Grace Seymour Steals a Heart

  Aydra Richards

  Copyright © 2026 Aydra Richards

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  No generative AI was used in the creation of this book. The author explicitly prohibits the use of this book, in full or in part, for the purpose of training AI.

  To my beautiful baby princess kittygirls, Penny and Trixie.

  I love you so much, but only hobbits get second breakfast.

  Being cats, you’ll have to make do with one.

  (But I’ll still keep slipping you treats when Daddy isn’t looking.)

  Books by Aydra

  Series One – His

  His Favorite Mistake

  His Reluctant Lady

  His Forgotten Bride

  His Improper Proposal

  Series Two – Unconventional Ladies

  The Scandal of the Season

  My Darling Mr. Darling

  A Duke in Disguise

  Series Three – Ambrosia

  The Lady Unmasked

  My Deceitful Duchess

  The Marquess Wins a Wife

  Series Four – The Beaumonts

  Exit, Pursued by a Baron

  Lady Diana’s Lost Lord

  The Spy Who Loved Her

  A Deal with a Notorious Devil

  Series Five – Scandalous Sisters

  Mercy Fletcher Meets Her Match

  Charity Nightingale Heals Her Husband

  Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul

  Grace Seymour Steals a Heart

  Contemporary — as Anthea Reiling

  Still Mine

  Novellas

  Christmas with the Viscount

  Holiday at Hawthorne Cottage

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Books by Aydra

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Epilogue

  Author’s Notes

  Chapter One

  London, England

  April, 1840

  I recognize that arse,” Henry Marsden growled as he shot out of his chair. His knee jogged the leg of the table in his haste to stand, and the dishes arranged across the surface jumped and clattered at the sharp strike, tea cakes and tiny finger sandwiches toppling from their tidy piles.

  His mother pitched forward to grab at a precious crystal sugar bowl before it could topple from the table onto the grass below. She craned her neck around, striving to follow his gaze, features contorted with lines of worry as she inquired in the thin, whispery voice to which he had long become accustomed, “Is...is aught amiss?”

  “It’s the Seymour girl,” Henry said as he laid his napkin down with a sharp thwack. “She’s in the damned garden again.”

  Mother’s shoulders drooped from their tight pinch in abject relief. “Leave it alone,” she advised softly. “Like as not, she’s only after her cat. It’s taken a fancy to our garden.”

  “She’s hanging halfway through the stillroom window, Mother!” Henry’s fingers itched to throttle the obnoxious chit, just as they had the last several times he’d caught her snooping about the house. The damned woman hadn’t the sense God gave a cabbage, nor so much as an ounce of discretion besides.

  “Leave it,” Mother pleaded again, stretching one hand across the table toward him. “Please, Henry, I really must speak with you. It’s important.”

  She’d said as much half an hour ago, and still she’d hemmed and hawed over the ritual of tea, no matter how he’d pressed her. A man could consume only so many finger sandwiches at a time. He’d hit his limit ten minutes ago, and still Mother had not managed to get out whatever it was she’d meant to say. “Later,” he said, unable to keep the impatience from inflecting his voice. “When you’re truly of a mind to talk.” And she hadn’t been—not for nearly a year now. Not since Father had died.

  “Henry!” Mother’s voice warbled, high and plaintive.

  Whatever it was she’d meant to say would keep. The insufferable hoyden who was presently hanging waist-deep through the stillroom window would not.

  There was a snap in his step as he stalked across the lawn. It wasn’t deliberate so much as it was an instinctual reaction whenever Miss Seymour chanced to disturb his peace. Which was often, considering that she lived in the grand house just on the opposite side of the street, though she did not, as a general rule, stay within it as a lady properly should.

  But then, he supposed, Grace Seymour was not a lady. Not in the literal sense; not even in the technical sense. She was, as he understood it, the half-sister of the duke’s wife—a woman who was scandalous in her own right, since she had once been a courtesan of some renown, and had not quite managed to escape her notorious reputation despite her elevation in rank.

  It hadn’t stopped the duchess, however, from enjoying some manner of welcome within a certain echelon of the Ton. There were other sisters who had married well—one to a baron; one to a financier who had made his home and fortune in Brighton. Friendships she’d forged with wealthy families—the Beaumonts and the Toogoods. And the Toogoods were so damned prolific that the family’s events could have carried the whole of the Season all on their own.

  Miss Grace Seymour might find the best of homes closed to her, owing to the shabbiness of her origins and the myriad scandals which the sisters as a whole had collected—as some ladies might have collected precious figurines to place upon a shelf—and still Henry had seen her at far more Ton events than a woman of her origins had any right to expect to be invited to.

