Grace leveled a stare. “You, on the other hand, are in supreme danger of-”
“Children!” Jack cut in. “Listen to your mother.”
“She didn’t say anything,” John pointed out.
“Right,” Jack said. He frowned for a moment. “John, leave your sister alone. Mary, next time don’t step on the orange.”
“But-”
“I’m done here,” he announced.
And amazingly, they went on their way.
“That wasn’t too difficult,” he said. He stepped into the room. “I have some papers for you.”
Grace immediately set aside her correspondence and took the documents he held forth.
“They arrived this afternoon from my solicitor,” Jack explained.
She read the first paragraph. “About the Ennigsly building in Lincoln?”
“That’s what I was expecting,” he confirmed.
She nodded and then gave the document a thorough perusal. After a dozen years of marriage, they had fallen into an easy routine. Jack conducted all of his business affairs face-to-face, and when correspondence arrived, Grace was his reader.
It was almost amusing. It had taken Jack a year or so to find his footing, but he’d turned into a marvelous steward of the dukedom. His mind was razor sharp, and his judgment was such that Grace could not believe he’d not been trained in land management. The tenants adored him, the servants worshipped him (especially once the dowager was banished to the far side of the estate), and London society had positively fallen at his feet. It had helped, of course, that Thomas made it clear that he believed Jack was the rightful Duke of Wyndham, but still, Grace did not think herself biased to believe that Jack’s charm and wit had something to do with it as well.
The only thing it seemed he could not do was read.
When he first told her, she had not believed him. Oh, she believed that he believed it. But surely he’d had poor teachers. Surely there had been some gross negligence on someone’s part. A man of Jack’s intelligence and education did not reach adulthood illiterate.
And so she’d sat with him. Tried her best. And he put up with it. In retrospect, she couldn’t believe that he had not exploded with frustration. It was, perhaps, the oddest imaginable show of love-he’d let her try, again and again, to teach him to read. With a smile on his face, even.
But in the end she’d given up. She still did not understand what he meant when he told her the letters “danced,” but she believed him when he insisted that all he ever got from a printed page was a headache.
“Everything is in order,” she said now, handing the documents back to Jack. He had discussed the matter with her the week prior, after all of the decisions had been made. He always did that. So that she would know precisely what she was looking for.
“Are you writing to Amelia?” he asked.
She nodded. “I can’t decide if I should tell her about John’s escapade in the church belfry.”
“Oh, do. They shall get a good laugh.”
“But it makes him seem such a ruffian.”
“He is a ruffian.”
She felt herself deflate. “I know. But he’s sweet.”
Jack chuckled and kissed her, once, on the forehead. “He’s just like me.”
“I know.”
“You needn’t sound so despairing.” He smiled then, that unbelievably devilish thing of his. It still got her, every time, just the way he wanted it to.
“Look how nicely I turned out,” he added.
“Just so you understand,” she told him, “if he takes to robbing coaches, I shall expire on the spot.”
Jack laughed at that. “Give my regards to Amelia.”
Grace was about to say I shall, but he was already gone. She picked up her pen and dipped it in ink, pausing briefly so she might recall what she’d been writing.
We were delighted to see Thomas on his visit. He made his annual pilgrimage to the dowager, who, I am sad to report, has not grown any less severe in her old age. She is as healthy as can be-it is my suspicion that she shall outlive us all.
Grace shook her head. She made the half-mile journey to the dower house but once a month. Jack had said she needn’t do even that, but she still felt an odd loyalty toward the dowager. Not to mention a fierce devotion and sympathy for the woman they’d hired to replace her as the dowager’s companion.
No servant had ever been so well-paid. Already the woman earned (at Grace’s insistence) double what she herself had been paid. Plus, they promised her a cottage when the dowager finally expired. The very same one Thomas had given to her so many years earlier.
Grace smiled to herself and continued writing, telling Amelia this and that-all those funny little anecdotes mothers loved to share. Mary looked like a squirrel with her front tooth missing. And little Oliver, only eighteen months old, had skipped crawling entirely, going straight from the oddest belly-scoot to full-fledged running. Already they’d lost him twice in the hedgerow maze.
I do miss you, dear Amelia. You must promise to visit this summer. You know how marvelous Lincolnshire is when all the flowers are in bloom. And of course-
“Grace?”
It was Jack, suddenly back in her doorway.
“I missed you,” he explained.
“In the last five minutes?”
He stepped inside, closed the door. “It doesn’t take long.”
“You are incorrigible.” But she set down her pen.
“It does seem to serve me well,” he murmured, stepping around the desk. He took her hand and tugged her gently to her feet. “And you, too.”
Grace fought the urge to groan. Only Jack would say such a thing. Only Jack would-
She let out a yelp as his lips-
Well, suffice to say, only Jack would do that.
Oh. And that.
She melted into him. And absolutely that…
About the Author
JULIA QUINN started writing her first book one month after finishing college and has been tapping away at her keyboard ever since. The New York Times bestselling author of seventeen novels for Avon Books, she is a graduate of Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges and lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest.
Please visit her on the web at www.juliaquinn.com.
