by Carla Kelly
The wound bled, but as she dabbed at it with the remnants of the sleeve, the bleeding stopped. She gathered Gatewood close in her arms and pressed the cloth to the wound. “Jim,” she whispered, “I do not suppose you thought your Oxford year would end like this.”
His eyes fluttered open and slowly focused on her face. He studied it and managed a lopsided grin. “I know I have not died,” he said finally, “because I know better than anyone that you are not an angel, Ellen.”
“No, I am not,” she agreed, grateful that he had command of his faculties, even though he did seem to be rubbing his cheek against her bosom in rather an unseemly fashion as she held him close. The feeling was not unpleasant; quite the contrary.
He winced as he reached up to touch her cheek and continue his perusal of her face. “You know, Ellen, as care-for-nobody as my relatives are, not one of them has ever used me for target practice.”
“I am sure it was a mistake,” she murmured, overcome with shame. “Gordon would never …”
She looked up. Gordon and the proprietor of the nearby inn were hurrying toward them, arguing loud and long.
The marquess winced again. “Do tell them to quiet down,” he pleaded. “And not to pound so hard on the grass. Godfrey, but I am uncomfortable.”
He turned his cheek against her bosom again. “Perhaps not too uncomfortable,” he amended.
She put her finger to her lips and the landlord was silent. Gatewood motioned him closer with a nod of his head. “Bend down, my good man.”
“Yes, my lord.”
With a grunt and a creak of stays the landlord moved close. “I can have the constable here in a shake.”
Gatewood shook his head. “That is precisely what I do not wish,” he said, his voice scarcely more than a whisper. “And if word of this should get out, I will never lift another tankard in your inn. I will also tell everyone at All Souls, Balliol, and Oriel to avoid your place as they would the plague.”
“Yes, your worshipful sir,” the landlord gasped as he worked his way to his feet again. “But someone ought to make an example of young chubs what duel.”
“I will deal with him,” the marquess said. He closed his eyes. “Now if you would send for Mr. Charris, the surgeon at the corner of New and St. Giles, you will make me a happy man.”
“Done already,” the landlord assured him. He glared at Gordon. “You are sure you do not wish the constable?”
“Positive,” Gatewood said. “Leave us alone for a moment, will you?”
The landlord took his ponderous way toward the inn while Gordon climbed the bank and sat there, head in his hands.
Ellen looked down at the marquess. “There is never going to be a right time for this,” she said, tracing her finger along his cheek.
“For what?” Gatewood asked. He opened his eyes and then closed them again, as though the sunlight were too bright.
“I will simply have to jettison my pride and get it over with, won't I?”
“Ellen, you are making no sense at all,” he protested, “or else I am in such a shape that I do not know good sense when I hear it.”
“That is likely the case,” she said and took a deep breath. “Will you marry me, please, sir, so I can protect you from my family?”
The marquess smiled but did not open his eyes. “Novel idea,” he said, and his words slurred together. “Discuss it later. Not at my best …” He relaxed in her arms as his head lolled to one side.
She touched his pale lips with her finger. “Now was that a yes or a no, my lord?” she asked him. She glanced over at Gordon, who was watching her with a slight smile on his face. Her eyes grew thoughtful. I wonder. Oh, surely not.
Gordon convinced her to return to St. Hilda's. “The landlord and I will see him to a bed here, El,” he assured her. “It will be bad enough if Papa gets wind of this, but if he finds out that you were involved, I am sure it will be quite twenty years before he allows me out of my room for excursions farther than the necessary.”
“It would serve you right,” she said, careful not to disturb the marquess as she kissed his forehead and gently lowered him to the ground. “Gordon, you are the greatest menace to world peace and the future of western civilization that I ever heard of.”
He grinned. “El, I didn't know you cared!”
She sighed in exasperation. “Oh, for goodness sake! Loan me your cloak. I daren't face Miss Medford with blood all over my dress. And wherever did you get such a cape?”
He swirled it about her shoulders. “Thought it would be just the thing for a duel.”
“Gordon, you try me!” Ellen declared, her voice unsteady. She knelt beside the marquess again, who still slumbered among the dandelions, a peaceful expression on his face. “James, you certainly need me,” she said and touched his cheek.
Becky did not feel inclined to chatter, so they walked in silence away from the river. The mist had cleared. “What a perfect spot for a duel,” Ellen ventured at last, her eyes on Becky's face. “I don't know how Gordon could have planned it better.”
“Beg pardon, miss?” Becky asked, her eyes innocent. Ellen shook her head. “Perhaps I am entirely too suspicious.” She looked back at the riverbank. A man carrying a black satchel hurried down the slope, accompanied by two boys with a litter. She waited until they had picked up the marquess and laid him on the litter before she continued down the street.
Gordon, looking contrite beyond relief, stood before her that evening as the students took the air in St. Hilda's quadrangle. “He is resting in testy discomfort at All Souls,” he reported and then cleared his throat. “He begs me to invite you to ‘one more intrigue.’ ”
She regarded her brother with vast suspicion. “Gordon, you are a rogue, and I will do no such thing.”
