The Perfect Kiss Read Free Page A

Grace to travel to Egypt, if not to stay in the house of the consul general.
    Once Melly was married, it would be forever.
    The coach jolted and swayed. There was a sudden thud and a burst of terrified squawks and cackles. Feathers drifted through the open window. The wretched man had driven through a flock of chickens; he hadn’t slowed the carriage in the least and from the sound of that thud at least one of the poor birds had been killed.
    It was the last straw! Grace thrust her head out of the door and shrieked furiously at the postilion to slow down. He pointed at the sky and yelled something back at her. Grace couldn’t hear what it was, but the ominous bank of swollen, dark gray clouds ahead of them told their own story.
    He was trying to beat a storm, racing to get to Wolfestone Castle before it hit. The road was bad enough when it was thick with dust. Once the rain came it would become a muddy quagmire. Coaches got bogged all the time. Reluctantly she pulled her head in.
    Sir John shook his head at her. “Greystoke, Greystoke, Greystoke! It is not your place to interfere!” he told her wearily. “Lady Augusta expects us to teach you to behave in an appropriate manner, and I’ll tell you now, no lady would ever thrust her head out a carriage window!” He gave her a minatory look. “Nor would she shriek like a banshee!”
    “Yes, Sir John. Sorry, Sir John,” Grace forced herself to say meekly. He gave her a stern look, then nodded as if satisfied she’d taken his words to heart and closed his eyes again.
    It was very hard to remember she was Greystoke now, playing the role of one of her Aunt Gussie’s orphan girls in training to become a hired companion. Calling herself Greystoke in case Melly forgot and called her Grace.
    Sir John would never have let Miss Grace Merridew, of the Norfolk Merridews, and darling of the ton, come on this shabby, shameful journey but when Melly’s maid had left—having found herself a situation that paid wages regularly—the girls saw their opportunity. Melly needed a female to accompany her on this trip and since Grace was supposedly an orphan-in-training whose services came free, Sir John had leapt at the opportunity.
    Grace looked at Sir John. He was leaning against the cracked leather squabs of the hired coach, his eyes closed, his skin sallow and clammy-looking. He looked nearly as ill as his daughter. Good, she thought angrily. He should feel sick, too, for what he was doing to Melly.
    Grace didn’t understand it. From all she’d heard, all Melly had told her at school, he’d always seemed a loving, indulgent father. As an orphan, Grace had eagerly listened to tales of other people’s parents. She and Melly had always believed it was lack of money that had prevented Melly’s coming-out. But now she had to wonder.
    What sort of father would do this to his only daughter?
    Poor Melly, who had never had a suitor, was—unless Grace could help her—doomed to a loveless, childless marriage to a man who didn’t want her.
    Grace pondered the unfairness of life as she clung to her strap and stared out at the countryside rushing past the window. It couldn’t be said that she’d never had a suitor. Plenty of offers had been made for her hand. Mostly they’d wanted her for her face and fortune. A few men might have wanted her for herself, she supposed.
    The trouble was she hadn’t wanted any of them.
    She’d tried to fall in love—some of the men who had offered for her were very nice—but there was always something missing, something stopping her. And it wasn’t just a lack of . . . magic.
    A big part of the problem was having faith.
    Grace just couldn’t manage to achieve the unshakable belief in love that her older sisters had. Prudence, Charity, Hope, and Faith all had memories of the great love their parents had shared. Even though they’d just been children, they’d felt it, felt its warmth, its power. They never questioned it. Grace’s sisters knew love