Without hesitation, she said, “I want to fulfil my duties as your wife, and be wherever you are, making your life comfortable.”
“Is that how you see it? As nought but a duty?”
“Not all of it. Some is… great pleasure.” She blushed as she spoke, and he gave a low chuckle. “But some aspects would be… more troublesome to me. If you wished me to accompany you to London and go to balls and so on, I should find that… difficult.”
“I can see that it would trouble you now, but you might, in the future, feel differently. In Kent, you were barely out in society at all. Once you have grown accustomed to dining in company and have mastered all the dance steps, you may wish to experience the full glory of the ton — Almack’s, Vauxhall Gardens, Carlton House. Should you not like to meet the Prince?”
“Perhaps, just once,” she said shyly.
“Once is certainly enough of His Royal Highness, I would agree. The Tower of London, perhaps — you said that you would like to go there. And Scotland. We can go and plague Connie’s relations up there any time you like. You might even see mountains, if it is not raining, although I have heard that it usually is. Or snowing, for variety. But you would not want to live in Scotland, or in London, I believe. Where would you like to live, if you had a free choice? Drummoor? Or a little house in the country, like Lavender Cottage, so that you could keep a pig called Marmaduke?”
That made her laugh a little, but she could not answer the question. “I’ll be happy to live anywhere that you live.”
He swept one of her gloved hand to his lips and kissed it. “Ah, that is just what I love about you, my sweet wife, your devotion to duty. But I want you to be happy, my darling, so will you answer me honestly? What sort of house would make you happiest, if you could choose to live anywhere?”
She had trouble catching her breath. ‘…just what I love about you… my darling… love…” Did he mean it, or was it just words to him? Oh, if only it were true! But of course it was impossible. He was such an accomplished flirt, he could make even his dowdy nobody of a wife feel cherished. So she tried to answer him composedly. “Honestly? Then I should like to live in a town.”
“Truly? With all that bustle?”
“I don’t mind bustle on the streets, for then I can stay inside if I wish. I always loved going to Canterbury, and York is the same. Or Sagborough. They are not overwhelming, as London was, but so convenient. Just imagine the pleasure in being able to dash out before breakfast to buy buttons!”
“Oh, shopping,” he said, nodding understandingly.
“Exactly! A little house in town would be just the thing, then I could shop every day, if I wished, or go to the circulating library. It was so difficult being out in the countryside, and having to eke everything out until the next trip to Canterbury, and not always succeeding. One time we ran out of tea, and Father was so cross, you cannot imagine. Well, you have met him, so perhaps you can! I should so like never to run out of anything ever again.”
“You like spending money, then, Lady Gilbert,” he said teasingly, and her insides flip-flopped alarmingly as his blue eyes twinkled at her.
“No… well, yes, I suppose I do,” she said, trying to hide her confusion. “But I still have one hundred and twelve pounds six and fourpence in my reticule.”
He laughed out loud. “How precise you are! Very well, then, a house in town it shall be. You may choose the town.”
“Don’t you have to go back to Dover, some time?” she said gently. “To your regiment?”
He sighed. “Gen, will you give me your truthful opinion? Do you think this leg of mine will ever be right?”
She took a long time to find the right words. “I don’t think it will ever be as good as it once was, and perhaps you will always have a slight limp, but if you are careful and rest it as much as you can, it will serve you well enough for you to be a soldier again. If that’s what you want.”
“That is the real question, is it not? The idea of resigning my commission has begun to appeal to me rather. My colonel would certainly not be sorry to see me go. I have wanted to be a Hussar for so many years that it had never occurred to me to wonder whether it would suit me. If I could have gone straight to the Peninsula and pointed my sabre at the French, all would have been well. Instead, there was endless training and then kicking our heels in camp at Dover, waiting for orders. And a military camp is full of men, which is no surprise, but a large body of men becomes quarrelsome. Or at least, I do, for I do not like men half so well as I like women. So I ended up fighting my fellow officers and seducing their wives, and it is not conducive to discipline. Now why do you laugh, my lady? You should be shocked and mortified to hear your husband speaking so to a delicately brought-up young lady.”
