The Marquis At Midnight Read Free Page B

last, brief meeting.
    Even so, of all the men in all of England,
she had chosen to end the night with the devil himself. The one man
she had sworn as an enemy, dishonest and craven as he was. And she
had kissed him!
    What she would not do to banish the past
half hour from her memory forever.
    But how could she have known that she had
allowed herself to be kissed by the man responsible for her
husband’s death?
    Grace felt the tears come and let them
flow.
    There were not enough tears in the world to
make this right.
     

Chapter Two
     
     
     
     
    Grace slept in the next morning and awoke
heavy eyed and headachy, but no longer feeling as if the world were
coming to an end. She was not, by nature, a dramatic woman and
found it hard to maintain the level of shocked distress that she
had experienced the night before. Hester had always said she was
positively dull, unable to show the proper level of histrionics
most females reveled in.
    In the past, Grace had had reason to be
grateful for this.
    She was grateful for it now.
    So she lay in bed and, in her own quiet way,
she put the matter into perspective.
    Yes, she had kissed the
Marquis of Morvyn, but she had not known it was the marquis. Ignorance was surely
her best excuse, although in retrospect… Grace grimaced. In
retrospect, what had she been about, kissing a man she did not
know? Or indeed, any man. A lady, no matter how advanced in years or comfortable in
their situation, did not kiss a man she did not know.
    Fortunately, she had not run in to Morvyn
when she had returned inside to find Hester and Porter. She had
discovered her friend easily enough, but of Porter there was no
sign.
    ‘Hester! Thank heavens. Would you mind very
much if we left now?’ Grace had been terrified that the marquis
would appear and had looked nervously towards the crowd that was
beginning to collect their cloaks in preparation for departure.
    ‘No,’ Hester’s voice had, once again, been
brittle and tight. ‘I am ready.’
    ‘Where’s Porter?’
    ‘Who can say? It does not matter. He can
find his own way home.’
    In retrospect, it had been an odd comment
and under normal circumstances Grace would have questioned it.
Instead, she found Hester’s attitude a blessing, for at least she
did not demand to know why Grace looked so harrowed or was so quiet
on the carriage ride home. She had been looking rather harrowed
herself.
    It had been difficult to get to sleep. Her
mind had continually gone back to the ball, to the unmasking, to
the point where she had looked into those gray eyes and recognition
had struck like a bolt out of the blue. It had been some time since
she had seen the Marquis of Morvyn - she knew the exact date,
actually - but of course he was unmistakable. Once, he had been
Justin’s friend, even though events had proved that this was not
the case.
    He had come to Priory Chase twice, the first
visit a week before Justin’s death and then, of course, that last
time, the night before he’d died. On first acquaintance she had
liked the marquis. He had seemed unassuming and intelligent,
although she had barely had the opportunity to become better
acquainted. On both occasions he and her husband had been locked
away in Justin’s study. After Morvyn’s first call, Justin had been
uneasy and restless, quite unlike his usual self. When Grace had
asked him what was amiss, he’d merely told her that he could still
count the marquis as one of his oldest friends. They had gone
through school together, gone up to university together, knocked
around the continent together. One of his oldest friends, Justin
had insisted, right up until that last visit when Morvyn had
betrayed that friendship.
    He had not killed Justin, she knew that, but
he might as well have.
    Resolving to try and, if not forget, then at
least avoid thinking about the previous evening, Grace rose and
prepared for the day. Her maid was just finishing her hair when a
knock came on the door and Hester sailed in,