Chapter 10
Day three of their journey dawned cold and wet.
Today they would travel to Reading, a journey of some seventy miles.
Rain lashed against the window, rattling the pane, and Gervaise groaned, wondering at the time.
It was still dark outside, but the storm clouds could be contributing to that impression.
He reached out a hand and groped around the bed before remembering that he had let Caroline take the kittens the night before.
Caroline. What was he actually going to do with her once they reached London? His eyes sprang open at the thought. Was he starting to feel responsible for the woman? Curious. Gervaise’s sense of responsibility had never been particularly strong.
He fulfilled very few roles of obligation. In fact, the only one he could think of was that of godfather to Master Teddy Vance. Even in that capacity, he had only really stepped up his involvement since Lady Faris appeared on the scene and seemed to expect it from him!
Caroline though, would she have any ideas around gainful employment? He rather doubted it. He suspected her schooling, which she had admitted herself was second rate, had not equipped her to hold down much of any kind of job.
Now that he and Uncle George were practically reconciled again, he wondered if he could foist her off on his elderly relative as some kind of secretary? Uncle was notoriously bad at arranging his affairs and could likely use someone to organize him.
Caroline seemed adept at dealing with embarrassing scenes, maintaining discretion at all times, and ruthlessly repressing herself.
When not under the influence of laudanum, that was.
She also seemed eminently practical, he decided, remembering how calmly and sensibly she had greeted him after they had shared a room together that first night.
No die-away maidenly airs had greeted him the next morning, thank God. Then again, uncle’s new bride might object to having another attractive young woman on the premises, and Caroline was attractive though she had no notion how to best present herself to advantage.
Wives tended to have strong feelings on such things, he reflected, remembering how his cousin Louisa had insisted Freddie Holcombe dismiss two pretty parlor maids one after the other in the early days of their marriage.
A tap on the door heralded the arrival of his shaving water, and he closed his eyes, accepting with a sigh that it was time for him to make himself ready for the day.
Half an hour later, he descended the stairs and made his way through to their private parlor.
To his surprise, neither Caroline nor the kittens awaited him there.
“Good morning, your lordship,” the same servant as last night greeted him, entering the room and plunking down both coffee and teapot on the table before him.
“Good morning. Have you seen my companion this morning?”
“Yes, milord. She’s outside with them there kittens of hers.” He shook his head disapprovingly and pursed his lips. “I daresay she will be in directly.”
“As a matter of fact, the kittens are mine,” Gervaise corrected him. “The lady was merely acting as custodian overnight.”
The servant’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that so, milord? I wonder she did not say so when ’Liza rang a peal over her head this morning.”
“What was that?” Gervaise asked sharply, pushing back his chair. “Where is she? Take me to her at once.”
“Eliza?” the servant blurted, wide eyed with dismay.
“No, my wife,” Gervaise snapped. Seeing the appalled look on the servant’s face, he remembered he had hailed Caroline as his cousin the previous night.
Fuck. “My countess has incurred my displeasure,” he said coldly.
“And as such I am not currently acknowledging her. However, it quite another thing for her to be disrespected by anybody else. If she has been upset,” he said softly, “I will be most displeased.”
The servant paled. “R-right away, milord,” he stammered. “If you will just step this way.”
Gervaise followed the stumbling servant through the low timbered corridors and out of the back of the inn.
There in the garden, he found Caroline swathed in her cloak and crouching over some long grass waving a stalk about.
Two paws shot out trying to hook the stalk, at which point she whipped it away, evading them.
Caroline looked up in surprise at the sound of the closing door behind them. Gervaise halted on the path. “You did not come in to breakfast,” he said, sounding stilted to his own ears. “And you will be getting wet out here in the rain.”
Her gaze wandered over the accompanying servant. “Well, I thought it might be best to let the kittens go about their business before I brought them back indoors,” she said, rocking back on her heels. “You see, there was a little accident early this morning which the poor maid had to clean up.”
“I see.” Comprehension dawned. “And the twins have now…answered nature’s call?” he enquired politely.
“They have.”
“Well, in that case,” he said, holding out an imperious hand. “Let us go now and take our breakfast.”
Caroline straightened up, plunking Romulus into his outstretched fingers.
Of course, she did not know he had claimed her as his wife this morning.
Still, her refusal to take his hand annoyed him out of all proportion.
His fingers closed over the kitten and he held out his other hand for Remus.
She handed him over with a look of faint surprise and he turned on his heel, leading the way back inside and expecting her to follow.
Behind him he could hear the male servant making an awkward apology and promising to tell the staff that the kittens were not her charges but the earl’s. The unfortunate man grew even more incomprehensive as Caroline tried to assure him they had done naught amiss and that she had taken no offense.
