Scandalously Wed To The Captain. Joanna Johnson

again very soon, I am sure of it, and then I need never feel sorrow for them ever again. It is Spencer who now pains my heart the most when I think how he will be left alone with his secrets and the suffering he thinks I do not see in his face. He would never tell me exactly what happened the day Will died, but I am no fool.’ She wheezed for a moment, papery eyelids closed. ‘The idea of what he will become when I am gone—it haunts me.’

      Bony fingers found Grace’s arm, grasping at the sleeve of her gown in a twitch of distress, and she immediately covered them with her own. Her heart swelled with pity and powerful sorrow—Dorothea looked so small in her grief and fear, and the sight pained Grace more than she could say.

      ‘If I’d as much as suspected what damage it would do for my boys to go off to war, I would never have allowed them to enlist. You know my faith prohibits all kinds of violence, but I agreed with Richard on his deathbed I would let the twins carry on the military tradition of his family. If they had only stayed in England, Grace... I curse the day they left for Belgium, and I hate the very name of the Battle of Quatre Bras with a passion I feel in my bones.’

      A tear slipped down one sunken cheek and Dorothea cuffed it away, although not before the glitter of it sent ice piercing Grace’s insides. For the family she had known since childhood to be ripped so cruelly apart seemed the worst of injustices and from the tumult of her emotions a new thought arose to make Grace wonder...

      Had Spencer seen his brother die, cut down in front of him in some battlefield across the sea? Wouldn’t that go some way to explaining why he seemed so closed off, so strangely emotionless? She could only imagine with a powerful shudder what kind of effect such an experience might have on a man’s soul. It was a startling possibility, yet one that seemed so blindingly obvious, and Grace felt a suddenly overwhelming rush of compassion for the man who had previously inspired such wariness and confusion.

      ‘None of what has befallen your family is your fault. I hope you know that, despite your regrets.’

      Dorothea shrugged a thin shoulder beneath expensive linen. ‘Regrets are one thing I have no shortage of. The reason I sleep so little every night is out of worry for my only remaining son. If only there was something I could do, some way I could rest easily, knowing he won’t be left so alone when I am gone—and yet I fear nothing can turn him from the path he has chosen.’

      Grace nodded gravely, the truth in Dorothea’s words plain. ‘I can only imagine how such thoughts must trouble you. I wish there was something I could do to ease your cares.’

      Her sad gaze was fixed on the white hand that held her arm, lost in the world of compassion that gripped her—so she entirely missed the slow movement of her friend’s eyes in her direction and the look of dawning contemplation that crept in to brighten them.

      ‘Do you truly mean that?’

      ‘Why, yes.’ Grace forced her lips into a small smile despite the sorrow growing ever heavier in her chest. The image of Spencer’s grim face crowded out all other thoughts, the most obvious reason for his tightly drawn expression suddenly clear to her in terrible understanding.

       He has suffered so much and with his mother so ill surely there can only be more heartache to come for him. I wish for his sake, and for the friendship we might once have had, that things could be different.

      ‘Believe me—if there was any way I could help you or Spencer with the unhappiness that plagues you, all you would have to do is ask.’

      ‘Any way? Any way at all?’ Dorothea reached for a glass of water standing beside her bed, turning away so for a moment Grace couldn’t see her face. ‘Even if it were in a way you never would have dreamed? Even if it seemed the most unlikely thing imaginable?’

      ‘Even then, to repay your kindness and ease your cares, I give you my word.’

       Chapter Four

      The weeks passed slowly at Nevin Place, dragging out until January gave way to February and the weather turned from merely cold to biting. Time continued its unstoppable march, but the month shown on Grace’s calendar wasn’t the only thing that seemed to progress.

      The stares that accompanied her had increased since Henry’s rejection and her residence at Spencer’s vast home, she saw now as she drew her cloak closer about her body and wished her bonnet covered more of her face. Each time she left the safety of the imposing house to visit her family she had to run the gauntlet of whispers that followed her, and now her situation was common knowledge and her link with the scandalous Captain was known the mutters had only grown worse.

       Grace Linwood. Daughter of a criminal, wife of nobody and companion to a woman with a reprobate for an heir. No wonder society hasn’t rushed to reclaim me.

      It didn’t matter that poor Papa was innocent, Henry a selfish rogue or Spencer not a common brawler. The gossip attached to Grace’s name was too fascinating for any dull truth to temper it and, when combined with Spencer’s own notoriety, she could only grit her teeth and plough onwards as another set of eyes turned towards her in undisguised curiosity she hadn’t yet learned to ignore.