Authors: The Choice
“Here, let me help,” he murmured, kneeling at her side. “Stop struggling, it’s the work of a moment—and don’t I know it?” he added ruefully. “There. You’re covered. Now if you stand, it’ll all fall into place. I wish my head would.
Damnation
! Forgive me, Gilly. But for a girl who swore she knows all there is to know, you certainly seemed to forget.”
“I!” she gasped, in shock.
“No, you’re right,” he said. “That’s not fair. I was sup
posed to remember, you only trusted me. Well, so did I, until I touched you. Easy to say you’re so tempting a man can’t help losing control. But not fair. I ought to have stopped, I should have known. Damnation!”
“But I…”
“No!” he said, rising, walking a pace away and then one back. He looked down at her and his gaze softened. Her gown was proper again, but everything else was not. Her silken hair floated over her flushed face, she was rumpled, disheveled, and unutterably desirable. Now she was covered, but he remembered how easy it had been to expose the treasures of her body. He remembered those small but perfect breasts, so white, tipped with rose, tasting like flowers and honey, just the right size, and the exact shape of all his desires. And that tiny pink birthmark high on her thigh, rosy as what lay so near to it, beneath that golden thatch…. He remembered too much. He had to fight the urge to sink to his knees and then to her again. As it was, his voice was hoarse when he finally spoke.
“Gilly Giles, we—you and me—almost made a scandal of ourselves that Felicity could have dined out on for years.” He shook his head as he gave her his hand so she could stand. “Three buttons! I only knew what I was about on the third one!”
She looked confused. “But I’ve no buttons on this gown. It’s all drawn together with a ribbon…”
“On m’britches, my dear,” he said with regret, “on the fall that covers my…impulses.” He gave a bark of laughter. “Oh gods! Autumn
can’t
come soon enough!”
He gazed at her and all laughter fled. She didn’t look amused. She looked upset, embarrassed, wary.
“Gilly Giles, you part my hair with the nearest article of furniture you can grab if I forget myself like that again, before we marry. Yes, I deserve that look. I make fine speeches, and the taste of you drives them from my head. Things got out of hand—well, at least not literally, thank God.” He started to smile, but seeing no response, said soberly, “I won’t let it happen again. I promise. Not until you’re ready.”
She didn’t look any happier with that promise. Because she had been ready. And he knew it. But she, at least, wasn’t ready for that knowledge.
She was neater and very much quieter when Bridget and Damon’s sisters came back. Nor did she touch Damon except when she had to as he helped her into the carriage again.
“I’m sorry, again I say I’m sorry,” Damon told Gilly softly when he left her that afternoon. He took her hand, captured her other one, and held them both as he spoke. He didn’t like how subdued she was, he hated how out of control he’d been.
“If you’d said one word, even hesitated in any way, I’d have remembered,” he said. “I should have, even so. But I’m not insensible. Just too human. I went too fast. I’ll remember in future. I’m not ruled by my passions, I promise you.”
They stood in the hall, face to face, linked only by their hands. Their thoughts couldn’t be further apart. He was deeply worried, wondering if she was remembering that other man, the one who’d been more like an animal. The one who’d hurt her with his lust. Worrying she might make that connection, too, and put
him in the same class. His loss of control had surprised him and now he damned himself, fearing he might have alienated her with his passion.
She gazed at him with new eyes, never thinking of that brutality in her youth. But he was right about one thing. She was worrying about passion. Her own. She knew so much about men and women. She hadn’t known that about her own femininity, and didn’t know what to think of it just yet.
“Gilly?”
“Don’t apologize,” she said. “It was my fault as much as yours. And I’m not sure it was even a fault,” she added, as always, honest with him. “Just a surprise. I didn’t know it would be like that.”
“Oh, it can be better. But as everything, it’s best in it’s right place and time.”