  Still, that familial connection to a duke, a baron, and one of the wealthiest men in England besides meant that a not-insignificant portion of the aristocracy could not afford to slight her, which might carry with it the risk of alienating her powerful—and extensive—family. She stood a halfway decent chance of making a rather good marriage for herself, supposing she could find a man willing to take to wife a woman who spent an inordinate amount of her time chasing after her demonic, ill-behaved feline.

  Supposing a man existed who was willing to look past her predilection for trespassing onto private property, housebreaking, and whatever other criminal proclivities to which she might be inclined.

  The gossips of the Ton whispered that she’d spent a year in prison at some point in the past. That her mother was a bigamist and a fraud who had been transported years ago. That nobody knew who her father was—not even Miss Seymour herself. Gossip being what it was, it would be impossible to say whether or not those rumors held any truth.

  But it would not have surprised him if they did.

  Probably she had not expected anyone to be dining in the garden today. And to her credit, she had mostly been hidden from view behind a meticulously-pruned topiary. But he’d have recognized that upturned bum anywhere.

  Unfortunately, Miss Seymour had a damned fine arse.

  And it was, presently, hanging out the narrow window set just above the ground to let some manner of natural light into the stillroom within the basement. She’d had to lay down flat on her belly to manage it, and her restless wriggling had shimmied the pink skirt of her day dress up past her knees, baring a good deal more skin than any other woman of his acquaintance would have ever dared.

  Christ, he could see her garters tied just above her knees. Frilly blue ribbon holding up blush-pink silk stockings. And just above them—soft, peachy skin. Was she even wearing drawers?

  By God, he wasn’t going to look.

  That magnificent arse wiggled again. He heard her voice at last; strident, annoyed, faintly muffled through the panes of glass on either side of the window she’d crawled through. “Tansy, you naughty girl. Come here right now!”

  Henry cleared his throat and, with some effort, tore his gaze away from her bum. “Miss Seymour,” he said. “I’d say it’s a pleasure to see you, but I’d be lying.”

  A sharp gasp. Her whole body jerked, her toes pointing, scraping the polished surface of her half-boots against the rough stone of the terrace. “Lord Lockhart,” she said, glumly. “What are you doing here?”

  The temerity! “In my own damned garden? Taking tea with my mother.” Someone should have spanked the incorrigible woman more oft
en in childhood. A tempting thought even now, with that lush arse just an outstretched hand away—no, goddammit. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, halfway through my stillroom window?”

  A restive little wiggle. He could see the muscles in her calves flexing through the thin silk of her stockings. “It’s Tansy,” she said. “She crawled in. I was trying to get her out.”

  “And you thought it a sensible idea to crawl in after her?”

  Through the misty glass at either side, he thought he saw a wild gesticulation of her arms. “The last time you caught sight of her, you said you’d have your valet shave her bald!”

  Ah. Well. That was because the last time the blasted cat had intruded, she’d found entry to the house somewhere and had been caught sleeping on the clothing his valet had laid out for some evening event or other. She’d left a great deal of fluffy grey fur all across the front of his favorite coat in the process, and it had taken over an hour for his valet to brush it clean.

  Henry pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose and drew in a swift breath that failed to soothe his burgeoning irritation. “How many times do I have to tell you to keep your damned cat—and yourself—out of my bloody garden?”

  “Well, if you hadn’t planted catmint in your garden, I might find it an easier task!” Another frenetic wiggle. “Tansy, sweetheart, please.” Her voice pitched upward to a saccharine, pleading tone. “I won’t let the mean earl shave you, I promise.”

  The mean earl. All because he didn’t want Miss Seymour’s wretched cat on his property! “I haven’t planted catmint, and would you get out of my damned window!”

  “You certainly have. It’s the purple flowers.” Her toes pointed again, boots futilely seeking purchase upon the stone beneath her. There was a long pause; a thick, heavy silence that drew out interminably. And then, at last: “Oh, no.”

  No. No oh, no. “Don’t you dare tell me—”

  “I seem to be stuck.”

  “You seem to be stuck.” His dry, acerbic tone could have scored glass.

  She rubbed one ankle against the other, a motion which only served to lift the hem of her dress higher still and threatened to loose the ribbon of one of her garters besides. “Lord Lockhart, might I prevail upon you—”

  “No!”

  A muffled sound of irritation. “Well, then, you’ll have to fetch a footman. I can’t get out on my own.”

  God. A footman! He couldn’t risk summoning a member of the staff. Servants talked, and this—this was too choice a bit of gossip to expect to keep quiet. Henry had been the subject of enough gossip throughout his life; the very last thing he needed was to hear his name whispered in connection with Miss Seymour’s.

  He was going to have to pull her free himself after all.

  With a sigh of exasperation, Henry dropped to his knees, his fingers flexing at his sides. Where to begin? Her legs were practically bare, but for those thin silk stockings. The ankles, then—at least those were properly covered by the leather of her half-boots. He wrapped his hands about her ankles and gave a firm tug.

