As the coach rolled along on the cobblestones southward toward the Thames, Tertius leaned his head back against the leather squabs, wondering what he would do when he arrived at Vauxhall. Most likely, he would not even see Gillian in that immense garden full of tree-lined walkways, groves and hidden temples, nooks and crannies designed for lovers’ trysts.
Gillian had mentioned going with Lord and Lady Billingsley and her friend, Charlotte. She had covered her tracks well, Tertius realized with a curious resignation.
“My lord?” Katie’s hesitant voice came to him across the shadowy interior of the coach.
“Yes, what is it, Katie?” he asked with a smile. She had proven herself a true ally.
“I’m sorry about the mistress. I’m sure there’s some good explanation.”
“I’m sure there is,” he reassured her. “Thank you for being so faithful.”
“Oh, I haven’t done anything any good servant wouldn’ta done.”
“Yes,” he murmured, “what any good servant would have done. That’s put very well. That’s what we are all called to do, isn’t it? Be faithful servants?”
“I hope I can fulfill my duty.”
“You have. When…when this is over—” What did that mean? When his wife was gone for good? He cleared his throat and began again. “When this is over, I’d like to do something for you. Is there anything you need, or perhaps your family?”
She was silent a few minutes, her face turned toward the window, so that he thought she might be hesitant in voicing a need.
Finally she answered softly, “Well…there’s my mum and dad. They haven’t been well. I’ve tried to help, but it hasn’t been much.” She bit her lip. “I don’t want them to end up in the poorhouse.”
He reached across the carriage and patted her hands. “Don’t worry. We’ll see to them.” His heart felt a surge of gladness that he could perhaps help someone else at a time when his own heart was breaking.
“Thank you, my lord,” she whispered.
The carriage was going over Vauxhall Bridge. They both turned toward the windows then back to each other.
“We’re almost there,” she whispered fearfully.
Gillian, too upset to rejoin her party, found them only long enough to plead indisposition. One of the gentlemen immediately offered to see her home in his coach. She accepted the offer gratefully, knowing Vauxhall was no place for a woman alone.
By the time they were able to maneuver the coach out of the long line waiting outside the Gardens, it seemed hours had passed.
When she finally returned home, the house was silent. The servants had all gone to bed except one lone footman, lolling in an armchair in the entryway. She roused him gently, and he sprang up, frightened.
“It’s all right. Lord Skylar, is he still out?”
The young man rubbed his eyes. “I believe so, my lady.”
“Very well. You run on to bed,” she ordered. “We’ll leave the lamp here.”
He looked more asleep than awake. When he hesitated, she gave him a slight push. “Run along. I shall wait for his lordship.”
“Very well, my lady.”
When he had left, she checked the lamp, and lighting a branch of candles for herself, she made her way to the library.
Her heart heavy, she went toward the couch. She knew she couldn’t stay here any longer. She must confess her sinful behavior to Skylar and let him decide her fate. This time, Yorkshire wouldn’t be far enough. Perhaps he had a remote hunting lodge in Scotland, she thought with bitter humor.
As she curled her legs under her on the couch and wrapped herself in her cloak, the self-pity came and, with it, the tears.
What would Sky’s God say now? Strike her dead and send her to eternal damnation? That’s probably the only thing that would satisfy Tertius.
Oh, God, all she’d ever wanted was to love and be loved. Why was that so wrong? Why was that so much to ask? she cried out to that silent god.
The earlier exhilaration gave way to shame, which now gave way to a weariness, as if the weight of her sin were bowing her down like a bundle of thatch on a farmer’s back.
Sky closed and bolted the front door behind him. The entryway was empty, the lamp’s wick curled over and black.
He turned to Katie. “Thank you for coming with me.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t find her.”
“Yes, I am, too,” he said quietly. “Go, get some sleep. There’s no need to arise early in the morning.” His mouth twisted. “Your mistress won’t be needing you.”
With a sad, understanding smile, she turned away and headed toward the back stairs.
