Chapter 7
They reached Exeter around eight o’clock that night and pulled into the courtyard of The White Hart. Caroline looked fit to drop by this point and Gervaise had to take a firm hold of her waist as she descended the steps.
“There’s a good girl,” he told her absently, addressing her rather as he had done his old spaniel Flossie and taking her elbow to steer her toward the coaching inn where they were putting up for the night. Her face was chalky white, and he fancied she trembled slightly where he touched her.
“You did not eat enough today,” he commented critically. “And while I admit that breakfast we were presented with was frankly substandard, the luncheon at The George was very good.”
Caroline blanched. “My head is aching fit to split,” she admitted. “I do not think I could eat, even if I wanted to.”
He tutted, for he had suspected as much. Though she had maintained a good facade up until early afternoon, she had clearly started to feel worse as the day progressed. “This way. I’ll find you a quiet spot to sit while I secure our rooms.”
Once across the threshold, however, Gervaise realized this would be no easy task, for the inn seemed unexpectedly busy.
Enquiry revealed that a rival establishment had recently closed, and its patrons had flocked to The White Hart, leaving it oversubscribed.
Though his booking still stood, the landlord informed him there was no chance whatsoever of securing a second bedchamber.
Gervaise turned to contemplate Caroline’s hunched-over form. In truth, she stood in no fit state to protest their sleeping arrangements. Her eyes were closed in pain, and she looked a very unhealthy color. If she did not lie down soon, he had no doubt she would be keeling over.
He turned back to the garrulous landlord. “I’m afraid my good lady wife is suffering badly with travel sickness. Could our room be made ready at once? She requires no supper, only rest.”
“Of course, milord. I’ll have some ginger tea sent up from the kitchen for her,” the landlord promised. “And some cloths soaked in vinegar. They do say it helps.”
“You are very kind,” Gervaise murmured, suppressing the ignoble impulse to refuse the stinky vinegar rags which would no doubt offend his sensitive nose.
“Hie, Jim! Go and fetch his lordship’s trunks in and look sharp about it, do. They’re in the rose room at the top of the stair. Her ladyship looks fit to drop, poor thing.”
Gervaise grimaced. Very likely he too should have used an alias when embarking on this trip. It would be inconvenient if anyone was to learn that Lord Atherton was accompanied by an alleged wife for any leg of his journey.
Still, there was precious little he could do about it now. Miss Halperston could hardly sit up straight at this point, let alone spend the night in a chair, and he certainly was not going to put himself out of the comfort of his own bed after traveling one hundred miles in a jolting coach.
He returned to Caroline’s side, placing a hand on her shoulder. Her eyes flickered open to peer at him, her expression one of abject misery. “Can you stand?” he asked quietly. Instead of answering, she rose warily to her feet, gripping the back of the chair and swaying where she stood.
Gervaise’s gaze flickered to the narrow stairs. There was nothing else for it, he realized with resignation. He was going to have to carry her up there like the hero in one of those ghastly novels Lord and Lady Faris insisted on reading together.
He sighed. “Brace yourself, Caroline,” he recommended and then scooped her up in his arms.
She made a faint moan he did not like the sound of. “If you are sick down my person, I will never forgive you. This coat was expensive,” he warned her, making for the stairs. Her lips moved but he could not make out her words. He was not sure, but he thought she might be fervently praying.
By the time they reached the top of the stairs, she had both hands over her mouth. He hustled her through the door and set her down on the edge of the bed, grabbing a basin off the washstand as she started to heave.
“Here!” He thrust it under her nose, and she clutched at it, retching and vomiting into the bowl.
Gervaise drew out his cigarette case, then thought better of it.
He should likely wait until he was out of her vicinity.
Reluctantly, he dropped it back into his pocket.
Walking over to the door, he threw it open and beckoned to a servant approaching with towels.
“Finished?” he asked Caroline.
“I think so,” she quavered, her cheeks flushed from the exertion but her eyes still dull. “At least, for the moment.”
He took the basin from her and passed it to the maid. “Would you be so kind as to dispose of this,” he said, “And to fetch a carafe of fresh water?”
“Right away, milord,” the obliging woman said, bobbing a curtsey. As soon as she disappeared, Jim took her place in the doorway carrying Gervaise’s monogrammed luggage. He held up Caroline’s carpet bag with a doubtful expression on his face.
“Would this article happen to belong to your lordship as well?” he asked uncertainly. “Only it don’t look like the rest of ’em but the coachman insisted.”
His curious gaze switched to Caroline, miserably hunched over on the bed, her handkerchief pressed to her mouth. “Yes, I’ll take that from you,” Gervaise answered, taking the bag and swiftly producing a tip. Jim perked right up and made himself scarce.
Gervaise carried her bag over to the bed and set it down on the mattress next to where she was slumped.
“We’re going to have to share this room tonight, I’m afraid.
This inn is lamentably short of beds. I’ll leave you to wash and get under the covers.
I mean to take a good supper and a smoke before I retire, so I daresay you’ll be fast asleep when I return. ”
Before she could make reply, a large woman, presumably their landlady, bustled into the room bearing a tray with a teapot, cup, and saucer.
“You poorly thing!” she exclaimed, coming straight to Caroline’s side and tutting.
“Soon as Dawkins said to me, ‘Martha, a lady has need of your ginger tea,’ I knew how it would be! He was talking daft about the vinegar rags though. They only help when you’re actually in motion. ”
She set down her tray and turned about to look Gervaise up and down.
“Don’t you worry, milord, I’ll see her ladyship is settled nicely, just you see if I don’t!
” She picked up one of Caroline’s limp hands and chafed it between her own.
“You need a wash and a brush up and then straight into bed with you! Lord knows, I don’t like to see such pallor on a body! ”
“She looks marginally better than she did,” Gervaise observed truthfully. “Her head has been paining her these past three hours.”
