Gemma luxuriated in her deliciously hot bath for far longer than was sensible, and her fingers and toes were wrinkled by the time she climbed out and was bundled into a thick towel.
She was wearing a flannel nightdress and seated at the dressing table brushing out her hair, having sent Tillie away with instructions to bring her a tray in her room for dinner, when Serena knocked on the door.
“Is something amiss?” Gemma asked, turning away from the glass to better see her.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Serena said with a tilt of her head. “I don’t think you’ve asked for a tray in your room in all the time you’ve lived here.”
Gemma let out the breath she’d been holding. She’d been afraid someone had sent word of what she and Cam had got up to at Pearson Close that afternoon.
“If you must know,” she admitted, “I’m exhausted. What with finding Sir Everard’s body, then questioning the others at the house party, and of course the cold on top of it all, I simply want to climb into my bed and sleep for days.”
“It’s funny you should say you were questioning people at Pearson Close,” Serena said as she sat down on the bench at the foot of Gemma’s canopied bed, “because I shouldn’t think that would be a particularly muddy activity.”
Gemma bit back a curse. Of course Tillie would tell Serena about the state of Gemma’s gown. Though in her defense, it also could have been George.
Thinking to evade more questions, Gemma decided to confess to part of what had happened. “We liberated some of Sir Everard’s papers from his bedchamber and we … may have dropped them out the window to avoid being caught taking them out the front door.” This last she said in a rush, as if saying it faster would make it sound less scandalous.
Of course that wasn’t possible with Serena, who was above all things proper, and would never expose her legs to a gentleman in the course of theft.
“Oh Gemma.” The disappointment and exasperation in her chaperone’s voice was enough to make Gemma want to scream.
“We needed the papers, Serena,” she said with more vehemence than she’d intended. In a more moderate tone, she said, “I need them to find out where my fossil is. And to find out who killed Sir Everard.”
“I was hoping you would listen to Mr. Northman’s warnings to stay out of the investigation into Sir Everard’s murder,” Serena said with a sigh. “I do not know why my aunt was so intent upon giving you all quests that led you into danger. It was most inconsiderate of her.”
“But she didn’t arrange to have Sir Everard murdered,” Gemma protested. “Indeed, I’m the only one of the four who hasn’t been left some sort of puzzle to solve by Lady Celeste.” This was something she’d only admitted to Cam before now. Somehow telling him made it easier to reveal her conclusions to Serena now.
“Of course she didn’t,” Serena said, her neatly coiffed reddish blond hair glowing like a penny in the candlelight.
Really, it was no wonder Cam thought of her as the perfect wife. She truly was.
“I fear, however, that the other ladies’ adventures have made you take Sir Everard’s death as some sort of puzzle for you to solve. Even though it’s obvious my aunt died before she could concoct some kind of scheme for you.”
It was the same conclusion Gemma had come to regarding herself and Lady Celeste. But it smarted to hear Serena say it.
“I don’t think I’m trying to make something out of Sir Everard’s death.” She might agree that Lady Celeste hadn’t left her something besides the house, but she was certainly not making more of Sir Everard’s death than it deserved. “Whoever killed him stole my fossil. I cannot simply sit by and allow that thief to get away with my discovery.”
Serena rubbed her temples. “Gemma, dear Gemma,” she sighed. “Please, just let Mr. Northman do his job. He is the local magistrate. He is tasked with finding Sir Everard’s killer. Not you.”
“Why are you so against me searching for my fossil?” Gemma asked. It was unlike Serena to be so disagreeable. She’d not objected to Ivy and Daphne getting into dangerous situations. Nor Sophia, if it came to that.
Then, something dreadful crossed her mind.
“You’re trying to keep me away from Cam,” she said with burgeoning horror. “Are you … jealous?”
Of course. She was an idiot not to see it sooner. Serena had been far more upset that morning on finding them in the drawing room than Gemma had ever seen her in her capacity as a chaperone.
“What?” Serena looked gratifyingly shocked at the idea. “No, you may rest easy on that point. I have no designs on Lord Cameron or any gentleman, for that matter. I do not intend to marry ever again.”
That response was far more of a relief than Gemma was comfortable with, but she set that aside to pore over later.
“Then what is it?” she asked, trying and failing to come up with an alternative explanation. “Why are you trying to hold me back?”
