other man—investigated. The other man is in the north, and Jenkins himself, though he might have been waiting outside your house, does not seem a threat. I’m having him watched, regardless, so that you can rest assured that he won’t harm you.”
“There are other ways to harm a person,” she said softly.
There was a distance in her eyes that he couldn’t read, and she didn’t explain.
“You mean by telling Banbury the truth?”
“Yes.”
But she didn’t meet his eyes.
“Do not worry—it will go no further,” he said with conviction. “I’ll have a talk with Jenkins.”
She came up out of the window seat and approached him. “Daniel, I don’t want you to do that. You’ll only antagonize him. He’s embarrassed me before my family. I’m sure that’s all he wants.”
“We don’t know that, Grace.”
“I do. If you stir it up, it will make things worse.”
She seemed so desperate, so sincere, that he didn’t have the heart to go against her. “Very well, but if anything else happens with Jenkins, you’ll tell me.”
She nodded, her expression relieved.
