Page 132 of A Much Maligned Miss

“It’s not your fault they brought Edgar to town,” Gervaise argued. “They brought that entirely upon themselves!”

“Well, I like that!” Lady Faris gasped, before she could stop herself. “If you had not behaved so disgracefully toward Caroline in the first place—!” She broke off her words, her hand flying to cover her mouth in dismay. “Oh!”

Gervaise smirked and Caroline flashed him a quelling look. “Please do not trouble yourself on my account, Lady Faris,” she said, clambering to her feet. “But you must not think Gervaise behaved badly. In fact, if he had not fled with me from Penarth, then I would likely not have survived to tell the tale.”

Lady Faris looked uncertain how to take this, looking from one of them to the other. She heaved a huge sigh. “I must not plague you with questions,” she resolved, “but will instead demand explanations from Jeremy later. But you are indeed already wed?” Caroline nodded. “Well, thank heavens for that! I cannot tell you how pleased I am to hear it. Jeremy always maintained that Gervaise would do the right thing, eventually.”

Gervaise now stood up, dusting his knees and looking rather irritated. “Indeed, he did everything he ought,” Caroline said quickly. “A very sweet clergyman called Canon Petrie married us at…” Her mind went blank.

“St Catherine’s in Shoreditch,” Gervaise supplied swiftly.

“Yes, Shoreditch,” she repeated gratefully. “We traveled most of the journey from Penarth to London with Canon Petrie acting as our chaperone.” As this was something of an exaggeration, Caroline did not dare look at Gervaise to see how he took this.

Lord Faris appeared over his wife’s shoulder. “Well, I’m vastly pleased to hear that,” he said, resting his hands on his wife’s waist. “I thought I was going to have to call you out, old chap. Honor bound, and all that. After all, you met Miss Halperston under my own roof and Ballentine would have left me little choice in the matter.” He dropped a kiss on his wife’s cheek.

“I would only have made him wing you, Gervaise,” Lady Faris explained. “And then insisted on your sickbed that you did the decent thing.”

“Whilst I was too weak from blood loss to protest, presumably,” Gervaise said dryly.

“Well, there is not the smallest need to seek reparation on my behalf,” Caroline assured them. “Gervaise insisted we were married.”

“I begged for her hand, in fact,” Gervaise corrected her. “Repeatedly.”

“Yes, he behaved beautifully, so you need not reprimand him,” she agreed.

Jeremy’s gaze narrowed, as though this was going a bit too far to be believable, but Gervaise simply reached for Caroline’s hand and brought it to his lips.

“Will you both be joining us for dinner?” Jeremy asked. “It looks like cake’s off the menu,” he said, flickering his gaze to the Pomfrey-Gerrard cake and wincing. “I don’t think any of us will fancy it after it’s been trampled under a regiment’s worth of feet.”

“Or would you prefer a tray sent up?” Lady Faris offered compassionately.

“A tray,” Gervaise answered at once.

“If it is not too much trouble,” Caroline added swiftly.

“Oh, of course not,” Emmeline assured her. “Your brother is also having a tray. He does not feel much up to company either.”

56

“Finished?” Gervaise asked, looking down at her uncleared plates. Neither of them had shown much appetite for the baked salmon, despite the excellent dill sauce that had accompanied it. As for the steamed custard Cook had hastily thrown together for dessert, neither of them had even touched it.

Caroline set down her napkin. “Yes, thank you.”

“Good,” he said whisking the tray out of her lap. “I will just take these down to the kitchen. Can I fetch you anything else?” he asked politely. “Another glass of wine? Coffee? Tea?”

She shook her head and he headed off, only to bump almost immediately into a maidservant who looked most surprised to see him doing her job. “I was just coming to collect those, milord,” she said with mild reproof. “Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“Not at all,” he answered, handing the trays over and returning to their room. He had almost forgotten what it felt like to be waited on by professional servants. Shutting the door behind him, he turned the key and unbuttoned his collar. He was pleased to see Caroline had removed her slippers and was lying back on the bed.

“I do hope someone will remember to feed the twins,” she said, directing a glance at him. “Do you think we should send word to Effie?”

“You don’t need to worry. I’ve just left them downstairs eating fish heads before the kitchen fire. They are perfectly content.” Gervaise said, stretching out beside her on top of the covers.

“Remus and Romulus are downstairs?” She sounded surprised but pleased.

“Reg brought them with him. Knowing how devoted we are to their care, he did not like to leave them behind at The Citadel.”

“He’s rather a treasure, isn’t he?”