A Gentle Grace (Wedded Women Quartet) Read Free Page B

“understood her” in a way no other man ever had.
    Henrietta’s hands, the knuckles swollen with arthritis and wrinkled with age, curled into fists. He had understood her Gracie, all right. He had understood her right through a broken heart and—
    “Henny, your face is turning red. Calm down, dear, before you give yourself heart palpitations again.” Thomas adjusted his spectacles on his nose and frowned at his wife with mild concern. God knew he loved the woman, but he had never understood why she was so prone to a fretful nature.
    “I just cannot help it, Thomas,” Henrietta burst out dramatically. “Whenever I think of that man…”
    “Lord Melbourne?”
    Her eyes narrowed. “Do not speak his name, Thomas! Not in this house. Not after what he has done to us. What he has done to our poor daughter.” As anger dissolved into tears, she sniffed them back, and Thomas patted his lap. Her face lighting up with a watery smile, Henrietta curled her arms around her husband’s neck and balanced awkwardly on the edge of his knees while he rubbed her back in soothing circles and tried not to grimace. His wife weighed a few stone more than she used to, but never so much that she could not sit on his lap and tell her his problems.
    “Everything will be fine,” he said firmly. “You shall see.”
    Henrietta sighed and rested her head against his shoulder. “I know everything will be fine with us. It will work out, it always has. And everything will be fine with Rosalind. The girl is simply too beautiful for it not to. But for our Gracie… I am worried about her, Thomas. I truly am. When was the last time you saw her smile, or heard her laugh? I always loved to hear her laugh.”
    Clearing his throat as it inexplicably tightened, Thomas said, “Yes, well, these things take time to get over. Grace will be fine. She has a steady head on her shoulders and a good, kind heart.”
    “A steady head?” Henrietta repeated. “Our Gracie?”
     Exchanging a quick, knowing glance both husband and wife burst out laughing as they had not done for longer than either of them could remember, and in that moment Henrietta’s determination returned full force. Come hell or high water, she would find her daughter a husband… and she knew just the women to help her do it.
     
     
    The wharf smelled of sweat, salt, and seedy women. The last man to leave the recently docked trade ship The Countessa navigated the rough, uneven planks of the roughly constructed pier with ease as he made his way up towards the disreputable row of ramshackle taverns and alleys that marked the beginning of the West End of London.
    Dressed in black from head to toe, he would have been all but invisible in the inky darkness were it not for the swinging lanterns that illuminated half his face as he passed beneath them with purposeful strides.  
     Two wharf side doxies who had spied him the moment he stepped off the ship whispered and giggled behind their gloved hands as they watched him reach the top of the pier and turn left with a certainty that revealed this was not his first time navigating the twisted streets of the West End.
    “’E looks like a lion,” the shorter of the two women said, her voice ripe with curiosity as to who the man could be. Not many of his sort ventured this far down the Thames, and those who did never looked so handsome. Even in the dim lighting she could see his hair was a tawny gold and his eyes a deep, reflective green. His mouth was hard and unsmiling, the cruelness of it frightening her even as it thrilled her. Here was a man who would know how to give a woman exactly what she wanted, and after a night filled with filthy hands groping her body and pawing clumsily at her breasts, Portia could think of nothing better. “Come on Molly,” she hissed, grabbing her friend’s hand and tugging her along. “We’ll offer ‘im a two fer. You ever known a bloke to turn down a two fer?”
    “No,” Molly chirped. Shoving a hank of