“Don’t do that anymore,” Gervaise said autocratically as they entered their private parlor, and the servant disappeared to fetch their food. Abruptly, he stooped to place the kittens on the floor.
She cast him a bewildered look as he pulled the seat out for her. “Do what?” she asked, dropping down into the chair.
“Accept shoddy treatment from others. I know you have no yardstick for such things, but in future if you know I would not tolerate something, then I expect you to refuse it also.”
She blinked at him. “I—” She took a deep breath. “My lord, perhaps you are unaware, but you are abominably high in the instep. If I started suddenly acting like an earl I would appear quite ridiculous.”
“No, merely a countess,” he corrected her in a bland voice.
“Perhaps you have forgotten, but at this establishment we introduced ourselves—”
“I did forget,” he interrupted her. “This morning I called you my wife, so I have told them we are currently at odds and that is why I forced you to sleep in inferior accommodation last night.”
She stared at him. “But what a silly mistake to make!” she said, then blushed. “Oh, excuse me, my lord.”
“No apology necessary. It is quite excusable for my lady wife to take me to task,” he answered swiftly but she was not paying attention.
“They must think you most peculiar!” she tutted, shaking out her napkin. “Making your wife sleep in an attic, indeed!”
“Not really,” he answered blandly. “My father once made his wife sit at table with his mistress and that was just one of the minor indignities he subjected her to.”
“Well, no wonder they were estranged!” she retorted, then bit her lip. “Forgive me, I am quite forgetting myself this morning.”
“I’ve already told you. I would rather have you impertinent than cowed.”
She looked up swiftly. “Cowed?” she echoed. “I most certainly am not—”
The door creaked open and the servant from earlier entered the room carrying a breakfast tray.
In his wake trailed a miserable-looking maid, twisting her hands together.
“Your breakfast, milord, milady,” he announced, placing it down on the tabletop.
“And Eliza here has something to say to her ladyship.”
Eliza bobbed into a deep curtsey. “I most humbly apologize for the chastising of you this morning, milady,” she said carefully. “You see, at the time I thought you was nothing but a common companion.”
Caroline cleared her throat. “I quite understand the misconception, Eliza, and I’m afraid that the fault lies with his lordship entirely.
If he had not been ‘in a pet with me,’ then I should not have been confined to such secondary quarters at all.
” She shot a haughty look across the table, and Gervaise found his bad mood miraculously dissipating.
“I hope you will excuse my husband’s eccentricities, as I am forced to. ”
Eliza turned a confused look in her fellow servant’s direction. “Yes, milady.” She faltered. “Very good, milady.”
Gervaise nodded and the servants hurried out, almost falling over one another in their haste to be excused.
“Well, they certainly will not forget us in a hurry,” Caroline said grimly as she helped herself to toast. “I only hope it may not come back to inconvenience you some time in the future!”
He shrugged. “I don’t see why it should,” he said optimistically.
“You never know!” Caroline said darkly. “Sometimes these things come back to haunt you.”
“For example?” he asked, watching her covertly.
“Well, one time at school I made a casual boast to Cynthia Jarrow—”
“Ah, the distinguished Cynthia Jarrow, head girl of Hamberleigh,” he murmured.
“Yes, her. It was in the days before Mama had poisoned her against me, you understand? I told her that I had experience with oil pants, secure in the knowledge that we only ever did sketching and watercolors in class. Then the very next term, what do you supposed was introduced to the curriculum?”
“Oil painting?” he hazarded with lurking amusement.
“I was horrified and looked like the biggest fool in Christendom.”
“Nonsense, just because you had experience, does not ensure it was a good experience.”
She paused, butter knife in hand. “I never thought of that,” she admitted.
“I am very good at thinking up ways to extricate myself from awkward situations,” he admitted. “I consider it quite beneath my dignity to ever look foolish.” She snorted.
“What?” he asked, drawing a dish of devilled kidneys closer.
“Have you no idea how you must have appeared mere moments ago when you announced that I was your wife and you had banished me from your bedchamber in a sulk?”
He could not prevent his smile. “I assure you; he was too busy wondering how to make reparation to find my behavior in any way ridiculous.”
“Maybe in the heat of the moment,” she agreed, “but in the retelling, and I assure you the tale will be rehashed in the kitchens, you will be thoroughly lambasted.”
“Lambasted for a despotic husband, maybe, but not for a figure of mockery.”
“I think you will find over time it will become both,” she insisted.
“But by then, I will be long gone,” he pointed out. “Faded into the annals of The Red Lion’s ancient history.”
“Perhaps,” she conceded thoughtfully. “Let us hope that none of them remember your family name by that point,” she added dryly. “For your sake!”