He took the main stairs slowly. He must trust that Gillian was safe. Throughout the evening, he’d had to put images of her set upon by robbers or cutthroats out of his mind and pray for her safety. He must trust that if she was with the major—and whom else would she be with?—he would treat her well.
Before he reached his own door, he stopped by hers, his hand on the knob. Perhaps…
He opened it and shone his candle in its interior, but it remained as empty as it had been earlier in the evening.
His shoulders slumped. Part of him had kept hoping it had all been a nightmare.
When he reached his room, Nigel was dozing on a chair. Sky shook his head. He had told the man not to wait up for him. He didn’t bother to wake him now, but removed his own coat and boots and replaced them with a dressing gown and slippers. Sky knew it was useless to lie down. He would go downstairs and read. He picked up his Bible and candle and turned back to the corridor.
He entered the library and immediately saw the guttering candles. He entered, curious to its occupant. He didn’t see anybody until he reached the back of the sofa.
There, nestled in her cloak, lay Gillian, peacefully asleep, her head resting on an arm.
The waves of relief washing over him were so great, he had to clutch the back of the sofa.
Had she returned to tell him she was leaving definitively? Relief turned to caution. He made his way around the sofa and set his candle down carefully beside the branch of candles. Then he adjusted the cloak around Gillian, thinking he should let her sleep until morning.
Before stepping away from her, he studied her sleeping face a moment. Why did she have to be so beautiful, with her rosy cheeks and innocent mouth? Unable to help himself, he reached up and brushed a cheek with the back of his fingertips. Her eyes opened and gradually they focused on him.
As recognition dawned, she turned her face away, and Tertius felt the power of her repudiation afresh.
Then he noticed the tears forcing their way from between her tightly squeezed lids.
“Oh, Tertius, you can send me away. I’ll go away…I won’t shame you ever again. This time I’ll stay away…I swear it. I’m so ashamed…I feel so dirty…I’ll never feel clean again…”
From thinking she was telling him she was leaving him, to a gradual understanding that she was back and telling him in an incoherent way that she was sorry, he saw that something had gone terribly wrong for her.
“Did he hurt you?” he asked softly but tersely.
But she didn’t even hear him, so wrapped in her pain.
She turned her face further away from him and deeper into the sofa. “I’ll go away, I promise. Only, don’t hate me…don’t hate me….”
He knelt at the sofa close to her face and asked softly, “Why must you go away?”
“I’ve done something so f-foolish!” she stammered through her tears. “I don’t deserve you.”
“You can’t have done anything to make me send you away,” he argued gently, touching her cheek with his fingertip. “Only you can choose to leave me.”
“Oh, no! No! But I can no longer stay.”
“What is it?” he asked more sharply. “Did he hurt you?”
His meaning finally penetrated. She opened her eyes and stared at him in horror. “You…know?” Her voice faltered at the enormity of this fact.
“About Major Hawkes? Yes.”
Her tear-filled eyes grew rounder. “And you let me continue—”
“I surmised he was your first love.”
“Oh, no, no!” She shook her head vehemently against the sofa cushions. “That wasn’t love! I was a silly, stupid young girl.”
“And now?” he asked her, hope refusing to die within him.
She sniffed and groped for a handkerchief. He handed her his own.
“Now?” she replied after she’d wiped her face. “Now, I’m a foolish woman who has no excuse.”
“You’re still a young girl to me,” he insisted gently.
She sat up and pushed herself into the corner of the sofa. It was then she noticed his position, and she became overwrought once more. “Please don’t kneel there. Stand over me. Strike me…anything, but don’t kneel before me. I don’t deserve it.”
Seeing her agitation only grow, he finally rose, but only to sit beside her on the sofa. “Is that better?” he asked mildly. When she said nothing, he tried to help her. “I know you were lonely. I shouldn’t have sent you away—”
She shook her head, looking away from him again. “Maybe I thought the only way I could punish you for what you did was to—to—oh, I don’t know anymore what I thought.” She looked down at the knotted handkerchief in her hands. “I only know that this evening taught me how foolish I was. I don’t know what I saw in him before, but this evening opened my eyes. He…he only wanted to use me.” She reddened, her fingers working convulsively in the handkerchief.