She nodded. He’d showed her a new Damon. But now she was a new Gilly, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. All these years she’d been strong, sure, in control of herself. He’d showed her that she’d been foolish to think that could go on. She’d be his wife, and had planned to be a good one for him, never knowing it would change her life in ways she’d never been able to guess at. She’d reckoned on a marriage of expedience, maybe pleasure, too. Now Damon showed her passion. She needed time to think on that! But she was fair.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she told him. “You just showed me the way of things.”
“Too much,” he said, kissing her hand. “Too little, too,” he said with a grin as he raised the other and brought it to his lips.
Gilly was packing by the following morning.
“No,” Bridget said again, watching her. “Put everything back, if you please. There’s no point to it, and no need for it either. The doctor said the infection’s in London. Margaret doesn’t have it, thank goodness, it was only teething that shot her temperature up last night. Max is perfectly fine. But if any infection
is
here in town, we won’t be. You know how Ewen worries. If there’s typhus in the East End, he wants the children in the countryside. Adults aren’t in such danger. So it doesn’t and shouldn’t concern you.”
Gilly swung around, her hands on her hips. “Not concern me?” she cried. “Oho! Then you don’t consider me a member of the family anymore?”
“More than ever,” Bridget said calmly, “and forever, too, and well you know it, so don’t give me such sauce, thank you very much. But adults aren’t so susceptible, and you have things that must get done here. Mind, it isn’t such a bad idea, at that, since me being at home will help me get things done there. There’s Betsy’s gown to fit, and speaking of Betsy, the flowers for the ceremony, of course. How charming if she carried a basket of violets, for old times’ sake. And the catering and provisions and lodgings for all the guests to see to. There’s so much to do. Weddings don’t arrange themselves, at least not magnificent ones, and we’ll have no less than that for you.”
“Well, I don’t need to be here then, either,” Gilly said, turning and flinging a chemise into her traveling case with such violence Bridget winced.
“Annie can pack for you,” Bridget said, and then
added, “
when
it’s time for you to leave. Which it is not now. You have a raft of gowns still being fitted, a trunkful of bonnets, and robes and slippers and fans—Lord! Gilly, you can’t leave now! Unless…I’ve noticed…Is there a problem, Gilly?”
“Problem with what?” Gilly said too quickly, turning to stare. “What have you noticed?”
Bridget perched on the edge of the bed, folded her hands, and looked at Gilly. Her eyes were troubled, because she saw the shadows in Gilly’s eyes. “There is such a thing as wedding nerves and that’s perfectly natural. But if it’s more than that, I wish you’d tell me.”
“Why should you think that?” Gilly asked, her cheeks growing pink.
“Because I’m not deaf or blind. After we left Vauxhall yesterday you hardly said two words to Damon. He was quiet, too. I know we made a noisy party at the theater, but at dinner? And later? Come, what’s toward? Have you two quarreled? Is it serious? Or only pre-bridal nerves?”
“Ho!” Gilly said hollowly. “I don’t have a nerve in my body, and you know it.”
“There’s a mare’s nest! But I’ll let it go. Did you fight?”
Gilly shook her head.
“I see. Then what could it be? Every girl is a little nervous before her wedding…Lud! Could it be?” The viscountess seemed to ask herself, her eyes wide. “I just realized! Gilly! Do you know? With all the things we’ve talked about through the years, we never talked about…you know, things to do with your wedding night.”
“Of course we did,” Gilly said with a forced laugh.
“Don’t we gossip about every lecher and loose lady in the
ton
, and every affair we hear about in the countryside, too?”
“Yes, but that’s not what I mean. That’s in general. I meant specifics, this time. We never talked about that. You know? I suppose I was a coward, because I didn’t want to bring it up because of your early experience. And so if you think…But this would never be the same, and you ought to know that.”
