He would hurl all the power of the Harcourt name against whoever was threatening Grace. Use any method to find them.
And when he did he would kill them.
CHAPTER 33
By the time Lucien returned late that afternoon, Raven’s Court seethed with words unspoken, anger unresolved, lies told. Unseen dangers made his spine tingle with a foreboding he had not felt since the weeks before his mother and sisters were swept away.
When he had left hours earlier, Grace had been rushing about like a dervish, airing guest bedrooms, amending meal plans and rearranging seating charts. She was the consummate political hostess she’d promised to be when she’d wed him, seeing to necessities despite her feelings of betrayal. A vise seemed to crush his chest at the memory of her hours earlier, her curls tumbling from their pins, her cheeks scarlet with fury and hurt. And he was grateful when Grace did not greet him now so that he could slip upstairs to his bedchamber alone.
Once there, he crossed to where a wooden chest stood on a shelf. Anyone who knew Lucien would assume it contained cufflinks, watch fobs and stickpins for his cravats, instead of those few keepsakes the most unsentimental peer in England carried with him wherever he traveled: Letters Simon sent while in the cavalry, a small ivory elephant from the Gold Coast, ahammered disc that had once decorated a Turkoman horse and a powder flask dropped by a tribesman in a skirmish.
But beneath those lay something that pained Lucien like shrapnel buried beneath old scars. Tonight he needed that grim reminder to steel himself for what was to come.
He found what he sought at the very bottom of the chest: The dented blue tin box he had kept with him since the night his world had crashed down. How long had it been since he had looked inside it? He couldn’t say. But he forced himself to pry the bent lid open, the metal squeaking as he revealed what lay inside. He took the bit of cloth out, ran it through his fingers, strengthening his resolve to see Grace safe.
Tonight’s confrontation would be the hardest thing he had ever faced. Yet, if there was one skill he had mastered at his father’s knee it was this: How to disguise what he truly felt.
He heard steps marching toward his room and stowed the scrap away, knowing who approached even before the bedchamber door opened. Grace glared at him, looking so beautiful he gripped the tin box until the edges bit into his palm.
“So you’ve returned,” she said. “May I ask where you’ve been all this time?”
“I felt it imperative to speak to my agent of inquiry regarding new developments.”
“A courtesy you did not see fit to extend to me.” Her chin bumped up a notch.
Lucien set the tin box in its nest of old letters, then shut the chest’s wooden lid. “You have every right to be angry.”
“You owed me the truth before we wed.” Two spots of color heated her cheeks, her eyes snapping fire. “When were you going to tell me that you had sworn we would never live at Everdene?”
He fought to keep his voice level. “I swore thatIwould not live there. Your residence at Everdene was never in question. As I remember from the day you proposed to me, that was alwaysthe agreement. We will merely situate you there sooner than planned. Surely you can see it is the only reasonable course after the package that arrived this morning.”
“So these past months, as we grew closer…Was that also a lie? ”
Lucien ignored her question, maintaining his impassive expression with his reply. “Whoever sent that note knows they cannot intimidate me so they are making you a target. They not only discovered how important that toy is to you, they were able to get close enough to take it from your pocket. They could have done far worse.” Voicing that truth set fault lines rippling through his control. “They could have dragged you into a carriage, kidnapped you, driven a knife between your ribs.”
She nearly trod on his toes she stepped so close. Her eyes blazed up at him. “I’m not afraid.”
“I am!” he roared, all control forgotten. “Jesus, Grace. Whoever took that toy was inches away from you. Knew that nothing—nothing—would be a clearer message to me of how much danger you were in.” Raking his hand through his hair, he said in steely tones, “The morning after the party on Wednesday, Simon will take you back to Everdene Hall andyou will go.”
“What about the danger you are in?”
“That is just part of being in parliament. Make unpopular decisions and the opposition gets angry?—”
“Well, I am plenty angry right now. I have been raking this over in my mind ever since you left today, and do you know what I think? I think you are using this threat as an excuse to put distance between us because you are beginning to care for me.”
He couldn’t look away as the words struck their mark, her eyes defiant, so fierce, yet revealing just a hint of fear. It thrust a spike into his heart.
He clenched his fists. “Can’t you see I’m trying to protect you? It is pure luck that you weren’t trampled in the riot or injured by a flying brick. I won’t risk it, I tell you.”
“Well,Iwon’t keep being pushed away because of some mistake you made when you were just a boy. If you insist I leave you once the party is over, I will go. But know that I will be leaving you for good. I’ll raise our babe alone.”
“Babe?” Lucien felt as if he’d been poleaxed. Words snagged in his throat and for a heartbeat something flared inside him. Disbelief, then awe. He grasped the edge of the table. “You are with child?”
“You need not look so shocked,” she said, crossing her arms protectively over her middle. “It cannot be surprising news, considering how often we lay together.”
Lucien inhaled a deep breath. “No. I suppose not.”
Now a brand new fear stabbed him, imagining the dangers she faced in childbed, dreading that he would be a father like his own and scar his children. But a babe…his babe growing in Grace’s womb…
