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Laurel eyed the thin folds as she might a coiled snake. Urgent messages that must have come through the night were unlikely to be anything but bad news.
Jamie? But this is for Giles...
She winced at the crack of breaking wax. Whatever it was, Giles read it with one comprehensive glance.
‘My father.’ He got to his feet, shoving the chair back, its feet shrieking on the highly polished floor. ‘He has had a heavy fall from his horse and it has shaken him badly. They are not certain what caused the fall. It may have been simple error, or the horse stumbled, but he cannot remember and his doctor is worried it might be the result of some other, underlying, problem.’
‘Downing, tell Dryden and Binham that we will want them to pack immediately, for a fortnight in the first instance.’ Laurel looked at Giles who nodded his agreement. ‘And the carriage in two hours.’
‘One hour,’ Giles said. ‘You have no need to come, Laurel. I will be stopping only to change horses. It is likely to be exhausting for you.’
‘There are times when the male need to spare us poor feeble females the slightest contact with reality is enough to make one scream,’ Laurel remarked conversationally, not sure whether she wanted to hold him or shake him. ‘I am coming, too—unless you are telling me that you don’t want me with you?’
‘Of course I want you with me.’ Giles came around the table, his gaze fiercely focused on her, totally ignoring Downing who was still waiting silently for orders. ‘Of course I want you. Always. Downing, carriage in an hour and a half and Dryden and Binham as her ladyship—Where the devil has he gone?’
‘I suspect he is being tactful,’ Laurel said, not trying to free her hands from his grip. ‘Do you have confidence in your father’s physician? Perhaps we should send for a London doctor now.’
‘He seems a good man, my father always speaks of him with approval. Laurel, I was away so long and now I have only just got back.’
And there may be no more time. What if this is more serious than a simple fall?
The words hung unspoken in the air between them, then Giles sucked air down into his lungs as though he had just surfaced from under water. ‘He knows I will come, just as fast as I can. He knows that. And he is strong, it was only the gout laying him up before.’
‘Yes, he knows. Now eat—we will both eat another breakfast, because you will be no use to him if you are dizzy from hunger.’
And I will be no use to you and we will not stop long enough to eat, I am sure.
Laurel rang the bell and when Peter entered, sent him to the kitchen to pack a hamper of food and drink. She looked across at Giles, who had returned to his seat and was cutting into bacon he clearly had no appetite for. ‘The Marquess knows you will do anything for him, anything within your power.’
Giles made a sudden, abrupt movement, sending a fork spinning across the cloth to strike the coffee jug. ‘Yes, he knows that,’ he said, his voice grim. ‘I will do anything.’
That was it, that was what was wrong, she realised. He had done something that his father required and he hated it, or hated himself for doing it.
He married me, she thought, choking back the panic. Then, But he is content with our marriage. Happy. Perhaps it is as straightforward as guilt for having stayed away so long.
But the Marquess had shown in every way except words how proud he was of Giles and she had seen it in the way he spoke to him, looked at him. He would not have wanted his son back sooner, not when he had discovered that he was taking his part in the fight against the French.
Laurel made herself eat, the toast like sawdust for all the taste it had. Giles had lived an independent life for nine years—now he was an adjunct to the Marquess, the heir. Laurel puzzled that train of thought through. Was he resentful of all the work that would fall on his shoulders? Surely not, not Giles. Or was he dreading the rank and the responsibility that would one day be his? Perhaps already was his, she realised with a sick feeling.
‘You have little reason to love my father,’ Giles said abruptly as he put down his cup and got to his feet.
‘He was a little aloof when we told him of our engagement, but I expect he was embarrassed,’ she said, realising it for the first time. ‘He had huffed and puffed over you leaving the country and he had persisted in the estrangement between our families and now he had to admit that those provoking children were not so bad after all. I had sixteen years knowing him before everything went wrong and I was always very fond of him. I want to know him better, Giles, for my sake and for yours.’
‘Thank you.’ He pulled her chair back as she rose, but did not move away, instead pulling her into his arms, one hand flat on her back, the other trailing down her cheek. ‘I do not deserve you, Laurel. If you only knew how little I deserve you.’
I love you.
She wanted to say it, but there was something in those murmured words that gave her pause. Would he believe her if she told him now, or would it seem like more reassurance, more support when he was badly in need of it? When she told Giles that she loved him she wanted to do so with his full attention, with nothing to give him cause to doubt her.
So she kissed what she could reach of him, which was the lobe of his left ear. ‘I can hear the carriage outside. It is time to go, Giles.’
* * *
It took them twelve hours. It should have been just over ten, but malign fate seemed intent on delaying them at every turn. A fire in the high street at Hampton Wick, the bridge blocked at Leatherhead, a horse that went lame just a mile after the change at Guildford and then a fair choking the centre of Winchester, filling the inn yards with carriages and livery horses
and cheerfully half-drunk revellers despite it being only five in the afternoon.
‘Leave me with the carriage, hire a horse and ride on,’ Laurel urged, shouting to make herself heard above the hubbub in the yard that seemed to have the largest stables and the best hope of getting a change.