The good lady nodded, lowering her voice.
“My poor father used to suffer bad heads something awful! ‘Martha,’ he would say, ‘I hope you never know how I suffer,’ and I never have. I know how to treat them though, on account of him. She needs to lie quietly in a darkened room. I’ll draw the curtains and help her into her nightdress.
Polly can light the fire, and we’ll get her comfortable, don’t you fret, milord. ”
Gervaise nodded, and the maid from earlier appeared in the doorway carrying the cleaned basin and a jug of steaming water.
“I should—er—not wish to disturb her ladyship when I come up later,” he said, addressing the landlady in low tones. “Perhaps you have such a thing as a long pillow we could set down the middle of the bed between us?”
Her eyes widened. “Now, that’s what I like to hear of, a nice, considerate husband, and you a lord too!
” she marveled. “Polly,” she said, turning to the maid who was restocking the washstand with towels and fresh soap.
“Fetch two of those bolsters down from the top of the wardrobe and set them on the bed.”
“Yes, Mrs. Dawkins.”
“Now, milord,” she said, turning back to Gervaise.
“You had better get down to your private parlor. There’s roast duck and peas waiting for you and you don’t want it to spoil your supper.
I promise you; we’ll see your good lady wife comfortable for the night.
” Gervaise spared Caroline one final look and then left her to their tender ministrations.
He enjoyed an excellent dinner. After the roasted duck, he ate a fine steamed pudding covered in thick treacle followed by a pot of strong coffee.
The food was good and plentiful and the private parlor comfortable with its roaring fire.
After his meal, he smoked two cigarettes and drank a glass of brandy.
Only then did his thoughts turn to his bed and the inhabitant currently lying in it.
Hopefully, she would be soundly sleeping by this point.
He was not keen on maidenly displays of virtue, and if Miss Halperston felt herself imposed upon, then she could come downstairs and sleep on a hard bench next to the other travelers unable to secure a bed.
He most certainly would not be! He could hear one of them snoring from across the corridor.
Getting up from his chair, he crossed to the window and looked out at the icy courtyard.
The moon was waxing gibbous. He watched one of the grooms cross to the stables with a jug of beer.
Very likely they would be playing a round of cards out there, he reflected, breathing smoke out of his nostrils.
Discarding the last of his cigarette into the dwindling fireplace, he decided he would go and join them for a hand or two.
*
Caroline woke in the early hours of the morning and lay very still trying to determine if her head was still throbbing.
When a tentative turn of her neck resulted in neither a blinding flash of pain nor the impairment of her vision, she started to feel cautiously optimistic.
Lifting her head from the pillow, she surveyed the darkened room about her but could make out very little in the murky morning light.
The previous evening was a mere blur. She had vague recollections of a kindly older woman helping her with her buttons and easing her nightgown over her head. Oh, and a maid who had helped her brush her teeth and to take down her hair.
Suddenly, she remembered being extremely unwell and Lord Atherton producing a bowl for her to vomit into.
She groaned faintly. Was the man to bear witness to every lowering moment of her life?
Was preserving the merest scrap of dignity around him really too much to ask? Apparently so, she reflected glumly.
She wondered what o’clock it was. Around five or six in the morning, she guessed, looking at the gray light streaming through the window.
Probably closer to five as she could hear no servants moving about to begin their day as yet.
They would surely start early in a busy coaching inn such as this one.
Vague memories of just how crowded it had been last night flitted through her mind.
Had Lord Atherton really been forced to carry her up a flight of stairs for the second time in two days?
Warmth crept into her cheeks. Really, it seemed she was destined to make a fool of herself whenever he was around!
A rustling sound startled her, and she realized she was not the sole occupant of the bed. Caroline held her breath as her thoughts raced. It was not wholly unexpected, she told herself. You sometimes did have to share quarters at these places.
Once when the snow had been very bad one January, she and Edgar had been forced to put up at an inn overnight, and she had spent a night sleeping in a bed with two giggling farmer’s daughters, while poor Edgar had to share with Lake.
She had had the better bargain, for Edgar had complained the next morning that Lake had been extremely flatulent.
The only reason she now suffered the smallest frisson of fear was the ridiculous possibility that Lord Atherton’s intentions might not be altogether honorable toward her.
Laughable really, Caroline told herself firmly.
She might be fleeing the protection of her family, but she was no tender maiden ripe for the plucking.
Seduction must be the furthest thing from his mind after seeing her conduct the past two days, she reflected wryly.
First, she had acted in a wholly bizarre and most improper fashion in front of him, and then she had been violently unwell.
Just one of these two shocking incidents would be enough to give a sensible man a lively disgust of her, let alone two!
Even in her Sunday best, Caroline had no illusions that she had impressed him with her person.
He had not even danced with her last Christmas when she had been wearing a new gown with her hair nicely arranged with ribbons and everything.
Instead, she had been forced to insist he whirled her about the terrace on a bitter night in March.
No, she knew she had nothing to fear when it came to Lord Atherton turning amorous.
She was merely being silly. At this point someone flung out an arm and gave a masculine grunt.
Caroline blinked in the darkness. It could still be the stout older lady, she told herself uneasily.
After all, it was hard to grunt in a ladylike fashion.
Then a dark shape stretched out on the coverlet and gave a faint meow. The arm moved again, and the cat started loudly to purr in tandem. Could it possibly be two cats? she wondered in amazement. Maybe she was sharing the landlady’s private bedchamber, and they were her pets, she reasoned.
At this point, the moon drifted outside the window, sending a shaft of light across the bed. Caroline’s supposing’s ground to a screeching halt as her disbelieving eyes fell upon Lord Atherton’s sleeping profile outlined in moonlight.