Chapter 23 #2
He gave a choked laugh. “How very imprudent of you!” The laughter quickly faded from his eyes, though the smile remained as he asked silkily, “And just who were you telling these tall tales?” His eyelids drooped, masking his expression. “That artist, Bailey?”
“No, I was not trying to impress him,” she answered. “It was Effie and Violet. They seemed to think I made a rather poor jezebel, so I was trying to redeem myself in their eyes.”
“A poor…?” Gervaise looked rather startled.
“I fear they think I am not glamorous enough to be your harlot,” she admitted. “They can’t seem to understand what you see in me.”
“What I see in you,” he said thoughtfully, stroking his jaw with his thumb. Then abruptly asked, “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“No, of course not.” She sat patiently while he lit a cigarette.
“What do you say to our paying the good canon a visit sometime soon?” he asked casually, blowing out a plume of smoke.
“You mean Canon Petrie?” Caroline asked, straightening in surprise.
“Yes, I still have his card with his address in Shoreditch.”
“Well, he was a very sweet man,” Caroline answered cautiously. “But might that not prove a little…”
“A little what?”
“Well, awkward? I know he was thankfully too vague to ask after the precise nature of our acquaintance, but I don’t know how long we could count on his lack of curiosity. He might have to introduce us to his slipshod housekeeper and then what would we say?”
“Was she slipshod?” He gave his head a quick shake. “No, don’t tell me. I wish to stick to the matter at hand.”
“Which is?”
“Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “precisely this issue. We two have stumbled into some undefined area, and I think we should make the effort to clear things up.”
Caroline regarded him in some puzzlement. “I don’t think I follow your meaning at all. What is undefined?”
“You said it yourself, the precise nature of our relationship.”
Her frown cleared. “But there is no confusion about that at all! I am your mistress.”
Gervaise regarded her silently for a moment and Caroline felt her nerve unravel slightly. Had he changed his mind? Did he no longer…?
“You are being deliberately obtuse, my dear Miss Halperston,” he said testily. “There most certainly is confusion,” he insisted. “A good deal of it abounds.”
“With whom?” she asked in confusion.
“My uncle for one. And his staff.”
“Oh, well…” She cleared her throat. “In truth they scarcely got a good look at me, Gervaise. I am quite sure that if you passed it off as some little joke, it would not take too much effort on your behalf to persuade them that no such marriage exists.”
Gervaise drew himself up. “An earl does not make jokes about the matter of his countess,” he replied coldly. “There is also the matter of The Red Lion inn. Do you pretend to forget I identified you there as my wife?”
She gazed at him blankly. “Gervaise, do you expect me to believe that gentlemen do not travel at times with questionable companions they identify as their wives for convenience’s sake? For I tell you now, I will not believe it. I may have led a sheltered life, but I am not a fool.”
“Questionable companions?” he repeated, sounding irritated. “Is that really how you wish to view yourself?”
“Why not? I am not offended by the term in the least.”
“Well, I am offended!”
“Why?” she asked pointedly.
“Because,” he replied, “it is an affront to both my dignity and reputation.”
She snorted. “And in any case, how would you ‘clear things up’ or even want to? I am at a complete loss to understand you!”
“There is only one way to clear things up,” he answered coolly. “And the solution is an entirely obvious one.”
“Oh, yes?” she answered, taking another sip of wine. “What is it?”
“For you to marry me, of course.”
Caroline choked on her mouthful of wine and had to spend the next few seconds coughing and wiping her eyes. “Gervaise…”
“I am talking sense,” Gervaise said sternly. “With a special license, Canon Petrie could marry us quietly in his obscure little church. That way we can clean up your reputation and make our little jaunt together almost entirely respectable.”
“I thought it was your reputation you were concerned about.”
“Caroline…”
“If I was to marry you—” she began hesitantly.
“Yes.”
“You say it would make reparation for our four days on the road?”
“Yes.”
“But what about our arrangement here? Would it make that respectable?”
He gave her a level look. “I think you’ll find such arrangements are permitted and even encouraged within marriage, my dear. They would form part of my conjugal rights.”
“No, I mean my being here at The Citadel,” she persisted doggedly.
“Of course not,” he replied coolly. “Fortunately, everyone knows you here under a false name. We would have to distance you at once from the establishment and pay off anyone whose memory proved inconvenient. Countess Atherton could not possibly have resided in a gin palace. I would have thought that much was obvious.”
