A Solemn Promise

XVIII

"But already my desire and my will
were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed,
by the Love which moves the sun and the other stars." Dante

----

XVIII.

Grace never heard what Adam's father had to say. Adam never told her. Though the fact that he was still engaged to be married answered her own question.

Adam did not seek Grace out for a conversation, a clandestine meeting or anything for weeks. On that Sunday after the ball he had promised her that he would speak to his father and then nothing.

Adam wasn't being cold. He wasn't being cruel. If he were so, Grace could be angry, frustrated ... resigned to the fact that nothing was to come about. Something was wrong with him. Something was wrong, and Adam was carrying that weight around on his shoulders.

The only time that she saw him now was every other Sunday in church. There was something missing from his eyes. He didn't smile. There was anxious tension in his brow.

She supposed she was frustrated as nobody seemed to notice anything was wrong except for her. Grace was not in a position to ask questions. She could not go and knock on his door and check to see if he was alright.

Her one inquiry had been to Susanna, who had told her that Adam had said that everything was fine. That had been four weeks ago.

Susanna was her only ally. She could not ask anyone else for fear that they would make dangerous connections. Grace desperately wanted to go to Mrs Hayes. Adam had always looked up to her like a mother, but not even she seemed worried. Of course, that could have been because Adam kept to his father's study.

Listening in on the conversations of valets told Grace that the duke and Lord Beresford were spending quite a bit of time together. Grace didn't know if this was particularly odd as Adam had been spending that time with his father before she had noticed that something was wrong.

Grace felt helpless as she tried to listen for any scrap of news, and she wished that she could go and find him. She wished that he would come and find her, to confide in her, as he always had done as a boy.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of her day was her time spent with Lady Sarah Ashley. Personally, Grace thought Sarah was a lovely young lady. She was everything a high-born girl ought to be. She was well-mannered and spoken, well-read and walked with a regal sense of balance. She was proficient in her needlework and could delight company with her ability to speak both perfect French and Italian.

Of course, the latter virtues Grace only knew by the praises of her mother.

What was frustrating about their time together was Lady Sarah's ignorance. She claimed to love Adam. She thought he was perfect. She could not find fault with him, and often confided in Grace about her feelings.

Her ignorance, and innocence, was evident, Grace felt, in her inability to read just how uncomfortable her confessions made her lady's maid.

Lady Sarah thought everything was perfect, and she did not seem to mind that her fiancé spent nothing more than a few moments a day with her. Grace thought it absurd. If it were her, she would want to marry someone she could not wait to spend her time with.

Sarah was occupied with planning her wedding, an occasion of which the duchess could spare no expense.

It infuriated Grace, really, that this girl claimed to love Adam and yet could not see that there was something terribly wrong. Were she a little more observant, Sarah was in a position to solicit an audience with Adam. But she never thought to.