Chapter Twenty-Five
Though it caused him no little amount of discomfort to leave Caro’s side so soon after their reunion, she had been right. He needed a bath. Badly. While his wounds had been cleaned the night before, there was nothing quite like a good long soak in a tub until one’s skin turned pink.
McCullom had offered him assistance down to the basement kitchen, but Gideon’s pride insisted that he manage it alone. His knee bothered him with every step, but he was certain he could handle this much.
Mrs. Green, the plump, pleasant-faced woman he encountered after following the scents of frying bacon and oatcakes, took one look at him and began clucking like a mother hen.
“The lady said ye’d need a bath, and sure enough you do,” she tsked.
Gideon was astonished by the speed with which she added boiling water to the wooden tub in the corner of the room.
In preparation, it had already been mostly filled; the addition of the boiling water would balance with the cold to make it a pleasant temperature.
“There’s some of the doctor’s special soap for ye.
You’ll want to use it on all your cuts and scrapes to keep ’em clean.
” She gestured to a yellow cake of the stuff set beside a crock pitcher for rinsing and a stack of clean toweling.
“I’ll be leaving for errands now so you’ll have all the privacy ye need.
Here,” she added, as she placed a tin plate of food on the small table.
“I had a feeling ye’d leave all the food for your wife upstairs—a lady in the family way must fill her belly—so I made a little extra for ye. Fill that stomach when you’re clean.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Green,” Gideon said, his head fairly spinning with how she bustled to and fro.
“You’re very welcome, my lord.” Deep dimples were carved into her cheeks when she smiled back at him. With that, she ducked from the room and he heard the thud of the back door as she exited into the alleyway.
Shoving a thick cut of crisped bacon into his mouth, Gideon stripped bare and stepped into the tub.
The water and strong soap provided stung his injuries, but the heat of the tub made him groan in pleasure.
It soothed his sore muscles and the aching in his battered joints.
Scrubbing the sweat and dried blood from his scalp went a long way toward making him feel more human.
He’d bathe, eat more of Mrs. Green’s cooking, and return to Caro’s bedside.
He needed to hear for himself that she and the baby were out of the woods.
“It would seem that the group has gotten quite sloppy since le General’s downfall,” said Ramsay.
The spymaster had paid a call at McCullom’s medical practice later that same afternoon, conveniently arriving less than an hour after Emily and Oliver had stopped by to personally check on Caroline and Gideon, and bring fresh clothing for them from Swanleigh House.
Gideon did not believe he’d ever forget the terror of discovering Caroline had been abducted, how close he’d come to losing her forever, but he had to acknowledge that Oliver was not to blame.
As easy as it would have been to write a relationship with Oliver off as dangerous or not worth the risk, the man’s wife had also been in danger.
He knew Oliver well enough by that point to say that, had he known of a serious threat to the women’s wellbeing, then he never would have allowed that day to play out as it had.
Oliver was nothing if not exceptionally protective of and devoted to his wife—a trait they had in common.
Presently, Oliver, Ramsay, and Gideon were seated in the small front parlor of the townhouse.
The lower floor was dedicated to the physician’s study and his medical practice, as well as Mrs. Green’s kitchen.
The main floor looked very much the same as any townhouse with a parlor and small dining room, while a couple of bedchambers were located on the topmost floor, where Caroline was resting with Emily and Lady Juliette to keep her company.
McCullom was occupied tending patients down below.
Gideon felt markedly better after bathing. That, along with some willow bark tea, had gone a long way toward easing his aches. He could at least open his left eye now and confirm that the vision was intact. He’d recover, and he could not wait to bring Caroline home.
McCullom had reassured him that Caro’s condition was promising.
There were still no further signs of early labor and both she and the babe appeared strong.
Neither he nor Caroline cared for it, but they’d agreed to the physician’s recommendation that she remain abed there above his medical practice for at least a week or two to ensure there would be no relapse.
He cautioned them that moving her too quickly might place undue stress upon her body.
So, arrangements were made wherein Gideon would stay with her as much as possible until she was released.
“Le Général—one of the men mentioned that name.” Right before beating me, Gideon thought sourly, but did not say aloud.
