Читать книгу Grace Under Fire - Jackie Barbosa - Страница 7

Colin followed his best friend and his future wife from the ballroom, conscious of the twitters of conversation and titters of laughter that followed them.

The first part of their plan had come together flawlessly. It was unfortunate that spiriting the lovely Lady Grace from the throng had required them to make use of her legendary clumsiness, but he hoped she would forgive them once she understood their intentions were pure.

Well, mostly pure.

He supposed it wasn’t every day a lady received a marriage proposal from not one man, but two.

Of course, she would be Colin’s wife in the eyes of the law. Any children she bore would be his heirs. But, if she accepted, she would be as much Atticus’s woman as Colin’s. Both of them would care for her, protect her, cherish her…and fuck her.

His balls grew heavier as his gaze fell to the rounded curve of Lady Grace’s lovely arse. He hadn’t quite believed it when Atticus had told him he’d found the perfect woman for them. Well-bred, kindhearted, quick-witted…and, like them, incapable of finding a suitable mate.

Colin compressed his lips at the unwelcome thought. He didn’t need to be reminded of the ostracism he and Atticus endured due to their “unnatural bond.” Most of the time, it didn’t trouble either of them in the least. Or it hadn’t, until Colin’s need for an heir to prevent his family’s estate from reverting to the Crown had begun to nip at his heels, a persistent pest that robbed him of the pleasure he’d once taken in the courtesans and other women of questionable virtue who were willing to accept the attentions of two men at once.

He supposed he could have made an honest woman of any of those so-called ladies, for he had no family to object to his choice, but he owed his long-dead parents and his future children better than that. In a generation or two, his scandalous behavior would be forgotten, but only if his children had a mother whose background and breeding was unassailable—even if her choice in men was not.

As they reached the corridor upon which the retiring rooms were located, Colin cast his eyes heavenward and prayed that Lady Grace could be won over by what was bound to be the most shocking proposition she would ever receive.

“Here you are, my lady,” Mr. Dimpled Cheek said, turning the knob and swinging inward the door to the retiring room.

“Thank you, s-sir,” she acknowledged, stepping inside the small chamber furnished with a dressing table and chair, a settee, and a privy screen. Unfortunately, she saw nothing to aid her in her current plight. Perhaps she would just hide for the remainder of the night. No one would miss her anyway, least of all Aunt Georgie, whose snores were likely loud enough by now to be heard over the music.

She turned to close the door and found her rescuer had followed her inside. Along with his friend.

Alarm and something else—was it excitement?—tingled along her skin. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe I invited you to join me.” How she got all those words out without a single stutter was beyond her, but the exultation curling through her veins made her bold.

“I know,” Mr. Dimpled Cheek said, “but we have a matter of some importance to discuss with you. Privately.”

Oh dear. Her stomach flip-flopped at the way his eyes went dreamy and his voice dropped low when he said the word privately.

This was bad. Very bad.

So why wasn’t she afraid?

Sir Blue Eyes shut the door and locked it before leaning against it.

Her eyes widened a fraction, and her heart lurched irregularly. She was trapped. About to be ravished. But instead of finding the prospect horrifying, she burned with anticipation…and curiosity.

She didn’t know precisely what it meant to be ravished—except that no respectable gentleman would ever marry her afterward, but it wasn’t as if she’d been getting any interest from respectable gentlemen up to now, was it?—but she suddenly wished she did. Wished she knew what they would do to her in the privacy of this room that would ruin her for life. Because the dark, intense look in these men’s eyes didn’t make her feel threatened. And for once, she wasn’t too-tall, too-buxom, too-red-haired, too-clumsy Grace, but a woman worthy of the desire of not one, but two, of the handsomest men she had ever seen.

Her pulse settled between her thighs. She licked her lips, the thirst she hadn’t yet quenched becoming something altogether different. Deeper. Stronger. More insistent.

