Page 20 of Tempted By the English Marquis
You had better have a bloody compelling reason for having done this, Mama, for throwing our lives into the wind.
Gideon glanced around the room at the scattered clothes, empty whisky bottles, and heavily drawn curtains. He would be gone for at least three months. Anything could happen here in London while he was away.
I can’t be in two places at the one time.
“I will go, but on one condition.”
“Yes?”
“Actually, it’s a number of conditions. But they all wrap up to the one thing. If I am going to sail all the way to Rome, I need to know you are going to be alright while I am gone.” He waved a hand over the debris which covered much of the floor. “This mess needs to be cleaned up. You have to stop finding solace at the bottom of a bottle and start eating regular meals. You must come out of your bedroom and resume being the Duke of Mowbray. Because whether Mama returns to England or not, you have a duty to me, to this family, and yourself to start living again.”
A determined Gideon crossed the floor and pulled on the cord to summon his father’s valet. “And the first thing you need to do is to have a wash and change out of that damn shirt.”
If he knew his father was making an effort to put his life back together, then he could go to Rome with at least that worry off his mind.
I will go to Italy and bring both Mama and Augusta home. We shall put this disaster behind us. When it’s all over, then everything will be fine.
He could only pray that a miracle found him.
ChapterTen
The next day
As he lay on the deck of theEmpress Catherine, the following afternoon, his fingernails digging into the wood while the boat pitched up and down with the waves, Gideon decided he was the furthest from fine he had even been.
His eyes were screwed tightly shut. He wasn’t hoping for a miracle—rather, he was praying for death.
A body moved between him and the pale sunlight, but he didn’t dare to open his eyes. The familiar, evil chuckle of his cousin Francis, the soon to be former owner of the ship,reached his ears.
“They say that there are two phases of being seasick. The first is when you fear you are going to die. And the second is when you fear you might live.”
“Francis!” scolded Poppy, his wife.
Gideon mustered a laugh for his cousin. When they got back to dry land, Gideon fully intended to kill Francis, but still, it was a good jest. “It’s a pity I have nothing left in my stomach. Otherwise, I might soil your highly polished boots.”
Why, oh why did I eat those two egg and bacon sandwiches for breakfast?
The remains of his morning meal, and more than likely everything he had eaten in the past day, had gone over the side of the ship not long after they had sailed into the North Sea.
What was he going to do? Six weeks at sea would surely end him.
“Take heart, Gideon. I have ordered the crew to turn for home. You have suffered enough for one day,” said Poppy.
When theEmpress Catherinefinally berthed at London Docks late that evening, Francis helped the lightheaded Gideon down the gangplank. It was a tortuously slow walk from the ship across the wharf road and into the warehouse, which the newly married Francis and Poppy Saunders now called home.
Gideon gave a grateful sigh when Francis lowered him into a chair. He gripped the arms of it tightly, fearing he would fall. “Thank you. I might just stay here until the room stops moving.”
“I shall make you a cup of tea. I know your stomach is churning, but you need to hydrate your body. It will help you to recover faster,” said Poppy.
There was a lot to be said for having a cousin-in-law who understood seasickness as well as Poppy Saunders did.
Gideon gingerly lifted his head. The worst of the giddiness was beginning to subside.Thank the Lord for small mercies.He focused his gaze on Francis as his cousin pulled up a chair and sat next to him.
Don’t say it. Please.
“Are you having second thoughts? I mean, after today, no one could blame you if you didn’t undertake the trip,” said Francis.
One short excursion in the English Channel to test his sea legs had thrown all of Gideon’s plans into disarray. Until this morning, his biggest worry had been how he was going to convince his mother to come home. Now his head was stuffed full of the fear that he might not actually live long enough to see Rome.
