With This Kiss: Part One (5 page)
This time, when the smoke cleared, Captain Barry didn’t walk out unscathed. His second-in-command, Lieutenant Philip Drummond, assumed command of the vessel, and carried out plans that Sir Griffin Barry, with approval of the Royal Navy, had put in place long ago: If Captain Barry was injured, he wasn’t to be dropped off on shore to recover. Nor was he to wait about for a British naval ship to fetch him home.
Captain Drummond put ashore at Casablanca, where he bought the fastest clipper he could find, hired a crew, and had the wounded captain carried aboard, accompanied by his personal batman, Ackerley. And then he and all his men lined up along the gunwale in a salute, and he was the only one who didn’t have tears in his eyes as they watched one of the golden twins being taken away on a stretcher.
But when Drummond turned back to the deck, he was captain of the
Daedalus
.
January 1837
T
he day that Colin’s letter arrived was not a happy one for Grace, especially when Lily asked her if she’d like to read it. Grace saw pages and pages covered with Colin’s spiky writing and shook her head.
She went upstairs and sat down, refusing to cry. She was the daughter of a duke. She was not a dying swan who would spend the rest of her life mourning a man who didn’t love her.
That afternoon she dressed with special care for a drive with Lord McIngle. She selected a new and especially flattering pelisse, made from violet cashmere, with black braided silk trim and a wide black velvet belt with a silver buckle.
Just before His Lordship was due to arrive, she popped into her mother’s sitting room to show herself off.
“You look exquisite, Grace,” the duchess exclaimed, getting up from her desk. “And even more important, you look happy.”
“I am better,” Grace said stoutly. “I’m not the first to have suffered through a childhood infatuation. Colin never even kissed me, so I haven’t the excuse of saying I was misled.”
Her mother gathered her into her arms. “I knew that Lily’s letter would feel hurtful.” And then: “But I am glad to hear that Colin didn’t give you reason to believe that his affections matched yours.”
“Quite the opposite. All those years, he never wrote me back more than a line or two. He didn’t seek me out when he was on leave… not to mention the fact that he fell in love with Lily. I feel like such a fool, Mother!” It burst out of her.
The duchess leaned back, her hands on Grace’s shoulders. “You are
not
a fool, darling. It is never foolish to love a good man. I’m just sorry that he didn’t reciprocate your feelings—and even sorrier that your father and I didn’t cut off the correspondence years ago.”
“I do believe my letters were healing. So I’m not sorry I wrote them.”
The duchess looked at her searchingly. “You are such a good person, Grace. I don’t know how your father and I managed to produce such a generous, wonderful young woman.”
“Don’t forget fanciful. I made up a whole romance in my mind. When Colin didn’t answer a letter, I would make up the answer he
should
have sent me. Before I knew it, I was in love.”
“I do wish I could have spared you that lesson,” her mother said. “Especially your pain in seeing that letter he wrote to Lily.”
Grace shrugged. “It forced me to realize that I can’t hide from the truth. There’s a glaring contrast between the four-line letters Colin wrote me, and the five-page letter he sent Lily. He must truly love her.”
“I’m not so sure that I agree about Colin’s feelings for your sister. Your father and I
are
agreed that he is not the person with whom Lily should spend her life. But the more important thing, darling, is that you find someone who will realize precisely how precious you are. It’s obvious to everyone, for example, that Lord McIngle is wildly in love with you.”
“He is, isn’t he?” It was quite nice to see John’s eyes light up when she entered a room. “I know this is petty, Mother, but I so appreciate the fact that John has never even looked in Lily’s direction.”
“John, is it?” her mother said teasingly. “Your father and I like your John very much. We would be very happy to have him join our family.”
Lord McIngle arrived so promptly to take Grace for a drive that one might think his carriage had been lurking around the corner.
But no, Grace thought, John McIngle would always be on time. She could count on him. He was steady, and warm, and unfailingly respectful.
John had been wooing Grace for quite a while now, so she knew the pattern of their afternoon excursions: John would tool his curricle to Hyde Park, where they would make a circuit, stopping to greet friends.
Grace’s shyness had prevented her from forming many intimate friendships, but John was so convivial that all of London adored him, or so it seemed. She found herself chatting and laughing with his friends as if they were her own—and, indeed, some of them were becoming so. It felt wonderful.
After driving once around the park, they would retire to Gunter’s Tea Shop for an ice. But this time, John handed Grace into the curricle and asked, “Do you mind if I take you on a short excursion to one of my favorite places in London, Lady Grace? It is entirely respectable, I assure you.”
Grace smiled at him with genuine pleasure. He was such a
nice
man. No woman in the world could be offended by a question asked by a man with such adoring eyes. “I would be most happy, Lord McIngle.”
“John
,” he reminded her.
“John,” she repeated.
He didn’t drive terribly far, and then stopped the curricle in front of a small church called Grosvenor Chapel. His tiger took the reins, and John helped Grace from the carriage. They walked silently through the nave and out a side door, into a pretty little walled graveyard. There was no sense of grief here, just the buzzing of honeybees, happy to have found so many rosebushes in the heart of London. A narrow brick path wound its way between the gravestones.
“How beautiful!” Grace exclaimed, her fingers twitching because she was so sorry not to have her sketchpad and a pencil. She looked up at John. “How on earth did you find this exquisite secret?”
“My mother is buried here.” His expression was not at all tragic, but boyishly wistful. “I always visit her when I am in London; I have the feeling she is happy here.”
“What a lovely thought,” Grace exclaimed, thinking how adorable his matched set of dimples were.
Then he took both her hands in his. She looked up with a start. The sun was shining on his hair, playing on his thick curls. His voice was as earnest as his eyes were yearning.
“I knew from the moment that I saw you that you were the woman I wanted to spent my life with, and that my parents would have loved you as much as I do. Lady Grace, would you do me the inestimable honor of becoming my wife?”
Don’t miss
Part Two
On sale March 19, 2013
and
Part Three
On sale March 26, 2013
From Avon Impulse
And if you haven’t read the earlier books in this series,
you’ll love
The Ugly Duchess
and
“Seduced by a Pirate.”
A
New York Times
bestselling author, ELOISA JAMES is a professor of English literature who lives with her family in New York, but who can sometimes be found in Paris or Italy. (Her husband is an honest-to-goodness Italian knight!) Eloisa’s website offers short stories, extra chapters, and even a guide to shopping in Florence. Visit her at
www.eloisajames.com
.
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S
EDUCED BY A
P
IRATE
(a novella)
W
I
NNING THE
W
ALLFLOWER
(a novella)
A
F
OOL
A
GAIN
(a novella)
S
TORMING THE
C
ASTLE
(a novella)
Coming Soon
“With This Kiss: Part One” was originally published in
As You Wish
in April 2013 by Avon Books, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
WITH THI
S KISS: PART ONE
. Copyright © 2013 by Eloisa James. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition MARCH 2013 ISBN: 9780062276933
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