Saving Grace (The Grace Series Book 2) by Elizabeth Courtright Page B

up at Margaret’s portrait above his fireplace. The bottle of whiskey dangling from his fingertips was almost empty. Last year his tears fell, but this year they did not. This year his grief was coupled with an overwhelming sense of guilt. Out loud he said, “I’m sorry, Meggie. I won’t forget you. I swear I won’t.”
    When Sebastian heard the knock on his front door, he ignored it, assuming it was clatter generated by the wind and rain. The second time he heard it he sat up and set the whiskey bottle on the end table. It was late and dark. There was no reason for someone to be calling, especially in this weather. Wobbling slightly, he went to the door and swung it wide.
    In an attempt to rectify his bleary focus, he briefly squeezed his eyes shut. It took another moment for him to finally recognize the drenched young woman on his stoop. “Stephanie Dunn? What on earth? Come in out of the rain!”
    Although lighting in the foyer was dim, Sebastian could see enough to know she was not well. She lowered the hood of her cloak to reveal her flowing, pale hair, the only part of her that wasn’t soaked, and she said, “Reverend, I hope you don’t mind I’ve come here. I’ve run away from home. My father is so mean I just couldn’t stay there another minute. I didn’t know where else to go.”
    “Did you walk all the way here?” Sebastian tried to control his reeling head by fixing his focus on the face of this delicately beautiful girl. Her eyes were like shimmering crystals, shyly staring at him. When she nodded, he said, “First things first. You need to get out of those wet clothes. While you change I’ll make us some coffee and we can talk. Okay?”
    “But Reverend, I have nothing to change into,” she said.
    Run away, indeed! Perhaps he was pathetically inebriated, but at least he still had enough wherewithal to notice she wasn’t carrying a satchel. There was no question in his mind, she’d come here because of her infatuation with him. Her pretty white teeth began to chatter. “Come upstairs with me,” he said. “You can borrow my robe. It’s not the most appropriate thing, but it will have to do. I don’t really have anything else to offer.”
    He led her to his bedroom and handed her his burgundy, cotton dressing gown. From his dresser he retrieved a pair of thick wool socks. His next chore was to add kindling to the dying fire.
    “You can spread your clothes by the fireplace here so they dry faster. I’ll meet you downstairs in the parlor,” he told her, then left her alone, closing the bedroom door quietly behind him.
    He was sitting on the sofa, sipping coffee and willing his head to clear when she appeared. She was tall for a woman, but the robe was still too large for her. Its hem swirled around her shapely bare feet as it slithered across the floor. The belt was tied tightly around her tiny waist, revealing the hourglass shape of her slender figure. She looked like an exquisite angel, slowly drifting toward him.
    Hoping his words weren’t too terribly slurred, he said, “Come in. Have a seat. Tell me why you’re so upset you ventured out in this awful weather.”
    Stephanie didn’t sit in the chair across from him. She sat right beside him on the sofa, so close the spread of the robe draped over his foot, and the honey scent of her perfume overwhelmed his nose. He tried to listen attentively as she complained about her father’s many restrictions, but he forgot what she said almost as soon as she said it.
    “He won’t even let me come to church anymore,” she carried on. “I miss you, Reverend. And he wants me to—” Tears gathered in her gemstone eyes.
    “He wants you to…?” Sebastian prompted.
    “Oh, I don’t want to trouble you with all of this. I don’t know what else to do. Reverend, Daddy wants me to marry Thomas Digby. But I can’t marry him. He’s so old. I told Daddy I want to marry someone younger. Someone like you.” She paused briefly and put her long,