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Then that uncomfortable meeting with George and his countess.
It was all of it too much.
“Grace…?” Alaric voiced his concern as instead of eagerly accepting his offer, or slapping his cheek for his temerity, Grace’s face turned an unusual shade of gray and her eyes closed as she slowly and very gracefully fainted into his arms.
The moment Alaric held her warmth and softness tightly to his chest, a wave of utter peace immediately washed over and through him. A contentment unlike anything he had ever felt before.
He was aged three and thirty, and for the last fifteen of those years, he had done exactly as he pleased, answerable to no one. There had been his years in the army, of course, and his familial obligation to ensure the comfort of his mother, and his sister and her family. But he had dealt comfortably with all that. And he was always appreciative of his five close male friends, the other Ruthless Dukes, along with the privileges his wealth and title afforded him.
Never, during any of those years, had Alaric ever suspected that his life was lacking in any way.
Holding Grace, being so totally aware of how her softness so perfectly complemented his hardness, Alaric knew that he had previously lived his life without being aware that the most important part of him was missing.
His heart.
As he held Grace in his arms, every part of him saturated with her unique perfume of citrus and flowers and female musk, Alaric knew thatshewashis heart. That he needed the warmth and goodness and everything that was Grace to fulfill his life.
Alaric’s joy faded somewhat in the realization that what was a momentous epiphany to him didn’t make Grace any more his than she had been before he had it. That she was still Redding’s mistress, living in the home the earl provided for her and at the other man’s physical beck and call.
A state of affairs Alaric did not intend, nor would he allow, to continue.
Grace felt completely disorientated as she slowly regained consciousness and returned to an awareness of her surroundings.
Opening her eyes and glancing about her revealed an unfamiliar bedchamber that was dimly lit by a single candle placed upon the dressing table. The glow of light from that candle was enough for Grace to see that the décor in this room was in dark blue and ivory, and the furniture, including the bed she was lying upon, a dark mahogany.
Thebedshe was lying upon?
Grace sat up abruptly as the events of the evening came back to her.
At least, she presumed it was still the same evening she had attended the theater.
Thankfully, she was still wearing the cream silk-and-lace gown, and a glance across the room to where the curtains hadn’t been drawn across the window showed that it was dark outside. But she couldn’t see or hear a clock in the room, and she didn’t carry a timepiece on her person or in the small evening bag that currently sat on the table beside the bed.
It was of no importance whether it was the same evening or another when Grace had absolutely no idea where she was or how she came to be here!
“There is no reason for you to be alarmed.”
Grace turned her head sharply in the direction of that familiar voice, her eyes widening as Alaric Montrose stepped from one of the shadowed corners of the large room and into the soft glow of the candlelight.
He was still wearing his elegant evening clothes. But his fair hair was disheveled, as if he had been running restless fingers through it. The grimness of his expression bore little resemblance to his charmingly roguish behavior at the theater.
Grace swung her feet to the floor, but remained sitting on the side of the bed as she willed the room to stop dipping and swaying. “There is every reason for me to be alarmed when I have no idea where I am or why you have brought me here,” she finally felt able to answer.
“The where is not important,” Melborne dismissed.
“But the why is?”
“Yes.”
Grace did not like the finality with which he spoke that word. “Well?” she prompted when he added nothing further to that brief statement.
“Surely that is obvious?” he drawled.
“Not to me.”
“I am sure I have made my…intentions toward you more than clear.”
Yes, he had, and the very thought of being aloneanywherewith Alaric was enough to bring about the physical awareness of him which seemed to be completely out of Grace’s control every time she was in his company. Being completely alone in a bedchamber with him, it was impossible to deny the ache in her breasts and the throbbing heat of her body.