  Miss Seymour came sliding out of the window at last, though by the sound of delicate fabric scraping against the stone, not entirely unscathed. A wealth of blond hair spilled about her, clearly wrenched free of its pins at some point during her latest misadventure. With a sigh of relief, she pushed herself over, scraping her hair out of her face as she sat up.

  She ought to have been grateful. Instead she flashed him a cross expression as her hand flashed out and seized a stalk of something from the flowerbed nearest the window. A faint minty aroma assailed his nose as she tossed it at his chest. “There,” she said primly. “Purple flowers means catmint. It’s known to repel pests.”

  Clearly it had not worked on her.

  A yowl drifted up from the stillroom window.

  “Tansy!” she gasped, and turned round once more, no doubt intending to plunge straight back into the stillroom window.

  “Don’t you dare,” Henry snapped. Bracing one hand upon the wall, he peered through the stillroom window. From below, perched upon a high shelf, a massive grey beast of a cat stared back up at him with poisonous green eyes that were rather eerily similar to her mistress’. A guttural growl coiled in the cat’s throat, and she laid back her ears and hissed.

  Bloody bad-tempered feline.

  “She’s too far away to reach,” Miss Seymour said fretfully. “I tried. Might I—”

  “No, you are not going into my house unaccompanied to fetch your damned cat.” That she’d even asked was a testament to how little she cared for generally-accepted standards of behavior. “You shouldn’t even be in my garden, as well you know! And I had better not—bloody hell.” Henry slammed himself back against the wall as the cat hunched down and coiled itself to spring. He’d barely made it clear of the window when a solid stone’s worth of feline came springing through it, landing almost elegantly in Miss Seymour’s lap.

  “Tansy! Oh, my sweet girl.” Miss Seymour staggered to her feet, holding the massive cat aloft in her arms. She cradled the beast to her ample bosom and buried her face in the fluffy grey fur.

  The irascible creature began to produce some sort of dreadful racket from deep within its chest, and its sour green eyes focused upon him. “What the devil is that godawful sound? Is it going to be ill?”

  Miss Seymour lifted her head, fixing him with a quizzical stare. “She’s purring,” she said.

  Good God. “You cannot mean to suggest that that horrible creature makes that sound on purpose.”

  “Only when she’s happy. And she’s not a horrible creature; she’s my precious little—”

  “Little! That beast weighs at least a stone. I’ve seen smaller dogs!”

  Woman and cat glared at him in unison, two sets of vibrant green eyes locked upon him in mutual dislike. “She’s a darling old girl,” Miss Seymour said, and Henry suspected they both could have happily torn him to tatters in that moment. The cat with the swift application of her claws, and the woman with the sharp flay of her tongue. “And it’s not her fault you keep luring her out of her comfortable home with your catmint.”

  Henry bit down upon the inside of his cheek, which was really rather valiant of him, when he’d quite a lot of foul words straining to get loose. “Miss Seymour,” he said in a clipped voice. “I’ll thank you to remove yourself and your damned cat from my property at once.”

  With an offended sniff, Miss Seymour hefted the cat in her arms and whirled about, making for the gate. “Come, Tansy. We’re going home.” That blond hair swished as she sashayed away, the ends of it twitching over her lush bottom. Plump and soft, the sort of delectable arse a man could sink his fingers into—

  That wretched sound Miss Seymour had claimed to be a purr deepened into what was undeniably a growl. The cat loomed over her shoulder, large green eyes narrowed to slits. The flex of its colossal paws revealed claws which looked to be honed to a razor’s edge. A threat, he thought, of future retribution for having so summarily ejected her mistress while having the audacity to enjoy the view as she left.

  One way or another, those two were bound to be the death of him.

  Chapter Two

  Sherry! Sherry, you get back here this instant!”

  The masculine shout had originated from somewhere downstairs, Grace thought. It was not a particularly unusual occurrence; little Sherborne had been making a right nuisance of himself since he’d arrived—with his parents and older sister—from the countryside the week before.

  Grace cleared her throat, striving to keep herself as still as possible to avoid disturbing the various lengths of fabric that her sister had draped over her. “Mercy?”

  “Hm?” Mercy muttered as she plucked a pencil from where it had been tucked behind her ear and scribbled something down in the notebook held in her hands.

  It had never ceased to amaze Grace how thoroughly Mercy could blot out even the loudest and most obvious of distractions. “Sherry’s into some mischief. Oughtn’t you do something about that?

  “It’ll sort itself out. Probably.” Another furious scribble.

  Grace choked on a laugh. “He’s your son!”

  “When I’m working, he is Thomas’ son, and Thomas is perfectly capable—”