My Saving Grace by Harmon Danelle

Author:Harmon, Danelle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gnarly Wool Publishing
Published: 2020-07-27T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

The breeze off the nearby marshes was a respite from the day’s heat, carrying the scent of salt and sea grass, and it blew gaily threw the open windows of the coach. Grace had not been raised near the sea though she had once visited it, and she found the odor heady and exhilarating. She leaned close to the window and closing her eyes in bliss, inhaled deeply.

“I could never get tired of this smell,” she said happily.

She was keenly aware of Captain Lord on the seat opposite her... and so was every cell in her body. Strange, that, when the prickly tingles she felt at his nearness were ones she’d expected to feel with Captain Ponsonby. Indeed, she’d watched the handsome blond naval officer walking off with his lieutenant and Lady Weybourne, but the hollow emptiness she’d expected to feel at his departure had been curiously late in coming.

In fact, it hadn’t come at all.

But there was Captain Lord on the seat across from her. His manner, while polite and cordial, seemed withdrawn, as though he had a lot on his mind. He was looking out the window, watching the fields and hedgerows as they passed them by, the distant blue line of the North Sea as they crested a rise. Though he had one wrist draped over his knee, the other resting along the seat back, the tension that had clung to him earlier had returned.

“Captain Lord?”

“Yes, Lady Grace?”

“Are you feeling quite well?”

He seemed to come back to himself and smiled a little. “I confess that I find coach travel rather tedious.”

“You’re not seasick— coach-sick?— I hope?”

His smile spread, became genuine. “No, of course not. And current company makes the journey quite enjoyable even if the endless swaying and rocking does not.”

“That is a sweet thing to say,” she said, meeting his eyes with a little grin of her own.

Again, that flash of heat. Of connection. Her nipples tingled and she folded her arms across her chest to contain the feeling, surprised and a little shocked.

Did he feel that same odd connection?

Could he know that she did?

But he had looked away, returning his attention to the fields and green meadows passing outside. Grace studied the faint indentations beneath his cheekbones, the muscles in his jaw, the hard sculpt of his lips. She wondered what he looked like in a uniform. Navy blue... it would complement his cool gray eyes. Gold epaulets on those proud shoulders, the tails of his uniform coat emphasizing his physique, snug white breeches showing off the length and musculature of his legs.

Really, her mind shouldn’t be going in such directions.

You should be reserving such thoughts for Captain Ponsonby. After all, he’s the one you fantasize about. The one you hope and plan to marry.

But she wasn’t fantasizing about Captain Ponsonby.

She was fantasizing about Captain Lord.

They were crossing a small river now, moving through a village. Captain Lord remained silent. Even Polly, sitting beside her, cut her eyes to the captain and back to Grace, silently questioning the tension.

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