Joanna Johnson - Scandalously Wed To The Captain

‘Did you say something?’

Spencer folded his arms across his broad chest, the movement causing his impressive biceps to bunch beneath the scant cover of his shirt in a way so damnably interesting Grace felt her face flush scarlet as she hastily turned away again. A flicker of that same sensation she had felt earlier sparked into being within her and she would have given anything for a glass of cold water with which to douse the alarming embers that glowed at his sudden proximity.

When he replied it was directed over her head as though she wasn’t there at all. ‘I found Miss Linwood out on the Cobb in a state of acute distress. As far as I can gather she’s had to call off her engagement this evening, although I haven’t the pleasure of knowing why.’

Grace gritted her teeth, resentment simmering alongside her dismay as the older woman’s brows knitted together further.

As if I needed more proof his good nature has gone for ever, taking with it the boy I thought so highly of.

She could still sense Spencer standing at her back, in all likelihood scowling down at her from his great height, and the knowledge of his unseen closeness stirred the fine hairs of her neck. Irritation at his meddling coursed through her, although another stream of something close to a kind of breathless apprehension mingled with it. His voice was deep and expressionless, yet it possessed an educated cadence so pleasing that even in the depths of her annoyance Grace felt herself give a small shudder when he spoke.

It has to be the loss of William. What else could change him so drastically for the worse?

From his stance behind her chair— his chair, in fact—Spencer couldn’t see the set of his silent guest’s expression, although if the stiffness of her shoulders was anything to go by it probably wasn’t one of delight. Looking down at her from behind only afforded him a view of her blonde ringlets, one escaping from a cluster at the back of her head to snake at the base of her slender neck, but it was enough to make him avert his eyes in sudden discomfort. There was something so vulnerable about that nape, so delicate as it rose out of her lace-trimmed collar, that was deeply unexpected and just as deeply disturbing. It roused something in him, some glint of the weakness he had determinedly suppressed for so long it was a wonder to discover he could still feel it.

Be careful. A sense of danger nagged at the back of his mind, a clear warning against the perturbing turn this sorry business was taking. It must have been the suffering on her face that called to him, holding a mirror up to the pain that so often clouded his own features; but that was not a good enough reason to allow any assault on his restraint and it was with a frown he took in her words as she began to speak.

‘Thank you, Spencer, for that succinct summary of my misfortune.’

Spencer raised an eyebrow at her frigid tone, but held his tongue. The distress written on Grace’s features had been clear to see and his discomfort grew as he realised how much he disliked the memory. It might even have stirred the remnants of his long-buried compassion had he not been so resolutely steeling himself against the flash of momentary weakness the despondent Miss Linwood somehow already managed to provoke in him.

If Will was still alive, he would have her laughing already. He always knew how to make a woman smile. Then again...

Hadn’t that been the very thing that had come between them, in the end?

Spencer gritted his teeth in instinctive dismay as the question arose, but nothing could stop the relentless march of his thoughts down the one path he would have given anything to avoid.

Not this again. Not now.

He could hardly even recall her face: Miss Constance Strong, the lively, captivating woman both twins had loved—to their everlasting detriment. The image of her beauty was eclipsed by other memories, of how he and the man he’d loved as a second self had argued over her, the only thing they had ever been unable to share. If only he’d let Will win, had stepped back and stopped their quarrel before it was too late—but that was a pointless wish and one that did nothing to erase the guilt that had swirled inside him like an icy storm ever since.

You can’t allow yourself to walk that path again. If you hadn’t been so foolish as to lose your heart to a woman you might still have a brother...not that any woman would want you now.

Alike in so many ways, all traces of the cheerful nature the twins had once shared were now gone for ever: Will’s disappearing in the cold finality of death and Spencer’s snuffed out like a candle beneath the unbearable weight of the shame and remorse that had haunted him since that terrible day two years before. Some pale shadow of his better self lingered for his mother’s sake, a last echo of the person he had once been before tragedy had made him retreat from the world to drown his sorrows in drink, but even that phantom would fade as soon as her sickness overcame her. When that happened, his transformation into a mere husk of a man would be complete.

His mother’s voice jolted him from his maudlin train of thought. ‘Is that true? You’ve had to call off your engagement?’

Even from behind Spencer saw the way Grace’s throat contracted in a dry swallow, the slight curve of her cheek visible to him tight with strain. If she was battling the urge to break down and air her soul, she was putting up a good fight, he thought with a gleam of grudging respect, but nothing could overcome the kind probing of his mother and he at last heard a shuddering sigh escape her that lifted the intriguingly slight shoulders beneath her gown.

‘I...’

Grace stopped at once as the sitting-room door opened and a maid bearing a tea tray appeared, lapsing into tense silence she didn’t break even when the servant retreated once again.

In the ensuing quiet Spencer stepped smartly round Grace’s chair to stand closer to the hearth and table laid out before it. A quick glance in her direction now gave him his first uninterrupted view of her face since she had sat down and he clenched his jaw in sudden horror at the jolt that leapt within him at the sight.

Her lips trembled in obvious emotion and her hands were clasped together tightly on her knees, one finger rubbing at her knuckles in absent-minded distress. She looked so plainly unhappy, so heartbreakingly tiny in his enveloping chair nestled among the cushions like a lost creature in need of a protective arm. The shocking urge to offer that arm was suddenly overwhelming, coming apparently from nowhere, and Spencer shoved it back from the forefront of his mind.

What are you thinking of?

He bent his head lower above the tray, ostensibly stirring the tea leaves while his mind flooded with confusion and the shrill peals of alarm bells rang in his ears.

What is the meaning of this?

It was years since he had resolved to separate himself from the world and all the people in it—both for their sake and his own. Nothing good had come from his weakness for Constance’s charms, her laugh still occasionally punctuating the nightmares that plagued his fitful sleep. Only the death of one he loved and a lifetime of regret had been his reward for believing he might find happiness with another, far too high a price to pay again.

It was easier to turn oneself to unfeeling granite; to care about others was to wear one’s heart outside the body and the world was cruel enough to crush it beneath its boots if given half a chance. If there was something in Grace’s tender vulnerability and guileless face that touched the last shred of humanity he had left, he would fight it every step of the way—anything rather than risk another mistake, another soul-destroying loss; another scar to add to the collection borne by more than just his skin.