Page 62 of The Sprinter
“If you do not mind, I think I may be able to consider for myself if I will be miserable. And, as a matter of fact, I don’t think I would be. You see, I seem too…well it appears that…very unexpectedly…I happen to be in love with you. I don’t know how it happened, especially in light of your very rash nature, but there you have it. I know you do not return the feeling as you’ve made it clear enough that you’ll marry absolutely anybody except myself who is acertainly not, but I wonder if, over time, you might…”
Grace jumped up from her chair, the empty glass beside her tumbling to the floor and rolling away on the carpet. “But that’swhyI was going to marry absolutely anybody. Because I loveyou.”
“Certainly not? Though…really?”
“Truly! I always have! I didn’t always know it, because you did make it very hard with all your very terrible scoldings and unasked-for advice.”
Lord Gresham took her in his arms, and his arms were very strong indeed. “Well,” he said softly, “you are just impossible.”
“Yes, I know,” Grace said.
He gently kissed her and Grace sank into it, realizing that she had thought about it more than she might care to reflect on. She had not known if his lips would be soft, and now she did know. They were, delightfully so. Then he kissed her again. Grace began to lose a sense of time. It seemed they had always been there and would always be there, perfectly wrapped round one another.
How could she have even thought of marrying another? What a stupid idea…
Grace’s hair was quite undone by the time the front door opened.
“I am back, Nurse,” a cheerful voice said.
Grace froze and Lord Gresham slowly unentangled himself from her person.
“Goodness!” Lady Barlow said. “Grace, Lord Gresham, what do you do here? Grace, what on God’s green earth has happened to your hair?”
Lord Gresham stared at the lady, speechless. Grace did her best to fix loose hairpins and said, “We are engaged, Mama.”
Lady Barlow’s surprise could hardly have been greater, though her attention was for a moment taken up with the nurse bustling to the scene to help her out of her coat. Nurse Maddington had rushed to Lady Barlow’s side and was fussing over her and questioning her over whether she’d become chilled.
Grace whispered to the man standing by her side, “We are engaged, are we not?”
“Of course we are, who else would put up with such an impossible creature?” Lord Gresham whispered back.
Grace smiled. She supposed shewasimpossible, and she did not know how things had ended so wonderfully considering she’d done everything to work against it. He loved her! That scolding and irritated man loved her.
Lady Barlow had been divested of her coat and assured her nurse that she was not at all chilled. She turned back to Grace and Lord Gresham. “Engaged! I am delighted. How thoughtful of you to come personally to tell me the news,” she said. “But gracious, it is so late and what are we to do with you in this tiny house, Lord Gresham?”
Grace glanced at him, as neither of them had considered that problem.
“I will go to a nearby inn,” he said. “I’ll return in the morning with a carriage back to London.”
This seemed to suit Lady Barlow and Grace was grateful her mother did not appear disposed to inquiring any further about the state of her hair.
Grace walked Lord Gresham out to his horse, who had not even been tied such had been the lord’s hurry. The creature was calmly eating the grass that lined the drive.
“I really do not understand,” Grace said, “you did tell me quite clearly, when you took me into supper at that first ball, that I was not to presume anything by the attention.”
Lord Gresham looked down at her and said, “I was not talking of myself, I was warning you againstthem.”
“Who is them?” Grace asked.
“All of them—Bertridge, Ryland, Jacobs, Skeffington, and especially Vance. Oh yes, especially Vance.”
“But Mr. Vance is a jolly sort of person.”
Lord Gresham appeared very put out by this assessment. “You are never to consider Vance jolly again! I put my foot down about that.”
Grace worked to hide her amusement. If this was the sort of thing Lord Gresham was determined to put his foot down about, she was sure she could live with it.
She nodded. “On further reflection, perhaps he is only amiable.”
