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“Rural communities’ courtship rituals,” he said. “The stages of wooing, how a suit is presented, the patterns of behavior between courting couples.” As he spoke, animation filled his words, but then he caught himself and added in a more contained voice, “That sort of thing.”
“Now you can study London high society, too.” She spread her hands encouragingly. “Just imagine the book you could write. A thorough investigation into British courtship rituals of both commoners and nobility.”
His gaze turned faraway, and she couldn’t stop the tiny curl of pleasure she felt in knowing that, of all the things he valued most, the acquisition of knowledge was the most significant to him.
“An anthropological work that could be truly groundbreaking . . .” he murmured.
For many heartbeats, she held her breath. She was balanced on the very narrowest of ledges, with her father’s wish to see her wed impelling her forward.
“I know what I’m asking of you is monumental.” Hope and terror clashed within her, half fearing and half desiring his answer. “But it would mean so much to my family. To me.”
A pause. She died and was reborn a thousand times within that pause.
“Yes,” he said.
“Yes?”
“I’ll do it.”
Impulsively, she flung herself at Sebastian and wrapped her arms around him. Giddy happiness swirled around her. “Thank you, thank you!”
Half a breath later, she realized something.
She was pressed tightly against Sebastian. Her body snug to his. And he was quite warm and quite tall and quite, quite muscular—far more brawny than she’d suspected. He also smelled delicious, like the scent of paper and wood smoke and leather mingled into one intoxicating fragrance that was heated by his skin.
They’d never stood close enough for her to catch his scent. Until now. It was like her first drink of claret, when she’d realized that she’d have to be very careful not to let the wine lead her into danger.
Oh, goodness.
Abruptly, she released him and took several steps backward. She cleared her throat, striving for some fragment of lucidity. “We can start tomorrow afternoon at my home. You know where it is? The house on the corner of Weymouth and Harley Streets.”
“I’ll find it.” He looked perplexed. As perplexed as she felt.
“Tomorrow, then.”
“Tomorrow.”
She hurried away, aware of his gaze on her back. Aware of the fact that she’d just convinced Sebastian and herself to do something truly outrageous.
Jane Argyle paused in the middle of polishing her telescope’s eyepiece and set the device on the sofa cushion beside her. Books, equipment, and half-drunk cups of tea filled the parlor of her snug Greenwich home, attesting to the fact that both Jane and her husband, Douglas, devoted the majority of their time to the study of astronomy.
Grace sat on the floor of the parlor, sorting through the stack of books Jane had requested help with categorizing. Periodically, the Argyles’ personal library required herding, especially after Jane had visited booksellers’ shops.
“I have serious reservations about this plan of yours, Grace.” Jane’s gentle tone took the sting out of her words, but Grace felt her invisible hackles rise. “Is this what your father meant by finding yourself a husband?”
“He didn’t specify which methodology I should use, only that I’m to wed someone.” Grace checked the spine of a book. “Johannis Hevelii, Annus climactericus?”
“Put that in the stack for Uranus.” Jane shot Grace a quelling look when a giggle escaped Grace’s lips. “Do grow up.”
“Can’t help it! Why name a planet Uranus if you don’t want people snickering?”
Jane sighed, then smiled. “Yes, well, we haven’t even gotten into discussions about galactic bulges.”
Tension released from Grace’s chest as she and Jane shared a cackle. She hadn’t felt this sense of relief for over twenty-four hours, and the pressure of her father’s health and his desperate request for her to marry was a vise constantly squeezing her.
“Of all men to play your dashing suitor,” Jane said when their laughter quieted, “why Sebastian Holloway? He’s an agreeable fellow, but not quite rake material.”
“Without his spectacles, and with his mane of disheveled hair off his face, he’s quite . . .” Grace cleared her throat. She’d known, in a way, that he was a fine figure of a man, but she hadn’t truly understood the depths of his allure until today. What a revelation that had been. Her body still resonated with the shock. Her friend had the face and form of a Corinthian.
She’d been tricked by his camouflage. But he wasn’t Chamaeleo chamaeleon, shifting the colors of his skin to blend in with a leafy canopy. He was a spectacularly handsome man, hidden behind the facade of a reserved scholar.