Caroline paused and took a deep breath. “And that is why I do not wish to do it,” she said earnestly. “I want to stay. I like it here. It suits me admirably.”
Gervaise stared at her. “Living here suits you?”
“Eminently. I love it. The people, the atmosphere, the building…”
“The people?” he repeated incredulously.
“Yes, the people,” she said, lifting her chin. “Effie, Reg, Gracie, Ralph, Violet, Mr. Bailey, all of them. It’s so colorful here. I feel like I am really seeing something of life!”
“And you feel that marrying me would return you to a colorless existence?” he asked in an expressionless voice.
“Well…” she hesitated. “You just admitted that I would not be permitted within a five mile of The Citadel if I was to marry you.”
“You most assuredly would not, but as my wife other doors would open to you. Doors which are currently shut fast.”
“You mean doors like the one to your uncle’s townhouse,” she answered.
“That would be one of them, yes.”
She fiddled with the stem of her wineglass. “We would make our home with him, I suppose, as a married couple,” she said in a stifled voice.
“As his heir, that would be the expectation,” he acknowledged.
She sent him a fleeting look. “You did not make him sound terribly exciting company,” she said evasively. “And when I met him…well…” Her words trailed off, as it dawned on her she was being somewhat undiplomatic.
Gervaise huffed. “I am to take it you contrast my uncle unfavorably with the likes of Reg, am I?” he asked caustically.
“I like Reg,” she replied staunchly.
“Apparently more than you like me!”
She looked up quickly at this. “No, I never said that! I am not choosing The Citadel over you, for I can have you both, can I not? Like I am currently.”
“This situation,” he said carefully, “is entirely temporary in nature, Caroline. You have known that from the outset. Marriage would be an infinitely more permanent arrangement.”
She took a deep breath. “Yes, but don’t you see? When you get tired of me here, I will have new friends around me. With their help I will be able to carve out some semblance of a life I enjoy.”
“You mean with the four thousand pounds I bestow on you?” he said rather nastily. “It is the money that would sustain you in the event of our parting ways. Something that is nothing to do with any new so-called friends.”
Caroline swallowed. “Yes,” she agreed, forcing herself to remain calm. “The money will help me a good deal to start with. Maybe I could make some investment or purchase some property which would give me security. I could open a boarding house or… Oh, I don’t know. There are lots of things.”
“You could open an eel stand, perhaps?” he suggested sarcastically. “Or sell pea soup along The Strand.”
Caroline shrugged a shoulder. “Mr. Bailey indicated he would gladly hire me to pose for him at his studio,” she muttered, glancing away.
“I’ll just bet he did,” he retorted curtly. “But I think you will find marriage would offer you a good deal more security than the dubious life of an artist’s model.”
“Maybe so,” she agreed, taking a deep breath, “but when you bore of me, as you inevitably will, I would be stuck in your uncle’s townhouse, taking tea with polite society matrons for the rest of my life, quite miserable.
While you swan off to house parties and gambling hells, and whatever and whoever else takes your current fancy!
Do you suppose I could return to such a drab existence after knowing another? ” she appealed.
“You would have your reputation and a title to fall back on, madam,” he pointed out coolly. “No doubt that would cushion the blow.”
“I would rather have the company of true friends and people whose society I actually enjoy,” she answered at once. “I have already spent twenty-seven years of my life surrounded by polite company and I infinitely prefer Effie to the likes of Mrs. Ryland!”
This gave him pause. “It seems,” he said rallying, “I must remind you that, as my wife you would also enjoy the society of my own intimate circle. Do you forget Emmeline and Teddy Vance, so soon, who you once also deemed true friends within my hearing?”
“When I…” She swallowed and began again in a quiet voice. “When I accepted your carte blanche, my lord, I did it in the full realization that it put me quite beyond the pale with respectable folk like the Vances of Vance Park forever. I have already reconciled myself with that fact.”
“It did,” he agreed harshly. “It did put you beyond the pale. But I could drag you back within their sphere if we acted now, at once and without hesitation.”
“By removing me henceforth from The Citadel?” she guessed.
“Yes.”
“Then I must decline, though I am fully sensible of the honor you do me.”
He gave a short, sardonic laugh. “My God. Is this really how my first proposal of marriage is to be received?” he asked aloud.
“Is it really your first?” she asked, before she could stop herself.
He nodded and stubbed out his cigarette in a saucer. “You would not know if from my polished address but, yes, as it happens. It is.”