Grace by Deneane Clark Read Free Book Online Page B

self-possessed young lady whose fiery personality, although at such complete odds with her demure name, quite matched her glorious hair. “Grace,” he whispered to himself, and decided he liked the way her name sounded as it rolled off his tongue. His lips curved in a fond smile as his mind’s eye passed again over her vibrant features.
    Her portrait did her no justice, he thought, sniffing disdainfully at the artist’s obvious lack of talent. Although the rendering accurately depicted her features, it did not in any way capture her essence. In the space of a single evening, he had seen her large, expressive blue eyes reflect her changing emotions like very windows into her soul. One moment they darkened furiously in speechless anger; the next they sparkled with easy laughter. One moment they were shining brightly with gratitude; the next they clouded to a stormy blue-gray in frustration.
    Tonight she had worn her hair pulled back in a sedatechignon, a style a bit out of character and somewhat confining for someone of Grace’s spirited temperament. It would look much better unbound, he thought sleepily, exactly the way she had worn it in her portrait. Just as it would look spread in a blazing fan across his pillows, he added to himself as sleep finally claimed him. He dreamed pleasantly of burying his face in those flaming tresses.
    A few doors down the hall, Grace lay sleepless in her bed. She pondered, with rapidly growing dismay, the various unwelcome reactions she’d had to nearly everything Lord Caldwell had said or done over the course of the evening.
    For much of the past nine months, she had eluded the unwanted bonds of marriage to Sir Harry Thomas by the simple measure of avoiding the self-important knight as much as possible. When she could not manage to evade his notice, she kept him, both mentally and physically, at arm’s length. She had no intention of marrying anybody, most especially not Harry Thomas. Having already reached her twentieth birthday, she knew society considered her well past the age at which most girls of her class should have settled down.
    From what Grace had seen of marriage within the limited circle of her small world, the institution held no attraction for her. The world, she had noticed, expected nothing more from women than that they be submissive, demure brood mares, allowed absolutely no rights or even opinions of their own. Grace knew she would almost certainly stagnate under such wretched restrictions. She thought of the long, heart-pounding, full-out galloping rides she regularly took on her favorite mare, and of the pleasant philosophical conversations she often held with her father over a rousing game of chess, chats that lasted until late in the evening, long after everyone else had retired. She could not imagine any of the gentlemen of her acquaintanceactually deigning to spend time engaged in good-natured banter with her over the latest Parliament decisions reported in the slightly outdated London papers they regularly received in Pelthamshire.
    Grace clenched her teeth in the darkness. That would
not
happen to her, she vowed. She would, at all costs, avoid marriage to anyone until society considered her safely on the shelf, quite beyond hope, and, most important of all, quite beyond interest. Once she reached official spinster status, she would travel, she decided with a deep yawn, finally ready to succumb to slumber. She rolled over, pulled the covers up over her head, and fell into a troubled sleep haunted by dreams of laughing eyes the many shifting colors of the forest.

C
hapter
F
ive

    B y force of habit Grace awakened early, opening her eyes when the first golden sunbeams moved lazily across the polished hardwood floor of her bedchamber. Feeling somewhat groggier than usual, she stretched her arms above her head, flexed her leg muscles, and sat up, inexplicably bothered by a sense of foreboding. She kicked off the covers, stood, and stretched again, then padded