Page 38 of Bedding the Marquess
Oliver inclined his head in thanks and he held his hand out to Gideon. After a moment, he allowed Oliver to pull him to his feet. A moment of mutual respect and understanding passed between them before Oliver allowed Emily to guide him away to gather his clothing and wash.
“I still do not see how that was necessary,” Caroline groused as she, too, began to retrieve her husband’s discarded clothing.
“No congratulations for the conquering hero, then?” Gideon asked, arms held out as if waiting for her to rain kisses and praise upon his person. She decided not to share her suspicions that Oliver had allowed Gideon to triumph.
“You wish for me to congratulate you for behaving like a child?” she scoffed. Gideon caught her about the waist and she fought half-heartedly to free herself. “Leave off! You smell horrendous.”
“Does that mean you will not join me for a bath?” He raised a suggestive brow that melted her insides and halted her protests.
“We will see about that…” she trailed off and slipped free from his arms to retrieve his cravat from where it had been draped over a bush. “Was your wrestling everything you’d hoped for?” She hadn’t expected the somewhat wistful look she saw on his face when she turned back to him.
“Actually, it was. I never had a playmate growing up; I was never able to form that bond with anyone. By the time I met Kempton and the others at school, our lives were too regimented. We found our fair share of trouble, but never anything brothers might when they grew up together. Imagine how different my life might have been had Oliver and I been children together—especially as close in age as we are. For the first time, I feel like I have family—or at least what I’d always imagined having one might be.” It made an odd sort of sense to Caroline. She may not have understood the act of wrestling itself, but the process—the bonding it symbolized—had a much deeper meaning than proving who was stronger or faster or the better fighter.
She took Gideon’s hand and brought his scraped knuckles to her cheek and pressed them there, not caring if it left her streaked in filth. “I am happy you have had this time to get to know Oliver, and I am even happier that you two are beginning to develop a relationship. He is your family.”
“As are you,” he said and pulled her close once more. “As is this baby,” he added, placing a protective hand over her abdomen that appeared to be expanding by the day.
“And you will always have us.” Caroline stood on her toes and pressed her lips to his.
Chapter Seventeen
It was onlytheir second day back in London when a demon from Caroline’s past called at her doorstep. Gideon was out of the house on business, so she spent a lazy morning abed before dressing in a simple morning gown of dyed teal muslin and delicate rosettes and wandering the expansive halls of her new home. Of course, she’d spent a great deal of time there, but this was different. Now, this was her home.
Perry located her in the music room as her fingers danced playfully across the keys of the untuned pianoforte. He held out a card to her on a small silver tray.
“A caller, my lady,” the butler said with a bow. “Should I tell him you are not at home?”
“For me?” Caroline asked, her confusion evident as she reached for the card. “Are you certain I am the one he seeks and not my husband?” It couldn’t be one of their friends—none would have been forced through the stuffy song and dance of handing over a card and waiting to see whether they would be permitted into the house.
“Quite certain. In fact, he made it clear he wished to speak with you privately, if at all possible.”
Caroline barely heard Perry’s words as her eyes froze upon the name engraved upon the calling card.
Lord Fitzwilliam Callbeck.
The monster who had haunted her nightmares.
The man who had brought about her social destruction.
The fiend who had stolen her innocence in a despicable act.
She did not doubt Callbeck had waited until Gideon had finally exited their bubble of newlywedded bliss and left Caroline unguarded. But what could he want from her? Especially now?
Her heartbeat pounded almost deafeningly in her ears, and she had to brace a hand on the pianoforte to remain upright. As if sensing its mother’s distress, the babe in her womb began to flutter almost frantically.
She pressed a gentle palm there over the child and knew what she must do.
“Have him shown into the front parlor. Offer no refreshments—he will not remain long enough for a pot of tea to steep.”
“Are you certain, my lady?” Perry asked in an uncharacteristic balk. The man’s behavior was usually above reproach, but he must have seen something in Caroline’s face or heard the slight warble in her voice.
“Yes,” she answered more steadily.
Though he still appeared quite skeptical, the butler turned on his heel and quit the room to do as she had instructed. Caroline closed her eyes and exhaled slowly through numb lips. She would see what that coward Callbeck wanted and then banish him from her doorstep, lest he wish to be bloodied and bruised all over again when Gideon arrived home.
What a fool she had been to allow herself to be so easily drawn into Callbeck’s web during her first Season. She had been young and naïve; to her, he was impossibly handsome, in line to inherit a title, came from a family so respectable that not even Mama could object, and he’d danced with her at every event they’d both attended. The knowledge of the monster he was beneath his golden façade made her nauseous, but, back then, his smile had made her sigh and his hollow, poetic words made her wish she knew how to swoon properly. His goldenhair and sapphire eyes were precisely what she’d imagined a knight would look like had he been plucked from one of Nanny’s fairytales.
All of it had been a lie.
