Merely the Groom (Free Fellows League 2)

He wanted to say something that would make her open her heart and declare her feelings for him.

But Sir Galahad couldn’t say anything at all.

He could only feel.

I love you.

* * *

“Colin?” Gillian smoothed her nightgown down over her legs and slid off the desk. “This is yours, isn’t it?” She opened her fist and offered him the seal.

Colin took it from her and slipped the chain over his head and around his neck.

“It looks as if it belongs there,” she said.

He glanced down at the seal lying half-concealed by the hair on his chest. “It does.”

“So,” she drawled. “We’ve only been married four days, and you’re already keeping secrets from me.”

Colin pursed his lips in thought. “Only the secrets that predate our wedding.”

“Your appearance in my life as Sir Galahad definitely predated our wedding.”

Colin exhaled, then closed his eyes and hung his head. “Yes, it did. And so did the only other secrets I’m keeping.” Gillian retrieved the sheet of paper that had slipped out of her grasp and landed on the desktop as they made love. “Secrets that have something to do with these messages.” She glanced down at the paper and frowned as she studied it more closely. “And the trade routes of several of my father’s ships.”

Colin opened his eyes and met her gaze, willing her to understand that as a man of honor, he could not reveal the secrets of a lifetime, even to her.

Gillian took a deep breath. The innkeeper’s wife’s description of Galahad came rushing back. The smuggler. “May I ask you a question?”

“I won’t promise I can answer it,” Colin told her. “But I’ll try.”

“All right,” she agreed. “Did you follow me to Edinburgh?”

“No. I arrived in Edinburgh after you did, but I was there on business that had nothing to do with you. I saw you for the first time standing at the window,” he answered her truthfully.

“You were the one in the alley.”

He nodded.

“But you never worked for my father, and you weren’t hired to follow Colin Fox or to find me and bring me home?”

Colin shook his head. “I’d never met your father until the day before you and I married. And I only learned about the man you knew as Colin Fox the afternoon before I met with your father and the Bow Street runner.”

“Then why?”

“I was on my way back to the Blue Bottle the night I was set upon by the footpad I told you about. Circumstances prevented me from reaching my room by way of the front door. I had to find another way, so I climbed up on the roof of the laundry in the close and used the ledge to make my way to my window.” He looked at Gillian. “My room was just down from yours. I reached it only to find it occupied by characters looking to do me more harm. I knew I was bleeding from my wound and too weak to retrace my path, so I slipped inside your room to escape them.”

“How did you know I was alone?” Gillian asked.

“I didn’t,” he told her. “I knew you’d been left alone because I heard the innkeeper and his wife discussing your situation, but I didn’t know you were alone until I climbed in your bedroom window and saw you curled up in bed all by yourself.” He took another deep breath before resuming his explanation. “You weren’t supposed to know I was there,” he said. “I intended to be long gone before you awoke.”

“But I surprised you.”

“Aye.” The one word was riddled with emotion. “In every way.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks. “You knew I was afraid. You held me through the night and paid my way home. You saved me, Colin.”