A Spring Deception (Seasons Book 2) by Jess Michaels

Author:Jess Michaels [Michaels, Jess]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Passionate Pen
Published: 2016-09-05T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Celia hadn’t been in her grandfather’s home since the previous October, and yet when she stepped into the parlor to await his entrance the place felt exactly the same. Cold. Unwelcoming.

Exactly like the man who owned it.

She would never forget the surprise and near horror on his butler’s face when he opened the door to find her there. When he learned she was unchaperoned, it was even worse.

“Are you certain you want me to see if he’s in, Miss Fitzgilbert?” the older man asked.

She hesitated. The last time she’d seen her grandfather, he had been bent over Rosalinde, trying to choke the life out of her because she was attempting to break up Celia’s engagement. Only Gray’s swift and violent intervention had saved the day.

Celia would have no such guard today. And it was only the fact that she had what she believed Mr. Fitzgilbert might see as good news that she believed he would not strike out just the same way at her.

“Thank you, Cranston, but yes. Please do see if he’ll receive me.”

The butler nodded and stepped out, leaving her alone to ponder the prudence of her actions. She didn’t have long, however, for within moments her grandfather entered the chamber.

She caught her breath when she saw him. In the months she had been safely in the care of Gray and Rosalinde, her grandfather had clearly declined. He was thinner by at least a stone and a half, perhaps even two, and his shock of white hair was beginning to thin. His nose was crooked now where Gray had broken it months before. But his blue eyes, the ones she and Rosalinde had each inherited, were just as sharp as they had ever been. They focused squarely on her as he closed the door behind himself.

“I called Cranston a liar when he said you’d shown up here,” he said. “Struck him across his bloody face.”

She swallowed hard at that statement. “Well, you can see he was not lying, for I am here, Grandfather.”

He looked her up and down with a sniff and then moved to the sideboard to pour a drink. “Without a chaperone, he said.”

Celia pursed her lips. “I knew Gray and Rosalinde wouldn’t approve of my coming here, so I…I pretended a headache, then snuck out and walked. Your home is only half a mile from theirs through good neighborhoods.”

He faced her with a grin. “Are you not afraid your sister will put you out if she hears you broke her embargo and came to see me?”

Celia folded her arms. “Rosalinde would never put me out. She is not like you, sir.”

“No, she isn’t like me,” he grunted. “You were always closer.”

She turned her face as if his words slapped her, and in a way they did. The last thing she would ever want to be in this world was anything like Gregory Fitzgilbert. He was cold, calculating, unfeeling, cruel, along with a dozen other worse adjectives.

“So you snuck out of Grayson Danford’s pitiful little manor and came crawling back to me,” Mr.

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