“I’d much rather you were open with me, and not mealy-mouthed. I know about your seductions, remember? You took me to stay with one of your mistresses. I know it’s normal in your world. Although perhaps ill-advised, sometimes. Not conducive to discipline, indeed! No wonder someone shot you. An irate husband, no doubt.”
“Oh, yes. Very irate. Called me out and then actually shot me, and he was trying to kill me, too, which is very bad form. He was only a lieutenant, and it is really not done to kill a superior officer. Lucky for me he was not a very good shot.”
“I suppose he had some cause to be angry,” she said.
“He had better have saved his anger for his wife, for she was the one who moved on me. I have never seduced a wife who was not already well on the way to being unfaithful. It just so happens that I have encountered quite a few of them. They seem to be drawn to me, somehow.”
“Well, of course!” she said, smiling up at him. “Who would not be drawn to you, so beautiful as you are.”
“Are you drawn to me?” he whispered, gazing at her with an intensity that made her heart pound.
“Oh, Gil!” she said, running one finger down his cheek. How else could she answer, except with the absolute truth? “The first time I saw you, lying on my doorstep in the snow, I thought you were an angel fallen to earth. Such blue eyes, such impossibly long lashes. I had never seen anyone so… so mesmerising.” She sighed. “I think I fell in love with you on the spot.”
His face registered his astonishment, and for a moment he said nothing, staring at her, his lips slightly parted. Such shapely lips, that made her think of kissing and other things besides.
“But now you know I am no angel,” he said, his voice husky and trembling. “So you cannot still feel that way… can you?”
“I can. I do. I always will.”
He uttered a sound more like a sob than anything else, then pulled her tightly into his arms, pressing her close against his chest. “Oh, Gen!” he muttered, into the collar of her pelisse. “My darling, darling Gen. I love you so much. You bring me such contentment, and yet I thought I had lost you for ever with my stupidity.”
She was rocked with such joy that she hardly knew what she was doing. She clung to him, held firmly in his strong embrace, letting the tears fall. Her world had tilted under her feet, but it was all right, everything was all right and nothing need ever trouble her again, for Gil loved her and she was safe.
“Can you ever forgive me?” he whispered, pulling away from her abruptly, his eyes filled with anxiety.
“It’s not for me to forgive you,” she said quietly. “You must learn to forgive yourself.”
Then she raised her lips to his, and they didn’t talk for a long, long time.
After a while, when his bad leg was protesting at the inactivity, they walked on a little way and turned into the woods that bordered the lane.
“You would not mind, then, if I were to resign my commission?” he said.
“That is for you to decide.”
“That little house in town sounds perfect. Where shall it be? I do not mind where we live, for I shall have you and the perfect joy that results from that, but it would be pleasant not to be too far from family. Yours or mine. Should you like to
live near your sister?”
“No, for that would be too close to Father. Perhaps we might visit Di sometimes, and my other sister, and my two brothers. They all live near Canterbury, so we may see them all on one visit. Let us live near your family, instead, for I like Yorkshire very much. Sagborough would suit me very well.”
“Then Sagborough it shall be, my lady, and you may want to take an interest in Dr Hay’s new hospital, if you are minded for some activity outside the domestic sphere. Not tending the leeches or making lozenges, perhaps, but the patronage of Lady Gilbert Marford would be valuable. Miss Hay would be a friend to you, too. Although I shall have to have something to do, too, or I shall go mad, and start doing foolish things again, and I do not think I would be of much help to a physician.”
“You like clambering about on roofs, I think?” she said tentatively.
