My Notorious Gentleman by Gaelen Foley Page A

hated waiting for a man. It was a lowly, vulnerable feeling. First, she had waited a week and a half for him to appear, and now here she was once more, sitting around wasting time and hoping he’d show up soon.
    No wonder his gorgeous ex-fiancée had grown tired of it, Grace mused. She had waited years for him, poor woman.
    Then Grace wondered uneasily if Lady Laura was still in love with him. Surely a woman that beautiful would only have to snap her fingers to get him back.
    Maybe she’d jilt her new fiancé to honor her original betrothal. Maybe they’d reunite.
    The thought depressed Grace though she knew it shouldn’t. It was really none of her business.
    At length, the sky began to darken to a deep rich blue; the chill of evening crept into the air; and the night birds warbled. It was eight in the evening when the two hungry Kenwoods finally gave up on their guest and sat down to dinner.
    Mrs. Flynn, their cook and housekeeper, served a fine country meal of roasted chicken with buttered red potatoes and turnips, along with a side helping of string beans sprinkled with delicious-smelling bacon.
    Grace masked her disappointment, keeping a smile on her face by dint of will as her father led a quick prayer before the meal.
    “Amen.”
    “Perhaps he feared he’d inconvenience us by coming late,” Papa spoke up, “and decided to eat at the Gaggle Goose. I would expect that he’s staying the night there.”
    Grace stopped, startled by this possibility. It promptly wound her stomach in a knot.
    Dear God, she thought. Marianne.
    If his encounter with the bubbly, golden Callie had not been hard enough to watch, Grace did not even want to contemplate him meeting the sultry Marianne, who worked in the tavern at the coaching inn.
    The ex–soiled dove had talents, Grace surmised, that no decent woman could compete with. Indeed, she had been the cause of Callie’s fight with George.
    Grace took a sip of her wine to calm her fleeting, panicked reaction to the likelihood that Marianne was probably waiting on Lord Trevor even at this moment—in whatever capacity.
    “Yes,” she forced out at last with admirable calm. “You’re probably right.”
    After that, it was easy to becalm herself by simply giving up on him. He wasn’t coming, and that was that.
    He was probably rolling around in bed with Marianne already.
    For her part, it was time to stop acting like another cake-head, Grace thought sternly. Bad enough that a belle of eighteen like Callie should make such a henwit of herself over a handsome neighbor who might or might not be moving in. In her own, older, wiser self, such flutterings were disgraceful.
    Inexcusable, really. Yes, he was handsome, worldly, kind to children, but so what?
    And yet, she had to admit, it did seem quite his style to leave like a rudesby without even saying good-bye, especially after he had smiled at her so fondly. Of course, he had told Callie that he barely remembered meeting her . . .
    Grace did not know what to think, but she hated that it mattered so much to her.
    Thankfully, her father’s soothing presence and ordinary conversation about simple things restored a sense of normality to her overwrought day. After a while, she became herself again in the sheer routine of the evening.
    Silly, girlish suspense had nearly robbed her of her appetite, but once she had concluded that the worldly ex-spy had forgotten about two such inconsequential folk as a country pastor and his too-tall daughter, then she made a decision to forget about him, too. Finally, she was able to eat. No man was worth such giddiness when there was such tender, juicy chicken on one’s table. He could go hang.
    She felt let down, of course, and foolishly neglected, but disappointment was better than nerve-racking obsession over a man she barely knew. His decision about the Grange was his own affair.
    Where the wandering ex–Order agent chose to put down roots at last—if he ever did—had nothing to do with her.