Chapter 5
“Christ, what have I gotten myself into, Ben…” Gideon muttered rhetorically.
He took his shot, and the ball careened wildly across the billiard table, missing its target.
He made an angry sound in his throat, stepping back as his friend came forward for his own shot.
Benedict had dark-gold hair and a youthful face with bushy side-whiskers and a moustache to add gravity to his features.
“What honor demands. You could not leave her in that place. It sounds…” he gave a theatrical shudder, “ghastly.”
The shot was precise and potted the target. He glided around the table for the next.
“But now I am saddled with her.” Gideon leaned against his cue, watching his friend play. “And she is either ill, or…” He let the sentence die. Better not to voice that particular suspicion aloud—not yet. “Regardless, I cannot afford to be playing caretaker.”
His mind returned to the conversation at Haventon about Catherine's ‘medicine’. It had planted an ugly seed in his mind, but voicing it felt too uncharitable. Even to Benedict, the Earl of Daleshire—good of a friend as Ben had been.
“She will recover, and then that,” another shot, another pot, “particular problem is behind you.” Benedict chuckled, unused to being in the winning position against him. Gideon glowered at the man, uncertain whether Ben was actually grasping the gravity of the situation at hand.
“I have to marry her. The scandal will destroy my name, otherwise. Oh, damnation, why could I not just walk away and call in a favor from the constable!”
Benedict put down the cue and thumped his hands on the green baize.
“Now look here. You are an honorable sort, and you took the only course that honor allowed. You came to the aid of a damsel in distress. I would have done the same. So would Everdon… probably.”
He grinned, but Gideon was in no mood for jests.
“I must know more about her and that family if I am to protect myself and my investments. She knows…”
He stopped, disguising it by making a disgusted growl and stalking across the room to the decanter of brandy.
There was one in every room in which he spent any time.
After years in which he had nothing except the clothes on his back and the constant gnawing hunger in his belly, it was good to have luxuries on tap.
“Bit early, old chap,” Benedict tilted his head.
“Then have some tea,” he snapped.
“What were you about to say there? Before the siren song of the brandy interrupted you?” Benedict asked innocently.
I was about to say she knew Aaron and is the most likely person to find me out. But you cannot know that, Ben—you never knew my brother. You are the one person I can be myself with, albeit using another man’s name.
“That she knows more than I do about the Tresswells. About her own circumstances. I think it would be worth finding out the story of that family. And the Ainsleys. Do you know them?”
Ben raised his eyes to the ceiling, pursing his lips. His youthful face made the moustache and whiskers appear false, a disguise worn by a boy imitating his father.
“Can’t say I do. Where did you say they hailed from?”
“Haventon, which is beyond the north-east boundary of the city, on the outskirts of Kilburn.”
“Not an area I know particularly well. Nor have I met them socially. Sarah is your best bet. She knows everyone who’s anyone, and those she doesn’t know personally, she at least knows of them.”
It was an excellent notion. Sarah Thorpe, the Countess of Daleshire, had earned herself a dozen nicknames over the Seasons—the Social Oracle chief among them—for there was scarcely a drawing room in London whose currents she could not read at a glance.
She would be able to tell him the story of the Ainsleys and the Tresswells.
How Catherine came to be in her current situation.
There came a knock at the door, and the butler, McKay, entered. He walked stiffly across the room, arms swinging as though he were a soldier on parade.
He came to a crisp halt before Gideon and clicked his heels smartly together.
“Your Grace. The young lady is awakening. Sally is sitting with her.”
Gideon pinched his nose. “You will have to excuse me, Ben, while I see to my house guest,” he muttered as he strode away.
He heard McKay pivot and march after him, the cadence of his footsteps as regular as a metronome. When they were out of the billiard room and well out of Benedict’s earshot, Gideon stopped, turning to McKay.
“McKay. I find myself in need of some Mother’s Milk. Do you have some to spare?”
McKay raised a white eyebrow but gave no other outward sign of surprise.