“Oh yes! Buildings are so interesting, do you not find? No? Well, I love exploring houses, and discovering how they fit together and how everything works. I am not fond of the crowds at Drummoor, for the aunts and uncles are so disapproving and that is very lowering, I find, but the building itself is quite marvellous. It is not just one house, but many different houses all joined together, so there are passages that go nowhere, and secret rooms and stairs, and windows that look into blank walls. I used to spend half my time on the roof, as a boy, even sleeping up there. We re-enacted the Wars of the Roses on the roof one summer, every single battle. I wanted to do the Civil War the following year, but Mama said we had not enough bandages for it. Roofs, gutters, drainpipes, chimneys… once, when I was quite small, I attached myself to the chimney sweep, and wherever his boy went, I went, too. Up one of the library chimneys, and all over the house, emerging finally in the ship room. We had meant to come out in the pink dining room, but we got a bit lost. Such fun! Chimneys are amazing places, you know. One just has to watch for lit fires. But Father disapproved. In fact, he railed at me so much, he went quite purple in the face. Fighting or gambling or wenching he never minded, but heaven forbid that a son of his should scramble around inside the chimneys.”
She laughed. “I can see his point. But if you want something to do, Lord Carrbridge needs an agent.”
He stopped dead, and since she was holding his arm, she was obliged to stop too.
“Then I could run around on roofs all day,” he said, his face alive with excitement. “But… might you worry about me? I should not like you to have a moment’s anxiety on my account. I have given you more than enough fraught moments as it is.”
“Roofs do not bother me,” she said. “Trees bother me a little, when they are very high, but roofs not at all. It was only the possible damage to your leg that distressed me. And you were very quick to recognise the problem of the leaky roof. I suspect you would make an excellent agent.”
“Then I shall talk to Merton about it,” he said happily. But then his face fell. “But Gen, however am I to stop myself from going crazy and doing something foolish again? You said it is up to me, and you are quite right, but I have not the least idea how to go about it, and I am terrified of it happening again.”
He was limping more noticeably, so she directed him to a fallen tree trunk for a rest, which gave her time to consider her answer.
“When Mama was alive,” she said slowly, “we used to have visits from her cousin occasionally. It was always a fraught event, for Cousin Deirdre was something quite grand. She had married the Duke of Purbeck’s great-nephew who lived in a park — Duckbury Park, in Wiltshire. We had to get out the very best china for the occasion, and there had to be three kinds of cake, at least, and fruit, but not the common varieties. Oh no, Cousin Deirdre had to have the hothouse type, which she probably saw every day but which we could ill afford. I never understood why she could not have eaten strawberries or pears, which we had in the garden, but Mama was adamant. And since our cousin handed out half crowns when she came, I suppose it was worth while. But we all had to be on our best behaviour. Duckbury Park manners, Mama called it, and whenever one or other of us misbehaved, even on other occasions, Mama would say, ‘Duckbury Park manners, if you please.’ And then we would remember. Perhaps… perhaps we could try something like that when you show signs of… of doing something you might regret later? A word or two to remind you of the need for calm. What do you think? Would that work?”
“It might,” he said. “How clever you are! That is ingenious, my love. So when I rush off to climb a tree, you could say… what? Not Duckbury Park. Watersmeet, perhaps, to remind me of my foolishness there. Or Haddlewick, because it was here that I came back to you, and you smiled at me, and I knew that you would take me back.”
“I will always take you back, Gil,” she said seriously. “Whatever you do, however many times you go away and leave me behind, I shall always be waiting for you.”
“Because it is your wifely duty?” he said.
She smiled and shook her head. “Because I love you, and because everyone is entitled to put their mistakes behind them and try to do better in the future.”
“Even when one does something unforgivable?”
“Nothing is unforgivable, if you truly repent.”
“I have repented often,” he said sadly. “Yet I still make the same mistakes again and again.”
“Everyone makes mistakes, Gil. No one is perfect. Whatever you do, just be sure to come back to me and start afresh.”
