Lord Gilbert (Sons of the Marquess Book 5)

by Mary Kingswood

  “Whose was the locket that you carry in your waistcoat pocket?”

  “It was my mother’s,” he said at once, and found himself assailed by both grief and pleasure. When was the last time he had spoken of Mama? “The finest lady I have ever known. She always understood me, even when I misbehaved. Not that she was indulgent, or assisted me in evading punishment, but she understood the devils that drove me to mischief. That still drive me to it, if I am honest. Boredom, mostly. I always craved excitement, even as a boy. If we went to the lake to fish, I must needs jump in the water. If we went to the woods, I had to climb a tree. If nothing else offered, I would pick a fight with one of my brothers and that was doubly amusing, because they were so much older and bigger that they would often be punished rather than me. But Mama would talk to me in her quiet way, and although she never lectured me, somehow I would come to see that what I had done was wrong. But then she died…” He stopped, and now there was nothing but grief. How he missed her, even after nine years!

  Into the painful silence of his thoughts, Genista’s quiet voice was soothing. “How old were you then?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “My mother died when I was eleven,” she said.

  “It is very hard to lose the heart of the family, is it not?” Gil said.

  “Oh yes! Father has never quite got over her death.”

  “But what of you?” he said gently. “You must have felt it keenly. A mother is of the greatest importance to a daughter, more so than a wife is to a husband.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, but he thought she seemed puzzled by the idea. “She was ill for so long, and faded a little more each day, so that by the time she died she was barely there. I scarcely remembered a time when she was well, whereas Father remembered her vibrant years. He was overwhelmed with grief, far more than I was, it seems to me. Besides, I had him to think of and care for, whereas he had nothing. All that he loved was taken away from him.”

  Her words silenced him. ‘What about you?’ he wanted to cry out. ‘Surely your father loved you? He had not lost you.’ But he could not speak. His own grief, and hers, rose up to choke him and render him speechless. What a strange, sad life she had led, her father so absorbed in his own affairs that his own daughter imagined herself unloved.

  After that they played on in silence, and even when one or other of them threw a double, there were no more questions. It was a relief. He began to feel the danger of paying her too much attention. They had been thrown together in this intimate way, and she was very matter-of-fact about the situation, but if they were too open with each other, there was a risk of being drawn in, and she might develop expectations. He had no wish to raise hopes in her that he had no intention of fulfilling. He supposed he would marry eventually, if it became unavoidable, but not yet, and certainly not this sad little daughter of a country physician.

  They had almost finished their second game when a sound was heard, distantly. Before he could begin to guess the cause, she had jumped up. “Father is home! I must light the fires.”

  And with that she whisked out of the room and he was left alone.

  4: Roast Beef

  Genista raced through to the kitchen. “Father is back!”

  Betty had been sitting at the table languidly chopping carrots, but now she clucked her tongue in annoyance. “And no fish in the house, nor no beef. He’ll have to have pork, and like it.”

  “He won’t like it! Is there any of the pigeon pie left?”

  “That soldier of yours ate most of it,” Betty sniffed. “There’s a bit of the veal.”

  “I’ll make a ragout, then,” Genista said. “And he’s not my soldier. You’d better open a bottle of gooseberries for a pie. Will you start the pastry? I need to light the fires.”

  She lit a candle from the fire, and went off to light lamps and fires in the surgery, drawing room and dining room. By the time that was done, the gig had already rattled up the short drive and stopped outside the front door. She rushed to open it, and the familiar figure brushed past her.

  “What kept you, girl? The door should be open before I get to it. After such an appalling journey, I should not have to wait to enter my own house.”

  “I beg your pardon, Father. Let me take your coat. How is Mr Wilkes?”

  “Dead, poor soul. I could do nothing but pray for him and perform the final offices. Are there many calls awaiting my attention?”

  “None at all, Father. Either everyone is perfectly well or they cannot get through the snow to request a visit. But we have one patient here.”

  “A patient? Here? He or she must go home, then, for there is no surgery today.”

