She looked up at me, her lips pursed, and set the teapot down with a thump that rattled the lid.
“When I went into Grace’s room this morning, she wasn’t there. She hurried in moments later, looking lovesick, withstubble rashburning around her mouth.”
Maggie spat the words like they were filthy, and I pinched the bridge of my nose, closing my eyes in shame. Heat flooded my face and neck.
“I promise you, nothing happened. She was frightened, she begged me to comfort her. It was the only right thing to do.”
“I told you already. I’ve seen the way you look at her, and the way she looks at you. Itoldyou not to touch that girl,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Now, look – ”
“Nicholas. You know why. Nothing good could ever come of this. Especially for her!”
Margaret was right, of course she was, and I knew she was. Grace needed our help, our support. Not to be bedded and taken advantage of by a man old enough to be her father. But there was more to it than that. Something neither of us wanted to say out loud.
“I promise you, nothing happened,” I said, holding up my hands in capitulation. “It never will. I held her because she was afraid, because she asked me to.”
“It had better not, Nicholas,” said Maggie. “Or on your head be it when it all falls apart.”
Chapter Nine
Grace
By the time I woke in the morning, the pounding of my heart had abated; replaced, only, by a new sensation. A creeping heat that rose to a pulsing need. When Nicholas returned my kiss, that pulsing need rose to a crescendo. Desire crashed into me like waves against jagged rock. My body was brought alive, resurrected from its slumber. Finally.
Finally, I had opened that unfulfilled, unexplored part of me that longed for closeness. That churned with desire to know what lips, tongue, and teeth felt like. Nick had beenthere, holding me close to his hard chest, wrapping me in his strong arms like a cocoon. His soft mouth seeking mine; lips that awakened a drumming in the most private parts of me. His deep, yet velvety soft voice muttering into my hair, close to my ear, that everything was going to be okay.
You need never be alone again, Grace.
A shiver rippled through me to remember his words. The words I’d needed to hear all of my long, difficult life. It wasn’t easy admitting that, even to myself, but it was thetruth. His closeness soothed so many wounds that I hadn’t even realised were there.
I was almost glad to have seen what I had seen at the window. If I hadn’t stolen away to the library, I wouldn’t have spent the night in his arms.
The weather had kept me awake. With the storm cracking open the sky and flooding my room with silver light, I’d sat up in bed and decided I couldn’t stand it any longer. It reminded me far too much of Heather House, especially the night I fled from there. The night I came to Crowthorne House, thatmagicalnight, after an eternity lost in the fog.
I thought about the library and decided I could find some comfort there. I wanted to walk about the place, remember my arm looped in Nick’s, the cosy rumble of his voice as he talked about different aspects of the house with such pride. It made me wonder how anyone could ever accuse Nick of deliberately burning down the place. How could he have ever wanted to destroy something he loved? It wasn’t in his nature.
But then again, I barely knew him. He would say the same about me, that I was an innocent woman with a pure heart...and he’d be wrong.
As I scaled the spiral staircase with its gold bannister, a smear of white in my periphery made me halt. I turned my head toward the window and, on a flash of lightning, that is when the face appeared.
The cold, white, disturbed face that looked so much like my own.
I wondered momentarily if it was my reflection, but it couldn’t have been. It was behind the lower window, and Iwas halfway up the stairs. But there she was.
Her face. I was so certain it was her face.
I screamed and stumbled down the stairs, flying into the hallway with my arms outstretched, my hands clawing the darkness, finding him. There he was, my saviour, to hold me while I cried.
He told me it was impossible for anything or anyone to be there. It had to be a figment of my imagination...and that wasn’t so hard to believe. Not for me. Not when I’d heard the woodpecker, and saw the rotten fig and the dead cricket teaming with ants. Not forgetting, of course, the male figure in the park. They all alluded to something private and horrible that I didn’t want to remember. But they were insistent, these figures, these omens.
What was one pale face amongst all that? In hindsight, I could see this was a problem with me. I was seeing things, my mind conjuring up things I wanted to forget. I shouldn’t have told him about the pale face.
I had a few short months to prove to Nicholas that I belonged here, that he’d made the right decision, and then I could start my mortuary science course. If I kept succumbing to my fears and delusions, I risked losing everything, no matter that Nick had caved in and comforted me. No matter that he’d been my first kiss, reluctant as he was at first. He’d soon tumbled down the well of desire with me, but I was wrong to pull him in. I was wrong to push him, to blur these lines of professionalism.
He saw my skills, my talents. He saw my worth. He saw me as more than just a suitable farmer’s wife, like Tom did. I couldn’t lose that now.
Before we’d fallen asleep, he’d asked me to forget ourkisses, for both our sakes. In the cold light of the morning, I understood why. I’d already crossed too many boundaries. I’d pushed him far enough. If I cared about my place in Crowthorne House, I wouldn’t push him again.