“Have you looked at your neck in the glass?” Serena asked pointedly.
Alarmed, Gemma reached up to touch her neck. “No, why?”
“Perhaps you should, then we’ll talk,” her chaperone said with a frown.
Turning back around to examine herself in the glass, Gemma was all set to tell Serena she must be mad, when she saw it. A purple mark just below her left ear.
Unbidden, the memory of Cam’s mouth on that precise spot while they’d “pretended” in Sir Everard’s dressing room.
She turned back around and knew her cheeks were scarlet. “So?” She was trying for nonchalance, but knew her blushing ruined it.
Sighing, Serena stepped forward and knelt before her. “My dear girl, you are playing a dangerous game, and I fear that you’re going to find yourself in a difficult situation when the time comes for you to end this betrothal.”
“I’m not a child,” Gemma protested. She did feel a bit out of her depth with Cam, but since they had agreed their—whatever it was they had together—would end soon, she wasn’t overly worried about it. “I know what I’m about.”
“Gemma,” the widow said with an intensity that made Gemma uncomfortable, “I know what it can be like to be married in haste to man with a temper.”
She blinked. Was that what so bothered her?
“I know Cam can be passionate about things,” she said with a frown, “but he’s not really as angry as he seems.”
“What about the day you met?” Serena asked, her blue eyes dark with concern. “He was shouting.”
“So was I,” Gemma said patiently. “In fact, I was shouting the loudest. Because he was being a dismissive lout.”
“Precisely,” Serena said. “Dismissive. He had to be pressed into asking for your hand. And then he did so only after he said something that made you rush away in tears.”
It seemed like a million years since that morning when she’d run away to the workroom to scrub the floors. But suddenly she realized how that scene would look to someone from the outside. Someone who had endured the heartache of being married to a man with little kindness and a great deal of cruelty.
She hugged her chaperone, who had become like another sister over the course of the year. “I can assure you that what happened this morning was as much about me listening in on a conversation that wasn’t meant for me as it was about Cam.” She didn’t tell her that it had been about her. That was a confession for another time—perhaps never.
“But he has such a temper, Gemma,” said Serena as she pulled away. “I don’t want you to find yourself in the same kind of situation I was in. I won’t let you. I won’t see you forced into a marriage, even if your sister and the vicar try to make you do it.”
The notion of Sophia and Ben forcing her to do anything was laughable, but Gemma didn’t let out the giggle that hovered at the back of her throat.
“I know you mean well, Serena,” she said with a smile, “but please trust me when I say that no one will force me to do anything I don’t wish to do. And despite what you might think about Cam and me, we are no more likely to marry now than we were this morning when you discovered us kissing.”
“You didn’t get mud all over your gown simply by retrieving papers, Gemma.”
Thinking of the trek through the back garden of Pearson Close, Gemma contradicted her. “I actually did. And you must know that one can get a mark on one’s neck just as easily in a warm drawing room as rolling about in the mud.”
At that Serena deflated a little. “I suppose that’s right.”
Taking pity on her, Gemma patted her on the shoulder. “I promise you that if worst comes to worst and I’m forced to marry Lord Cameron…” Even as she said it, she felt disloyal in some way. As if Cam would care that she’d described matrimony with him thus. He very likely thought of it in the same way. “If I’m forced to marry Lord Cameron,” she continued, “I will not be in the same situation you found yourself in. I know you think he’s a hotheaded rogue, but he’s not nearly as much of a bear as he seems.”
But the furrow between Serena’s brows didn’t disappear as Gemma had hoped.
“I’ll trust you in this,” she said with a worried nod. “But please know that you only need to say the word and I will see to it that you’re taken away from him for as long as needed to keep you safe.”
Knowing that the words were heartfelt, Gemma thanked her sincerely. “You’ve been a good friend to all of us,” she told her and was surprised to feel the sting of tears in her eyes.
“I’ve enjoyed this year with you girls far more than I could have imagined,” Serena said with a smile. “I’m so proud of all of you. Your bravery and boldness have given me hope that one day I will be able to carve out a place for Jem and me.”
“I think you already have,” Gemma said, somewhat puzzled by the other lady’s words. To her mind, Serena was far more settled than she was.
“Not yet,” the other lady said, rising from the floor. “But soon. Very soon, I think.”
