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‘So, we go back to the quinta now, once we have seen the clergyman and then we return to Porto to meet them and get married,’ Gabrielle said as they entered the agent’s office. ‘The twins will love a traditional Portuguese Christmas. Would you mind them attending a Catholic midnight Mass? Only the baby Jesus arrives and is put in the crib and there will be real donkeys in church and the children love it. Papa and Mama always took me. When I was little I would sleep through the traditional meal—I don’t imagine they would enjoy salt cod and greens any more than I did—and then I was awake enough for the service and for opening presents. We put out shoes in Portugal.’
‘I can see Joanna borrowing my boots to put out so she has extra room for presents.’ Now the smile he was trying to control escaped as a grin of pure happiness.
* * *
Letter written, and the agent lavishly paid to ensure it went with the next reliable captain to London, they emerged into pale, watery sunshine.
‘You see,’ Gabrielle said, ‘even the sun has come out to welcome you.’
‘Let us hope your Anglican clergyman is prepared to shine on us, too, and promise to marry us on the twenty-sixth.’ He hailed one of the boatmen who waited at the end of the quayside and helped Gabrielle into the little ferry, even though she climbed nimbly down, quite at home on the river. She was expecting a child, his child, and it was difficult to restrain his instinct to carry her everywhere, to wrap her in wool.
‘We must go home by carriage,’ she said as the men tugged at the oars. ‘The river is too dangerous to travel by at this time of year, unless one has no choice. And getting upstream takes an age anyway.’
On the other side they took one of the waiting carriages for hire and, when she had given the driver the address, he almost pushed Gabrielle inside and jerked the blinds closed.
‘I love you. I am going to marry you and we are having a baby. And I haven’t kissed you for eighteen days and twelve hours.’ Gray reached for her, but Gabrielle was already in his arms, chilly woman in a damp cloak with cold hands cupping his face, hot mouth on his, hot tears that made the kiss salty, heat spearing through him with desire, with love, with relief.
‘I do not know where you get the idea that we are having a baby,’ she teased him when they finally broke apart. ‘It is me who will be doing all the work. Oh, my goodness, what have you done to my bonnet? And my hair? And look at your neckcloth. The chaplain will think we have been misbehaving in a cab.’
‘We have.’ Gray tugged at his cravat and willed his body to behave itself. ‘And if you think I am not going to be with you for every moment of the birth, think again. If the doctor and the midwife try to shut me out, I’ll break the door down.’ He still had nightmares about Portia. It made no difference that no one, from the doctor to her mother, would have let him anywhere near the bedchamber: he should have been there.
‘Of course. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have teased you about it. It will be the height of the summer, so you will be kept nicely occupied fanning me while I roundly abuse you for your part in the affair—I understand from married friends that it is obligatory to threaten one’s husband with castration at some point during the birth.’
Gray could feel the blood leaving his cheeks. ‘Ah, but they did not have their husbands there telling them how much they adored them.’
‘We have arrived,’ she said as they reached a high, forbidding wall. ‘It is the plainest church you have ever seen because the authorities will not allow a spire or a cross or a bell. Are you ready to face the chaplain?’
‘To marry you I would face the devil himself. A mere chaplain holds no terrors. And you are still too pale.’
Much to the interest of two Portuguese matrons passing by on the other side of the road, a peasant with a cartload of hay, three small boys and two mongrel dogs, Gray took Gabrielle in his arms and kissed her thoroughly until her cheeks were pink, her eyes were sparkling and she was giggling helplessly.
‘Come along and do try not to look as though you regularly seduce helpless males on the street,’ he commanded, tucking her hand under his arm and settling his hat more securely on his head. ‘The sooner I make a respectable woman of you the better.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘Gray is here and we are going to be married!’
Jane looked up from the letter she was writing, carefully replaced the pen on the inkwell and smiled one of her rare, beaming smiles. ‘How very satisfactory.’ She blotted the page and stood up, held out her arms. ‘Dearest Gabrielle.’
Gaby emerged from the unexpected embrace feeling positively tearful. ‘Oh, goodness, I do not know why I am such a watering pot. I am so happy I want to run about the streets shouting the news, put up placards, order a special edition of the newspaper.’
‘That would, indeed, cause some excitement,’ Jane said, straight-faced. ‘Where is he now?’
‘Downstairs booking a room.’ Was Jane going to be difficult about this?
‘On this floor, I trust. He cannot expect you to be flitting about the staircases as well as the corridors,’ she said drily.
‘Shh! That’s Gray’s voice.’
She could just hear through the door—he must have stopped right outside. ‘Room six? Yes, that looks suitable.’ His voice faded as he walked away.
‘Next door but one,’ Gaby said. ‘I told him our room number.’
‘Put what you need for the night in the valise,’ Jane said. ‘Are we leaving tomorrow? Yes? Then I will pack the rest of your things.’ She cracked open the door. ‘The coast is clear.’
Gaby snatched up her robe, hairbrush and toothbrush, and paused to kiss Jane’s cheek at the doorway. ‘Bless you. You are an angel.’ Then she walked down the corridor, tapped on number six and slipped inside to find Gray and a positive heap of luggage stacked neatly against the wall. ‘Where did all that come from?’
‘Naturally, when running away to get married I brought my valet,’ he drawled. ‘Tompkins was following me along the quayside, but I had told him about this hotel, so he simply kept going when he saw us meet. He has unpacked the essentials and gone off, so he tells me, to explore Porto. What have you got there?’