Bridget’s eyes widened on another sudden thought. She ducked her head and stammered, “Unless, of course, it’s a thing that you and he have already…! Not that it matters. Unless it was uncomfortable or such and then we ought to talk about it, because…because it might be a thing that can be remedied by knowledge of how such things go. But even if not, it wouldn’t be the first time such a thing happened before the wedding night, and I’d have no business knowing if it did, I’m not prying or…”
“Don’t get into such a dither,” Gilly said with a sweet smile, plunking down on the bed beside her friend and mentor. “Of course you’re prying. I’m glad of it, because you’re my friend and friends are supposed to pry. But I haven’t, we didn’t, and there’s an end to it. I expect you’re right; it’s just that I’ve lived with you gentry coves too long.”
Gilly wore a cocky smile that reminded Bridget of the girl she’d been as she went on. “I’m getting missish. Me! But marriage is a big step and I think my feet were getting too cold to take it, is all. I owe Damon an apology. I suppose I am on edge. The thing is, I hate to stay here without you here with me.”
“But it’s only for a few weeks, and Damon’s mama and papa are perfect chaperones.”
“Aye, perfect. Them and sweet old Aunt Felicity,” Gilly grumbled. “There’s one who’d like to dance around my head in a basket.”
“Gilly,” Bridget said in exasperation, “they all adore you, because he adores you. Don’t invent problems.”
“No fear of that,” Gilly said, as she rose and began pulling things out of her traveling case.
Because, she thought, she didn’t have to invent them. She’d be left in London, alone with a family that regretted her lack of family. Alone with a man who had surprised and confused her. She’d thought he’d be a comfortable husband. She’d never imagined anything else in marriage, except with her secret imaginary lover, her phantom husband, the Earl of Drummond. She’d always known that was only a fantasy, but such a delicious one that she’d never wanted to replace him, only to find someone to build a real life with.
Her response to Damon had been profound, and it had also been profoundly unsettling. She should be glad. Instead, she was uneasy and off-balance. She’d lost herself in his arms, completely. But for all it had been, and with all she now realized it could be with Damon, she couldn’t quite dismiss that old, essential dream. She loved Drum and always would. She was cursed with honesty; she neither gave nor gave up her fidelity easily. She knew it was folly, but still the stunning passion she’d shared with Damon was tinged with regret and guilt, because with all she’d felt, it still seemed like a betrayal.
Her dreams and her reality were colliding. She’d
thought Damon a common man. Not such a commoner as herself, but certainly not from such an exalted family as she now knew he had.
Last time she’d been alone in this city she’d known it from the bottom. Now she suddenly found she was to be alone at the top—without Bridget and Ewen, for the first time since they’d met. Back then, in those fearful days before she’d met them, she’d worried about how she’d be able to eat the next day. That was, if she’d be alive in order to eat. Even so, on balance, Gilly thought sadly, remembering her past as she half-listened to Bridget giving instructions on how she was to hold her head high and never worry about Damon’s family in future, in many ways it had been so much simpler then.
“I
shall write,” Max said grumpily, drawing a small circle on the marble tiles in the hall with the toe of his boot. “It would be nice if you’d write to me, too.”
“I will,” Gilly promised, “but there’s no reason for us to be sad. I’ll be coming home in a month’s time.”
“But then you’ll be getting married,” he said, still looking down and not at Gilly.
“And then she’ll live not one hour’s ride away from us, remember, gudgeon?” Ewen said, reaching down to ruffle his son’s downcast head. “At first we’ll have to visit by carriage but before you know it you’ll be able to take a horse and go galloping off to visit her all by yourself. Now, make your bows, it’s getting late, we have to go galloping off ourselves.”
Gilly felt as glum as Max looked. It was true she’d see
him soon. But right now that seemed as far away to her as commandeering his own horse did to him. A lump rose in her throat as she took his hand and slowly walked out to the waiting carriage with him. But she knew he was better off away from contagion, safe in the countryside. For herself, she’d never felt less safe.
Which was nonsense, she told herself sharply. Because if anyone knew the face of danger, she did. And it certainly was not the calm, handsome face of her betrothed, standing at her side as she made her good-byes to the dearest, truest friends she’d ever known. She sniffled. Max ran a finger under his nose and scowled horribly. They stood by the carriage looking as though he was going to be carried away to the scaffold, before she was to be sent to the Tower.
