Ossie said, “I’ll wager the puppy’s father doesn’t know any of the marvelous disciplines Miss Helen employs.”
Gray, tucked back into bed, moaned and closed his eyes again. “Jack, your Lancelot comment was on the witty side. I can already see questions in your eyes—don’t listen to any of this discipline talk, all right? Now, I really hadn’t intended to spend the day before my marriage in this manner.”
“Breathe deeply, my lord.”
“Here’s a scone for his lordship, from Miss Helen,” said the maid Gwendolyn, who’d lent Jack the gown.
“Thank you,” Gray said. “Give it to Jack and she will feed me.”
“Your breathing is irregular, my lord. Perhaps if you chew on a bit of scone it will ease your choler.”
Helen Mayberry sat in the chair that Ossie Brainard had pulled close to Gray’s bed. Ossie sat at her feet on an old leather hassock. Jack was seated on the end of Gray’s bed, her legs tucked beneath her.
As for Gray, he was propped up against three pillows, like a king, eating another scone, this one crammed with raisins.
“I see nothing for it, my lord,” Helen said. “I believe if Ossie says you’re fit enough, we should return you to London tomorrow morning. It is your wedding day.”
Gray started to say that his head ached so badly a wedding day was the furthest thing from his mind, but he looked at Jack, who had the gun in her lap and looked pale and frightened. He said, “I don’t have a carriage.”
“I do,” Helen said. “That’s why I said that we should return you to London. I will accompany you. It’s only an hour and a half away.”
“Miss Helen’s father is Viscount Prith,” said Ossie. “We will borrow his carriage.”
“We could,” Helen said on a sigh, “but you know, Ossie, my father would demand to come with us.” She said to Gray, “He loves to travel, even short distances. A trip to London would send him into raptures. He would also demand to come to the wedding. He attends every wedding not only here in Court Hammering but in all the surrounding counties. He married my dear mother three different times, when he was in a particularly romantic frame of mind. Thankfully, our vicar is a man of flexible bent.”
Gray said to Jack, who was still looking blank-brained, “Jack and I should very much appreciate having you as our guests. It is to be a small wedding. It’s possible that it will be even smaller if Douglas and Ryder Sherbrooke are still out chasing after you, Jack. Perhaps we’d best postpone the wedding until everything settles down, my head included.”
“No,” Jack said, so distressed that she nearly bounced herself off the bed. “Something else bad will happen if we don’t get married. It’s already started—my foot’s asleep. Something else would happen, too. I just know it. My stepfather could kidnap Aunt Mathilda, not realizing that if she wished to she could orate him into the ground, then slit his throat. No, as long as you can stand upright, Gray, I should like to get it over with. Then you can go to bed for as long as you like.”
“An offer a man can’t refuse,” Gray said to the bedchamber in general.
“Really, my lord,” Ossie said, giving Helen an interested look, “there are ladies present.”
“Not really,” said Jack. “Until last week I was a valet and proud of it.”
Douglas Sherbrooke stood beside Gray late the following Friday morning in the St. Cyre drawing room, having returned to London three hours before, just in time for an early breakfast. He’d had time to shave and change his clothes and rejoice that Jack was back where she belonged.
Bishop Langston, loose-limbed as a willow wand and endowed with a beautifully dark speaking voice, conducted the brief ceremony—so brief in fact, that Jack was married before she even realized her fate was sealed. “Jack, look up at me so I can give you a very modest kiss.”
She knew his head still ached, but he was smiling down at her, and she thought he looked wonderful in his stark black formal garb and his white linen.
She closed her eyes and raised her face. She felt his fingertips touch her cheek, then cup her chin. He gave her a light, fleeting kiss, over before it began. But she found it very interesting, nonetheless. His fingers didn’t immediately drop. She opened her eyes and looked up at the man she hadn’t even known existed just three weeks before. Now he was her husband.
“How does your head feel?”
“Let’s just not speak of that, Jack.”
“Then I will tell you how very handsome you look.”
“That’s better.”
“There’s something different about you. About the way you’re looking at me.”
He could have told her that he was now seeing her through a husband’s eyes, and that was a very different experience for him indeed. He was seeing her as a woman who would, this very evening, climb into his bed with him and Eleanor.
“You’re very brave, Gray. Thank you.”
His knuckles grazed her cheek. He said nothing. Bishop Langston cleared his throat, which brought some chuckles from behind them.