“I do, Your Grace. I have just replenished my supply from an apothecary on Pound Lane. May I ask if it is for yourself, Your Grace?”
“No, you may not. I only require a small amount. A thimble. Fetch it.”
McKay lifted his chin higher at the reprimand and turned on his heel with the efficiency of a Prussian to march away.
Gideon went to the guest room where he’d carried Catherine the evening before.
The curtains were still drawn. Sally, a maid, was sitting by Catherine’s bedside, placing an additional blanket over her.
A healthy blaze was hard at work in the hearth, putting out an uncomfortable heat.
Sally was sweating, but Catherine was shivering.
She looked up as he approached.
“I think I am dying…” she croaked dramatically, “My parents were taken by the same illness. Fever.”
“I am sure you will be well. I have a cure-all which will ease your symptoms,” he muttered vaguely as he set new logs by the hearth.
“I had such… vivid dreams,” she mumbled.
“Reality might be more remarkable.”
“I dreamed that you proposed marriage...”
He scowled. “Leave us,” he ordered Sally.
When she had left the room, he moved to the bedside.
Catherine’s eyes were bright with fever, and sweat coalesced on her brow.
In spite of it all, she was beautiful. Her skin, though pale, was pure as alabaster.
Her features perfectly arranged and proportioned.
He found himself imagining her in the finery of a ball, bedecked with jewels and wearing a ballgown, where she belonged—anywhere but bunched up in his guestroom.
Though I am not sure she would need the jewels. Or the ballgown. She would shine with nothing but rags. The dress she wore last night was not much better than rags. Plain and worn.
“Let us be clear. I did not propose and will not. I claimed you. I am trapped by honor and could not leave you in that place to be beaten. I would not leave any woman, high or low born.”
“I thank you for that. I think I remember my Uncle about to strike me, but it is very hazy. Do you think you could build up the fire? I fear it has gone out. I am very cold.”
Gideon stepped aside so she could see the fire roaring. She raised her head to look but then let it fall as though the effort had usurped all of her strength.
“Then I dreamed of the proposal…” she breathed wistfully. “That part of the dream was rather pleasant.”
“You dreamed the proposal, but not the marriage. When word gets out that I abducted you from your legal guardian, there will be a scandal. Your aunt and uncle will ensure it, purely out of spite. Marriage is the only way to spike that particular cannon. But it is not my choice. Again, it is what honor demands.”
Her pupils dilated as understanding dawned. “So… I am to be your wife?”
“—In name only, I assure you,” he parried swiftly. “Until the threat of scandal has subsided.”
A laugh escaped her—soft, almost wondering.
“That is quite like you, Aaron. Do you recall that time when you saved me from your Papa’s garden tower, and I'd insisted you had to marry me to preserve my honor—and we argued for the rest of the week.” A small, endearing snort slipped free.
“I suppose you have finally run out of arguments.”
“Y-yes, of course,” Gideon blustered awkwardly, moving to the curtains and pulling them open.
Pale daylight spilled into the room.
“You will remain here until I can arrange a special marriage license—”
It was only then that he realized that Catherine was undressed. Sally must have helped her out of her clothes before putting her to bed.
He glimpsed a bare shoulder where a chemise had fallen away at one side.
Her skin looked perfect and pale as milk.
Chestnut tresses fell across the bare skin, soft and shiny as silk.
In daylight, there was a spark in her eye, a flash of gold against the light hazel.
He tore his gaze away from her, turning to look out of the window.
Already she asks about my memories of the past. I cannot answer her… Devil, I almost envy my brother.
“It will be pleasant to reminisce with my oldest friend about our childhood,” she sighed.
Her voice sounded as weak and wan as her complexion. Gideon wondered again if it was an illness or what he actually suspected it to be.
“There will be no reminiscing. Nobody in this house was employed here during my father’s time. They did not know me as a child. Nor you. And enough has happened to me since then that I dislike thinking about the past. Intensely. There will be no conversations about the past.”
