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“While the carriage is made ready, I shall visit with him and explain, as best I can, that I will read him two stories when I return.” Before she could object again, he took her by the elbow and walked her to the front hall. “Grimsley, please have the carriage brought around. I will be escorting Miss Mallory home.”
Grayson bounded up the stairs, happier and more energetic than he’d been in years.
The following day Grayson made his promised visit to Aunt Mary. Although she had requested—nay ordered—him to bring Addie when he attended the she-dragon for tea, he arrived on Aunt’s doorstep at precisely three o’clock by himself on the day he had sent word to expect him.
“Is that my neglectful grand-nephew?” He only needed to follow Aunt Mary’s voice to know
she awaited him in the drawing room.
“It is I, Aunt. I have arrived just on time as you requested,” He strolled into her domain, once again wincing at the decor. The wall coverings, carpets, fussy paintings, and dozens of trinkets were so much Aunt Mary that she needn’t even been sitting there for him to feel her presence,
He bent to kiss her wizened cheek, the familiar scent of apples and cinnamon drifting from her. Just the smell brought back pleasant memories from his childhood.
“If memory serves, and it generally does despite my age, I requested you to bring your son and your young lady.” Aunt looked around him as if she expected them to jump out from behind.
He wasn’t exactly sure why he hadn’t brought Addie, except the kiss they shared the other day had left him feeling wonderful, but at the same time oddly out of sorts. He wasn’t quite ready to give a name to his feelings and was afraid Aunt Mary would do so before he was ready.
Ready for what he didn’t know.
“Michael took a slight dunk in the Serpentine yesterday and I am keeping him in bed for a day or so to make sure he doesn’t develop an ague. Miss Mallory was unable to join us.” He took a seat across from her just as the door opened and a footman entered pushing a tea cart.
“Pish! How is it your young boy ended up in the Serpentine? Isn’t that guardian you employ watching him carefully enough?
“It was an accident and Miss Mallory and I were there with him, as well.”
“Ha! I am willing to bet Miss Mallory was unable to come because you never invited her. I should never have left it up to you. The next time I will send an invitation.” While she chastised him, Aunt directed the footman to place the tea servings on the small table between her and Grayson. “There are a few things I wanted to ask her.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” he murmured.
Aunt pounded the floor with her cane. “Speak up, lad. Age has not affected my memory, but it seems to have played a game with my hearing.” She leaned in. “Unless what you said was not intended for my ears, eh?” She cackled like the witch in one of the storybooks she had read to him as a child.
Once she poured the tea and passed around the biscuits and small sandwiches, she said, “I am happy to see you moving on, you know.”
Grayson almost choked on his tea “Who said anything about moving on?”
Aunt Mary studied him over her cup of tea and her wrinkled face softened. “It’s time, young man. Margaret is dead and her treachery died with her.”
“I don’t wish to talk about it.” Although he was quite sure that was precisely what his aunt had in mind when she invited him.
He’d spent many a long night going over in his head how he could have missed the fact that his wife was having an affair with his brother.
His own brother!
After the first few months of their marriage, Grayson had recognized that Margaret was restless, didn’t seem to settle into a normal married routine. But he loved her, and so he never saw—or didn’t want to see—her discontent.
When she became pregnant with Michael, he thought that would all end. The thought of her body swelling with his child, and then holding the babe to her breast filled him with awe and happiness.
But motherhood had been no more appealing than marriage.
After months of complaining about her fatigue, nausea, and her growing stomach, she had a very easy birth and had gladly handed over the care of their son to a wet nurse and nanny. She pestered him relentlessly until he agreed to leave Michael at his estate in the country and travel to London for the Season. His brother Peter and his wife, Beatrice, soon followed them.
For months he tried to pretend that everything was fine, that Margaret was just a high-spirited woman who needed the dressing up, gossiping, balls, parties, and everything else that he had been only too happy to give up for a peaceful married life.
And he loved her.
Except he’d been blinded by that love. And betrayed by his brother.
He still remembered the numbness that filled him when he read the note she’d left for him. She was leaving the country with his brother, Peter. He barely had time to digest that information when a member of the London Metropolitan Police arrived at his front door with the news that the carriage they were running away in, had crashed into a brick wall on a sharp turn.
