He continued to stand there for a few moments, but then he came toward the bed, shedding his dressing gown as he came. He was indeed cold. She drew the covers about him, wriggled closer, and held him against her. He was naked.
“You could not sleep?” she asked.
“It occurred to me,” he said, “that I might be able to get to sleep here. But then I was afraid of waking you. It seemed selfish. Itseemsselfish. I am sorry.”
“Oh, Gil,” she said. “I have missed you.”
“I am making you cold,” he said, his teeth chattering slightly.
But she would not let him pull away. “I have missed you,” she said again.
He sighed and she felt some of the tension go from hisbody. “Abby,” he said, “no matter what happens... today I promise to spend the rest of my life making you happy. I have been neglecting you, have I not? No, do not answer. I have been neglecting you. Because my head has been all abuzz and I have not wanted to infect you. A poor excuse. But it will not happen any longer. I will not give up the treasure I have because I may not be able to get the one I want. Theotherone. I—” His teeth chattered again even though his body had begun to warm.
“Gil,” she said, “I am your wife. I understand. We will do this together—this living, no matter what the future holds in store for us. The future is the one thing we can never plan for even though we are always trying. Are we not foolish? We will deal with it.”
“Together,” he said.
“Yes.” The most beautiful word in the English language. “Together.”
He repositioned himself so that he could set one arm about her shoulders and beneath her neck, and he held her close to him. They lay together, relaxed and comfortable, and he kissed her, his mouth soft and warm and lovely. And they did not even need to make love for the pleasure to be felt. He slid into sleep, his breathing becoming slower and deeper. Abigail smoothed a finger over the seam of the scar across his shoulder and followed him within minutes.
•••
They would go together the short distance to Judge Burroughs’s chambers, Grimes had told Gil during a brief meeting they had had the day before. It was a pity there would be no one there to speak personally to the lieutenant colonel’s character, and it was regrettable that there had not been time enough for an answer to have come in reply tothe letter that had been sent Major Westcott. It was a shame too that there had been insufficient time to write to any of the servants at Rose Cottage. But it was to be hoped they had a strong enough case to contrive without.
Grimes had written to the Horse Guards awhile ago and then sent a clerk there to bring the dispatches from both India and the Peninsula in which the lieutenant colonel had been singled out for special commendation. Those would surely help. The financial papers Grimes had received from his client’s agent here in London demonstrated that he had carefully husbanded his resources for a number of years and was well able to keep his child in a manner worthy of the granddaughter of General and Lady Pascoe. And Lieutenant Colonel Bennington was in the process of retiring from active service and had a new wife, a mother for his daughter, and she was a sensible and eminently genteel young lady even if itwasa pity about her birth.
All the while Gil was listening to him he had wondered why the man had not arranged for character witnesses either in person or by written statement a great deal sooner than he had. He had been Gil’s lawyer for several months. Had he been taken by surprise at the speed with which the case had come before a judge? The twinge of doubt he had been feeling ever since he hired the man had become a raging flood of suspicion that he was incompetent. Yet the whole of Gil’s life and Katy’s depended upon his beingcompetent.
It was too late now, however, to do anything differently.
He asked Abby at a breakfast neither of them ate whether she thought he ought to wear his uniform as Grimes had urged him to do or regular clothes. He was very nearly a retired officer rather than an active one, after all, and the whole point of retiring was that he would be livingpermanently at home, to be a father to his daughter throughout her growing years. Nevertheless, the uniform might make him look more impressive. In what way, though? Did he want to impress as a soldier? Or as a man?
She tipped her head to one side, the crease of a slight frown between her brows. “Not the uniform, I think,” she said. “If General Pascoe wears his, then you will appear more... paternal in contrast.”
Did it really matter, though? Would Judge Burroughs make his decision based uponlooks? Howwouldhe decide?
“It was my thought too,” he said. “Though I do not believe I could look paternal if I tried from now until eternity.”
He wore a dark green coat tailored by Weston over a gray waistcoat and paler gray pantaloons with Hessian boots and white linen—all of which items he had purchased since his arrival in London. He tied his neckcloth without any fancy folds or frills. He wore no jewels, adding only his pocket watch and chain. He brushed his hair, willing that one errant lock to stay back, and looked critically at his image in the glass, something he was not in the habit of doing.
He did not look even remotely paternal. He looked like a soldier in disguise. Perhaps if he slouched his shoulders a little... And wore a mask over one half of his face... Perhaps if he had bought gold rings and a diamond cravat pin and fobs and other taradiddles for his waist. And a quizzing glass with a jewel-encrusted handle. If he had had his hair cut à la Brutus. Bought a smart cane. Bought those Hessians with the gold tassels instead of these plain ones. Arranged for shirt points so high and stiffly starched they would almost have pierced his eyeballs and made it impossible to turn his head.
He shared a rueful smile with his image and turned away from the glass.
Abby, he saw when he stepped into the sitting room of their suite, was dressed smartly and soberly in a walking dress of silver gray trimmed with black. The silk ribbons that trimmed the crown of the matching bonnet and were tied in a bow to one side of her chin saved her from looking as though she were in half mourning, however. They were boldly striped in black and white and sunshine yellow. The shoes that peeped from beneath the hem of her dress were also yellow. Her hair was brushed smooth beneath the bonnet.
So this is it, he thought as he watched her draw on a pair of black gloves and then offered her his arm. And he wondered in what direction his life would have turned by the time they came back here.
Less than an hour later they entered the hearing room that was part of the chambers of the judge, a little less formal than a public courtroom but not by much. It was a big square room with a door in each side, a long desk upon a slightly raised dais at one end, two oblong tables below it with three chairs set behind each, facing the dais. Behind the tables, there were rows of chairs, presumably for witnesses or spectators important enough to be allowed in to observe the proceedings. The chairs behind one of the tables were empty, Gil saw with a single glance as he followed Grimes into the room with Abby. The chairs behind the other table, three rows of them, were filled.
In that first moment and at that first glance his heart sank. The Pascoes clearlyhadbeen able to amass numerous character witnesses.
But then Abby’s hand tightened convulsively about his arm and Gil’s eyes focused upon General and Lady Pascoe, already seated at one of the tables with the man who was presumably their lawyer. The chairs behind their table werethe empty ones. He looked more closely at the people filling the rows of chairs behind the still-empty table. They were not strangers. They were theWestcotts.
“Oh dear God,” Abby murmured.
Including Joel Cunningham, who was supposedly in Bath with Abby’s sister, his wife, and their family.