Mr. Dimpled Cheek took a step toward her, but stopped when Sir Blue Eyes cleared his throat. “I think we’d best introduce ourselves first,” he drawled, the first words he had uttered since they left the ballroom. His voice was smooth and rich, like melted butter on puff pastry. “Explain our intentions.”

Mr. Dimpled Cheek pulled a mock frown. “Oh, very well, if we must.” He straightened to his full height—several inches over her awkward five feet and ten inches—stretched one finely-muscled leg in front of the other, and executed a courtly bow. “If it please your lady, I am Mr. Atticus Stilwell, and this,” he continued, standing and gesturing in Sir Blue Eyes’ direction, “is Viscount Colin Fitzgerald.”

Momentarily dumbfounded by this abrupt shift in the tension pervading the small room, Grace could only nod and marvel that, somehow, she had correctly intuited which of them held the title and which did not.

“Colin wishes to ask for your hand in marriage.”

“What?” Her gaze snapped abruptly from Mr. Stilwell to Lord Fitzgerald, and she swayed dizzily when the gentleman nodded his dark head in confirmation. She was so taken aback by this turn of events, she blurted out the first words that came to her mind. “So, I am not about to be ravished, then?”

Mr. Stilwell laughed, a hearty, rolling sound like water at full boil. “Now, now, I never said that.” Grasping her upper arm, he guided her onto the settee, sitting so close beside her that the warmth of his body radiated through the layers of her dress and petticoat right to her skin.

Lord Fitzgerald crossed the floor in two long strides and seated himself on the other side of her. He, too, was hot as a loaf of bread fresh from the oven. “Atticus is right,” he murmured, placing his hand on her thigh. “If you wish to be ravished, we can certainly oblige you.”

Lightning arced beneath her skin where he touched her leg. She entirely forgot that the front of her dress was soaked and cold. Who could take a chill when she was suffused with heat from within and without?

“I—I don’t…” Grace started to say she didn’t want to be ravished, but thought better of it. First, it was a lie. But second, she had several rather more important issues to address. “I don’t understand all this.” She looked at the viscount, trying to ignore the way her skin flared to life at the intensity of his gaze. “Why would you want to marry me? We have never even met. And why ask me here, like this? Why not a proper courtship, a proper proposal delivered to my fa—”

Lord Fitzgerald laid his fingers across her lips. “So full of questions, my lady. But fair ones.” Dragging those fingers down, he halted at her chin. “So, first, you want to know why you?”

He paused, which suggested he expected an answer, but Grace was too breathless to speak, so she only nodded.

“Ah, well, that one is easy to answer.” He turned her face first one direction, then the other, studying each of her profiles like an artist trying to find his model’s best angle. “Just as I thought. Flawless of face. And of form.” His hand dropped abruptly from her face to cup the curve of her breast, and she sucked in her breath on a whoosh as her flesh seemed to leap and swell beneath his touch. “It is true, we have never been formally introduced, but we have been…considering you for some time.”

Grace tried to concentrate on his words, to understand why he kept saying “we” instead of “I.” But his fingers found her nipple beneath the damp fabric of her bodice, and sparks of pleasure crackled beneath her skin, winding their way down to the throbbing place at the apex of her thighs. She shifted in her seat, trying to assuage the ache there, wanting to press her hand tight between her legs but not daring.

“You are a beautiful, desirable woman, Lady Grace, but more, you are strong. And you will need to be strong if you are to be my wife.”

Even as exultation filled her at being found beautiful, she heard the warning implicit in the viscount’s words. She closed her eyes, trying to block out the magic of his questing hands. The one at her breast, the one coasting its way up her thigh, closer and closer to the center of her need.

“Why will I need to be strong, my lord?” The question came out as a breathy whisper.

A hand cupped her other breast. A third hand, one that sent another burst of white-hot longing straight to her woman’s flesh.

“Because Colin and I share everything. Including women,” Mr. Stilwell whispered at her ear. “And all of Society knows it.”