“Max,” Damon said, bending to one knee beside the boy, ignoring the risk to the close-knit fabric of his breeches, “what your father said reminded me of something. Could you do me a favor? I got a letter this morning. From my house, The Lindens. Topsy is a yellow dog that lives with the gatekeeper there, but she used to be my uncle’s favorite. Half spaniel, half terrier, I think, but all heart. Or so they say. But now? Well, it seems she’s pining. She’s been lonely since my uncle left. She could do with a friend. It’ll be a while until I get there. The servants like her, but they have so many duties now, preparing for the wedding, you see. So, I was thinking—if your father could take you over to The Lindens, do you think you could throw a stick or two for her? For me?”
Max thought about it. “I’ll do it. But don’t she need more?”
“A pat or two would help, too,” Damon said, considering it. “A scratch on the tum? Maybe a long amble through the gardens? I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I think maybe I should take her home with me.”
“Well, maybe,” Damon said, not daring to look up at the viscountess. If they had any more dogs, Bridget groaned, they’d be a kennel. “But The Lindens is her home. You know how it is. Maybe if you just visited her often? And told her we’re coming soon?”
“I could do that!” Max said, brightening.
“You might tell the barn cat and her new kittens, too,” Damon mused.
“Kittens?” Max asked.
“Six. Ginger ones, I suspect, like their mother,” Damon said. “I’m not sure. Maybe you could tell me?”
So Max was smiling as he got into the coach. No one else was. Bridget blotted her eyes after she hugged Gilly good-bye. A muscle in the side of the viscount’s hard jaw knotted after he kissed her cheek in farewell. “Take care of our Gilly girl,” he told Damon curtly, as he stepped into the carriage after his wife.
Damon’s father answered for him. “Of course! Never fear,” Arthur assured him. Damon’s mama added, “As though she were our own.”
Damon put his arm around Gilly. And frowned to himself at how stiffly she held herself and how grieved she looked even after the coach went out of sight. “It’s not forever,” he told her, as they turned to go back in the house. When she didn’t answer, he added, “Maybe you’d like me to bring Topsy here so you can play with her?”
She gave him a weak smile. “Thank you,” she said
mistily, “but leave that to Max. I know I’m being foolish. It’s just that I haven’t been on my own in a while, and I’m a little anxious about it.”
Now he frowned. “On your own? With my parents and ten thousand relatives of mine living in your pocket?”
“Yes, but that’s it. They’re yours,” she said simply. “I know they’ll be mine. But they’re still strangers to me. I’ve no one of my own here with me now.”
“You have me,” he said seriously.
She gazed at that grave, handsome face. “I know. Thank you.”
“I’ll be here with you every minute,” he promised.
“Even I feel glum!” his mother said, as she bustled up to them. “Partings can certainly put you in the sullens. But I’ve a cure. Get your bonnet, Gillian. My husband’s off to keep Damon’s brothers entertained, but you’re promised to me this morning, remember? We’ve more shopping to do. I don’t know anything that can cheer a girl more.”
A
hanging might
, Damon thought, with a look at Gilly’s expression. “So much for my promise,” he said with regret, “but I’ll make it up to you. Be back on time,” he told his mother. “I’ll be here for luncheon, and I’ve promised Gilly a drive right after.”
“After it is then,” his mother said. “Now, we must get some more gowns made! Come along, Gillian.”
Gilly ducked her head. “I’ll just get that bonnet,” she said hollowly, and with only one backward glance at Damon, went up the stairs to her room. Damon put a hand on his mother’s sleeve as she began to follow. “Wait,” he said softly. Elizabeth looked at him in
surprise. “Felicity going with you?” he asked.
“Of course. Try discouraging her from such a treat! Why do you ask?”