He held up his hands. “Those were his very words; so help me! Heavens, but you are suspicious! I am to collect you from St. Hilda's before dawn in two days and meet him at Magdalen College.”
“And I suppose he will line us up against the wall there and shoot us!”
“Nothing of the sort,” Gordon protested. “See here, El, he's much more of a gentleman, even if he looks like a ragbag half the time. Which reminds me. You are to wear your breeches and student robe.”
“This will be the last time,” she warned.
He nodded. “Funny, but those were Lord Chesney's words too. And dashed if he didn't wag his finger at me, just as you are doing now.” He grinned and hugged her about the waist. “You two will be the death of me.”
“Don't you ever use that expression again, Gordon,” she said. “It makes me shudder.”
To say the next two days crawled by would have been a gross understatement. Ellen finally turned the clock in her room to the wall because the hands refused to move, no matter how hard she watched them. The nights were much too long, the days even longer. She sleepwalked through her assignments like Lady Macbeth, wondering that she had ever thought scholarship so important.
All the flowers in the room suffered at her hands as she strewed petals about, wondering, “Love me, love me not.”
He couldn't possibly love her, not after that fiasco at the riverbank. James Gatewood had suffered nothing but aggravation, irritation, and now blood loss at the hands of her family. He couldn't possibly love her.
And yet, even if his eyes were slightly out of focus at the riverbank, there had been such a light in them. Ellen tugged another handful of petals from a rose, groaned, and tossed the whole vase away.
She would like to have slept the night of April 30, but it wasn't even a consideration. She tossed about on her bed, alternating between tears and laughter, certain that she was in love. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes, thinking of Horatia and her lapdog love for Edwin.
Horry, you have it all wrong, she thought. Love is aggravation and worry, complete contentment, and the worst sort of discomfort. I wonder that anyone falls in love.
She thought of James Gatewood with his head in her lap, nuzzling her. I
wonder how anyone can help but fall in love.
She was dressed and waiting for Gordon on the steps before dawn. Miss Medford was going to cut up stiff when she knocked on her door for breakfast and found the room empty, but it didn't matter; she was going home soon. Ellen gazed out across the spires of Oxford, still silhouetted in black, timeless monuments to the best efforts of spirit and soul. She did not feel sad. Oxford might be a dream unattainable now, but perhaps one of her granddaughters or great-granddaughters would enter those halls and seat herself without fear or disguise in the lecture rooms.
“Stranger things have happened,” she said as she watched Gordon come toward her.
The streets were full of students, all heading toward Magdalen College. Ellen looked at her brother, a question in her eyes.
“It is May Day,” he reminded her. “I think even I am glad to be here for this moment.” He took her band. “And especially with you.”
“Why, Gordon,” she said. “One would think you almost cared.”
“Don't let it swell your brainbox, sister,” he replied, his voice light. He grew serious then. “I never did really thank you for standing by me during that dreadful Saturday reading. You could so easily have betrayed me. And I would have deserved it.”
She smiled, remembering less of the misery and more of the pleasure at actually being there—if only for a brief time—listening to the exchange of ideas, some of them her own. “It was nothing, Gordon. Maybe we have both learned a few home truths this year that you cannot find in books.”
Still serious, he linked his arm through hers.
Lord Chesney, looking unusually dashing with his arm in a sling, was waiting for them on the chapel steps. He looked up at Magdalen Tower and held out his good hand for Ellen.
“Let us carol in the May, my darling Hermia,” he said and kissed her fingers. “You may come too, Gordon, if you are not afraid that I will do you injury. ’Tis a long way to the ground from the top.”
Gordon took his sister's other hand. “I will stand on this side of her.” He looked more closely at the marquess. “Are you sure that you are equal to this climb, my lord?” he asked.
“I think I can put one doddering foot in front of the other,” the marquess replied. “Come, my love. You too, Gordon.”
Almost afraid to speak, Ellen followed her marquess up the narrow staircase, the wood worn smooth by the progress of centuries. They paused for breath part way up.
She put her hand to his chest. “Are you able to continue, Jim?” she asked. “You lost a lot of blood, I think.”
He shrugged. “Less than you would suppose. It looked worse than it was, so your brother assures me. One could almost suspect he shot me for maximum effect and little damage.” Gordon coughed and looked away.
“And note how romantic I look with this sling. I have given out so many explanations of how I came by it that it would require your calculating mind to keep them all straight.”
She laughed and let him lead her up the tower with the other pilgrims to spring.
Near the top, they paused again on the crowded landing. The marquess held her close, his good arm about her waist. He didn't look at her but instead stared upward where they could glimpse the white-ruffed Magdalen students and choirboys waiting.
“Tell me, Ellen,” he asked, his voice casual. “Did you mean what you said the other morning, or was I delirious?”
“I meant what I said,” she told him, her voice firm. “I love you and I want to marry you above all things. And I only propose once, my lord.”
“Then I accept, with all deliberate speed,” he said.
Gordon let out a crack of laughter. “Thank goodness for that,” he exclaimed. “I was beginning to fear that I would have to shoot you again.”
“What!” roared the marquess, his voice rising several octaves.
