Read With This Kiss: Part One for Free Online Page A

chased them away.
    T he next morning, her eyes shining, Lily told Grace that Colin had come to the ball. Apparently he had asked for Grace, but no one could find her, and finally their mother had told him that she had a headache, and he had said he was sorry to hear that.
    And to tell her how much he appreciated her letters.
    Grace decided at that moment that there would be no more letters.
    Colin paid a call that morning, but Grace refused to leave her chamber. Lily popped her head in, and said that Colin was taking her for a drive in the park, and did Grace wish to come?
    Grace was so consumed with love and anger and anguish that she shook her head. “I’m painting,” she said. “You know I paint every morning.”
    “After all those letters, don’t you wish to see Colin?” Lily asked, looking surprised. “I’d think you’d be dying to say hello to him. He’s even more handsome now, Grace, I promise you that. And it was so sweet when he became a little tipsy on champagne last night. I shall tease him about it.”
    Much later that evening, after supper had come and gone (Grace ate in her room), her mother looked in, gave her a hug, and said, “Darling, are you certain that you don’t wish to say hello to Colin? I expect he finds it confusing, given that you have written all those letters. He’s coming tomorrow morning as well.”
    She swallowed and said, “He’s fallen for Lily, hasn’t he?”
    The duchess opened her mouth… and shut it again.
    “Hasn’t he?” Grace asked in a hard little voice. She had seen it happen. She knew.
    “I believe Colin has discovered Lily’s charm,” her mother said, finally. “But that doesn’t mean that he won’t discover yours as well.”
    Grace rolled her eyes. “I might as well be invisible when Lily is near, Mother. You know that.”
    “I disagree.” But mothers are mothers, and Grace knew better than to trust her mother’s opinion.
    The duchess caught her up in another hug. “You are my dear, darling Grace, and any man who doesn’t see what a wonderful woman you are doesn’t deserve to kiss the hem of your gown.”
    Mothers say things like that.
    Grace managed to avoid Colin for the three short days of his leave, and when the following Wednesday came, and her father bellowed for her letter so that he could forward it to the Admiralty, she said, very simply, that she would write no more letters.
    Her father always maintained that he was nothing more than a battered old pirate, with a great scar across his throat and a tattoo under his eye. But Grace never saw him that way, and when he opened his arms, she flew into them and nestled against his heart.
    “Perhaps that’s best, sweet pea,” he said, encircling her in a hug so tight that she could hardly breathe. “You can’t write to the man forever, after all.”
    She shook her head, feeling her hair rumple against his chest. “It’s getting embarrassing.”
    “Someone else should take up the torch,” he said.
    Tears prickled Grace’s eyes. “Lily hates writing. She’ll never do it.”
    “He’s an old man of twenty-five. We should have stopped it when you became a young lady.”
    “He’s not old,” Grace said, sniffing a little.
    “But he’s not a lonely boy any longer. No more letters, Lady Grace, and that’s an order from your father.”
    She nodded and let a tear or two darken his silk neck cloth before she pulled away and stood up straight.
    “I saw you talking to McIngle a few nights ago.” Her father very kindly ignored her tears as Grace dug a handkerchief from her pocket.
    “I like him,” she said, managing a wobbly smile. “He has such an interesting face.”
    “It’s not all about faces. He’s a good one. I would have taken him on my crew in a moment.” That was her father’s highest praise.
    “But Colin… I…”
    Her father drew her back into his arms. “He asked for her hand before he left, dearest.”
    For a moment Grace didn’t even hear what he said over the