Chapter 56 #3
“And for Sophy,” she added soberly. “I will have to contact her family and see what I can do for them. Pay for a respectable burial. Perhaps there is a younger sibling who might be desirous of a position. Or would such an offer be in very poor taste?”
“We will have to make enquiries,” he answered soothingly.
“How long do you think we should stay here before we could make travel plans?”
“Five days? Maybe a week. Jeremy and Emmeline will want to return home themselves as soon as possible. Emmeline is expecting, you know, and only came to town to help save you from ruination.”
“Yes, that was good of her, to put herself out on my account.”
“Hmmm. Not remotely necessary, however, as I’ve been begging you on my knees for weeks now to marry me.”
“That’s not—”
“Have I thanked you for that, by the way?” he asked casually. “I know you did not really want to, and I consider it a great favor that you finally capitulated.”
She was speechless for a minute, then said, “But that is not true, Gervaise. Indeed, I consider it a great favor that you agreed to marry me!” Seeing the look on his face, she added uncertainly, “You do believe me, don’t you?”
“Well, yesterday you said you would sooner die than marry me,” he pointed out. “Maybe that was where I gained the impression you were somewhat less than willing.”
The color drained from Caroline’s face. “What?” she whispered, aghast. “I never said that, Gervaise, and I never would!”
“I hate to contradict you, my sweet, but you most certainly did. Unfortunately, the moment is burned on my brain. Afterward I went and got disgracefully drunk to console myself. You can ask Jeb, or Effie, she was there too.”
“You— But I—” Her shoulders slumped and she gave a muffled exclamation as though something had just occurred to her.
“Oh!” She sat up and twisted around, seizing hold of his shoulders in an insistent grip.
“Gervaise, you must listen to me,” she said, giving him a little shake.
He gazed back at her, quite enchanted by her sudden ferocity.
“I was not referring to marriage with you when I said that.” He lifted a cynical eyebrow. “You outlined a plan about my coming here to the Farises’ and then, after a decent period, returning to Benham Hall with Edgar. That was what I was refusing, never you.”
“I? I most certainly did not!” he objected strenuously. “I had no intention of letting you wriggle out of my grip. Not then, not now, not ever.”
She shook her head stubbornly. “No, Gervaise, you are not remembering clearly.” Her eyes glittered with sudden tears. “At that point you had already told me that you were leaving me and returning to your uncle’s house in Melbury Square.”
“What? No—” Now it was his turn to seize hold of her.
“I was returning to my uncle’s house only until you could be prevailed upon to marry me.
It was a misplaced effort to add some decency to proceedings, that was all.
I would never have allowed you to be dragged back to Penarth without me.
You do believe me, Caroline?” Her expression wavered.
“Damn it,” he swore. “I should have told Jeremy to go to hell with his notions of respectability! I can’t believe that you thought—” He broke off in frustration. “Shall I go and fetch him now to corroborate what I am saying? Or your brother, he owes me no loyalty and—”
“No, no, don’t go,” she said, reaching up to twine her arms about his and prevent him moving away. “I believe you, Gervaise. I—I must have simply misconstrued what you said in the moment.”
Feeling unspeakably relieved, Gervaise breathed easily once again. “Thank you,” he said, drawing her against his chest. Caroline hugged him back, burying her face in his neck. Her breath tickled him there and he felt himself finally relax. “So, when you said, ‘I’d sooner die’…?”
“I was talking of going back home with Edgar, of course!” she explained indignantly.
He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Well, thank God for that,” he said, collapsing back onto the pillows with her. “I can’t tell you how crushed I felt in that moment.”
“Oh, Gervaise!” she said, looking dismayed and leaning over him. She cupped his face with her hands. “I would never, never think such a thing, let alone say it! Please believe me.”
“Well, it did seem a bit dramatic, even at the time,” he conceded, “for my sensible Caroline to say such a thing. Even if you were overwrought.”
“I was terribly upset! I thought—I thought you had finally tired of me!” she said in a stricken voice.
“That it was all at an end and I couldn’t bear it.
I have been so unspeakably happy here in London with you and the thought of never seeing you again—” She grew choked up, tears filling her eyes and spilling down her face.
Gervaise wrapped his arms around her, drawing her down onto his chest and kissing her quivering mouth over and over.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he murmured between kisses.
“I will never tire of you, my pretty governess, my maenad, and I never could. Do you know why?” She shook her head.
“Because I love you, Caroline,” he said with quiet conviction that had her gasping.
“You do?” She faltered, her gaze seeking his.
“Yes.” He frowned. “If I had told you that before, would it have made a difference, I wonder?”
“Of course it would,” she breathed.
“To how you answered me, I mean,” he said, stroking a thumb down her cheek.
“You mean, when you told me we should probably marry?”
“Told you?” He hesitated, casting his mind back. “Are you saying I did not propose properly the first time I broached the subject?” he enquired.