Tertius clenched his hands but forced himself to remain silent.
“I felt so dirty and disgusted by his manhandling. I could only think, how could I have let myself…how could I have given myself to him before…given him my most precious gift?” Her eyes looked at him in anguish.
And all he felt was the most profound relief, he could only bow his head.
She interpreted his reaction differently. “I’m so sorry, Tertius. I should never have agreed to our betrothal without telling you about that. That I wasn’t pure.”
He covered her hands with his. “Shh.”
She looked at his hand and, with a shudder, removed hers and pressed herself farther against the sofa arm, as if trying to move away from him as much as possible in the confined space.
“I feel so dirty.”
“Did he hurt you tonight? Please tell me, Gillian.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t let him. I pushed him away. I never should have agreed to meet him alone. I don’t think anyone saw me with him. I wouldn’t want you to be involved in another scandal because of me. That’s the last thing you deserve to go through.”
He found his voice at last. “I would rather know what it is you wish.”
She pressed her lips together as if tempted to speak. Still not looking at him, she finally said, “It doesn’t matter what I want. It’s too late for that.”
“It matters to me. For if there is any power in me to give you what you want, I’ll move heaven and earth to give it to you.”
“Don’t say that! I don’t merit your pity. You must hate me. You have every right to banish me now. I’ll go anywhere you say.”
“I don’t hate you, Gillian.”
She looked at him in disbelief. “How can you not hate me? I lied to you since the day we met. And now, I have deceived you in the worst way a wife can deceive her husband.”
“The Lord burned all the hate out of me that night He saved me.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I couldn’t hate you even if I tried.”
He watched the confusion grow in her eyes. “There are a few other things I can’t do,” he added.
She waited, still, as if not understanding the language he was speaking and yet straining to hear.
“I can’t force you to love me. I can’t force you to stay with me.”
“You knew I was thinking of leaving you?” she asked breathlessly.
He nodded.
“And yet, you still let me correspond with him? Go to him?” she asked in wonder.
“I took away your freedom once. I vowed I wouldn’t do so again. I thought tonight you had chosen to leave me. I wasn’t going to stop you.”
When she said nothing, seeming to be digesting this information, he continued. “I never want you to stay with me against your will.” After a moment he added, “There is something you can do, however.”
She looked at him fearfully.
“You can hurt me. I thought you might today. I was preparing myself for it.” He cracked a smile. “So, you see you are not powerless.”
He rested his head against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes as if weary.
Gillian studied his features—the dark, straight hair against the dusky skin, his still-too-thin cheekbones, angular even now in repose. She scarcely knew this man from the one she’d been betrothed to. In one thing he hadn’t changed. His manner continued self-deprecating. A sudden wave of tenderness swept over her, and she stretched out her hand and touched a lock of his hair, her own guilt and shame momentarily pushed aside.
He opened his eyes lazily, a question in their dark depths. When she made no move to withdraw her hand, he reclosed his eyes and turned his face into her palm. Gently, he placed a kiss in it. It was like a courtier’s kiss and oddly touching to her. It demanded nothing from her, as Gerrit’s hot, hungry kisses had.
It merely communicated his complete acceptance of her.
Still acting on instinct alone, she leaned across the space between them and placed her lips on his. Her heart thudded as she felt his warm lips against hers and an answering wave of warmth swept through her.
It was a light kiss, since he did nothing but stay still under her, and so she lingered, loath to break the contact with him. Slowly, hesitatingly it seemed to her, he responded to the slight pressure of her lips against his.
He drew away a scarce few inches from her along the sofa back and eyed her through half-closed lids. She felt unfulfilled, wanting more.
He stroked her face with long fingers, and she closed her eyes like a kitten for a caress. When he stopped, she reopened her eyes, feeling bereft. “Why did you stop?”
“I don’t want to do anything you find repulsive.”