His eyes were troubled. In immediate reaction, she reached up to touch his cheek, only realizing he was a grown man at the last and touching his neckcloth as though to straighten it instead.
“Gilly isn’t used to family,” he said, taking her hand. “Bear with her, please.”
“Why, but I’m doing just that!”
“Yes, but…” He sighed, and lowered his voice. “If you tell Gilly this, I’m afraid I’m going to have to remove your scalp, the way I wrote and told you they do in the wilderness, remember? In the nicest way possible, of course. But I’ll do it. Listen, Mama. I’m afraid your dear Cousin Felicity’s given Gilly the feeling you’d have preferred Annabelle as a daughter-in-law.” He wasn’t pleased to see her face turning pink.
“Oh my! Has she? Well, but Damon, you can hardly blame her for that. We all cherished hopes…that is to say…” She saw his eyes change to slate and added petulantly, “Well, but that’s of no account now, is it?”
“It is,” he said through clenched teeth.
She stepped back in alarm.
He took a deep breath. “I suppose I understand it even if I regret it, so I don’t blame anyone,” he said with thin patience. “But I will if it doesn’t change. I’d like it if you could pretend you never felt that way. Not so much for Gilly’s sake as mine. Gilly doesn’t know you. I do. I wouldn’t want to feel that wasn’t true. Nor would I want any part of our affection for each other to change.”
His mother’s eyes widened.
“I think if you pretend, it’ll be truth in no time,” he said a little more gently. “She’s wonderful, Mama. Give her a chance to show you. She can’t if she thinks you resent her or wish her half a world away.”
“I don’t! What a thing to say! I suppose it’s because she doesn’t know me. Well, but how can she? It’s difficult to know what to say to someone who’s a complete stranger,” she said defensively, “and one who knows no one you know…and who doesn’t even know how to behave in our boisterous family.” She saw his face, and winced. “I mean to say, how to fit in, for she behaves very prettily, to be sure. Oh drat, Damon! It’s just hard to know how to approach her. I’m sure you know what you’re about, but it would have been—if nothing else—just so much easier with Annabelle!”
“Going by that reasoning, it would be even easier if I offered for Felicity, wouldn’t it?” he asked wryly. “England’s full of girls who grew up exactly as I did and who know everyone I do. I waited this long because I was looking for something else. And
that
someone is Gilly. Mama, if you want to make me happy, make her happy. That’s all I’ll say.”
“Oh,” she said, affronted, but afraid to show it. “Well, I can only try.”
“Don’t try as hard, it will be easier,” he said, smiling at her in the way that always melted her anger.
So his mother was careful to be on her best behavior as she, Felicity, and Gilly visited the dressmaker. Maybe too careful. So Gilly was subdued and quietly polite, too. Felicity was the only one free to chatter, and she did. And so she was the only one to enjoy the morning.
Damon saw that the moment the trio got home. He saw Gilly get out of the coach and straggle up the front steps after his mama and Felicity. He went quickly to meet her. Gilly was silent. Pale to begin with, she looked drawn and exhausted.
“Had a good time?” he asked.
“Delightful,” Gilly lied.
“Oh, yes,” his mother echoed with false sincerity.
“Excellent!” Felicity said, and meant it.
Gilly told him why on their drive in the park after lunch.
“Lady Annabelle’s a complete lady,” Gilly reported with bitter spirit, “but she knows how to ride to an inch, follows the hunt as well as the latest fashions, and has more beaux than most girls have hair on their heads. As to that—her hair’s lustrous and black, with hints of blue in the sunlight, and so she has, as a matter of fact, even been called the ‘Black Rose of Surrey’ in a poem or two dozen, one actually printed in the
Gentleman’s Magazine
. But I suppose you know that, and all the other wonderful things about her.”
“Yes, I read the poem. They sent it to me,” Damon said carefully. “The rhymes were terrible, the meter off, and the whole thing sludge, as another matter of fact. But the poet’s father’s an old school chum of the editor’s. What else did you talk about this morning? I mean, apart from Annabelle’s perfection?”
