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CHAPTERTWO
Grace had no idea why this arrogant gentleman should have taken such an interest in her or her movements this past week, but she did not believe she was mistaken in that regard.
She gave an inner snort of derision. As if anyone could possibly remain in ignorance of the presence of the handsome and haughty man Grace had discovered was, in fact, Alaric Montrose, the powerful fourteenth Duke of Melborne.
Or not to notice his sudden desire to visit the shops, the parks, or the theater, was coincidentally at the same time as Grace did those things.
Except she didn’t believe in so many coincidences. Once, perhaps even twice, but not every day for a week.
It had taken every ounce of her courage to challenge the duke over the matter today. But she believed it necessary, when for the duke to conveniently be at so many of the same venues surely meant he must have someone watching her and reporting back to him as to her whereabouts.
Her housekeeper, Mrs. Brooks, was the only person aware of her comings and goings during the day, but Grace refused to believe the older woman capable of being bribed into revealing her employer’s movements. Besides, Mrs. Brooks departed for her own home and family at six o’clock every evening, and so was unaware of Grace’s evening engagements. Including Grace’s visit to the opera yesterday evening.
The fact that the Duke of Melborne had arrived at the theater half an hour or so after Grace and her friends had would seem to imply that he had done so after being informed of her presence there.
Grace had deliberately chosen inflammatory language just now with which to confront the duke regarding his behavior. She knew her mild-mannered father would be horrified if he ever heard her use such a crude term as fuck. But Grace admitted to having felt an inner satisfaction when she saw by the raised brows and slight tightening of sculpted lips that it had served its purpose of surprising the Duke of Melborne. Enough so that it had taken him several long seconds to answer her.
Although what the duke’s sudden interest in her could be about, she had no idea. She was not a member of Society, nor was the house she’d occupied for the past year in any of the fashionable streets or avenues where thetonresided.
She lived a very private life. Deliberately so.
The few female friends she had made since coming to London were also women of modest means and lifestyle. Grace had met most of them whilst offering her assistance at one of the charity houses where the homeless children of London might live or simply be given food and a bed for the night, if they preferred not to accept even that small amount of restriction in their movements.
The patrons who supplied the means with which to provide that food and lodging were inevitably the female members of Society. Grace had become acquainted with many of them too over the past year of spending so much time at the orphanage. Not because she considered herself in any way those ladies’ equal, because she had every reason to know she was not. No, it was their interest in providing warmth, clothing, food, and affection for those orphaned children no one wanted that provided a link between the ladies of high and low birth.
As such, Grace’s lack of social standing meant the haughty and handsome Duke of Melborne should not even be aware of her existence, let alone pursuing her in this way.
She had heard of him, of course, as being one of the Ruthless Dukes whispered about and speculated over by the Society ladies.
The dukes are all sinfully handsome.
Aristocratic.
Haughty.
Arrogant.
Powerful.
They are also all single, and with a reputation for being determined to remain that way.
Grace knew the latter would only have succeeded in piquing the interest of many Society ladies, young and old. The young misses with a view to securing an advantageous marriage, the older ones either the machinating mothers of those debutants, or women who perhaps saw themselves as possibly enticing one of the Ruthless Dukes into a sexual liaison.
As the daughter of a vicar, Grace knew that many marriages, whether of the wealthy or the poor, were made for reasons other than romantic love.
Both classes could and did marry when presented with an unexpected pregnancy.
Society ladies, more often than not, married to increase their prestige or wealth.
The poor would settle for the stability of having a man bringing home a weekly wage while the woman stayed at home caring for their, often numerous, children.
Grace could see nothing wrong with that, as long as both parties were aware of the compromise. Very often, an affection was formed within that marriage over time. Indeed, some of her father’s happiest parishioners were the men and women settled in the respectability of a marriage of affection rather than passionate love.
Grace did not feel that way and had decided long ago that if she could not marry for love, then she would not marry at all.
Which is the reason why, she acknowledged self-derisively,I am still unmarried at the age of one and twenty.
Nor, after spending a year in London, was she any longer naïve in the ways of the world. As an example, she was well aware that it was accepted for wealthy gentlemen such as Alaric Montrose, the Duke of Melborne, to take a mistress, both before and during their marriage.