* * *
Benedick leaned back in his chair. “I suppose it makes some sort of sense. You always did put Papa on a pedestal. At least more than the rest of us did. Even Rhys, and he practically worshipped him when were children.” He referred to their elder brother, the heir to the Pemberton dukedom.
“I thought I was the only one,” Cam shook his head in amazement. “All this time and we never talked about it. Not once.”
“We knew it would hurt you,” Benedick said. “For all your bluster, you were always the one who fell hardest when you lost one of your heroes.”
Cam considered it. He supposed he had been easy to disappoint in those days. Not like now, when he’d built up a protective armor around himself. “You said ‘we’. Who else knew?”
“It was Freddie and Archer who first figured it out,” Benedick said. “They were in the village to buy Christmas presents one year and saw Papa leaving Mrs. Gill’s little cottage. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together. They told me, of course.” Ben had been the one the other boys had confided in, even in those days. “And Rhys overheard us. You were off gathering stones, if I recall correctly. And we all agreed we wouldn’t spoil the holidays for you.”
“This was the year Mama was ill. wasn’t it?”
Part of what had so pained Cam about his father’s betrayal was that his mother had spent much of the year suffering from some mysterious ailment that he’d never really understood.
“You mean the year she miscarried,” Benedick said. “They were always very careful not to tell us what was actually wrong. But I’d seen her increasing enough times at that point to know what it looked like.”
Cam took in this news. “Miscarriage. Of course.”
“It was one of those unspoken things that men, especially sons, didn’t discuss,” Benedick said. “Certainly Papa didn’t tell us about it. He made some vague noises about lady problems. And then he never mentioned it again.”
“Knowing this makes Papa’s actions all that much worse,” Cam said darkly. “That he was straying while she was ill.”
He knew that it was common among members of the ton, both husbands and wives, to take lovers. But his parents’ devotion to one another had been something he saw as a mark of their goodness. He’d been sixteen that year and his time at school had by that time exposed him to the unhappy home lives of his peers. Learning that his own parents were just as unfaithful as the rest of them had torn away his last veil of innocence. About his own family and the world in general.
“You’re still thinking about it as your sixteen-year-old self,” Benedick said gently. “Perhaps you should consider something else.”
“I don’t follow.” Cam pinched the bridge of his nose. Maybe he should have saved this discussion for another day. This one had already been filled with more than enough excitement.
“Mama was ill from a miscarriage,” Benedick said patiently. “Papa wanted to save her from illness.”
The last stone in the wall fell into place. “Oh.”
“One doesn’t really wish to consider the fact that one’s parents have ever…”
To Cam’s relief his brother didn’t name the activity that he never ever wished to have associated with his parents.
But the explanation made sense. One of the things that had so crushed him about his father’s infidelity was the fact that he had—hypocritically, Cam thought—seemed as devoted a husband as ever.
“There are not very many alternatives when a lady’s health can be endangered by another babe,” his brother said. “There are ways to prevent it, of course, but I doubt either one of them knew much about—”
The idea of his parents discussing French letters or vinegar-soaked sponges was too much for Cam to take.
“No need to go into detail,” he said raising a hand against Benedick’s words. “I understand your meaning.”
“So, you also understand that the situation was far more complicated than any of us could have guessed at the time.” It wasn’t a question.
Cam nodded. “I suppose so.”
“Marriage is complicated,” Benedick said with the air of a man who had learned so the hard way. “There are negotiations and intimacies that a few hours of pleasure with a mistress can’t prepare you for.”
“So you would take a mistress if for some reason Sophia was unable to endure your attentions?”
“We aren’t speaking of Sophia and me,” his brother said with a frown. “But we are speaking of Mama and Papa. And they did what they thought best in their own marriage. It’s not for us to judge what decisions they made. Especially given that they took pains to ensure that we didn’t know anything was amiss.”
If their father had been seen by three of his sons leaving his mistress’s house the pains hadn’t been all that great, Cam thought. But he took his brother’s point.
“I suppose I was too quick to judge,” he admitted. He tried to imagine himself in his father’s position—and of course it was Gemma he thought of as his wife. Would he be able to go to another woman when he was married to another? If it meant keeping Gemma alive, he knew he would do whatever it took. Though a part of him wondered why his father simply hadn’t been abstinent altogether.