“He’ll make a convincing Society beau,” she continued. “Just needs a little polish.”
Jane raised her eyebrow. “And you propose to polish him. Forgive me, my dear, but your expertise is in the study of reptiles and amphibians, not London bucks.”
“Not all of my expertise comes from fieldwork. Recall that you and I first met in the Benezra Library, conducting research.” Grace stood and walked to a table overflowing with more texts. She picked up a volume and held it up. “Books can provide a wealth of information.”
“True enough.” Jane tucked a lock of her tightly curled black hair into her cap, a legacy from her West Indian father.
Grace examined the book in her hand. It was coming loose from its bindings, and the pages were speckled with foxing. “This one’s a loss.”
“No! That’s Mayer’s Opera inedita! His images of the moon are irreplaceable.”
Grace smiled wryly as she set the book down. “Why invite me over to help with your books when I don’t know the first thing about astronomy?”
“Douglas can’t sort—he starts reading and then he’s lost for the rest of the day.” Jane tilted her head. “When does this monumental task with Sebastian Holloway begin?”
“Tomorrow. Which will give me enough time to go through my father’s library and search out relevant works. I have a night of research ahead of me,” she added with glee. An evening spent poring over books and learning new facts was truly the closest one came to Heaven, though tromping around in a field and turning over logs and rocks in search of reptiles was just as wonderful.
“Is he the man you’ve got your heart settled on?” Jane rose and walked to Grace.
“Sebastian?”
“Mason Fredericks.”
“Oh . . . yes.” Her pulse thudded just to think of him. “The passion in his voice when he talks about life cycles and habitat variation . . .” She sighed. “He cares, Jane. Truly cares about his work. Nothing could be more attractive to me. And when we discuss the benefits of conducting field research versus keeping specimens in a laboratory, I feel the connection between us. If I need to wed someone, he’s the perfect choice for me.”
She could picture their life together. Mornings spent lingering over the breakfast table, discussing the very latest in scientific developments. Afternoons would be out in the field as they observed and recorded creatures in their native environments. Then there would be fascinating suppers with like-minded friends and colleagues. And afterward, she and Mason would retire to their bed . . .
“Doesn’t hurt that he’s handsome, too.” Her friend winked.
Heat crept into Grace’s cheeks. “Females use appearance to help judge the health and viability of future offspring.”
Jane pursed her lips knowingly. Of course, Grace’s closest friend could recognize that she sometimes resorted to technical terminology whenever she felt flustered. And Mason certainly flustered her.
“One would have to engage in copulation with a mate first.” Jane’s gaze twinkled. “So? Are you thinking about copulating with Mason Fredericks?”
Grace covered her eyes with her hand. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, I need to get him to notice me as more than a colleague.”
“And then copulation.”
“Let’s hope so.” When it came to sex—with someone other than herself—she had no actual experience. But from what she’d heard and read, it was one of the great pleasures of life. With two people in profound communion it had to be extraordinary.
Jane smirked. “If you need any additional information on that topic, I’m happy to provide my wealth of knowledge. Douglas is a very thorough lover.”
“We play whist together! Don’t talk about him that way.” Imagining Douglas engaged in carnal pursuits was . . . disquieting.
“And he’s my husband.” Jane laughed as she tapped a finger on the tip of Grace’s nose. “But I’ll spare your tender sensibilities. For now.” She tilted her head and looked at Grace, her gaze soft. “I only want you to get your heart’s desire.”
“Thank you.” Warmth gently stole through Grace. How fortunate she was to count Jane as her friend. “As do I.”
And it would all begin with ensuring that Sebastian was sufficiently proficient in the art of being a Society beau.
She and Sebastian had a considerable amount of work to do.
Chapter 4
Seb spent the evening in his rooms on Howland Street, attempting to read but failing as he jumped to his feet every five minutes to pace the creaky floorboards.