The full import of his words hit her. She felt her face grow hot, remembering her odious words to him.
“I…don’t find it repulsive,” she whispered.
“Would you like to try it again?” he asked softly.
She gave a slight nod.
The next thing she knew he pulled her against himself and kissed her long and deeply, and she found herself responding with an intensity she didn’t think she was capable of.
Again he stopped, and when she looked at him questioningly, she realized their wedding night still stood between them, a monstrous chasm dividing them. She understood with sudden discernment that only she had the power to dispel its ugliness.
She looked down at his hand lying idly between them, so close to her, yet not touching her. “I want to be your wife,” she articulated slowly, taking a small step over that yawning abyss, “in every sense.”
The words he’d longed to hear and despaired of ever hearing. Tertius took her slim, pale hand and touched the wedding band that still graced it. He turned her palm upward and brought it to his lips again. “And so you shall be,” he whispered.
He felt her other hand on his bowed head. “How can you ever forgive me, Tertius, and forget all about what I did tonight?”
He lifted his head and smiled sadly. “Perhaps because my sins were much blacker than yours and were forgiven—even blotted out.” He sobered. “But before you agree to being my wife, I must confess that I broke our wedding vows after I sent you away. I was so hurt and angry that I went with another woman.”
As she listened in silence, he told her of his own sin.
“So, you have more to forgive than I,” he ended. “I have done nothing but hurt and abuse you since I wed you. You have a right to leave me if you desire to do so.”
“I only wish we could both start over,” she told him. “I wish I could come to you pure and innocent.” Her voice broke, and she pressed her lips together and swallowed, unable to speak for a moment. “But I can’t undo the past.”
He touched a finger lightly to her lips, silencing her. “Why don’t we both begin anew to promise to love and honor each other and let this be our wedding night?”
Slowly she nodded, and he could read the fear and hope in her eyes.
He rose and held his hand out to her. “Come, my love, come and be my wife.”
Tertius awoke early the next morning. He glanced over at his wife’s sleeping face, and knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore that morning. He felt too full of love and wonder to be able to sleep.
Quietly, resisting the urge to kiss her, he eased out of bed and put on his dressing gown. He slipped out of the room and entered his own, knowing all he wanted to do was kneel before God and give thanks and worship.
He hadn’t been there long before Nigel came in softly.
“Good morning, my lord,” the valet said. “Are you ready for your coffee?”
“In a bit,” he replied, realizing his valet didn’t know all that had occurred last night.
Nigel turned and eyed the bed that had clearly not been slept in. He glanced back at Tertius but made no comment, for which Tertius was grateful. Last night was too special to be mentioned casually, even with congratulatory remarks.
He, however, found himself hardly able to keep from whistling or humming a tune as he shaved and dressed.
As he sipped his coffee, he thought about his conversation with Katie early last evening. It had felt good to discover how to help one who had helped him so much. He observed his valet. What could he do to repay all the man had done for him over the years?
“God is good, isn’t he, Nigel?” he began, unable to refrain from smiling widely.
“Yes, my lord, that He be.”
“You’ve enjoyed our Bible studies, haven’t you?”
“Very much.”
“Have you thought how the Lord might some day use you?”
Nigel stopped brushing Sky’s coat. “It’s funny you should ask that.”
“Why?”
“I was recently thinking that some day—” He looked uncomfortable all of a sudden “—that is, when you no longer need me, that mayhap some day I could preach de gospel…back on de island.”
Sky nodded thoughtfully. Why hadn’t he thought of it? The Lord wouldn’t waste the talents of such a powerful man by keeping him a valet for the rest of his days.
“Yes, I think that’s a wonderful idea,” he told him.
“You don’t think it foolish? Could God use a man like me?”
“God looks for a willing heart.”
“Even if it be in de skin of a black man?”
“I don’t think God regards the color of your skin, except perhaps to mark how handsomely it becomes you.”
“You would let me return to de islands?”
Sky nodded, his smile growing. “I would help you establish a church.”