Chapter Fourteen #4
She took a breath and continued. “And another thing… Once I am a duchess, assuming it happens, everyone in the ton will be tripping over themselves to make my acquaintance and curry my favor. They wouldn’t care if I married a goat, a real live goat that bleats and butts and gives milk.
That goat and I would still be invited to all the balls and social affairs held within the London Season. ”
“So, I am to be a bleating goat?” he said with mild humor.
“Oh, Gideon. You know what I mean.”
“Yes, love. I do.”
“If you care for me, you have to fight for me, because I will be fighting so very hard for you. And you should hope I will be that duchess, because no one will ever dare look down upon you for fear of angering me, a powerful duchess. Broadingham is a massive estate. Inheriting it would allow me to take in two hundred orphans with ease. But I am not likely to inherit it, so you must stop making a fuss about it.” She started to cry again, not caring she was turning into a watering pot.
“Why haven’t your men returned yet? Do you think something has happened to Lord Berwick?
Oh, heavens! Someone must get word to Lady Berwick.
She sprained her ankle and did not join us this evening.
What am I to tell her? She’ll be frantic with worry if he does not return home soon. Help me up. We must find him.”
“Berry, lie still.” He held her down gently when she tried to get to her feet.
“Oh, the bed is lurching. It feels like a boat upon a stormy sea.”
“The bed is firmly anchored. It is your head that is reeling.”
She tried to get up again, but that only made her want to cast up her accounts, which irritated her because she did not think there was anything left in her stomach to purge. Apparently, she was wrong.
There was more.
Gideon quickly moved the chamber pot in front of her, and then held her until the last of it came out and she had no more left in her.
She fell back onto the bed with a moan. “Where’s Lord Berwick? He should have been brought here by now.”
Gideon dabbed her lips with a damp handkerchief. “Joss and Pudge will give me a full report the moment they return. If Lord Berwick is injured, they will bring him here, and Dr. Farthingale will tend to both of you. If he was spared injury, then they might be escorting him home as we speak.”
“No, he would never leave before seeing that I am all right. Why are they taking so long?”
“It’s only been a few minutes, Berry.”
“It feels like an eternity.”
“Because you are worried about him. But fretting does you no good. It is also possible they are waiting for the magistrate’s men to arrive and arrest Hawthorne and the idiot friends he enlisted to assist in your abduction.
They won’t get away with it. Hawthorne has no privileges of rank.
His is only a courtesy title. And I doubt his family will come forward to rescue him from this mess of his own creation. ”
She cried again because her head really hurt. And so did her arm and knees.
“Berry, will you allow me to look at your knees? And your arm. I can at least clean out the scrapes until Dr. Farthingale arrives.”
She was in his bed. Had thrown up in his arms.
And they had admitted their love for each other.
“Yes, do whatever you need to do. All of me is yours.”
Someone knocked at the door as he was about to raise the hem of her gown. Gideon left her side and went to answer it. “Horace, thank goodness you’re finally back,” he said, dragging the young man in. “I need your help. Berry, this is my valet, Horace.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” she mumbled into her pillow. “Do forgive me if I don’t get up.”
“Oh my.” Horace set aside the cider and biscuits he had brought in and stood over the bed to stare down at her.
“I’ll bring up a fresh chamber pot and find a change of clothes for you, Lady Berry.
You cannot stay in that gown a moment longer, even though it is quite exquisite.
Is it one of Madam de Bressard’s designs? ”
She nodded. “How did you know?”
“It fits you to perfection. She’s the best modiste in London. I’ve brought you this cider, should you be thirsty, and some biscuits to calm your stomach. The club is mad packed tonight and everyone is dashing about like chickens without their heads.”
Horace turned to Gideon. “Reggie’s trying to handle the crowd at the door until Pudge returns. And Michael’s walking the gaming floor handling his tasks and Joss’s. The patrons are asking for you. What should I tell them? Will you make an appearance and mollify them?”
“No appearance tonight. Just tell them that I’m here but too busy to come down again tonight. They know I’m around because they saw me earlier, so no need to make up a story. Keep it simple.”
“Yes, Mr. Knight,” he said, and scurried out.
Once they were alone again, Gideon sat at the edge of the bed and raised Berry’s gown to her thighs. “Both knees are badly scraped, love.”
He left her side a moment to fetch a handkerchief from his bureau, since he’d probably run out of clean cloths to use.
He then brought it over along with a bottle of brandy.
The mattress dipped as he settled on it.
“This will sting,” he warned, pouring the brandy onto the handkerchief and then applying it gently to her right knee and then her left.
She had never experienced so much pain in her life.
It was not only that the brandy burned as he cleaned the blood from her knees—the burning sensation ran up her body into her head, which was already pounding and ready to crack wide open at any moment.
The stinging sensation of the brandy also revived her nausea. Gideon’s valet had just returned with a fresh chamber pot when she began to heave again.
“Horace, bring it here!” Gideon cried, getting it under her just as she cast up her accounts again.
This had to be the second worst night in her life, the first being when she had learned her parents had died.
No child should ever hear such news. She had never been so scared, only eight years old and suddenly alone in the world.
But Lord and Lady Berwick had come quickly to take charge, to take her into their hearts and into their family.
She needed to know that Lord Berwick was all right.
Why hadn’t anyone sent word yet?
She finished heaving and sank back against the pillows, struggling not to cry again.
“Berry,” Gideon said softly, “take a sip of cider.”
“No.” She was afraid to drink or eat because she did not think she could hold anything down yet. Where was Dr. Farthingale? “My head hurts so much.”
“I know, love. Just lie back. The doctor will be here very soon.”
But he sounded worried.
So was she. Not for herself, but for Lord Berwick.
Where was he?
“Gideon, please. Is there something you are not telling me? Why aren’t your men back yet?”