Grace’s lips parted.
“Go,” Mrs. Audley said, even more softly than before.
Grace felt herself nod, and before she’d had time to consider her actions, she was already in the hall, hurrying down toward the end.
To the door on the right.
“Jack?” she said softly, pushing the door open a few inches.
He was sitting in a chair, facing the window, but he turned quickly and stood at the sound of her voice.
She let herself in and closed the door gently behind her. “Your aunt said-”
He was right there. Right there in front of her. And then her back was against the door, and he was kissing her, hard, fast, and-dear God-thoroughly.
And then he stepped away. She couldn’t breathe, she could barely stand, and she knew she could not have put together a sentence if her life had depended on it.
Never in her life had she wanted anything as much as she wanted this man.
“Go to bed, Grace.”
“What?”
“I cannot resist you,” he said, his voice soft, haggard, and everything in between.
She reached toward him. She could not help it.
“Not in this house,” he whispered.
But his eyes burned for her.
“Go,” he said hoarsely. “Please.”
She did. She ran up the stairs, found her room, and crawled between her sheets.
But she shivered all night.
She shivered and she burned.
Chapter Twenty-one
Can’t sleep?”
Jack looked up from where he was still sitting in his uncle’s study. Thomas was standing in the doorway. “No,” he said.
Thomas walked in. “Nor I.”
Jack held out the bottle of brandy he’d taken from the shelf. There had not been a speck of dust on it, even though he was quite certain it had gone untouched since his uncle’s death. Aunt Mary had always run a pristine household.
“It’s good,” Jack said. “I think my uncle was saving it.” He blinked, looking down at the label, then murmured, “Not for this, I imagine.”
He motioned to a set of crystal snifters near the window, waiting with the bottle in hand as Thomas walked across the room and took one. When Thomas returned, he sat in the study’s other wingback chair, setting his snifter down on the small, low table between them. Jack reached out and poured. Generously.
Thomas took the brandy and drank, his eyes narrowing as he stared out the window. “It will be dawn soon.”
Jack nodded. There were no hints of pink in the sky, but the pale silvery glow of morning had begun to permeate the air. “Has anyone awakened?” he asked.
“Not that I’ve heard.”
They sat in silence for several moments. Jack finished his drink and considered another. He picked up the bottle to pour, but as the first drops splashed down, he realized he didn’t really want it. He looked up. “Do you ever feel as if you are on display?”
Thomas’s face remained impassive. “All the time.”
“How do you bear it?”
“I don’t know anything else.”
Jack placed his fingers to his forehead and rubbed. He had a blistering headache and no reason to suppose it might improve. “It’s going to be hideous today.”
Thomas nodded.
Jack closed his eyes. It was easy to picture the scene. The dowager would insist upon reading the register first, and Crowland would be right over his shoulder, cackling away, ready to sell his daughter off to the highest bidder. His aunt would probably want to come, and Amelia, too-and who could blame her? She had as much at stake as anyone.
The only person who would not be there was Grace.
The only person he needed by his side.
“It’s going to be a bloody circus,” Jack muttered.
“Indeed.”
They sat there, doing nothing, and then they both looked up at precisely the same moment. Their eyes met, and Jack watched Thomas’s face as his gaze slid over toward the window.
Outside.
“Shall we?” Jack asked, and he felt the first glimmerings of a smile.
“Before anyone-”
“Right now.” Because really, no one else had a place at this table.
Thomas stood. “Lead the way.”
Jack rose to his feet and headed out the door, Thomas right behind. And as they mounted their horses and took off, the air still heavy with night, it occurred to him-
They were cousins.
And for the first time, that felt like a good thing.
Morning was well under way when they reached the Maguiresbridge church. Jack had been there several times before, visiting his mother’s family, and the old gray stone felt comfortable and familiar. The building was small, and humble, and in his opinion, everything a church ought to be.
“It does not look as if anyone is about,” Thomas said. If he was unimpressed by the plainness of the architecture, he did not indicate as much.
“The register will likely be at the rectory,” Jack said.
Thomas nodded, and they dismounted, tying their horses to a hitching post before making their way to the front of the rectory. They knocked several times before they heard footsteps moving toward them from within.
The door opened, revealing a woman of middling years, clearly the housekeeper.
“Good day, ma’am,” Jack said, offering her a polite bow. “I am Jack Audley, and this is-”
“Thomas Cavendish,” Thomas cut in, nodding in greeting.
Jack gave him a bit of a dry look at that, which the housekeeper would surely have noticed if she hadn’t been so obviously irritated by their arrival.
“We would like to see the parish register,” Jack said.
She stared at them for a moment and a half and then jerked her head toward the rear. “It’s in the back room,” she said. “The vicar’s office.”
“Er, is the vicar present?” Jack asked, although the last bit of the last word was covered by a grunt, brought on by Thomas’s elbow pressing into his side.
“No vicar just now,” the housekeeper said. “The position is vacant.” She walked over to a well-worn sofa in front of the fire and sat down. “We’re supposed to get someone new soon. They send someone from Enniskillen every Sunday to deliver a sermon.”
She then picked up a plate of toast and turned her back on them completely.
Jack looked over at Thomas. Who he found was looking over at him.
He supposed they were just meant to go in.
So they did.
The office was larger than Jack would have expected, given the tight quarters of the rest of the rectory. There were three windows, one on the north wall and then two on the west, flanking the fireplace. A small but tidy flame was burning; Jack walked over to warm his hands.
“Do you know what a parish register looks like?” Thomas asked.
Jack shrugged and shook his head. He stretched his fingers, then flexed his feet as best as he could within the confines of his boots. His muscles were growing tense and jumpy, and everytime he tried to hold still, he realized that his fingers were drumming a frantic tattoo on his leg.
He wanted to jump out of his skin. He wanted to jump right out of his-
“This may be it.”
Jack turned. Thomas was holding a large book. It was bound in brown leather, and the cover showed signs of age.
“Shall we?” Thomas asked. His voice was even, but Jack saw him swallow spasmodically. And his hands were trembling.
“You can do it,” Jack said. He could not fake it this time. He could not stand there and pretend to read. Some things were simply too much to bear.
Thomas stared at him in shock. “You don’t want to look with me?”
“I trust you.” It was true. Thomas could not think of a more inherently trustworthy person. Thomas would not lie. Not even about this.
“No,” Thomas said, dismissing this entirely. “I won’t do it without you.”
For a moment Jack just stood there unmoving, and then, cursing under his breath, he went over to join Thomas at the desk.