“He was a Frenchman posing as a purveyor of debauchery and vice,” explained Oliver.
“The rest of his cell did not take kindly to his capture and eventual forced departure from this world.” The iciness to Ramsay’s tone was discomfiting. “Black was responsible for ferreting him out; they wished for revenge.”
“Quite fervently, I might add,” Gideon added sardonically. Now he better understood the viciousness of the attack. Revenge was a powerful motivator.
“They must not have realized the extent of Emily’s involvement, or else she might have been a target as well.”
Gideon’s head whipped toward his half brother. “Emily was involved as well?”
Oliver made a sheepish shrug of one shoulder. “Not my most brilliant idea, but I was desperate.” And that was all the explanation he offered.
“We have the ship. We have the identity of its owner. And now we know who to target in France,” Ramsay said, ignoring Gideon and Oliver’s discussion. His posture was impeccably straight—could his spine have been replaced with granite?
“Can you do that?” Gideon asked with a frown. “Travel to France and simply ‘deal’ with them?”
Ramsay leveled an unnervingly cool look at him. “My lord, I can do whatever I please. And when someone targets one of my agents, I take it very, very personally.”
Gideon barely stifled a chill.
He did not doubt that in the slightest.
Gideon returned to the room in which Caroline would reside for the next couple of weeks.
It was plain and bare, but it was also clean and comfortable.
And, judging from the tinkle of feminine laughter, she would have entertaining company to help pass the time.
Oliver promised he and his wife would visit often; McCullom had said he and Lady Juliette would remain in residence for two more days before Dr. Bianchi returned and they left for their private residence.
“Our home is not far, so I would not be surprised if my wife is a frequent visitor during Lady Swanleigh’s stay,” McCullom had said. “She seems quite taken with her.”
Gideon appreciated the support he and Caroline were receiving on all fronts, but what he truly wanted was to be alone with her in the comfort of their own home.
Were her condition not so precarious, he’d have spirited her back to Bray Castle, where they could exist in peace and return to the last place the world had felt safe.
Emily and Lady Juliette were already standing when Gideon entered the bedchamber.
“I will return tomorrow with that book for you,” said McCullom’s dark-haired wife. “For now, I will allow you to rest and see what Mrs. Green is planning for supper.”
“I am sure we will come for another visit very soon,” Emily chimed in reassuringly. “Let me know if there is anything you are missing from Swanleigh House. If you make a list, then I shall endeavor to obtain the items for you.”
“Thank you…both of you,” Caro said warmly just as the other women prepared to take their leave.
Caroline reclined against several pillows.
She’d bathed, dressed in a fresh nightrail of pristine white, and her hair had been brushed to a crackling sheen, making it look like burnished bronze in the waning evening light.
The days were growing shorter, stealing with them the warmth of summer.
A fire had been set in the hearth in an effort to ward off the early chill, making the room feel comfortably close.
Her pale hands were crossed protectively over the mound of her belly.
The smile she gave him was one of fatigued relief.
Even bedridden as she was, she’d weathered an ordeal less than twenty-four hours before, and it had taken a toll on her body.
He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her long enough to bid the other ladies a proper farewell.
As soon as the door shut, he crossed the room to his wife and dropped into the chair beside the bed. She held her hand out to him and he took it, tracing her fingers and the fragile bones within before placing a kiss upon her palm and then pressing it to his beard-roughened cheek.
“I missed you,” Caro whispered. His heart fluttered uncontrollably.
“I missed you as well,” Gideon said honestly.
This was the first time they’d been truly alone since Caroline’s escape and Gideon’s rescue.
There were no fewer than a thousand things to say, but they settled into a companionable silence, their eyes greedily drinking one another in.
Caroline lay her head back as if her neck was suddenly too weary to hold it aloft. She sighed with a soft smile.
“Thank you for everything you did.”
“You hardly need to thank me,” he scoffed.
“But I do.”
“You do not,” he said more adamantly, leaning forward and squeezing the hand he still had not released. “I would do it all again for you. I would walk through fire. I would face down an army. I would—”