Page 49 of Tamed By her Duke

He didn’t realize that he’d hoped Mrs. O’Mailey would insist that nothing was amiss, of course, until a flicker of concern passed her face.

“I cannae say for certain, Your Grace,” she said, hesitant as though she was thinking and speaking at the same time. “But she does seem…odd this morning.”

Caleb swore. His housekeeper gave him a chiding look.

“Language, Your Grace,” she said severely.

Caleb, who was a man who had seen battle and a duke atop that, barely bit back an apology for his profanity. In any case, he did not let any oaths slip from his lips.

“Has she nae said anything to ye, then?” he probed.

Mrs. O’Mailey hesitated. Caleb’s fist clenched.

“She did ask me if there was amillnearby,” the older woman said, sounding perfectly puzzled by it. “I told her aye, an abandoned one that’s not been in operation for as long as I’ve lived here.”

Caleb waited for more without a great deal of patience.

“And?”

Mrs. O’Mailey shook her head. “And nothing. She didn’t ask anything else, didn’t say anything else. But she looked rather…”

She paused, and Caleb had the sinking sensation that whatever the woman said next, it was going to make him want to hit something very hard.

“Haunted,” she said at last. “The poor lass looked rather as though she’d seen a ghost.”

“Grace.”

Grace turned at her brother Evan’s urgent voice. He was standing behind her, looking dreadfully out of place in this horrible little hovel.

“Grace, we have to go. Hurry. We have to go.”

A little voice in the back of Grace’s mind whispered that this wasn’t how it had happened, that she simply must be dreaming,but any nod to sensibility was lost in the face of her brother’s anxiety.

“Go,” Grace said. “Yes, yes, let’s go.”

She was meant to be stirring the soup; the ladle in her hand tugged at her. How many times had Mrs. Packard rapped her knuckles with this ladle for some minor transgression? She stared at it for a moment, as if the solid metal between her fingers would help sort out the meandering logic of her dreams.

Her brother tugged at her arm, only now it wasn’t Evan; it was Frances.

“Hurry,” Frances said. “Before they come back. We have to be quiet.”

This part, Grace understood. She’d spent years forcing herself to be quiet even when she was frightened, cold, in pain. She’d bit back her anger and her spite, shoved it down, down, deep inside, where nobody could touch it, not even her.

She could do that one more time, couldn’t she? For Frances?

She let the ladle drop, though it didn’t sound like a ladle dropping. But Frances’ hand was in hers, so Grace followed. This was an escape, she told herself, reality and dreams layering atop one another. This was how she’d gotten free. She had truly gotten free.

These thoughts did not comfort her when she heard another voice, familiar but out of place, calling her name from behind her.

“Grace?”

She hurried, though it couldn’t be the Packards. They never called her by her name, only ever “girl” or “you” or a litany of insults too broad to list.

“Grace, what are ye doing?”

The voice tugged at her, but not nearly as firmly as Frances pulled her ahead.

“Jesus Christ, Grace, stop!”

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