For three consecutive days now, he had come to pay a morning call on Grace. Each morning she had sent her maid with a prettily worded note thanking him for the flowers and concern, but begging him to excuse her for yet one more day of recovery. A note that Becky had, all three times, fearfully handed to him, while the increasingly impertinent Greaves stood by with an annoying smirk of satisfaction. This time Trevor quickly recovered his good humor. He grinned at the door despite his third dismissal. Not for one moment did he believe Grace was really ill. Further, he questioned whether she had ever been sick to begin with. Doubtless she had begun to feel like a caged animal by now, he thought. Cheerfully he waved his carriage away and sauntered around the corner to the side of the house. Upstairs, Grace held her breath as she lay in her bed, the beautifully embroidered satin bedclothes pulled all the way up to her chin. She listened for the heavy thud of male footsteps as she closely watched the door, perfectly certain the infuriating and persistent earl would eventually come upstairs to properly assess the situation for himself.
