Saving Grace

‘I—–'

‘But, of course, I realise you weren't a hundred per cent sure about the twenty-fifth as your day of arrival.’ She smiled to take away any rebuke he might have read into her earlier words. ‘I'm not that strict about arrival dates,’ she said, and shook her head. ‘And I don't exactly have people beating a path to the door this time of year!’ Or the rest of the year really, although they did pick up the occasional summer visitor looking for solitude rather than luxurious accommodation; the latter she certainly couldn't offer here! But Jordan was a ‘winter visitor’ in search of solitude.

Jordan looked at her wordlessly for several seconds, blue gaze piercing, flickering away with a vulnerability that was vaguely endearing. He seemed undecided. Which Grace guessed was an unfamiliar emotion to him. He had aroused her curiosity about him in spite of herself.

‘Oh, please take me for a drive in your car!’ Timothy was the one to break the silence, gazing imploringly up at Jordan. ‘I've never been in a Jaguar before,’ he added, eyes wide with anticipation, and Grace could already hear the tales he would tell his schoolfriends about the adventure in the morning.

Jordan was looking almost wistfully at Timothy now, Grace thought, her own frown thoughtful. He was an enigma, this man Jordan. And she felt an intense curiosity to know more about him.

‘Did you enjoy your snowball fight earlier?’ He was talking to Timothy now, his tone gentle.

Grace looked at him sharply, wondering how he could possibly know—she hadn't realised anyone had watched them earlier, but how else could this man know about the snowball fight if he hadn't actually seen them have it?

Timothy gave the grin of the victor. ‘Grace isn't bad at snowballing, for a girl,’ he shrugged.

‘Timothy Brown, you only won at all because you played dirty and put one down my neck!’ she rebuked good-naturedly.

Jordan watched her intently. ‘You run this house alone, Miss Brown?'

‘Grace,’ she corrected as automatically as he had earlier, knowing that what he was really asking was where her parents were, that she should have the responsibility of Timothy plus the running of a big house like this one. From the intentness of his gaze she had a feeling he had intended disarming her with the unexpectedness of the question, knew herself matched with a sharp intelligence. ‘I manage,’ she dismissed, her gaze steady.

Jordan met that gaze. ‘I'm sure you do,’ he acknowledged quietly.

She straightened. ‘And right now I had better take off the rest of these damp things and finish cooking dinner,’ she said brightly, knowing that although the two of them knew little about each other they at least understood each other; Grace was here ‘managing’ this house because circumstances had dictated that she do so, and because they had she did it with all the love and care that she could. Jordan was here for reasons of his own, but those reasons owed just as much to circumstances as her own.

Timothy was still looking up at Jordan with hopefully expectant eyes. Grace knew that look only too well, had succumbed to the pleading there too many times herself not to know it. And she could see Jordan wasn't unmoved by the pleading over-big eyes either.

‘If you would like to bring your things in from the car I'll show you up to your room …?’ she politely prompted Jordan, removing her scarf.

He was looking at her again now, indecision in the dark blue depths of his eyes. She smiled at him, knowing instinctively that the vulnerability she sensed in him wasn't a part of himself he felt able to cope with.

Grace doubted he would be able to cope with her response to that either; he didn't look as if he very often had women he was barely acquainted with throw their arms around him because they felt an overwhelming need to comfort him in whatever pain it was he was suffering!

There was an answering flicker of warmth in the dark blue depths of his eyes, although he barely smiled in response to hers. She wondered what he would look like if he ever laughed. Younger, was her instant guess. He had an air about him of someone much older than the early thirties she guessed him to be. Too much responsibility at too young an age, she surmised, wondering if she had a similar air herself.

She didn't think so, because she wasn't unhappy. And this man obviously was. Very unhappy.

‘I haven't brought much with me,’ he finally answered in measured tones. ‘But I'll bring it in after I've taken Tim for his drive,’ he added decisively.

Any reply Grace might have made to this remark was drowned out by Timothy's whoop of delight and his cries for them to go right now, this very second. Just in case Jordan should change his mind, Grace guessed with affection.

Jordan stood across the room with Timothy's hand clinging determinedly to his much larger one, awkwardly so, as if the trust in him this young child showed came as a shock. ‘Is that all right with you?’ He looked at Grace enquiringly.

‘Of course,’ she nodded, smiling at her brother as he beamed his excitement up at her. ‘Behave yourself,’ she warned indulgently.