Anxiety over tomorrow shot bolts of energy through his limbs, making it impossible for him to remain still or concentrate. When his downstairs neighbor shouted, “Keep it down, Ironfoot!” he compelled himself to sit. Yet focusing on a text was hopeless, and so he stared at the weblike crack on the ceiling until St. Patrick’s chimed one o’clock in the morning and he went to bed. He fell into a fitful sleep but kept jolting awake from dreams of Grace either jeering at him in disdain or weeping in dejection at his horrific botching of the job.
He had to do right by Grace. He had to become the rake she needed. For her sake, and his own. No room for failure. No room for failure.
That refrain chased itself in circles in his mind whenever he startled into wakefulness.
He’d had better nights.
Fortunately, his landlady forgot to heat his bath, so he managed to startle himself awake with icy water the next morning. As he bathed, he attempted to distract himself from fretful brooding by singing a taproom melody. When he finished the last refrain, his downstairs neighbor yelled, “Bravo! Now do ‘A Lusty Young Smith’!”
By the time Seb reached the final jingle bang, jingle, hi ho! his spirits were much improved. There was something in a tune about a blacksmith and a buxom young maiden rogering each other six times in a row that cheered up a fellow.
His elevated mood came crashing down as he approached Grace’s Mayfair home that afternoon. Never before had he been to the imposingly large house, and as he stood in its shadow, a cold feeling coagulated in his stomach.
God. They came from such vastly different worlds. Oh, his father had built himself a grand home with no fewer than six bedchambers in St. John’s Wood, but that house was less than half a decade old whilst the London residence of the Earl of Pembroke surely predated that by at least fifty years—and that was only its most recent iteration. Morbid curiosity had once made Seb look up Grace’s family’s entry in Debrett’s to discover that the earldom originated during the war between the Yorks and the Lancasters.
Now he walked up the steps leading to the Earl of Pembroke’s sprawling yet refined home and two words echoed in his head.
Fuck. Me.
His classmates at Eton had come from old power and wealth, but he’d never had to walk into their homes and pretend as though the sight of a literal coat of arms on the door knocker didn’t shake him to his nouveau riche core.
He raised his hand to use the door knocker, drawing a steadying breath. The fact that a person happened to be born to a particular family and was the by-product of generations of selective propagation didn’t make anyone better than anyone else. If anything, aristocrats seemed determined to breed away health and vitality.
If peers wanted to make themselves less viable and more irrelevant, they were doing a bang-up job.
The door swung open before he could knock, revealing Grace. She smiled at him—was there a hint of relief in her smile, as though she’d feared he wouldn’t come?—and he forgot all his high-handed thoughts about the titled and elite.
“Come in, come in.” She waved for him to step into the foyer. “I don’t usually answer the door, but I’m trying to keep your presence here known to as few as possible, and I’ve only so much pin money to bribe the servants. My father left this morning and my mother’s out, so other than the servants, we’re on our own.”
Dazed, he entered her home. The foyer was large enough to host a good-sized assembly, complete with dancing. “It’s taking me considerable effort to keep from trying out the acoustics in here.”
“Charlie and I used to stand at different ends of the foyer and whisper naughty words to test if the other person could hear them.”
Unable to stop himself, Seb walked to the farthest point in the vestibule. “Give it a go now.”
She raised her brow, then brought her cupped hands to her mouth. “Bum.”
Her whisper resonated close enough as if he could feel her breath softly against his ear. He started as a stroke of heat licked up his spine.
What the devil?
Seb shook himself. This was merely an amusing diversion with a friend, nothing more. He could play this game without finding himself mired in unexpected desire.
“That hardly qualifies as a naughty word.” He folded his arms across his chest.
“Suddenly you’re Dr. Johnson,” she said irritably. But she whispered into her hands again. “Arse.”
Damn and hell. It happened again, that same caress of arousal that rose up from hearing her speak mildly profane terms. It had to be the novelty of hearing a lady of gentle birth—and his friend—utter coarse words.
Nonetheless . . . He’d have to think about this later, hearing Grace swear. Delightful was too mild a term for it.
As if donning an invisible coat of platonic interest, he said with easy affability, “Much better.”
