Page 65 of The Mistletoe Countess
“I feel certain I’m in good hands.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “And I will endeavor to be a much better husband than I’ve been the past few days.”
“You are a fantastic teacher at lovemaking.” She snuggled against his chest, resting a kiss against his neck. “I suppose you’ve had lots of practice.”
With a groan, he collected one of her hands and breathed a kiss over her knuckles. “Many of my mother’s accusations are true. I was a broken man, trying to fill my brokenness with companionship but never belonging.” He looked down at their braided hands, emotion wrestling across his angled features. “I’ve had a great deal of practice at physically pleasing another and being pleased in return, but not loving. Nothing like this. And there’s no going back to anything else for me.”
“I’m very glad to hear it, because I want your future, Frederick. All of it.”
“You are too good for my heart, Lady Astley.” Those fathomless eyes, dark and deep enough to send her off-balance, searched her face with an intensity she didn’t understand—pleading, apologizing, exploring. “I’m not that man from my past anymore.” An unfamiliar vulnerability trembled in his baritone voice, awakening an awareness of the power she had at this moment—to either build him up to become the man he was meant to be or hold him back. “My futureisyours. Alone.”
Grace had once read a quote about a husband and wife that mentioned something about “promises forged in love from the soul outward.” At the time, she’d thought it sounded lovely, but the quote held a new, sweeter meaning after her newfound connection to her husband. What a tender and exhilarating way to express love with one another! Grace nodded heavenward in appreciation.
Frederick had been wonderfully reluctant to leave her the next morning, but there was breakfast to be had and bathroom installments to be finalized, so he retired to his office. While Brandon sent Reeves in search of more garland, Grace began to form a Christmas gift list for the servants and took the opportunity to explore more of the maze-like house.
Leaving the library via a servants’ stair, Grace found herself in an unfamiliar passageway, so quiet it left a chill across her skin. She pushed through a nearby door, ornately carved with Havensbrooke’s theme—lions—thinking it would lead her to the south wing, but instead, she entered a magnificent sitting room she’d never seen before. Designed in pale blue and white, with an air of French accents, the room gave a strange sense of otherworldliness. She turned to look through the way she’d just come and discovered the “door” matched the wallpaper so well it blended into the wall almost seamlessly.
Servants really had the most interesting entrances.
A book lay open on a settee as if recently left there, but from the faint light fanning between the half-closed shutters, enough dust coated the furnishings to suggest no one had been in the room for a long time.
What was this place?
She stepped farther into the deserted room, her feet barely making a sound across the carpeted floors. The setting teased her senses awake, and her scalp began to tingle its customary warning of a mystery. Lanterns waited, unused. Candles stood on the tables.
A broad hallway led into shadows, with a league of portraits lining the walls. The gallery showcased a portrait in which Grace recognized two of the faces. Lady Moriah stood between two men, an older man with features similar to Frederick, and a younger man, pale eyes and dark hair, with features more like Lady Moriah. A younger version of Frederick stood nearby, almost separate from the other three, his lips quirked in a smile very unlike any she’d seen in him. Bitter.
She reached to touch the canvas and smooth away the foreign expression. What must have caused such a look? Loneliness? Rejection?
She paused her gaze in his painted one, attempting to unearth the secrets she’d only heard hints of, before she moved farther down the hallway. One room opened into another room, all waiting in the same eerie anticipated silence.
One elegant suite showcased a massive sitting room separating two bedrooms—one more masculine, the other feminine—with windows looking out over the walled garden that led up the hillside toward the vista.
East.She gasped. These must be the east-wing bedrooms. The place her mother-in-law had closed off when her elder son had died. Grace spun around to look behind her, as if someone watched. Somewhere within these walls, Edward Percy had breathed his last.
Another delightful chill shimmied up her spine.
She entered the sitting room with its rich reds and golds, the two oil portraits over the marble fireplace drawing her forward. One was of the brother Grace had seen in the previous family portrait, Edward, and the other was of an elegant, raven-haired beauty.
“Celia,” Grace whispered into the stillness.
A rush of emerald gown wrapped around her, complementing the depth of her laughing green eyes. Everything about her pooled with elegance and refinement, from the sweep of her dark hair to the tilt of her chin. No wonder she had wooed the fates of the Percy men.
The more masculine bedroom boasted thick, box-like furnishings, but the most striking feature was the state of the room. A chair tipped back, lying topsy-turvy on the floor, as if someone left it in a hurry. Curtains were flung back instead of closed like the rest of the rooms. The bed waited, unmade, and the massive desk by the window stood littered with papers, with some sheets scattered across the floor.
Had this been where Edward died? Why wasn’t the space tidied?
Grace stepped to the desk, her fingers ruffling the feathers of an old ink pen. A small box with gold trim and shaped like a pirate’s treasure chest overcame Grace’s self-control. With a careful twist of the clip holding the lid in place, Grace looked inside. Letters tied together with a ribbon. On the top, written in elegant hand was a simple phrase:“To my darling Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth. Grace plundered her thoughts for a face in the Percy family to match the name. Wasn’t Elizabeth the name of Frederick’s grandmother? Grace shifted another piece of paper loose enough to make out the name on the next letter.“My Oliver.”
Those were Frederick’s grandparents. The letters were theirs. She grinned and tucked the box back into its spot. Perhaps she could convince Frederick to allow her to read them. What a beautiful introduction to two of the people he loved most in the world.
As she placed the box back in its spot, her hip hit the desk. A few of the precarious papers on the edge fluttered to the carpeted floor, and the middle desk drawer shook open. Grace rushed to set the papers right— an odd assortment of bills, ledger sheets, and personal correspondence, it seemed—but then Frederick’s name among the words of one of the pages inside the drawer caught her attention.
I am now inclined to believe Frederick had no hand in the events that led to his exile.
Grace took up the paper, stepping toward the window to get a better view of the words.
I have ruined my life and his with my quick judgment, instead of remembering he has loved this land with more commitment than either me or Father. Parks, do you see how my hand is shaking even now? I can barely breathe. How can I make amends for the sins which weigh me down? Even now my heart quakes from the ghost who haunts me.
