Twenty-four

Gwendeline woke on a sofa in a small neat parlor that seemed remarkably full of people. She looked around her, recognizing Miss Brown, Major St. Audley, and Mr. Ames. What would Mr. Ames be doing here, she wondered hazily. Just then, the door opened, and Lord Merryn strode in, crowding the room even more. She tried to sit up, only to discover that she felt excessively dizzy and that her head ached abominably. She sank back.

Lord Merryn was the only observer of these efforts. He nodded his approval. “That’s better. You’re not to move around for a while.”

As the others turned toward her, Gwendeline put a hand to her head. “Oh, Gwendeline,” put in Miss Brown, “I’m so glad to see you awake and safe. Blane is taken by the police; he won’t trouble you again.”

“He sent those notes to me,” Gwendeline said. “And hired the highwaymen who attacked you. He told me so.”

The earl nodded grimly. “I know. I’ve learned a great deal about Mortimer Blane in the last half hour. He carried out a detailed plan of revenge for his imagined wrongs.”

“The man must be mad!” exclaimed Mr. Ames, shaking his fist, and Miss Brown agreed.

But Major St. Audley shook his head. “I don’t allow him that excuse. He is a dam…a dashed…” He threw up his hands. “Never mind.”

Lord Merryn smiled a little at this and moved farther into the room. “Interesting as it may be to dissect Blane’s character,” he said blandly, “Gwendeline and I have more important matters to discuss. If all of you would excuse us for a few moments?” He gestured toward the door. The major went directly out, and Miss Brown followed more slowly, looking back over her shoulder anxiously. Mr. Ames hesitated, then also hurried out. The earl closed the door and turned back to Gwendeline. He pulled a chair up beside the sofa and took her hand. “There,” he said. “Now we can settle things between us.”

“How does Mr. Ames come to be here?” She thought she knew what he wished to say, and she wanted desperately to avoid telling him of her marriage to Blane.

“He forced himself upon me,” the earl answered, shrugging and smiling wryly. “He would not allow me to leave that cursed ball without him.”

“He is so kind.”

“Possibly,” said Lord Merryn dryly. “Why do I feel that you are trying to shift this conversation onto trivial subjects? I wish to discuss important matters.”

“Important?” faltered Gwendeline.

“Well, the date of the wedding, for example. And whether you wish to go to Paris afterward or would prefer the country. I have a rather good house in Hertfordshire, you know.”

“W-wedding?”

“Wedding,” he agreed firmly, “our wedding.”

Gwendeline burst into tears.

The earl looked surprised. “What have I said?” he asked. “I haven’t had much experience making offers of marriage, I admit.”

Gwendeline blurted out the story of her marriage to Blane. “So you see,” she finished, “I cannot marry you. My life is ruined.”

“What a gudgeon you are, Gwendeline,” replied the earl indulgently.

Gwendeline sat up straight, only to sink back dizzily once more. “A gudgeon?” she replied hotly, her hand to her head again. “Is that how I seem to you in this horrid situation? You are odious; I am glad I can’t marry you.”

“Your marriage to Blane is not valid.”

“What?”

“No marriage can be legal when one party is forced to it. But even that is beside the point. The man who married you was an imposter. Blane hired him to play a priest.”

Gwendeline was stunned and could not take it in at first. “Y-you mean,” she began.

“I mean that you are no more married than I, my dear gudgeon. A situation we shall speedily remedy, I hope.”

“But…”

“Yes?”

“But you haven’t even asked me to marry you…”

“Are you saying that you don’t wish to do so?” Lord Merryn asked equably.

“No, but… I mean, yes. There is so much I do not yet understand.” Gwendeline set her jaw. “I would like to know, once for all, if you have been supporting me these weeks. Blane didn’t think that Sir Humphrey was a party to my rescue.”

The earl looked at her with tender amusement. “You never give up, do you? I think perhaps it was your dogged perseverance that first roused my admiration.” He sighed. “When I went down to Devonshire to fetch you, I expected to find a child, as you must remember. I’d made no provision for the fact that you might be a young lady. When I saw how it was, I had to revise my plans. I pulled this imaginary ‘group’ out of the air to satisfy the proprieties and quiet your understandable doubts, I admit. But once I was back in town I did enlist some others, after a hard half hour with Sir Humphrey Owsley, I must tell you. He was incensed that he had not been asked to join this mythical group, if you please.”

Gwendeline smiled. “Was he indeed?”

Lord Merryn’s answering smile was wry. “Extremely. He forced a large sum of money on me to make it true.”

“I wish I might have seen him,” laughed Gwendeline. She looked down then, and her smile faded. “But before that, you should have told me. It was not right. I…”

“You would have left me the instant you knew,” put in the earl. “I couldn’t face that when I found that you were the only woman I could ever love.” He shook his head. “No fiction or invention seemed too arduous if it kept you near me. How I wished to give you even more! I admit, but I am not sorry.” His grip on her hand tightened painfully. “If you knew what I felt when you disappeared! I vowed then that I would never lose you again.”

“And so you became engaged to Adele Greene.” She looked at him inquiringly.

“She is now safely engaged to the Duke of Craigbourne, as you must remember.”

“Yes,” said Gwendeline, “but very recently she was engaged to you.” She looked at him squarely.

“And you wish to know how that came about?” Gwendeline nodded. “Understandable, I suppose. Well, the base of it was blackmail.”

“What?”

“Yes. Adele wanted to marry me, or rather my title and fortune, I believe. She came up to me at a dinner party some time after you had left London and threatened to spread the story she’d heard Mr. Blane tell on our unfortunate country riding expedition throughout the ton unless I agreed to become engaged to her.”

“Even Adele could not be capable of such a thing.”

Lord Merryn shrugged. “Nevertheless, that is what she did. My first impulse was to laugh at her and send her packing. It seemed to matter very little when you had gone, believing the lies Blane had spoken.” Gwendeline moved as if to protest this, but the earl went on. “Then, as I thought further, I realized two things. I didn’t really want the tale spread. So I gave in, trusting that I could divert Adele, as I did with Craigbourne. I did hope the announcement might make you return to London.”

Gwendeline looked away. “I can’t imagine why.”

“Can you not?” he asked, smiling. “But it did bring you back.”

“It did not!” she replied indignantly. “I came back because…because I wished to. And because I’d read the countess’s book and found out the true story of my mother. Which you might have told me in the beginning,” she added.

“I came to do so on the day you fled London, Gwendeline,” he told her seriously. “You gave me little chance to explain.”

“I know. I am sorry.”

“But my mother’s book was helpful. Had I known she was writing it, I would probably not have agreed to become engaged. But she has learned to tell me little about her writing.” He grinned. “By the by, she was overjoyed to hear that you are to become a member of the family. She said that your life has provided her with more plot ideas than she ever found in any of her researches. Your latest trials have sent her into ecstasies.”

“Have you told everyone that we’re to be married then?”

“Not everyone, certainly. Only your particular friends. I must say they were all flatteringly happy to hear it.”

“Oh dear,” said Gwendeline.

The earl’s expression became very serious. “I have come to love you very much, Gwendeline. I hope you don’t mean to refuse me?”

Gwendeline looked into his eyes. “No. That is… I hardly know where I am.”

“You’re with me.”

Gwendeline gazed at him. That did seem the most important thing. “Yes, my Lord Merryn,” she replied with an impish smile.

Laughing, he swept her into his arms.

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