He stared at her, daring her to challenge. She looked back, blinking and bemused.
“Of course, I—I understand. I am sorry that there is anything in your past that causes you pain. It is not so for me, except for the pain of craving better times.”
He scoffed. “There are no better times. There is only the moment in which we live now. Do not waste your life wishing for the past.”
“How can you consider it a waste?” she argued, propping herself on her elbows.
The strap of the chemise she wore fell down her soft upper arm, and the garment slipped enough to reveal the swell of one breast. The rest was covered by the material, which clung enough to reveal the shape beneath.
Gideon held her gaze, unflinching. Was this deliberate? Some practiced art of seduction?
“Then you’re a fool,” he said flatly, letting his eyes drop with pointed precision.
If you think exposing yourself will bend me to your will, you will find me made of a harder metal than most.
She followed his gaze downward—and gasped. Her hands flew to her chest as she scrambled for the sheets, yanking them to her chin. Color flooded her cheeks.
Gideon grinned wolfishly, knowing it would unsettle.
Good. The sooner she realized that, contrary to who she thought he was, her friend had changed beyond all recognition, the better.
It would protect his secret. That he was not Aaron Tarnley, rightful Duke of Winchester.
But Gideon Tarnely, the true rightful Duke, returned from exile.
“That may be true. My actions last night might have been amongst the most foolish of my life…” she murmured.
If she was seeking reassurance by that statement, he was determined not to give it.
Foolish beyond question but also brave. I cannot deny that.
“Agreed,” he nodded once.
McKay knocked at the door, three precise taps in a rapid cadence. Gideon opened it. The butler bore a tray on which a small glass held a tiny amount of white fluid and a pitcher of fresh milk.
“I find it helps as a means of delivery,” the butler spoke in a low tone, looking at the milk.
Gideon accepted the tray and kicked the door shut with a heel. He went to a sideboard and put the tray down, blocking Catherine’s view with his body while he mixed the ingredients into the milk. Then he poured her a glass and carried it over.
“My butler swears by this as a cure for all aches and pains,” he said, “drink.”
“I suppose if you wanted to poison me, there is little I could do about it,” she whispered, taking the glass.
He kept his face marble smooth. Her comment had been too close to reality.
I am not poisoning her. Just easing her symptoms. And if they come from the source that I suspect, then this will cure everything. For a time.
Catherine drained the milk, leaving a white tinge around her mouth. Gideon gestured to his own mouth, and her eyes widened. She grimaced as she wiped away the residue, cheeks coloring. It was a very pretty look from which he tore himself before it could sink into his memory too deeply.
“Aaron?” she said as he put the tray on the sideboard.
He turned, having trained himself to answer to that name long ago.
“I am most grateful for everything you have done. It is beyond my expectations.”
She looked so pale and vulnerable that something in him wanted to reassure her. To protect her. He wondered if that chivalric instinct had been in his brother.
Not when I knew him, and we were forced to compete with each other. For everything, food notwithstanding. The bastard was ruthless.
“Circumstances have brought us together. Not compassion,” he reminded sternly. “And, lest you think it, not fate. I will leave you now. Sleep. I suspect you will be feeling better very shortly. I will arrange the marriage license and the terms of our contract.”
“Contract?”
“Of course. There must be a contract so that we both know where we stand and what is expected of us. There will be no gray areas and no uncertainties.”
She nodded, head sinking into a cloud of pillows.
“That is all very sensible…”
She closed her eyes, and Gideon opened the door. He stood for a long moment in the architrave, watching her.
Who are you who has attempted to storm my walls and invade my life? What is your plan?
He left the room and closed the door when he recognized the feeling of warmth he felt as he watched her peacefully sleeping face. There was no room for that warmth in his life. No room for attachment.
It had once robbed him of his own childhood.
I will bide my time until this scandal is doused, then I will be rid of you, friend of Aaron Tarnley. Damn his soul and damn yours, Catherine Ainsley! I want no part of you.