  “He cannot go home, Father, for he lives in Yorkshire.”

  “But he must have friends in the neighbourhood, or how else would he know to come here?”

  Genista stopped, realising that she would have to explain the whole story. “He became lost in the snow, and fell unconscious at the door. We took him in, or else he would have perished. His leg is injured from a bullet wound, but he is recovering now, Father.”

  “He is not in need of immediate attention, then?”

  “No, Father.”

  Her father stared at her, the bushy brows so close together they looked like one. “Lost in the snow… and what day was this?”

  “Friday last, Father.”

  There was a long silence. Genista’s father had never chastised her or raised his voice to her, nor had he ever been unkind, but he had a way of looking that conveyed his displeasure all too clearly. But after a moment, his face settled back to its customary expression.

  “I shall take some chocolate in the drawing room. And cake. Then you may explain his case to me in detail and I shall examine this patient of yours.”

  ~~~~~

  Gil listened to it all — the women, low-voiced and anxious in the kitchen, then Genista rushing about the rest of the downstairs rooms, then the creak of the front door and a deep, strong voice. Her father. He had formed a mental image of him — an elderly man, white-haired and perhaps stooped, a kindly old gentleman still grieving so deeply for his late wife that he barely noticed his daughter. He would wear black, of course, for he was still mourning. Now that he heard his harsh voice, this pleasant image crumbled. This was no kindly old man.

  Doors opened and closed, and there was silence apart from the murmur of the women in the kitchen. Then footsteps in the hall again, more doors, and silence.

  He had half nodded off when the door opened and a man strode in. Well, he had got the clothes right, for Genista’s father was dressed entirely in black, although with Geneva bands like a clergyman. He was tall, dark-visaged and stern of countenance, and Gil could well imagine him in the pulpit denouncing sinners and preaching of eternal fires. He seemed an unlikely physician.

  “You are Gilbert Marford?”

  “I am, sir.” Gil struggled to rise from his chair, but Dr Hamilton waved him down again.

  “What is your profession?”

  Gil almost laughed, and was tempted to tell him that he was the son of a marquess and had no need for a profession. But it occurred to him that Genista’s hostility to the nobility had more than likely been absorbed from her father, so he held his tongue. “I am a Hussar, sir. The King’s Own Regiment.”

  “Your rank?”

  “Captain.”

  “And how is it you came to be on my doorstep in the snow without your horse?”

  “That is a question I have wrestled with myself, sir. My wounded leg was not healing well, so I was sent home from the camp at Dover to recuperate, but somehow I ended up here, a circumstance which I am quite unable to account for. But however it came about, I am deeply grateful to Miss Hamilton for her care of me, which undoubtedly saved my life.”

  “Fine words. Let me have a look at you, and I’ll decide how well she’s cared for you.”

  For perhaps half an hour, Dr Hamilton was nothing but a medical man, a little brusque in manner, but both practical and thoug
htful. He poked and prodded Gil, listened to his heart and lungs, unbandaged his leg, grunted over it, asked him to walk back and forth, and then pronounced himself satisfied. He arranged for the bath to be brought in, rebandaged the leg and helped Gil to dress in his own clothes again.

  That afternoon, they ate dinner in the dining room, just the three of them, Dr Hamilton, Genista and Gil. Instead of the three or four dishes, there were ten, plus the soup. Genista ran back and forth to the kitchen, for she seemed to do much of the cooking. The conversation stayed with uncontroversial subjects, such as the weather, the state of the roads, news from Canterbury and a long, detailed description of the physician’s various attempts to return home, thwarted until that very day by the snow.

  Dr Hamilton had stopped on his way home at the butcher’s shop in Elversham and picked up several joints of beef, and some game. Gil was very glad to have some red meat for a change. He had not minded chicken, but it was, to his mind, a namby-pamby sort of food, suitable only for invalids and children. There was wine, too, a jug of half-decent claret.

  “Should you care for some wine, Miss Hamilton?” Gil said, when the jug passed to him, but she only shook her head, eyes lowered.

  “My daughter does not indulge in wine, Captain Marford,” Dr Hamilton said. “It is a drink ill-suited to the refined constitutions of women.”