Ellen only looked at her brother. “I wondered, Gordon,” she murmured. “And Becky was in on this, wasn't she? I did wonder.”
He grinned. “I cannot tell a lie, at least not right now. So was my chambermate, who is still suffering from the ill effects of seeing all that blood. I did assure him that I would not shoot anything that Ellen would miss.”
“My blushes, Gordon! Give him my condolences,” the marquess said drily as he tightened his hold on Ellen.
“That was the best scheme I could devise on short notice.”
The marquess could only stare. “But, Gordon, you shot me!”
Gordon nodded. “I am an excellent marksman, my lord, so it wasn't as tricky as you might think. You were really quite safe.”
The marquess groaned and Gordon threw up his hands in exasperation.
“How else was I to get Ellen's attention? And yours too, I might add. I never saw such a gaggle of slow-tops as you two! One would think I had to do everything,” he added virtuously.
“Yes. Well,” was all the erudite and articulate Lord Chesney could manage as he sank down on the landing, his face a shade less sanguine. He pulled Ellen down with him. “My darling Ellen, do you realize that your brother is certifiable?”
Ellen considered the question for a moment and kissed the marquess. “He is rather a good shot, Jim.”
The marquess could only pull Ellen closer to him. “Gordon …” he began.
But Gordon had gone farther up the tower. When he was safely out of reach, he looked back down. “You two would probably rather be alone,” he said generously, shouting above the sweet soprano of the boys’ choir that suddenly burst forth in full harmony as the sun cleared the tops of the hills.
Ellen snuggled closer to her marquess, unmindful of the strange looks she was getting from the students crowded around them on the landing. She kissed his cheek and whispered in his ear, “These students think we are queer stirrups, indeed.”
“Oh, we don't care. Listen, Ellen. It is the most beautiful sound.”
Her head pressed to his chest, she smiled at the wonderful rhythm of Lord Chesney's generous heart. There would never be any opportunity to explore the world beyond Hertfordshire, most likely. She and Lord Chesney would be too busy managing the silliness of his family or hers, or finding creative ways to help others. There would be that night school and Becky would find a better future, even as she had done. It was enough; it was more than enough.
Arms around each other, they listened as the choir caroled in the May from the top of Magdalen. “‘Like to the lark at break of day arising from sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate,’ ” he said softly, his lips to her ear. “You'll not object if I occasionally quote the man who brought us together?”
“You know I won't.”
When the last crystal notes faded into the morning light, Ellen sighed in complete contentment but did not stir from the marquess's side. Gordon started down from the tower and blew a kiss to them in passing.
“I am so glad you are sending him off to Spain,” she said as the other students stepped around them on the way down the rickety stairs.
Gatewood pulled away from her a little, the better to see her face. “Who said anything about Spain, my love? You are apparently laboring under the same misconception as your brother.” He chuckled wickedly.
“Jim, what have you done?”
“I told you once that I seldom get angry, but I invariably get even,” he replied, his voice serene. “I believe what I actually said was that he would go into an excellent regiment of my choosing.”
“Yes, yes, the Ninth Hussars. You said so,” she interrupted.
“They are not all in Spain. Part of the regiment is reluctantly posted in Canada, keeping peace among polar bears and French voyageurs, I don't doubt. That is where your rascal brother is going.”
She burst into laughter. “You are a sly dog!”
“I have been trained by masters this year,” he replied. “He will suffer a boring but relatively safe incarceration in Canada.”
He turned serious as he took her hand again. “I have discovered that I have too much regard for your s
capegrace brother to willingly send him to the slaughter in Europe. Better he should stay alive and have many, many years to improve his faulty character.”
Tears came to her eyes. “And Ralph will have Winchester.”
“If he wants it.”
She kissed his hand. “You are a wonder.”
He shook his head in mock seriousness. “I do not know what I can do about Edwin Bland, though. I am afraid he will always remain a blockhead, and there are entirely too many of them in the peerage already to warrant the inclusion of another, even if it was in my power. Edwin will have to blunder on by himself. Perhaps he can purchase a title like his father.”
The stairs were clear, but they did not move. “Why did you change your mind?” Ellen asked. “I know too well that you had decided against marrying me. You were going to be noble and spare me from your ridiculous family.”
He rested his chin on her head. “Oh, I was honor bound. You see, I have just received the most amazing proposal …”
“Be serious!”
“It's strange. I have a letter in my pocket from Lady Susan Hinchcliffe. You will meet her soon, I fear. Anyway, it was full of misspellings and vapidity, expressing her delight that I was soon to be sprung from the halls of academe. She is as beautiful as she is brainless, and probably even now considers herself just the fitting ornament for the Gatewood family tree.”
He kissed her head and was silent a moment. “I just couldn't do it, fair Hermia. I want a wife who will argue with me and challenge my mind and chide me when I get lazy or discouraged. Oh, and someone to make me glad for nighttime and quiet afternoons.”
She blushed. “I have base instincts, my lord. You really ought to know.”
He kissed her again. “Thank goodness for that.”
“You don't mind?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“Why would any red-blooded man?” He grinned. “My instincts are pretty base too. We'll just not tell the world.”