“I don’t mean to say that Papa was a saint,” Benedick said. “But nor was he a monster.”
Suddenly Cam was exhausted.
“I hope you don’t mind if I stay here tonight,” he said. He hadn’t yet bothered to ask, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep now.
“I would have insisted if you didn’t ask,” Benedick said with a smile. “You’re always welcome in my home, brother. Even when you’re behaving like a fool.”
Rising to his feet, Cam stretched his shoulders and remembered the weight of Gemma on them. If Ben only knew what foolish things he’d got up to today.
But he only said, “I fear that’s the only way I behave these days.”
Rising from his own chair, Benedick clapped him on the shoulder. “Welcome to the club, old man.”
Thus it was, that for the second time in the space of as many days, Cam found himself—though the surroundings were different—unable to sleep thanks to one Miss Gemma Hastings.
And not, to his great disappointment, for reasons having to do with the kind of pleasurable activity to which he would rather attribute his insomnia.
Benedick’s revelations about the actual reason for the rift he’d seen in his parents’ marriage had made him reevaluate everything he thought he knew about the nature of marriage itself and his own ability to embark upon the sort of relationship he saw between his brothers and their wives.
It was undeniable now that the connection he felt for Gemma, however unexpected, was more than simple lust—though there was an element of that, as well. But he felt an impulse where she was concerned, one he’d never had with any woman before, to protect her. Not just from the blackguard who’d threatened her. But from any number of things—small and large.
He’d found himself more worried than was reasonable at how chilled she’d become during their clandestine document-gathering outside Pearson Close. It had taken every bit of self-control he had to stop from taking George aside to ensure that her bath was hot enough and was sent up to her sooner rather than later. Not out of a need to control her, but simply because he wanted to ensure that she didn’t take ill.
Cam could count on the fingers of one hand when he’d felt more than a superficial concern for the health of anyone outside his immediate family.
Was that love? He regretted that he’d not thought to ask Benedick when they’d spoken earlier. But he hadn’t failed to notice that his brother seemed to pay attention to his wife’s comfort—from ensuring he brought her fresh flowers on occasion, to building up the fire when she entered a room because he knew she was cold-natured. Cam hadn’t been around Gemma enough to learn her preferences for such things. But he had little trouble believing that a bit more time in her company would have him performing similar tasks.
Ben didn’t know it, but his revelation that their father had strayed not because he didn’t love their mother, but because he did, had changed everything.
There was no way to know the exact circumstances, but he had little trouble at all imagining the duke taking a mistress at the duchess’s behest. Indeed, it made far more sense than the idea that Pemberton, who was besotted with his wife, would have ever done such a thing on his own.
It had been immature on his part to believe it was his father’s infidelity that had seemed to so distress his mother, but Cam realized now that his understanding of the world—and everyone’s, he supposed—was comprised of experiences and feelings beginning in childhood. It had taken hearing about the scene he’d witnessed in a different context to show him the effect his incorrect assumption had had on his views of marriage.
What, he wondered, would Gemma think of his change of attitude? She still believed their betrothal was a temporary thing that could easily be set aside once enough time had passed. Then, there was her belief that she needed to remain unwed in order to prove to the world, and perhaps to herself, that she took geology and fossil-collecting seriously.
That might prove to be a more difficult task than upending his misunderstandings about marriage, he thought grimly, lifting his forearm to cover his eyes.
He took a moment to question whether he was up to the task, Then realized with a laugh, that he had no choice. Gemma might not think their betrothal was real, but he was quickly coming to recognize that there was no other woman he wanted to wed.
And that, he reflected, was the real consequence of what he’d learned from Benedick. Not that he could contemplate marriage.
But that he could contemplate—and desire—marriage to her.
He’d simply have to prove to her that marriage between them wouldn’t mean she’d have to give up her passion for fossils.
He wondered suddenly how the Duke of Maitland managed it. The Duchess was also one of the heiresses, and from everything Cam had heard was a brilliant mathematician and had not, as far as he knew, abandoned her field of study. Perhaps he should have a word with the duke and see if he had any suggestions.
If nothing else, he could speak to someone other than his brother—who could be a bit insufferably smug at times about the happiness of his marriage.
The matter settled, at least for now, he forced himself to empty his mind and sleep.