“Is she really that good?” Gilly asked.
He owed her honesty, and nodded, not looking at her, glad the horses required his attention. “She is. Very good, mind and heart, and yes, pretty, too. But
though I’ve said I think green suits you, I have to add that she’s good for someone else. Not me. I like her. I never loved her or wanted her for a wife. There’s no explaining these things. So don’t go looking for deeper meanings. She’s a wonderful girl—woman, now. But not for me. Want to go into who is, chapter and verse? Or will you accept that?”
“Fine,” she said, but she looked like she’d bitten something sour.
“So what else did you talk about? Annabelle’s charming, but surely not a whole morning’s worth of conversation.”
“We talked about the same things we talked about at dinner last night,” she said crankily. “And at luncheon today, as well as at breakfast. Old friends at home, old friends in London. And I do mean
old
. Doesn’t your family know anyone whose great grandparents didn’t know each other? Or did they all meet at Hastings at that battle when you were trying to repel the invaders?”
“No, you’ve got it wrong,” he said mildly. “Most of them were those invaders. A lot of Normans, a few Saxons, and a Viking here or there, and there we are.”
“Aye,” she spat. “There
you
are! As for me? I’m an Englishwoman, but I don’t know a thing past that! Damon, don’t you see how ridiculous this is getting to be?”
“Yes,” he said, turning his head. “Don’t you?”
“I see. You’re still certain of this marriage of ours?” she asked, but it was more of a statement.
“Still,” he said. But didn’t ask her the same.
There was more reminiscence at the dinner table that night. Every time Mary told a story about a neighbor, or Alfred joked about a cousin, or anyone told an anecdote about someone Gilly didn’t know—and that was everyone they talked about—she looked at Damon with something like triumph. And something like despair.
“Now at least they understand why I picked you for my bride,” Damon said idly, hours later, when they finally were able to sit alone in the drawing room for their last half hour of the night. “They know I’m soft-hearted. And they think you’re a mute.”
“Well, what was I supposed to say?” Gilly demanded, anger banishing her melancholy.
“Nothing,” he laughed, happy to see her eyes sparkling and the color flashing into her face. “Gilly, my silly, that’s what families do when they get together. Did you notice all your counterparts yawning? Mary’s husband practically dozed off in his soup while she told about the time I ran away from home to escape punishment for shaving the dog. And I heard Thomas’s wife groan when he told that frog in my pocket story again. But she was polite and did it as she bit into her pastry, so it would sound like ‘Oh, yum’ and not ‘Ho hum.’”
Gilly grinned.
Such a cocky, arrogant, little boy grin, he thought tenderly. Not at all what you’d expect from such a wholly feminine face. She ought to lower her long lashes over those remarkable yellow eyes of hers, smiling the slow languorous smile of a woman with a wonderful secret, the way the acknowledged beauties did. But instead she grinned and tugged at his heart as no
other woman had ever done. His heart and other impulses, he thought, catching himself beginning to bend toward her. She saw the motion, and leaned forward slightly, her eyelids drifting closed. Her lips parted, her breath came more quickly. He reached to touch the satin softness of her cheek…and snatched back his hand to sit up straight again.
Her eyes flew open. She frowned. He smiled. “No,” he said regretfully, though he was delighted by her surprised disappointment. “No kisses. No embraces. It’s Father Damon the Pious you’ve got to yourself tonight, my dear Gilly. And every night until you’re under Sinclair’s protection again.”
She looked confused. “It’s nothing you said or did,” he said. “In fact, I have the strongest desire to bolt the door and let the consequences fall where they may. Along with your pretty gown…” he added with a mock leer. Then he grew serious. “My desire for you hasn’t changed. Our circumstances have. I could overstep myself when your protectors were here. It wasn’t right, but at least understandable. I won’t when you’re under my protection. I can’t. They trust me. I gave my word. Do you see?”