“Your turn,” she instructed. When he was silent for a moment, she added, “Now you’ve grown demure. What a shame that all the books you’ve read have left no impression on your vocabulary.”
“Trying not to shock you, dearest.” He started. Damn—had he actually called her dearest? Out loud?
Praise God, she didn’t seem to notice. She put her hands on her hips. “Try me.”
He debated before raising his hands to his mouth. “Shag.” It was a fairly tame word, but he wasn’t about to give her a full lexicon of all the filthy words he knew. And he knew quite a lot.
Her cheeks reddened, which also ranked highly in his enchanting moments of the day. But, heavens help him, this little game he’d orchestrated had not gone as planned. It had started as an amusing whim between two friends and shifted into his uncomfortable awareness of her as woman.
“Think we’ve proved the acoustics work.” Thankfully, he sounded properly sardonic and didn’t growl with arousal. “Shall we get down to business?”
“Follow me.” Grace ascended the stairs, and he followed.
Do not look at her arse. Don’t look—
He looked at her arse.
To his dismay, it was perfectly delicious, round, and full, and his palms itched to stroke along her ripe curves. He could have been happy living out the rest of his life without knowing that Lady Grace Wyatt possessed a spectacular behind, but, thanks to his roving gaze, he’d been expelled from that innocent Eden.
Stop it, churl.
Feeling like a randy buffoon, he forced himself to look down at his feet, concentrating on the steps beneath him. It didn’t quite assuage his guilt, but better that than leer at a woman he considered a friend.
On the next floor, she walked down a corridor before opening a set of double doors, revealing an exceptionally large, handsome room with parquet floors and not one but two unlit chandeliers. A few elegant chairs and small tables ringed the chamber. At one end stood a lacquered pianoforte, awaiting a pair of hands to bring it to life.
Seb slowly moved into the ballroom, his gaze drifting upward to the coved ceiling adorned with ornate but elegant plasterwork. He measured the length of the room by pacing from one end to the other. With his rather long stride of thirty-six inches, he calculated that the ballroom was nearly eighty feet long.
“We could hold an archery contest in here,” he murmured.
Grace grinned. “Charlie and I used to play cricket in this room when the day was too rainy to venture outside.” She pointed to an impression the size of a cricket ball that marked one of the walls. “That was him throwing too wide.”
“You must have left your own souvenirs.”
She grimaced as she nodded toward one of the tall windows lining one side of the chamber. “They had to replace that glass.” She shook her head. “As punishment, I didn’t get pudding for a week.”
“A couple of wild creatures, you and Charlie,” Seb noted.
“Perfect beasts, it’s true. We were torments to our parents.”
“And now . . . ?”
“Charlie’s got his own family to torment him. And my mother and father are surprisingly tolerant of a daughter who likes to muck about with amphibians and lizards.”
He shoved aside the sudden press of envy. His own parents wanted a different son, and Seb wanted a different family. No one had what they wanted, and, in a way, he’d come to peace with it. He couldn’t change himself into a future giant of industry.
“They’re also worried,” she grumbled, “that such a daughter needs a husband.”
“And you?” he asked.
“What of me?”
“Do you think you need a husband?” The question slipped out, yet once he’d spoken it, he craved the answer—to know what she wanted. In their four years of friendship, though they had shared details of their lives, they’d never fully explored their deeper desires, or shared their most secret hopes.
As if raising an unseen shield, her expression turned cynical. “I don’t keep specimens. It’s too cruel to confine a wild creature.”
“Grace.” He took a step toward her. “Tell me honestly. Do you truly want to marry?”
Fascinated, he watched the play of emotions across her face as she fought to keep her scorn in place—but the mask slipped, and her gaze turned dreamy, her mouth soft.
She let out a long breath. “I used to fantasize, when I was younger, before I was out. Not about a husband, but about a man who’d walk beside me in the field. Who would ask me about my work and genuinely listen rather than hear me with amused or fond forbearance. He wouldn’t merely tolerate me. He’d—” She caught herself, and snorted as if she found herself ridiculous.
