Page 89 of The Baron's Reluctant Bride
He sighed, a sound heavy with understanding. “I shall make the arrangements,” he said quietly. “But you will require an escort. Christopher—”
“I am here,” Christopher interjected, appearing instantly at his side. “And I shall not permit you to succumb to blood loss before you have the opportunity to utter some suitably poetic and ridiculous sentiment to your lady wife.”
Jameson gave a weak huff. “I’ll try to contain myself.”
They helped him to the carriage—gently, but even so, every step was agony. By the time they settled him against the cushions, Jameson’s breath was ragged, his vision swimming.
The journey commenced.
***
The carriage rolled to a halt before the Brookfield townhouse just as London’s sky shifted from ash to silver, the first strokes of dawn brushing across the rooftops like the delicate hand of a watercolourist. The street, still damp fromlast night’s rain, glistened faintly under gaslight. Somewhere, a milkman clattered his way down the lane, blissfully unaware that one of the more dramatic chapters in the city's society pages was about to conclude, if not with a duel, then with an entirely public display of emotion.
Inside the carriage, Jameson drew a slow, pained breath and winced. Every jolt of the road had aggravated the wound at his side, and exhaustion pressed behind his eyes like a closing curtain. But still, he stirred.
The carriage drew to a halt before the Brookfield townhouse precisely as London’s sky underwent its transformation from the colour of ash to the sheen of silver, the nascent light of dawn painting the rooftops with hues as delicate as those applied by a watercolourist’s brush. The street, still slick with the residue of the previous night’s rain, shimmered faintly beneath the gaslight’s glow. In the distance, the clatter of a milkman’s rounds echoed down the lane, the purveyor of morning sustenance blissfully unaware that a particularly dramatic episode in the city’s chronicle of society was nearing its conclusion, if not with a duelist’s parry, then with an altogether public display of tender emotion.
Within the confines of the carriage, Jameson Brookfield inhaled slowly, a pained grimace etching itself upon his features. Each jolt of the conveyance had served to exacerbate the wound at his flank, and a profound weariness pressed behind his eyelids like the descent of a final curtain. Yet, despite his evident discomfort, he stirred with purpose.
As the footman stepped forward with the intention of opening the door and offering his assistance, Jameson raised a hand, trembling slightly. “Nay,” he rasped, his voice barely above a whisper. “I shall walk.”
Christopher Hartley, perched precariously on the carriage step like a disgruntled rook, turned to regard him with a disbelieving blink. “You shallwhat?”
“Walk,” Jameson repeated, his posture straightening perceptibly despite the obvious agony it cost him. “To her. Upon my own two feet.”
“Do not be nonsensical,” Christopher muttered, swinging himself fully from the carriage. “You are losing blood through your coat. You require—”
“I require her,” Jameson interjected, his tone soft yet imbued with resolute clarity. “And I shall not stumble into my wife’s embrace like some sodden mariner dragged from the Thames. She has endured a vigil. Thus, I shall walk.”
A brief silence hung in the air. Then, Christopher expelled a sigh, the sound akin to a man resigned to the inevitable vagaries of human sentiment. “You are a most obstinate and sentimental fool.”
Jameson offered the faintest shadow of a smile. “She did consent to become my wife, did she not?”
“A matter of decidedly questionable taste in gentlemen,” Christopher grumbled, yet he reached out and clasped Jameson’s arm, offering a steadying support. “Lean upon me before you collapse like some overwrought figure in a Drury Lane tragedy.”
Step by agonizing step, the two men traversed the short front walk, the scrape of Jameson’s boots against the stone a testament to his grim determination. The townhouse loomed before them, its elegant windows and ivy-framed façade exuding an air of regal composure—utterly at odds with the tempestuous emotions churning within Jameson’s breast.
They had scarcely reached the first step when the front door was flung open with unceremonious haste, and there she stood.
Barefoot, her breath coming in ragged gasps, enveloped in a floral shawl that had clearly been donned in frantic haste, her dark curls cascading down her back in glorious rebellion against every hairpin she had employed. Her cheeks were flushed with colour, her eyes wide and luminous, and her lips parted in stunned disbelief.
She gazed upon him as if he were a phantom conjured from the depths of a love she had dared to cherish.
Jameson froze, his grip tightening on the wrought-iron banister. “Gemma,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.
She blinked once, as if to assure herself of the reality before her. And then she moved with the swiftness of a launched projectile. Like a cannonball composed of lace, fury, and an aching longing, she propelled herself down the steps—nearly unseating Christopher in her impetuous descent—and collided with her husband with a force that very nearly sent him reeling. Her arms wound tightly around his neck, her face buried in the curve of his shoulder, her hands clutching desperately at his coat lapels.
“You ridiculous man!” she sobbed, pressing fervent kisses against the side of his face between each breathless utterance. “You absurd, impossible, insufferable man—I believed you were lost to me!”
Jameson staggered but managed to maintain his hold, one arm banding protectively around her waist, the other bracing them both against the sturdy railing. “I very nearly was,” he murmured into the fragrant cascade of her hair. “But I kept thinking of you.”
“Gemma,” he said, his voice raw with a potent cocktail of relief and lingering fear. “You must know—the distance that sometimes stretched between us, the silences that lingered… they were never born of a lack of affection. Quite the contrary. I would have forever carried the weight of regret had I allowedsuch a chasm to persist. It was that very fear, that profound unwillingness to lose the burgeoning connection we shared, that compelled me to propose that alliance in the cellar that day, a pact forged amidst such…unpleasant circumstances. Yet, even with that bond established, that fragile bridge built between our disparate worlds, I found myself ensnared by the treacherous currents of overthinking. My intentions, however misguided in their execution, were always rooted in a fierce desire to protect you. I laboured under the delusion that I was obliged to keep my affairs separate from yours, to shoulder the burdens alone, believing it the only way to shield you from the darker aspects of my life. But I was profoundly mistaken. Utterly, irrevocably wrong.”
She shook her head, the motion causing fresh tears to slip from her brimming eyes and trace glistening paths down her flushed cheeks. “I was consumed by terror, Jameson,” she whispered, her voice trembling with the raw memory of her fear. “The moment they took you… the sheer, brutal finality of it. I thought and I truly believed that I had lost you. And in that agonizing abyss of despair, I came to a stark and undeniable realization: this matrimony, this initial arrangement born of strategic necessity, has inexplicably, irrevocably, become the very axis upon which my world now turns. You have become the sun around which I orbit.”
Jameson’s breath hitched in his throat, a sharp intake of air that spoke volumes of the emotion swelling within him. “I love you, Gemma,” he confessed, his voice thick with sincerity. “Not merely for your impeccable poise, nor for the societal weight of your name, nor even for the shrewd alliance we so pragmatically forged in that damp cellar. I love you for the unyielding courage that burns within you, for the keenness of your intellect, for the unwavering spirit with which you have faced every adversity. Ilove the way you never ceased to fight, not merely on my behalf, but steadfastly beside me, an equal in every sense.”
A watery smile bloomed through her tears, a radiant testament to the depth of her affection. “And I, my dearest Jameson, love you for precisely those same qualities. Even when your propensity for brooding and your occasional bouts of infuriating stubbornness threaten to drive me to Bedlam.”
