Page 13 of Bedding the Marquess
This was hostile.
“And you, Swanleigh,” the viscount continued, his cheeks quivering like an obese hound’s, “why have you come here? It is no secret that you are connected with Caroline, but that is hardly a reason to call here, dragging sin and gossip in your wake.” Viscountess Fischer was nodding along with her husband’s words, as if she were a puppet in a child’s play, righteous indignation fairly oozing from her pores.
“That is hardly the way to treat guests in your home,” Gideon ground out, barely keeping himself in check. Throwing a punch would feel so bloody good.
“I will speak to people in my home in any manner in which I see fit.” He leveled a stubby finger at Caro. “Especially when they have been told in no uncertain terms that they are never to darken our doorstep again.”
“Lord Fischer—”
“You grew tired of staining our name from afar, so you had to come here and flaunt yourself before us?” Fischer finally addressed Caro, but it was far from what Gideon had expected. The vitriol was astounding. “You were to stay away, and now the whole of Mayfair will be discussing your visit by the end of the day. How dare you bring this upon us?”
“See here,” snapped Gideon, stepping between Caro and her father. He couldn’t stand by one more second as she shrank into herself while her father spewed his vile words. “Take care with the way you are speaking.”
“This is no matter of yours,” Fischer snarled, spittle flying from his loose lips, “even if she is acting as your current whore.”
Gideon snapped. He drew himself up to his full height and adopted a cruel, frigid tone eerily reminiscent of his deceased father’s. “It damn well is my concern because Caroline is my betrothed. And I willnotallow you to speak to the future Marchioness of Swanleigh in such a manner.”
Fischer’s hand fell and the room went deathly silent. Lady Fischer turned gray, her fish mouth gaping, making her look like a beached trout. The viscount began to stammer and spluttered, “This cannot be true.” His eyes darted between Gideon and Caro several times before landing on his daughter. “Surely, you cannot have made yet another horrendous mistake? Chosen to throw what remains of your life away? It is bad enough that your antics are bandied about in the gossip columns, speculating about what sort of sordid relationship you share with this reprobate, but now you must feed this bit to them? Marriage will not scrub away your sins.”
“How can you do this to us?” wailed her mother. “Grace is only just making her debut and you will destroy everything we have worked for.” She plopped dramatically onto the sofa, fanning her face as if she were near to fainting.
In response, Caro was more silent, more cowed than Gideon had ever seen her. The protective monster inside of him roared in fury.
Gideon closed the gap between where he stood and Viscount Fischer in three long strides until he towered over the older man. “Part of being a ‘reprobate’ means I’ve become quite adept with both sword and pistols. I suggest you bite your tongue before I am forced to show you just how accomplished I am.” Fischer began to stammer, but Gideon did not offer him another chance to speak. “I came here out of respect for Miss Wells—to offer you, as her parents, an opportunity to bestow your blessings upon our union, but I can see what a mistake that was. You are not worth the courtesy. You are not worthy of another second of Miss Wells’s time. She has not needed you in seven years, and I will personally ensure she will never have need of you again.” He leaned in close. “And if you ever cause her a single ounce of pain again—if I hear one more vile word tumble from your disgusting lips—then you will answer tome.”
Gideon wasted no time in bundling Caro up and back into his carriage.
“What utterly horrid people,” Gideon fumed. “I don’t bloody blame you for staying away from them for as long as you did.”
“As you now know, it wasn’t entirely my choice.” Her voice was so small that he almost missed it in his rant. He heard her, though, and his tirade came to a screeching halt. He crossed the carriage and sat beside her on the forward-facing seat. Caro was impossibly pale, the cinnamon sprinkles of her freckles standing in stark contrast on the sickly apples of her cheeks. She was shaken by the confrontation with her parents; there was noother way to describe how it had left her. He couldn’t blame her. If that was how they treated her in front of someone else, it sickened him to think how they behaved behind closed doors. Even if Caro had been cast out as a girl of less than twenty years of age, it might have been a minor blessing compared to being subjected to that venom on a daily basis.
He wrapped an arm around her slim shoulders and pulled her close to his side. She immediately melted into him like a candle left too near a flame. He savored it.
“I apologize for coercing you into joining me. I should have listened to you.”
“You were trying to do the right thing.”
“That doesn’t make it any better.”
Caro tilted her head back and looked up at him. The color was beginning to return to her cheeks. Finally. “Having you stand up for me—making my father look as if he was about to piss a puddle in the middle of the parlor floor—made it more worth it.”
Gideon gave a gentle chuckle. “How could such vile people create so incredible a person?”
Her answering smile was soft and fleeting. “At their heart, they are trying to protect my younger sister, Grace. They’ve failed with me and want to give her the best chance at a good match.”
“They have more than one daughter.”
Caro pulled her lips between her teeth and averted her eyes. She could not argue with the truth. Just because her parents wanted to protect Grace from the stain of Caro’s reputation and influence, that did not give them leave to treat their elder daughter in such a deplorable fashion. She gave a little sigh.
“Is there anything I can do? Anything you need?” he asked gently.
She shook her head. “I would like to return home.”
“Very well,” he agreed and set their course with the driver.
Chapter Seven
The following twenty-fourhours gave Gideon time to sit with the knowledge that he was well and truly the only person Caro had in the world. The meeting with her family had been both disturbing and eye-opening. He would be a husband in hours and a father in months; not only that, but he would be their sole system of support. He was emotionally damaged enough for that to be unnerving. What kind of example did he have to be a husband and a father? A terrible one, that’s what. How could he hope to fulfill the roles with any sort of grace and dignity if he had no experiences from which to pull? It did not make him second-guess his decision to wed Caroline—that was never in question—it made him question the possibility of his success.