He replied in the affirmative, but in truth it was obvious he barely heard her remark, his thoughts already transfixed on driving in the back seat of a Jaguar. Compared to the old Mini Grace drove him about in he would feel like royalty, the leather interior of the car parked outside being plush to say the least.

She watched them walk to the door together, the tall dark-haired man, and the small red-haired boy who was the centre of her world.

She had known from the day her father died so suddenly and left Timothy in her sole care that she would always do everything she could to ensure that her brother's world would be as secure as she could make it for him. As she stood and watched Jordan and Timothy walk out to the car side by side she had a vague feeling of disquiet, as if her world would never be quite the same again from this moment on …

CHAPTER TWO (#u46d31959-7544-5884-8132-a04ce6692a48)

WHAT the hell was he doing?

He should have told them exactly who he was the moment he realised the mistake there had been over identity. But something had held him back from doing that. Jordan deliberately pushed the image of dark grey eyes surrounded by long dark lashes to the back of his mind.

He was here, in Grace Brown's home—a Grace Brown who had turned out to be far from the elderly spinster he had expected to meet—under a false identity, and false pretences.

He looked about the room he had been given for his stay—or rather, J. Gregory had been given! It was as worn and faded as the rest of the house, but it was clean and comfortable, and somehow homely and welcoming.

There was another flowered carpet on the floor, green this time, cream-coloured paper on the walls, and Jordan hadn't seen a candlewick bedspread like the one on the double bed that took up most of the room for years, the convenience of duvets not seeming to have entered this old-fashioned household.

The bathroom was down the hallway, something he definitely wasn't used to, and yet he felt at home here already. Rhea and Raff were going to think he had taken leave of his senses, but he intended staying on here.

He would have to telephone them, of course, otherwise they were likely to send out a search-party after a couple of days. And, as he was here as a ‘Mr Gregory', the last thing he wanted was for them to do that.

Mr J. Gregory …

The other man had obviously changed his mind about coming here after all, and hadn't bothered to let Grace Brown know that. At least, Jordan hoped that was what had happened. He was going to look worse than ridiculous if the real Mr Gregory should turn up after all. Especially as he would then have to tell them who he really was.

Oh, hell! He should leave here now, he knew he should. And yet somehow he couldn't do it, felt at peace for the first time in a very long time. Over two years, in fact.

Two years … Since he had discovered the man whom he had always believed to be his father wasn't his father after all.

It had been the merest chance that his sister Rhea had met Raff Quinlan in the first place. Fate, Rhea called it.

And the secrets that had emerged after that meeting had shattered Jordan's world forever.

Rhea was married to Raff now, and they had a beautiful daughter Diana, with Rhea's red hair and Raff's serious charm, but for the last two years Jordan had been avoiding facing the confusion and pain he felt about even his own identity. He wasn't really Jordan Somerville-Smythe, had no right to that name, and yet, if he wasn't Jordan Somerville-Smythe, who was he?

He wasn't sure any more. The Lake District, this house, seemed a strange place to begin to find the answer to that, and yet this was the first time he had felt truly relaxed in years. He couldn't leave now even if he wanted to.

Besides, he excused his own actions, his curiosity had been well and truly aroused now. The boy, Tim, had talked incessantly when Jordan had taken him for the promised drive in his car, but he hadn't seemed to find the fact that he lived in this huge house with his sister, Jessie Amery, and the elusive Nick—the other man had still been absent when Jordan had returned with Tim a short time ago—interesting enough to go into in great detail.

It was a very strange household for a young woman of the nineteen or twenty Jordan had guessed Grace to be. A girl of those tender years should be out enjoying herself with other people her age, but Grace didn't give the impression she in the least resented the responsibilities she had.

In fact, she had a calmness and serenity that Jordan envied …

* * *

What a strange mixture of contradictions her new boarder was, Grace mused as she set the dinner out on the big tray ready to take upstairs to the dining-room—where hopefully Timothy would have laid the table for their meal by now.

Jordan looked a stern, uncompromising man, as if he wouldn't suffer fools gladly, and yet he had given in to the whim of a child good-naturedly enough. Timothy hadn't yet been able to stop his bubbling excitement over being driven about in a Jaguar, his face aglow still with the pleasure of it.

When she had shown Jordan into his room a short time ago she had been quite able to see its clean shabbiness through his eyes, knew from the very look of him that this couldn't be the class of place he was used to staying in.

And yet she also knew, instinctively, that he didn't want to leave.