The Lost Duke of Wyndham (Two Dukes of Wyndham, #1)(79)

"I can't imagine how it would have been your fault, but I wasn't there." She reached across the food and laid her hand briefly atop his. "I'm sorry. Were you close?"

He nodded, turning away and pretending to look at the trees. "Not so much when we were young. But after we left for school..." He pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering how to explain just what Arthur had done for him. "...we found much more in common."

Her fingers tightened around his, and then she let go. "It is difficult to lose someone you love."

He looked back at her once he was satisfied that his eyes would remain dry. "When you lost your parents..."

"It was horrible," she answered. Her lips moved at the corners, but not into a smile. It was one of those flashes of movement - a tiny, little rush of emotion, escaping almost without notice. "I didn't think I should die," Grace said softly, "but I did not know how I would live."

"I wish..." But he didn't know what he wished. That he could have been there for her? What good would he have been? Five years ago he'd been broken, too.

"The dowager saved me," she said. She smiled wryly. "Isn't that funny?"

His brows rose. "Oh, come now. The dowager does nothing out of the goodness of her heart."

"I did not say why she did it, just that she did. I should have been forced to marry my cousin if she had not taken me in."

He took her hand and brought it to his lips. "I am glad you did not."

"So am I," she said, without any trace of tenderness. "He is awful."

Jack chuckled. "And here I'd hoped you were relieved to have waited for me."

She gave him an arch look and withdrew her hand. "You have not met my cousin."

He finally took one of the apple pieces and bit into it. "We have an overabundance of odious relations, you and I."

Her lips twisted in thought, and then her body twisted so that she could look back toward the carriage. "I should go to her," she said.

"No, you shouldn't," Jack said firmly.

Grace sighed. She did not want to feel sorry for the dowager, not after what the dowager had said to her the night before. But her conversation with Jack had brought back memories...and reminded her just how very much she was indebted to her.

She turned back to Jack. "She is all alone."

"She deserves to be alone." He said this with great conviction, and more than a touch of surprise, as if he could not believe the matter might be under discussion.

"No one deserves to be alone."

"Do you really believe that?"

She didn't, but..."I want to believe it."

He looked at her dubiously.

Grace started to rise. She looked this way and that, making sure no one could hear, and said, "You should not have been kissing my hand where people can see, anyway."

She stood then, stepping quickly away, before he had a chance to make a reply.

"Have you finished your lunch?" Amelia called out as she passed.

Grace nodded. "Yes. I am going to the carriage to see if the dowager needs anything."

Amelia looked at her as if she'd gone mad.

Grace gave a little shrug. "Everybody deserves a second chance." She thought about that, then added, mostly to herself, "That, I really do believe." She marched over to the carriage. It was too high for her to climb up herself, and the grooms were nowhere in sight, so she called out, "Your grace! Your grace!"

There was no reply, so she said, a little louder, "Ma'am!"

The dowager's irate visage appeared in the open doorway. "What do you want?"

Grace reminded herself that she had not spent a lifetime of Sunday mornings in church for nothing. "I wished to inquire if you needed anything, your grace."

"Why?"

Good heavens, she was suspicious. "Because I am a nice person," Grace said, somewhat impatiently.

And then she crossed her arms, waiting to see what the dowager said to that.

The dowager stared down at her for several moments, then said, "It is my experience that nice people don't need to advertise themselves as such."

Grace wanted to inquire what sort of experience the dowager had with nice people, since it was her own experience that most nice people fled the dowager's presence.

But that seemed catty.

She took a breath. She did not have to do this. She did not have to help the dowager in any way. She was her own woman now, and she did not need to worry over her security.

But she was, as she had noted, a nice person. And she was determined to remain a nice person, regardless of her improved circumstances. She had waited upon the dowager for the last five years because she'd had to, not because she wanted to. And now...

Well, she still didn't want to. But she'd do it. Whatever the dowager's motives five years ago, she had saved Grace from a lifetime of unhappiness. And for that, she could spend an hour attending to the dowager. But more than that, she could choose to spend an hour attending to her.

It was amazing what a difference that made.

"Ma'am?" Grace said. That was all. Just ma'am. She'd said enough. It was up to the dowager now.

"Oh, very well," she said irritably. "If you feel you must."