“No, I love you and will continue to love you until I take my dying breath. That hasn’t changed and never will. Same applies to any children we might have. But Berry, you are so high above me. You are the stars in the celestial heaven and I am a speck of dust within an abyss. How can I drag you into my dark hole?”
“I would go willingly. Persephone did the same for Hades.Ow. My head hurts. I don’t want to talk about this. You are sounding too much like Lord Hawthorne now, spouting all these nonsensical rules thetonhas created to keep us apart.”
“All right, love. I’m sorry I’ve upset you. We’ll work it out.”
“There is nothing to work out,” she said, allowing her thoughts to spill out, since he had told her that she needed to stay awake and talk. Well, she was going to give him an earful. “I am not going to marry some idiot lord because thetonhas decided he is suitable. Who are they to guide my destiny? Or ever decide the rules of marriage when so few of them ever keep to their vows? Even the patronesses at Almack’s are having notorious affairs outside of their marriage bonds. And yet we are supposed to bow to them and beg to be allowed to dance a waltz? Am I to follow the advice of people who do not love, honor, or ever obey the vows they have made to their spouses?”
She took a breath and continued. “And another thing… Once I am a duchess, assuming it happens, everyone in thetonwill be tripping over themselves to make my acquaintance and curry my favor. They wouldn’t care if I married a goat, a real live goat that bleats and butts and gives milk. That goat and I would still be invited to all the balls and social affairs held within the London Season.”
“So, I am to be a bleating goat?” he said with mild humor.
“Oh, Gideon. You know what I mean.”
“Yes, love. I do.”
“If you care for me, you have to fight for me, because I will be fighting so very hard for you. And you should hope I willbe that duchess, because no one will ever dare look down upon you for fear of angering me, a powerful duchess. Broadingham is a massive estate. Inheriting it would allow me to take in two hundred orphans with ease. But I am not likely to inherit it, so you must stop making a fuss about it.” She started to cry again, not caring she was turning into a watering pot. “Why haven’t your men returned yet? Do you think something has happened to Lord Berwick? Oh, heavens! Someone must get word to Lady Berwick. She sprained her ankle and did not join us this evening. What am I to tell her? She’ll be frantic with worry if he does not return home soon. Help me up. We must find him.”
“Berry, lie still.” He held her down gently when she tried to get to her feet.
“Oh, the bed is lurching. It feels like a boat upon a stormy sea.”
“The bed is firmly anchored. It is your head that is reeling.”
She tried to get up again, but that only made her want to cast up her accounts, which irritated her because she did not think there was anything left in her stomach to purge. Apparently, she was wrong.
There was more.
Gideon quickly moved the chamber pot in front of her, and then held her until the last of it came out and she had no more left in her.
She fell back onto the bed with a moan. “Where’s Lord Berwick? He should have been brought here by now.”
Gideon dabbed her lips with a damp handkerchief. “Joss and Pudge will give me a full report the moment they return. If Lord Berwick is injured, they will bring him here, and Dr. Farthingale will tend to both of you. If he was spared injury, then they might be escorting him home as we speak.”
“No, he would never leave before seeing that I am all right. Why are they taking so long?”
“It’s only been a few minutes, Berry.”
“It feels like an eternity.”
“Because you are worried about him. But fretting does you no good. It is also possible they are waiting for the magistrate’s men to arrive and arrest Hawthorne and the idiot friends he enlisted to assist in your abduction. They won’t get away with it. Hawthorne has no privileges of rank. His is only a courtesy title. And I doubt his family will come forward to rescue him from this mess of his own creation.”
She cried again because her head really hurt. And so did her arm and knees.
“Berry, will you allow me to look at your knees? And your arm. I can at least clean out the scrapes until Dr. Farthingale arrives.”
She was in his bed. Had thrown up in his arms.
And they had admitted their love for each other.
“Yes, do whatever you need to do. All of me is yours.”
Someone knocked at the door as he was about to raise the hem of her gown. Gideon left her side and went to answer it. “Horace, thank goodness you’re finally back,” he said, dragging the young man in. “I need your help. Berry, this is my valet, Horace.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” she mumbled into her pillow. “Do forgive me if I don’t get up.”
“Oh my.” Horace set aside the cider and biscuits he had brought in and stood over the bed to stare down at her. “I’ll bring up a fresh chamber pot and find a change of clothes for you, Lady Berry. You cannot stay in that gown a moment longer, even though it is quite exquisite. Is it one of Madam de Bressard’s designs?”
She nodded. “How did you know?”
