The carriage was rolling again, gathering speed. It thundered down the hill, barely missed a solitary horseman, crashed into a brick wall and overturned to lie upside down, one wheel flying off, and the remaining three spinning madly.
Rossiter dragged himself up. Naomi sat beside him, looking dazed. He gasped, “Are you all right?”
She said tremulously, “I think…’tis not safe to be nigh you, sir,” then threw herself into his arms. “Oh… Gideon…!”
He held her very tight, whispering, “Thank God! Thank God!”
***
The bootblack had been sent to the stables to hire another carriage; Tummet and the butler were down the hill with the driver of the wrecked vehicle; Naomi had been ushered upstairs to be ministered to by the cook; and the lackey was brushing Gideon’s uniform coat. Having washed, put on a clean shirt, and tidied his disordered hair, Gideon donned his dressing gown and went slipper hunting.
Monsieur Delatouche was snoring by the fire in Newby’s parlour while awaiting the return of his employer. When Gideon marched in without benefit of a knock, went straight into the bedchamber and appropriated the dainty slipper from atop the chest of drawers, the valet started up and launched into an anguished protest. Gideon instructed him to refer Monsieur Newby to Captain Gideon, and left the man wailing.
The lackey had worked wonders with his coat, and in no time he was downstairs again. He went into the withdrawing room, poured himself a glass of cognac, and stretched out in a chair, reliving the moments when two soft arms had clung about his neck and a warm and shapely little body had been pressed tight against him. Magical moments, made the more precious by the awareness that Naomi had escaped almost certain death. He closed his eyes for a second. Suppose he’d not been in time? Suppose she had been swept down that hill? How would he be feeling at this moment? And he knew, and trembled. What a fool to ever have thought he could forget her! How could he have been so stupid as to envision life without her? She was his, and always would be, no matter what had come between them, for without her there would be no life.
He heard the whisper of feminine draperies then, and came at once to his feet, turning to her eagerly.
She came into the room looking a little pale but otherwise none the worse for her ordeal. There seemed, in fact, to be a glow about her that enhanced her beauty, so that he was awed, and stared at her speechlessly.
Gazing at him in turn, she thought that he looked haggard and tired, with dark smudges under his eyes. But the tenderness in those eyes set her heart to pounding wildly, and she blushed and hurried to give him both her hands. “Well, sir,” she said rather shakily. “On your first day home you rescued me from highwaymen, and tonight you have saved my life once again. I trust you do not mean to make a habit of such behaviour? Faith, but I doubt I could support any more of these exciting episodes!”
“’Tis said things always happen in sequences of three,” he answered, smiling, and bending to kiss her fingertips. He stepped closer, still holding her hands, enchanted by the sudden shyness in her eyes. “Naomi, are you really all right? My God, but I was scared!”
“And I,” she confessed. “I thought I was doomed. Had it not been for you coming up so fast… For a man who could scarce walk, you fairly flew, Gideon.”
He said whimsically, “For a moment I feared I would pass you by and be unable to stop! A fine figure I would have cut!”
She put a cool finger across his lips. “No. We must not make light of it. I have to thank you for—”
“For hiring that stupid coach?” he interrupted, frowning. “I should have made certain it was safe before I entrusted your precious self to it!”
They were still standing very close together and the old magic was at work, so that the lost years and all her bitter griefs melted away. Looking up at him, she half-whispered, “Am I really precious to you, Gideon?”
She was more than precious; she was his dear and delicate perfection. He murmured huskily, “You are my—”
“I fetched a cup of tea for my lady,” said Cook, coming briskly into the room and directing a censuring frown at Gideon.
The two young people fairly sprang apart and turned guilty faces to the motherly woman.
Cook put the cup and saucer on a side table, looked from one to the other, and made no move to depart. The wife of Sir Mark’s coachman, she had been assistant to the chef until the scandal had caused that highly excitable French gentleman to remove to a less notorious household, whereupon she had taken over as ruler of the kitchens. She had only known Gideon for two years prior to his departure for the army, but she considered him part of “her family” and thus subject to correction where needed. She folded brawny arms across a massive bosom and fixed him with a steady stare.
Naomi murmured that she was most kind, and Gideon, flushing to the roots of his hair, felt like a small boy caught in some prank, and stammered, “Oh. Er—yes. You are very good. Thank you.”
“The young lady’s had a awful experience, sir,” said Cook. “Likely you’d want me to keep with her.”
‘Oh, God!’ thought Gideon. “I—er—I was just—Just—er…” Inspired, he said, “Returning her slipper! Here—here ’tis, Lady Naomi.” He whipped the slipper from the floor beside his chair, and offered it triumphantly.
“Oh!” cried Naomi, overjoyed. “You really did find it for me! Thank you so much!”
Beaming at Cook, Gideon said foolishly, “So you see, ’tis quite all right.”
Naomi sat down, dimples peeping, and sipped her tea.
Cook relented. She would have a word with the captain later, on the impropriety of being alone with an unwed damsel in his father’s withdrawing room. But recollecting that she must put a hot brick in Miss Gwendolyn’s bed, she rustled her way to the door, said a reluctant, “Very well, then…” And having made a great show of opening the door as wide as it would go, gave Gideon a look that spoke volumes, and rustled off.
“Oh, Lord!” he gasped, sinking into a chair and taking out his handkerchief. “I am sunk far beneath reproach!”
Naomi gave a little ripple of laughter. “Rakeshame,” she whispered.