  “Do you think so?” Gil said, trying to recall a single lady of his acquaintance who did not drink wine, or even stronger drink. “It seems a harmless enough habit to me.”

  “Harmless? Harmless? The woman who partakes of any wine or spirit will soon lose her lustre, Captain, and become as loose and wanton as any woman of the streets. Women have no sense of moderation or restraint, as men do. A glass of claret now will become a raging thirst for the liquid in very short order, and then all purity is lost. A man must do all in his power to protect his daughter’s virtue, do you not agree?”

  “Oh, indeed,” Gil said, bewildered by such strength of feeling on the subject. “One can never be too careful.”

  There was no port offered, and all three moved through to the drawing room at the same time, Genista ringing a bell for Betty to clear the table. In contrast to the kitchen, lit in the evenings only by the fire and a couple of tallow candles, the drawing room was bright with lamps and wax candles.

  “You play cribbage, Captain?”

  “A little,” Gil said, feeling obliged to provide the physician with male companionship, although he was light-headed from the wine and his leg was beginning to ache again.

  The two settled to their game, with the bulk of the light clustered around their table. Genista worked on her sewing by the light of a single candle. Gil played poorly, and after an hour or so, the physician said, “You are correct, Captain, to say that you play but a little. You are not up to my weight.”

  “I beg your pardon for my ineptitude, sir. I am not at my best tonight.”

  “No, indeed. You have certainly been ill, of that there is no doubt. When I first heard of your presence here, I confess that I suspected some ploy to prey on my daughter, who was defenceless here. I see now that this judgement was incorrect. However you came here, you must indeed have been in desperate straits. But that is the past. What concerns me now is the future. What are your plans, Captain?”

  “I confess that I have not thought much beyond the next few hours. I was glad simply to be alive. But if I must consider my plans, then so long as my health continues to improve, it should be possible for me to continue my journey north in not too many days.”

  The physician grunted, his head bent over the card table as he tidied away cards and pegs. “And that is all?”

  Gil was bewildered. “All?”

  Dr Hamilton looked up and there was fire in his eyes. “And what about my daughter, young man? What about her?”

  “I have not the pleasure of understanding you, sir.”

  Genista was watching her father with an unreadable expression on her face, but she said nothing. She had said nothing all evening.

  “Let me say this in the plainest possible terms, so that even you may understand,” Dr Hamilton said coldly. “Whatever chance brought you here, and I accept that it was chance and not design, you entered my house uninvited and took advantage of my daughter’s innocence in insinuating yourself under my roof — in my wife’s room, sir, now desecrated by your presence. Not only have you slept under my roof while my daughter was unguarded and alone, you allowed her to tend to you with an intimacy which no maiden should ever offer to a man other than her husband. You encouraged her to spend time with you in the closest possible manner — playing backgammon, while you were unclothed! You have despoiled my innocent daughter, sir, and I ask you again — what do you plan to do about it?”

  Gil’s anger was so great that he jumped to his feet, despite the pain in his leg. “I am a gentleman, sir, and have not so much as touched a hair of your daughter’s head. I would never harm her, and it is not my habit to seduce maidens. She has received nothing from me but my eternal gratitude for her care for me. Your daughter’s innocence and reputation are unharmed.”

  “Not so,” the physician said, looking up at him with anger flashing in his eyes. “Her innocence was lost the moment she gazed upon your naked form. She removed your wet clothes down to the last item, and now she has seen that which no maiden should ever see. You have corrupted her, sir, and she will never again be pure.”

  “I do not see that I can be blamed for anything that happened when I was unconscious,” Gil said in indignation. “Nor can Miss Hamilton be blamed for an act which undoubtedly preserved my life.”

  “No one speaks of blame, for that is of no consequence. You had no say in the matter, and my daughter could not be expected to understand the consequences of her actions. Her compassion led her into error, and now her mind will be filled with lustful thoughts.”

