Jenna Petersen: The Secrets of a Lady

“Hey, hey! Don’t call me up here, Grif, if you’re going to be kissing your-” Noah laughed as he entered the room. He halted the moment he saw his sister and his smile fell. “Audrey?”

“Noah!”

She half-stumbled over and took his arm. Both her cheek and her pride stung. What an idiot she was!

“What happened?” he asked.

“She…” Griffin began.

“That little whore came in here and kissed my husband!” Luci interrupted.

“That’s enough!” Audrey winced at her brother’s sharp tone and the look of concern in his face when he turned toward her and tilted her chin up. He searched her face. “Is this true?”

“She’s drunk, Noah,” Griffin supplied softly, but his eyes met hers with a strange light.

Noah sighed deeply. “Thank you, Grif. I’ll take her home.” He guided her past Griffin and Luci to the office door. “I’m sorry about all this.”

The fury in Luci’s demeanor suddenly faded as she slipped from Griffin’s embrace to approach Noah and Audrey. “No, it is I who should be sorry.”

Glancing down at Luci’s offered hand, Audrey blinked in confusion.

“After all,” Luci continued, “You’re no threat to me now.” Opening her arms, she pulled Audrey into a tight embrace. Just as she released her, she whispered, “Never doubt that I will make you suffer for this.”

Noah led her away Audrey she could react to Luci’s threat. They moved through the hallways in silence. Audrey hardly saw anything around her anymore. She was numb, she was empty.

Noah found a quiet exit away from the crowd and got her to the place where the carriages were parked in waiting. He motioned to his driver and then turned toward her with a heavy sigh.

“Oh, Audrey, what were you thinking?”

Audrey shrugged one shoulder, determined to be strong. “I love him, Noah. I shall never love anyone but Griffin Berenger. Not as long as I live.”

May, 1814

“He looks so sad. So alone,” Audrey whispered as she looked down the high hill to the cemetery below. Griffin Berenger stood at the gate of a bleached stone crypt, his forehead resting against the metal barrier and his hands clenched the steel bars. She could feel his pain as tangibly as if it were her own.

“He is alone.” Noah calmed his antsy horse with a gentle pat on his flank. “Now that Luci is dead.”

Audrey she squinted into the sun to get a better look at Griffin. She hadn’t expected the wash of emotion he inspired in her. It was a strange mixture of pity for herself and sorrow for him.

Why couldn’t she just look at him with the cool, collected gaze of a woman unaffected? After all, she had struggled for years to gain control over her sometimes-wild feelings. Now all that training seemed to fall away, leaving her drained before she’d even spoken to the man she once believed she loved.

“He seems different,” she murmured, more to herself than to her brother.

From the distance it was impossible to see his features clearly, but he seemed taller, broader than she remembered. And his hair had darkened a bit over time to a deep gold. But it was more than those physical things that made him appear changed. He held himself somewhere between fierce pride and utter defeat.

Noah shrugged. “Much has happened in five years. To both of you.”

Sliding her gaze away from Griffin, Audrey turned to her brother. Noah was watching her.

“Perhaps this is a mistake.” She looked away to hide her conflicted heart. “It’s only been six months since she died.”

“No.” Noah shook his head. “I know him better than you do. This will be good for him, too, I promise you.”

Shrugging one shoulder, she didn’t answer. After seeing Griffin lost in his grief, she didn’t know if he was ready to do anything, let alone the favor she and Noah were about to ask of him. To be fair, she wasn’t certain she was ready, either.

Noah reached out to touch her hand lightly. “ I shall talk to him and make all the arrangements. All you need do is come in afterward.”

Audrey smiled at the comfort he offered. Her brother, of all people, had some understanding of what she was going through. “Yes, all I have to do.”

All she had to do was go into the room once Noah had convinced Griffin to help them. Oh, and keep herself from fainting with nervousness, and remember to breathe, and speak, and make an effort to appear calm. Just because she’d never been able to do any of those things near Griffin before…

Rolling her eyes, Audrey watched her brother as he turned his horse toward the house. Though she hadn’t seen Griffin in a long while, it had been even longer since she spoke to him. Since that fateful day in his study when she’d made such an idiot of herself.

“He probably doesn’t even remember,” she consoled herself quietly.

Noah glanced over his shoulder at her. “Did you say something?”

“Nothing at all,” she lied as she guided her horse toward Bentley Square.

Just before they headed down the other side of the hill, she looked toward the cemetery one last time, but Griffin was gone.

***

“My lord,” Cotter said, knocking softly on Griffin’s office door before he stepped inside.

“I thought I told you not to disturb me while I’m working.”

Griffin looked up to glare at the man. With a sigh, he turned his attention to the papers on his desk. No matter how hard he tried to convince people otherwise, he knew the truth. He wasn’t working. He hadn’t worked for six months.

“I’m sorry, sir, but you have a visitor,” the man answered, his tone unchanged even after Griffin’s emotional response. Griffin supposed all the servants had grown accustomed to his outbursts. There had been so many since Luci’s death.

“I don’t wish to see anyone, tell the person to leave,” he muttered with a wave of his hand.

“You don’t want to see me?”

With a groan, Griffin glanced back up to see Noah Jordan leaning in the doorway. He couldn’t turn his best friend away, no matter how much he wanted to be alone.

Cotter looked at him expectantly and his graying eyebrows arched just a fraction, as if he would be willing to toss the Earl out if required. Sizing up the difference between the two men, Griffin thought he’d like to see the butler try, but instead he nodded.

“Thank you, Cotter,” Griffin sighed. “That will be all.”

After the other man had gone, Noah pushed the door shut behind him. He hovered near the entryway for a moment, but when Griffin said nothing, he moved to sit across from him at his desk. Noah studied him intently, then shook his dark head.

“And a fine hello to you, too.”

“I’m sorry.” Griffin leaned over to shake his friend’s hand. “I wasn’t expecting guests. I’m not exactly prepared to be a good host.”

Noah chuckled. “You never were great company to begin with.”

Griffin couldn’t help but respond with a grin, the first time he’d smiled in months. The expression felt odd and he relaxed his face into its regular somber expression.

Noah sighed as he leaned back in his chair. “I see you’re still torturing yourself.”

Griffin gripped his hands into fists in front of him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“On my way to the house, I saw you standing at Luci’s grave,” his friend said softly. “How many times must I tell you that her death wasn’t your fault?”

The memories created by Noah’s words gave Griffin a painful jab of sensation which he quickly shoved aside. Noah had been the first person to visit him after Luci’s death. He’d tried desperately to convince Griffin that all would be well in time. His friend obviously still wanted him to believe that.