But she wasn’t ridiculous. Not to him. And the tangible longing in her voice had reached into him and wrapped itself around his heart. True, he’d known that Mason Fredericks had long been the object of her infatuation, but Seb hadn’t fully comprehended that Grace had wants and needs that went beyond her studies.
“It’s just us, Grace.” He spread open his hands. “You and me. I promise I won’t laugh or say something cutting.”
“He’d . . .” She shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t talk about this now.”
Seb nodded. If she wanted to open herself to him, it would happen as she desired it, and when she was ready. He was humbled that she’d given him as much as she had.
She cleared her throat. “Returning to our purpose for being here . . .” She walked quickly to the pianoforte, where books were stacked atop its shiny surface. Picking up a volume, she said, “These came from my father’s collection. Conduct manuals, given to him when he was a young man navigating Society and the marriage mart.”
Seb headed toward her. “If he received those books as a young man, they must be rather archaic by now.”
“They’re about forty years old, according to the frontispieces. But,” she said decisively, “proper decorum is timeless. Things can’t have changed all that much.”
Having reached the pianoforte, he plucked one of the books from the pile. He flipped it open and the image of a bewigged young gentleman looked back at him with an expression that could only be described as privileged.
“Seems logical enough,” he said. “But these books might not be necessary. You’ve been out for some time now. Surely you’ve seen the behavior of rakish noblemen, so you can simply instruct me on how to act.”
She pressed her lips together in a wry smile. “Never paid much attention to rakes. Perhaps because they’ve shown a marked lack of interest in me.”
Anger bubbled up hotly. “What the deuce is wrong with those nobs? It’s a sure sign of societal decay when a woman like you is overlooked.” He scowled, outraged on her behalf.
Another hint of pink stole into her cheeks, and he couldn’t look away. In all their years of friendship, they’d never truly been alone, in private. She seemed more fully herself, less guarded. Each moment with her was a new discovery, and he awaited these unfolding revelations with bated breath. It felt as though he’d been given a new book filled with knowledge he didn’t know he craved until he opened the cover.
“We’re friends, Sebastian. No need for hyperbolic blandishments.”
“We’re both natural philosophers, Grace,” he corrected gently. “Exaggeration has no place in our world.”
Their gazes met. And held. It was vertiginous—in the best possible way. As though he tumbled through an endless, warm ocean. At the same time, electric awareness spread along his limbs.
Disappointment scored him as she looked away, breaking the spell. Yet the blush didn’t leave her face.
“There are new developments in the sciences,” she said crisply, “but Society remains a constant. Surely these books will tell us everything we need to know.”
An hour later, Seb stood in the middle in the ballroom, silently thankful for all the time he spent conditioning his body. Unlike his social clumsiness, physical activity had never been an obstacle, yet today, he’d never felt so awkward. Of a certain there had to be some kind of award . . . perhaps a ribbon pinned directly to the skin of his pectoral.
“Keep your shoulders back,” Grace instructed as she circled him, an open book in her hands. “Chin high. Arms held slightly away from the body with a slight bend in each.”
In an attempt to replicate what she described, he stuck his chest out and lifted his chin as his arms stuck out in ungainly angles, but damn if his normally adaptable body felt as cumbersome and graceless as a musk ox.
“This doesn’t feel right,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Of course it doesn’t. Manners are supposed to run contrary to our natural impulses.” She tapped her fingers against the underside of his jaw. “Lift this higher.”
Little explosions of heat went off where she touched him. He shoved the unwanted reaction aside.
“If I lift my chin up any more,” he muttered, “I’m going to tip onto my back and flail around like an overturned turtle.”
“If you do, I’ll just flip you back onto your stomach.”
“Comforting to know.” He struggled to hold the posture, which became even more difficult as she stood close to him, emanating her subtly floral scent.
His awareness of her grew with each moment they spent alone together. When they had met over the years at the library, or on their occasional scientific forays around London, it had been much easier. They’d been two colleagues who shared an interest in observing the world around them. But with no one else around, and his attention fixed solely on her, he became more and more responsive to her. The set of her mouth as she worked through a problem. The way her smiles began in the corners of her eyes before her lips curved.