Page 107 of A Rogues & Gentlemen Christmas

“Oh,” said Mrs Norrell, as she looked from him to Grace and back again with growing horror. “Oh,” she repeated, clearly at a loss. “Well, girls, we mustn’t linger. Papa will wonder where we’ve got to. Good day to you, Mr Hardy, M-Mrs Hardy.”

The women hurried away, the girl’s giggles audible as the wind caught them and delivered them in their wake. Ned gritted his teeth, rigid with tension, and then looked around in surprise as Grace went off into peals of laughter.

“Oh!” she said, clinging to his arm and pressing her free hand to her chest. “Oh, dear, how wretched of me, but I did enjoy that.”

Ned stared at her, nonplussed. “Enjoyed it?” he repeated, indignant and growing angrier by the minute. “They think ye have sunk far beneath their notice. I bet ye anything they cut ye dead the next time ye see them in the street.”

She stilled beside him, her laughter dying away.

“We can only hope,” she said, holding his gaze. “Mrs Norrell is a dreadful woman. Miss Eliza is not so bad, but Miss Norrell is a spiteful cat and I dislike her intensely, and if you think I did not enjoy the envy in their eyes at discovering I’d married such a big, handsome fellow, you have a greater estimation of my character than I deserve.”

Ned snorted and walked on, simmering still. “Envy is not what they were feeling at news of your marriage to me.”

Grace shrugged. “Well, I’m not sure I agree about that, but they are fools if they don’t envy me. Those two are each likely destined for marriage to some chinless, over-bred fool who will ignore them and leave them to the running of house and children whilst he turns his attention to his mistress. If they are lucky, he won’t be cruel, but there is no guarantee of that.”

“They’ll have their rightful place in the world and no one to look down upon them.”

“Oh, Ned,” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t be so naïve. There is always someone to look down upon you. When they go to London, the fashionable and all those who rank above them—of which there are many—will look down upon them as they try to edge their way higher in society.”

He snorted, but said nothing.

They returned to the stables behind The Stag, and Ned set about harnessing the horse ready for the return journey. Try as he might, he couldn’t stop hearing the women’s mocking laughter. It rang in his ears and reproached him for what he’d done in keeping Grace with him. He’d been a selfish bastard.

They were silent as he helped her up into the cart and he cursed himself as he realised how odd it looked for such a fine lady to travel in such a lowly vehicle. He’d have to buy a gig at the very least, something elegant that she’d not be ashamed to be seen in.

The silence pressed down upon him as he guided the horse out of the yard and onto the road and, though he longed to break it, he was too tangled up inside. He was angry with himself, angry with those three awful bloody women, angry at the world as he acknowledged the fact that his wife would undoubtedly come to feel ashamed of him. How would it feel to see that shame in her eyes when he already loved her beyond bearing?

He simmered, his thoughts snarled in a dark morass and Grace let him be for a while.

“Ned.”

He’d been silent for ten minutes or more, but he didn’t look around, his throat was tight and he wanted to hit something.

“Ned,” she said again, sliding her arm though his and moving closer to him. “I love you, and no spiteful comments from the likes of silly creatures like Mrs Norrell will change that.”

“P’raps,” he said, the words finding their way past the stiffness in his jaw when he’d wanted to keep them in. “But there’ll be others. People ye liked, people ye respected, and they’ll cut ye dead an’ all. What then?”

“Then I shall feel sorry for their narrowmindedness and congratulate myself on not being them,” she said, though the words were stilted now, a trace of anger running beneath them.

“I ought not have done it,” he carried on, guilt smothering him like a wet wool blanket. His chest tightened, and it was hard to breathe as he made himself consider everything she’d given up by marrying him. “I ought to have found another way. I could have taken ye to people of yer own stamp, those who could have seen ye married to a good man, a—”

“If you say a gentleman, I shall hit you, Edward Hardy.”

He looked around in surprise, startled by the sudden blaze of anger. Since the day they’d met, Grace had been sweet and gentle and shown no signs of temper, but those blue eyes held fury now and he hesitated.

“Don’t you dare presume to tell me what is best for me,” she said, her gaze full of heat and steel. “Don’t you dare tell me I ought to be ashamed of you or my position as your wife! I lived a life where I was constantly afraid, I was locked away from the world, and let me tell you, Ned, a prison is still a prison no matter how gilded the cage may be.” She reached out a hand and raised it to his cheek, turning his face towards her, where he could not escape the raw emotion in her expression.

“You set me free, Ned. For the first time in my life I have hope. I want to live with you and help you with the farm. I want to watch it grow as our family grows with it. I want to have your children and watch them grow into fine people. Perhaps we’ll have sons: good, strong and kind boys like their father, the man I have fallen in love with, with every part of my heart and soul. I want no other, Ned. I want no other life. I want the life I’ve begun to dream of, with you, and if you try to take that from me or make me feel ashamed for wanting it, I shall never forgive you.”

He wanted to believe her, so very badly, wanted everything that she wanted so fiercely it was a pain in his chest, the like of which he’d never known.

“Gracie,” he said, her name catching in his throat. “I just want—”

“I know what you want, you foolish man,” she said in exasperation. “But you must know what I want. Not what you think I ought to have, but what I want, and everything I want is sitting beside me right now, and that won’t change.”

“It might,” he persisted. “The farm’s not—”

“Not a place for a lady,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Do give over, Ned. Did it ever occur to you that I don’t want to be a lady? Do you have any idea how dull it is to be a lady?”

She laughed at his perplexed expression and shook her head.

“I’m happy,” she said simply, gazing up at him with such adoration his heart lurched in his chest. “That’s all, Ned. I’m happy, and if that ever changes, if ever there are things that make me unhappy, I promise to tell you, and then we can see what can be done about them, but I will only make that promise if you swear to do the same.”

“Me? Unhappy?” he said, so bewildered by the idea he gaped at her.

“Well, of course,” she said, and an uncertain look entered her eyes and she turned away from him. “I’m… I won’t be anything like the wife Sarah was to you, will I? I know I’ll never replace her,” she said, sounding awkward and a little diffident. “She was such a help to you, and I shall have so much to learn and I shall make a deal of mistakes. Likely… likely it will be you regretting our marriage soon enough, when you see what a mess I make of your life—”

He was so utterly stunned and outraged at the idea he could ever regret having married her that he didn’t notice the men who appeared from the shadows of the trees on either side of them.

By the time he’d realised what was happening, Grace was screaming as a man pulled her off the cart and two more attacked Ned. One of them delivered a blow to the back of his head that made him see stars, and he fell from the cart, hitting the frozen ground hard.

All he could hear was screaming. Grace was screaming. Fighting past the dazed sensation, he got to his feet just in time to dodge a foot that would have belted him in the gut. Instead, he caught hold of it and pulled hard, and the man who’d have kicked him fell with a grunt of pain. Before he could make sure he stayed down two more men were on either side of him and Ned knew from the looks in their eyes, they’d come for Grace, and they didn’t mean to leave without her.