Page 76 of The Bachelor Spy
She nodded to her reflection in the mirror. If God meant for Blake to have a lifelong romance with Evie whatever-her-name, then He could certainly work it out. Though if they attempted to resolve their marital conflicts in the same ways spies did, they might want to invest in an excellent carpenter and develop a good relationship with the local doctor.
Grace had just taken up her brush when Ellie rushed through the doorway without so much as a knock, her face as pale as milk.
Grace’s face went cold.
Oh dear! Perhaps Blake and Evie had killed each other after all!
Or the thief had struck again.
“Ellie?” Grace stood, pushing her loose hair back from her face. “What is it?”
“Your ladyship.” Ellie breathed out the words, her hands fidgeting together in front of her, her eyes wide. “Your … your presence is requested downstairs straightaway, madam.”
“What?”
“We’ve had a new arrival.” Ellie whispered the words, her eyes somehow growing larger.
“At this time of morning?” Grace glanced over at the mantel clock. “It’s barely ten o’clock.”
“Yes.” Ellie swallowed loud enough for Grace to hear. “It’s … it’s Lord Astley, my lady.”
Grace froze. Her breath stalled. All heat from every part of her body drained from her head and out through her feet. Her hand went to her stomach. “What about Lord Astley?”
Dear God, please. Don’t take him from me.
“He’s here.”
For a moment, Grace couldn’t process the words. Frederick? Home? But he wasn’t supposed to—he couldn’t possibly—
“Here?”
And then her body seemed to know exactly what to do, because her feet set off at an even faster pace, Ellie running to keep up. “Please, my lady,” she called from behind.
How was it that Frederick had returned? He’d not written to tell her.
Grace reached the bottom of the steps, where Brandon met her, uncharacteristically blocking her path. “My lady, it would be wise for you to pause to prepare yourself.”
“Prepare myself?” Grace’s hand tightened on the stair rail, gaze searching every space within her visual field for her husband. “What do you mean, Brandon? Where is he?”
Brandon’s gaze held hers, grave and intense, inciting an uptick in her pulse for a whole new reason. “Mr. Brandon?”
His expression gentled, and he stepped closer. “His lordship has been … wounded, my lady.”
Her body, her breath, everything stilled. Wounded?
She sifted through a mental inventory of each patient inside Havensbrooke. All the various injuries, both seen and unseen. The nightmares, the personality alterations, the melancholy and memory loss, not to mention chronic pain, vacantness, lost limbs …
All the air seemed to leave Grace’s lungs at once. Her hand moved instinctively to her stomach, to the baby Frederick didn’t yet know about, and she instantly stiffened against her mind going too far into the possibilities.
She’d asked God not to take him from her.
And Frederick was here.
Alive.
Many wives couldn’t celebrate the same.
She drew in a breath and forced her mind to trust. To hope.
