head and then hobbled off. He turned to face his mother. “I did not choose to abandon Jennet Reed seven years ago. Father commanded me to.”
The baroness went still. “Why in Heaven’s name would he do such a thing?”
The day before his wedding William Gerard spent the morning finishing the final fitting for his new dark blue cut away jacket, which had required a slight adjustment to accommodate his broad shoulders. It matched his skin-tight knee breeches, which were all the fashion now, and made the spotless white muslin of his shirt look as if it had been woven of swan’s down. His choice of an apricot-colored silk cravat and a scarlet waist coat had met with supreme disapproval from the tailor in London, but he didn’t care. He wanted to make his lady smile when she saw him waiting for her at the altar.
He returned to Gerard Lodge, where the housekeeper informed him that his mother had gone to the village church to check the flower arrangements.
“The baron has returned from London, Mr. William,” she added. “He bade me ask you to attend him as soon as you arrived. He’s reading in his book room.”
William went to the back of the house, where his father kept a large room filled with the books that he collected during his travels. Most were in French, but the baron seemed indifferent to how unpatriotic his selections could be viewed. He often spoke in the same language sometimes without thinking.
“Welcome home, Father,” he said as he came in, and then stopped when he saw how pale and gaunt the baron appeared. He also reclined on a chaise, something he had never seen him do. “Never tell me that you are unwell. I am to be married tomorrow.” When his father simply looked up at him, he said, “I will send for Dr. Mallory at once.”
“Do not bother. He cannot help me.” Charles Gerard set aside the book he had been reading, and sat up. “Come here to me, boy. We have much to discuss before your mother returns.”
William had never been openly affectionate with the baron, who discouraged such emotional demonstrations, but he had always respected his father. Slowly he came to sit beside him on the chaise. “What is it? Mother said that you had a minor cold.”
“It seemed so, at first, and then I felt pains in my chest. I went to see my physician in London before I left the city.” The baron’s voice had grown ragged, and he cleared his throat several times before he said, “He found fluid in my lungs, and an alteration in the function of my heart. These can be treated, and with care I may live several more years, but there is no cure.”
His father had always seemed indestructible to William, and the thought of him dying had never entered his thoughts.
“Surely we must obtain another opinion,” he said. “Perhaps on the continent. They say the Swiss doctors are some of the finest in the world.”
Charles shook his head. “This is the same malady that killed my grandfather. As a boy I watched his decline. It began as my own did, with weakness in the limbs, and breathlessness after even the slightest exertion. He became bed-ridden after a year. I expect the same will happen to me.”
“Then we will look after you, mother and I,” William assured him. “You will want for nothing, I promise you.”
“I never expected that it would come over me so quickly,” his father said, almost as if he were talking to himself now. “My grandfather was ten years my senior when he took ill. I should have noticed the signs earlier, but this damned war…”
Now William felt confused. “What has the war to do with your condition?”
The baron stared at him for a long moment. “It is like gazing into a mirror, when I look upon you. Even our voices are indistinguishable. I wish you to know that is what led to my resolve. I do not wish to encumber you with my burdens, but it seems I must.”
“Anything, Father.” William took hold of his hand. “Tell me what I can do.”
Once Greystone finished relating the details of that conversation, and everything that had followed it, he rose and went to the window to look out on the street. The elegant lords and ladies passing by in their barouches and curricles appeared happy to be out driving around town. Soon they would begin making their afternoon calls, and then