“Is that truly possible? Can one ever leave the past behind and begin anew?”
“Look around you,” she said, waving a hand around the clearing where they sat. “What do you see?”
“Trees? Brambles? Fallen leaves?”
“Over there, do you see? The first bluebells are just coming into flower. No matter how hard the winter, eventually the snow melts and there are the bluebells turning the woodland floor blue. It happens every year. They always get their fresh start, and so can you.”
He sighed, and squeezed her hand. “Is there hope for me, then, my darling Gen? Is it possible that one day I might make a halfway decent man? I should rather like to be boringly respectable, to have people say of me when I die, ‘He was a good man, a good friend and brother, a good husband.’”
“And a good father,” she said quietly.
The anxiety on his face melted away into something else. Hope, perhaps. He kissed her softly on the lips, and held her very tight for a long time.
27: High Berenholme
Gil and Genista, together with Humphrey and the Mertons, returned to Drummoor, to send word to Lord Carrbridge of the satisfactory conclusion to the affair. Carrbridge, Reggie and Gus returned from London within days. Behind them, travelling a little more decorously, were the lawyers from London, to examine the sworn statement from Mr Culpepper and see the portraits for themselves. Ben Gartmore was sent for, and the situation explained to him. Although bewildered, he confessed himself relieved not to have the threat of a title hanging over him.
“I really didn’t want to, my lord,” he told Carrbridge. “It was just that Dr Hamilton made it seem like it was my duty. I’m glad it’s all over.”
That was a sentiment they could all agree with.
“You can go back to your regular work now, Ben,” Carrbridge said.
“You’re not going to turn me off?”
“Of course not. You were led astray, that is all, and thanks to Lord Gilbert’s determination to resolve the issue, everything is settled satisfactorily. I remain in the role I was trained for from birth, and you remain in the station you believed yourself born to. Everything is as it should be, would you not agree? So you may return to your position with Lord Montague.”
“And if we could have some partridge or pheasant, that would be most welcome,” Humphrey said.
“Yes, my lord, I’ll see to it.”
There had been departures from Drummoor, too. Lord Dryton was finally well enough to travel again, but instead of returning to London, he was to go on to Harrogate to stay with his sister and take the wate
rs there. Bella, however, was not minded for Harrogate and had set off back to London, where she felt most at home. Dr Hamilton had also departed for the south in the company of the lawyer, Mr Willerton-Forbes. No one had pointed out to the physician that Willerton-Forbes was, in fact, the son of an earl and therefore an honourable.
There remained the matter of Sharp to be resolved. Despite Merton’s confidence in his own deductive powers, and the conviction of all the brothers that Mr Prestwick must indeed be Sharp, there was still the possibility of error, and no arrest was possible until the identity was assured.
Gil and his brothers, together with Merton, met in the ship room to discuss the question.
“I suppose we cannot leave him be?” Monty said sadly. “He is a good age, after all, and may not have many years left to him. His wife has been ill, also. I should not be comfortable hounding a sick lady.”
“Monty, you are very naive sometimes,” Gil said. “The story has been put about that Mrs Prestwick was in Bath for her health, but if she is indeed Mrs Ballard from Drifford, then she has in fact been in prison in Northumberland.”
“Remember, too, that Sharp has defrauded me of two hundred thousand pounds over the years, by Merton’s estimate,” Carrbridge said. “I am not minded to be lenient. Sharp must receive the penalty due to him.”
“He should hang for his crimes,” Humphrey said grimly.
“The lady also, for attempted murder,” Gus said. “God may forgive her for that, but I cannot, and please do not lecture me about Christian charity, Monty. This is my step-son we are talking about. The event is still too raw for me to be merciful.”
“That is understandable,” Monty said quietly. “But how are we to be sure that the Prestwicks are indeed Sharp and Mrs Ballard?”
Lord Gilbert (Sons of the Marquess Book 5) Page 26