Chapter 50
Macey coughed discreetly from the library doorway and Gervaise looked up. “Yes, Macey, what is it?”
“Lady Atherton has arrived and is seeking an audience with you, milord.”
“Lady Atherton?” Gervaise repeated blankly, discarding his book.
“I took her into the small sitting room, my lord.” He hesitated. “I think you should come at once.”
Gervaise stood up. “I had every intention of coming,” he replied testily but then his uncle’s butler was not to know how he dropped everything and came running at Caroline’s merest word.
Perhaps Macey imagined they were at odds with one another, and that was why he had moved back to Melbury Square without his wife in tow.
He paused on the threshold of the sitting room, steeling himself to stand firm against whatever objections Caroline saw fit to voice against their wholly necessary marriage.
Emmeline was waiting even now to receive her as an honored guest in the Vance town house.
They would be married from there by special license as soon as it could be arranged.
She would just have to face the inevitability of matrimony however little it might currently appeal to her. He opened the door, walked inside, and promptly forgot all the arguments he had lined up to make. Caroline was sat in a chair by the fire, and something was very clearly wrong.
Gervaise had the strangest sense of déjà vu as he took in her disordered appearance. Her hair was half up and half down, her hands dirty, and her gown torn. He strode forward and dropped down to kneel before her chair.
“Caroline!” He bit back the hasty words that rushed to his tongue, instead, taking her hands in his and staring at her face. “But what has happened here?” he asked, striving for a semblance of calm which he did not remotely feel.
“Never mind that now. I need to speak to you most particularly,” she began. When he opened his mouth, she interrupted quickly. “I will tell you soon, I promise, but not now. Instead, I need to ask you something with the utmost urgency.”
His eyes scanned her face, she sounded so terribly earnest that he did not have the heart to argue. “Very well,” he answered levelly, preparing himself for whatever she might request.
She took a deep breath. “Will you marry me? Now. At once, I mean and without any questions.”
“Yes, of course,” he replied after a stunned moment. “But what has occurred—?”
“No questions, remember?” she interrupted him and he noticed the barely concealed desperation on her face.
“Just promise me that you are not harmed,” he said as his eyes scanned her up and down. “And not in need of any medical attention.”
“I am fine,” she said, breathing out. “I promise you that.”
He clamped his mouth shut lest he broke his resolve. Turning her hands over, he noticed cuts and grazes there that had his heart pounding. Someone had assaulted her! He was sure of it. Seeing the expression on his face, Caroline bounced up in her seat.
“You gave me your word, Gervaise,” she reminded him. He nodded grimly.
She pulled her hands out of his only to immediately grasp hold of his own. “I promise you that nothing too terrible has befallen me. Just a few scrapes only. Reg defended me most ably.” That did reassure him somewhat. Thank God.
“Can we go now?” she asked hopefully. “Straightaway, without delay.”
“Now? To Jeremy’s house you mean?”
“No!” she said, dropping his hands agitatedly. “To get a special license, I mean!”
“I already have one, my darling,” he responded calmly. “I procured one when first we arrived in London.”
Her face brightened. “You did? But how clever of you!”
He paused. Caroline’s priorities had clearly shifted from the previous day when she had shrunk from the idea with open disgust. Still, he was not about to remind her of this, not when she was being so amenable. “Emmeline is making ready their townhouse for a small service and—”
“No!” she burst out. “No, I—I just want it to be the two of us, Gervaise. I don’t want to change my clothes or have a bouquet or anything. Just for us to go quickly now to Shoreditch and see that the business is done.”
“Shoreditch?” he asked carefully. What mad start was this? He could make neither head nor tail of it!
“To Canon Petrie, of course!” she said with a flicker of impatience. “It must be he that marries us, and no one else.”
Gervaise let his gaze roam over her anxious face. “Very well,” he acquiesced and Caroline’s shoulders relaxed.
“Thank you.”
“There is the matter of witnesses, of course—” he began only to be cut off again.
“We will take Reg and Canon Petrie’s housekeeper can stand for our second,” she said, standing up as though the decision was made.
It was made, who was he trying to fool? A knock on the door heralded the arrival of Macey carrying a steaming bowl, soap, and a facecloth.
Gervaise stood up and crossed the room to take it from him.
“Is Reg ready and waiting for us?” he asked, returning to Caroline’s side and dipping the flannel into the warm water.
“Milady’s manservant?” Macey asked, wooden-faced. No one would ever mistake Reg for anything so civilized, but Gervaise seized on this piece of convenient fiction and replied in the affirmative.
“Mrs. Tibberts has been applying liniment on his face, but I will have him sent up, milord,” Macey intoned, pretending not to notice Gervaise dabbing assiduously at Caroline’s smudged face.
“Thank you, Macey.”
Five minutes later they were stood outside as James the footman ran down the street to hail them a hackney carriage. Gervaise had enfolded Caroline in a cloak to conceal her tattered gown. His own would be far too long for her so one of Uncle George’s had to suffice.
He suffered another setback when he got a good look at Reg, who showed the beginnings of a very bruised face indeed. Only by exerting his patience to the utmost could Gervaise stifle the torrent of questions that threatened to spill forth.
Had it been footpads? Where had they been set upon?
And why? Caroline still wore the silver nightingale necklace he had bought her, which would surely have been snatched from her throat if it had been common thieves.
Fighting down the impulse to fire questions at Reg, he contented himself instead with patting his pockets to check he had the license and the rings he had taken from his chest of drawers.
Threading his fingers through Caroline’s, he was careful to keep his grasp loose enough that he did not press down on her sore hand.
She flashed a reassuring smile at him that soothed him somewhat.
His heart was racing but at least he no longer felt fishy about the gills.
His headache of that morning was long since forgotten.
Helping Caroline into the carriage, he kept a firm hold of her and called out the address from Canon Petrie’s calling card.
Before long they were bowling along the road to Shoreditch.
Gervaise withdrew the ring box from his pocket and slid the emerald and diamond engagement ring onto her third finger.