“Well…” She glanced off awkwardly to the side. “You did not really propose at all. You said we might end up having to marry due to circumstances, and then you suggested it as a convenient way of clearing up any confusion.”
Gervaise winced. “Yes, I do seem to have fumbled the business, now I come to think of it.”
“We could…well, we always could revisit the proposal at some future point,” she suggested. “Like we revisited our first meeting at that Christmas party.”
He smiled, liking that idea. “I was telling Teddy about that earlier.”
She looked alarmed. “You were?”
“He was most curious about when you secured my affections.”
Her cheeks filled with color. “I must confess I am a little curious myself,” she said wistfully.
Gervaise frowned consideringly. “It crept up on me,” he answered finally. “I was more shocked by the realization that I genuinely liked you. It was not until that morning outside The Plough that I realized I did not want to part with you at all.”
“When you stared up at my window?” she recalled.
He nodded. “That was the first time I consciously started scheming ways to keep you,” he admitted.
“Improper ones, you mean?” she asked with a faint smile, and he tightened his arms around her.
“Yes,” he confessed. “But that never sat entirely right with me either. By the time we reached London, I was already rapidly revising my strategy. When I announced you were my wife at my uncle’s house, it satisfied something deep inside me.”
He touched his chest in wonderment. “Even before that,” he said slowly. “When I started calling you my countess on the road to London, it felt so natural that I really should have come to my senses.”
“At The Red Lion, you mean? When you embarrassed yourself by telling off that poor servant?”
“I was not remotely embarrassed. I liked it.”
“Scolding servants?”
“No, you scolding me,” he corrected her. “You took me to task and I reveled in it. All should have become apparent to me then.” He sighed. “What I ought to have done was demand Canon Petrie perform his offices at once and marry us. Instead, I set myself up for a lot of needless suffering.”
Caroline rubbed her hand comfortingly against his chest. “Did you really suffer, Gervaise?” she asked in a low voice. “I hate to think of it, when I was so…so ecstatically happy. For the first time in my life.”
“I was happy too,” he admitted, covering her hand with his, “but my happiness was mixed with the consequences of my own bad decisions. You would not marry me and that hurt like hell, but I did not suffer anything I did not deserve,” he added, seeing her stricken expression.
“No, Gervaise, that is not true—”
“It is true,” he said simply. “Initially I behaved badly toward you, and I was punished accordingly. It was no more than my just deserts.”
“Gervaise, I hope you do not think that I was meting out punishment to you, like some—”
“Strict governess?” he asked teasingly. “But you know I like that aspect of you.”
“Even so, I—when I refused you, it was not because, well, due to any lack of”—she floundered for a moment, uncertain of her words and turning rather pink—“regard on my part,” she concluded in a strangled voice.
“I should have told you that I loved you long before this,” he interrupted with a directness that seemed to calm her.
“If I had, you might have trusted me.” He hesitated, threading his fingers through hers.
“That day you first refused me, when you told me that I would tire of you, I should have told you then why that could never happen. But it wasn’t until after that that I realized what I felt for you was not just infatuation. ”
“Infatuation?” Caroline whispered. “You really thought you were infatuated…with me?”
“Oh, I knew I was. I just didn’t know it was a permanent state of affairs.”
“I feel the same way,” she responded with gratifying promptness.
“You do?” She nodded and he lifted her hand, kissing her palm. “When we revisit my proposal,” he began tentatively, “I now know when it should have been.”
“When?”
“That first morning I met you at the bottom of your drive. On the way to St. Ives.”
Caroline did not look convinced. “I was terrified that morning,” she reminded him. “With a queasy stomach and a pounding head.”
“All the more reason for you to swiftly accede to my plans.”
She gave a gurgle of laughter. “That does not sound a very romantic scenario for us to play out.”
“No? But the night before you were not in your right mind, so…”
“A terrace on a cold night in March does not sound a much better prospect in any case,” she agreed.
“Then when? When should it have been?” he demanded. “How about that first time you woke up in my bed?” he suggested, daring her to remember the occasion.
“You mean, at The White Hart?” she asked. He nodded. “I don’t know… In any case, by the time you woke up I was already dressed and drinking ginger tea.” She flashed him a wry look. “You were irritable and out of sorts, if memory serves.”
“Probably because you fled the covers before I so much as opened my eyes.”
She snorted. “I don’t believe you thought me remotely attractive at that point.”
“Then you believe wrong. I was extremely attracted to you that night on the terrace,” he said, trailing a hand down the ruffles of her nightgown. “You were a revelation, but you were also intoxicated so I behaved myself.” Caroline cleared her throat.
“Besides,” he said before she could remind him she had been most unwell at The White Hart. “When we revisit the scene, I could wake first, lusty and amorous and much struck by the beauty lying beside me.”
“Really?” She sounded more interested now. “Now that…might have possibilities.”
“Distinct possibilities,” he agreed.
“Shall we explore them now?” she asked, robbing him of all breath.