Blame It on Bath Page 0,44
whispered, tracing a fingertip along her lower lip. “It lifts my spirits.” Slowly her mouth curved into a shy smile although her eyes remained wary. It did improve her looks tremendously. He wondered why she did it so rarely. Again he considered if Howe might have abused her in some way or merely quashed her spirit by virtue of being so much older. He didn’t think he’d ever met a woman as somber as Katherine. Or rather, Kate. His Kate.
“Now I feel able to face the day,” he said with a grin, pressing a quick kiss on her nose. “Up with you, my lady!” He tossed back the covers and got out of bed. He pretended not to notice the blush that stained her cheeks as she leaped from the bed and scrambled for her dressing gown. It was cool, not cold, in the room, but Gerard made a point of stirring up the banked fire, giving her a few minutes of privacy. When he glanced over his shoulder, she had retreated behind the dressing screen in the corner.
By the time he dressed and tended to an abbreviated toilette, there was a knock on the door. “Good morning, Mrs. Dennis,” he said as he opened it.
The older lady looked him up and down. An upbraiding was on the tip of her tongue, he could see, but she merely nodded once and replied in kind. Then she hurried to the screen and disappeared behind it, whence began a furious rumble of whispers. He finished tying his cravat, watching the screen with some irritation, before shrugging it off. No doubt to a lady as reserved as Kate, he seemed very forward and impertinent, but Gerard refused to change who he was for her. If she’d wanted another sort of man, she should have thought of that before begging him to marry her. He still didn’t know why she’d picked him, but in time he’d find out; Gerard knew he could be a persistent devil, and when he wanted to know something, he rarely gave up without success. He pulled on his coat and tossed the last of his things back into the valise before heaving his saddlebags over his shoulder again.
“I’m going down now,” he announced to the room. The whispers hushed. “We leave in an hour. I’ll make certain breakfast is sent up.”
For a moment all was silence, then Kate stepped from behind the screen, still muffled in her dressing gown. “Thank you, sir. We will be ready to leave on time.”
He finally figured out what bothered him about her way of speaking. It was lofty and cool, not with disdain so much as an air of forcing herself to do it, as if she’d rather not have to say anything at all. The only time she spoke naturally was when he shocked her, it seemed; he remembered how she had reacted to his announcements that they would marry the next day and that he wanted to have children. He filed the thought away for future contemplation, although it seemed very likely he would shock his bride frequently if those were the statements that unsettled her.
For now he just nodded and let himself out of the room. They had over fifty miles to cover today, and he wanted to get a quick start. He ordered breakfast for himself and asked for a tray to be sent up to the room, then paid the bill. A message was waiting for him as well from Bragg, who had gone on ahead to secure a house. Initially Gerard had planned to set up at an inn, but the question of marriage changed all that. Once he decided to accept Katherine’s proposal, Bragg went on ahead to make arrangements. One couldn’t expect a newlywed bride to live at an inn for weeks, after all. Some men probably wouldn’t have asked her to come along at all, given the journey and the task that lay ahead of him.
But he was confident taking Kate with him was the right choice. The alternative would be to leave her in London, either alone in a hastily rented house or at Durham House, foisted on his brother Edward’s hospitality. Edward would be very hospitable to her, of course, but he barely considered the idea. He didn’t want to return to London in a month or two to find his brother knew his wife better than he did, and he absolutely refused to leave her anywhere Lucien Howe could try to