  Gil’s eyes shot to Genista, but she was sitting, head down, hands gripped tightly together in her lap. “This is nonsense,” he said more temperately. “If a woman is pure at heart, then she cannot be corrupted in this way. Her innocence, her good intentions must protect her. There is not an ounce of corruption in Miss Hamilton, and I doubt she even understands the idea of lust, let alone is consumed with it.”

  “Do you presume to question my knowledge of morality, young man? Is your understanding of the world so great that you dare to argue with me on such a subject? Is it not a matter of the utmost concern to me, an object of study over many decades? Have I not devoted myself to this very subject since first I understood the unprincipled nature of most in this world? And how you have the unbridled arrogance to lecture me on the character of my own daughter, a person you met for the first time just a few days ago, is entirely beyond my comprehension.”

  Gil took a deep breath. His leg ached abominably, his head was spinning and all he wanted to do was to crawl into bed and sleep, yet he had to speak. He could not let this unpleasant man go unanswered.

  “I beg your pardon, sir. No insult was intended. Nevertheless, I believe your fears to be unfounded. Miss Hamilton is as virtuous a young lady as it has ever been my pleasure to encounter, and I cannot stand by and allow her character to be tarnished, and by her own father, too.”

  “It is not I who tarnishes her character,” he said in thunderous tones. “Nevertheless, however much you might protest, it has been tarnished, and you are the only person who can now rescue her from ruin. You must marry her at once.”

  “That is a ridiculous idea!” Gil said hotly. “I shall do no such thing.”

  “Then you are no gentleman, and I shall be obliged to write to your superiors in your regiment to inform them of this fact.”

  “You must do as you see fit, but I shall not be bounced into marriage for so trivial a cause.”

  “Oh, you consider the matter trivial, do you?”

  “It is trivial! You make the most enormous fuss about it, but nothing at all has happened between your daughter and me, nothing. Even
if I had set out to seduce her, I do not believe I could have succeeded, so pure of heart is she, and I am accounted an expert in that line.”

  “Oh, you are, are you?”

  “I am!” Gil said, too angry to mind his tongue. “You malign a good woman by your insinuations, and I shall not marry her merely on that account. Some day she will find a husband worthy of her, who values her as she deserves, but it shall not be me.”

  He swayed a little, for the room was spinning horribly. He closed his eyes, and would have fallen except for the support that materialised under one arm.

  “He is ill, Father, and needs rest. Let me take him back to his room.” Her quiet voice was balm to his ruffled spirits.

  “Pah! Do as you please.”

  With Genista’s help, Gil limped back to his room and practically fell onto the bed.

  “Will you be all right?” she said, her voice anxious. “Shall I bring you some laudanum?”

  He shook his head, and then some mischievous devil got into him, for he said, “I shall need you to undress me.”

  “Hush!” she said in severe tones, but she put a hand to her mouth to hide her laughter. But then she added in an undertone, “You should leave as soon as you are able, for he will not let go of the idea while you remain here.” Then, louder, “Good night, Captain Marford.”

  Leaving him a single candle, she whisked out of the room with the faintest hint of lavender.

  5: Duty

  Gil could not sleep. He managed to undress himself and crawled into bed, but sleep would not come. How had he found himself in this mess, and through no fault of his own? Or hers, come to that, for he could not find it in his heart to be censorious of Genista’s actions when he would otherwise have died. Her father was a pompous, self-righteous old stick, and Gil had no intention of marrying to oblige him, and certainly not this drab, timid girl.

  Yet she was not so timid with him. When her father was around, she was silent and downcast, but alone with Gil she was far more animated, with a lively sense of the absurd. Even after the heat of the argument swirling around her, she had seen the jest in his suggestion that she undress him. She was demure, however, with not the slightest degree of flirtatiousness, perfectly ladylike, yet he could never see himself marrying such a woman. When his time came to be leg-shackled, he would find himself a wife from amongst his own class, who could move in his level of society.