Thank you for your continued support. I sincerely appreciate it.
Standard disclaimer.
The plan might have been Gwen's idea, but Arthur quickly took control of it.
This wouldn't be any namby-pamby Ladies' Auxiliary tour of the establishment.
If he was going to visit a foundling home, he was going to do it his way.
The dissolute ducal way...with authority, extravagance, and unabashedly wicked intent.
His arrival was unannounced...all the better...most dramatic appearances were.
He led a parade of servants through the gate, each of them laden with treasures...sweets, oranges, playthings, competently knitted caps...and at Gwen's suggestion...storybooks.
By the time they had marched this bounty straight into the central courtyard, the entire place was in an upheaval, with brown-clad children, pouring out from every classroom and dormitory.
The matrons were not pleased.
Their already dour expressions, reached new excesses of sternness. Many a new wrinkle would be carved that day.
But the matrons had no recourse, unless they wished to refuse the thousands he gave them per annum.
It was good to be a duke.
Once all the children were assembled, Arthur called out,
"Where's Hubert?"
The lad shuffled forward. He was easy to spot...the smallest in his queue.
"Hubert, I'm appointing you quartermaster," he said.
"What's that mean, your grace?"
"You're to supervise distribution of all this. It's quite a job. Can you manage it?"
The youth pulled himself tall.
"Yes, your grace."
"Good. The rest of you, fall in line. Youngest first."
The file moved painfully slowly.
As good-natured, oft-slighted children are, Hubert was painfully fair in his apportionments, solemnly counting out sweetmeats and sections of orange.
"He's so conscientious," the duke whispered to Gwen. "We'll be here until tomorrow."
"It's taxing, isn't it? But I'm not surprised. Squabbling over too little, is just human nature. But it says a great deal about a person, what they do with abundance."
She placed a boiled sweet in his hand.
"Something to chew on."
Arthur smiled to himself, as she drifted away.
Apparently, she'd found time this week, for duchess lessons in subtlety, or lack of it.
But she was wrong, if she thought these few hours of spontaneous generosity, were some sort of saintly exercise on his part.
Whether he bestowed it on charity, or lost it at the card table, parting with money had never been a trial for him.
"Hubert," the duke started, "Pass me one of those oranges. Let me give you a hand."
Sometime later, he congratulated the lad on a job well done, left the courtyard littered in orange rinds, and went in search of Gwen.
At last, he found her in the infirmary.
'Such a cozy scene,' he thought.
His repaired clock occupied the center of the fireplace mantel and on the hearth rug, Gwen had three little ones piled in her lap like kittens, as an older girl read aloud to them, from a book of fairy stories.
The irony ripped open his chest and went straight for his heart.
This picture before him...Gwen, the children, the fairy-tale ending, the sweetness of it...was everything he could want in life. And everything he could never have.
He hadn't wanted to fall in love with her.
Lord knew, he'd tried his best to avoid it. But now it was too late. And he couldn't even employ the younger man's trick...talking himself out of the emotion, pretending he felt something less.
Perhaps, his heart did lie at the bottom of a black, fathomless well, where he'd succeeded in ignoring it for years.
But he'd dug deep, while waiting for his daughter. Now the pump had been primed.
He knew what it was to love. And this was it.
God help him.
Arthur remained silent in the doorway, unwilling to interrupt...not knowing what he'd say, if he dared.
He'd probably blurt out a stream of desperate words, like, 'Don't leave me, I love you, I can't go on without you.'
But he'd probably send the children running and screaming and they'd end up having nightmares for weeks.
So he just stood there, silently reeling on the edge of life-long desolation, until a thin, high-pitched sound, pushed him over the edge.
Gwen snuggled the little ones close.
A little girl by the name of Elizabeth, had reached the most delightfully gory part of the story...the bit with the dragon who plucked out black hearts with a single claw.
But just as the heroine of the story prepared to face the ultimate test, they were interrupted by the high, keening cry of an infant.
"Oh, it's that new one," Elizabeth said. "Always wailing. He'll be sent to the country soon, I hope."
"Poor thing," Gwen said. "I didn't know we were so close to the nursery."
The little girl turned a page.
"It's straight across the corridor."
Gwen looked up, towards the corridor in question.
'Oh, no.'
Arthur stood in the doorway, mildly rumpled and as devilishly handsome as ever. But his face...his face had gone the color of paper.
One look at him and she knew. He was in torment.
"I have to go, darlings. Elizabeth will finish the story."
The children fretted and mewled and tugged at her skirts.
"Will you come back, Miss Campbell?" one asked.
"Can't, I'm afraid. I'm going home tomorrow night. I have a sister who's missing me. And I'm missing her." She gave Arthur a cautious smile. "Perhaps, his grace will visit another day."
"I..." he started. And from the other room, the babe wailed again. He winced.
"I know," she said to him and hurried to gather her bonnet and wrap. "We'll leave at once."
They made hasty strides for the front gate, Gwen struggling to keep pace.
She knew the duke was racing his emotions, determined to outrun the epic landslide those cries had set off.
But he couldn't outrun it forever. The grief would catch up with him eventually, but she didn't want to see him plowed under here. Not with so many people about.
Gwen hurried towards the front entrance.
But then, without a word, Arthur turned and passed through a side door instead.
Immediately, she changed course and chased after him, as they made their way to the street.
His face had that same blank, unfocused look, he'd worn the other day...the day when he'd walked off into the London streets and wandered them all night.
"Arthur, wait," she called. "You can't leave me behind."
"The carriage is in front. The coachman will take you home."
"But what about you?"
He gestured aimlessly at the bustling, anonymous streets.
"I need a walk. It will pass if I can just..."
His voice failed.
And her heart ached for him.
Perhaps, he had successfully outrun these emotions for months now. But this was one race he was losing.
"Just leave me," he said.
"No," Gwen replied, as they reached the curb. "Not this time. I'm not leaving you alone."
With a brisk wave, Gwen hailed a hackney cab.
"What's the name of that church?" she asked the driver. "The one all the way on the other side of London?"
The driver peered down his sharp nose at her.
"St. Paul's, you mean?"
"Right. We're going there." She climbed into the cab, knowing the duke would have to follow. He wouldn't let her drive off alone.
"I don't want to go to a bloody church," he said, pouting. He slung himself down, across from her, folding his long legs into the cramped, dark cab.
"Neither do I, really. I just needed some destination that was far away. I know you need time, but you need to be with some..."
She bit the word off.
He didn't need someone. He needed her.
"I'm not leaving you alone right now," she said. "That's all."
Arthur tugged a silver flask from his breast pocket and began to unscrew the top.
His fingers were too clumsy to manage it. With a disgusted curse, he hurled the flask into the corner of the cab.
Gwen bent to retrieve it, calmly unscrewed the cap and held the flask out to him.
"Here."
"You need to leave me," he said. His hands were clenched into fists on either knee. "I'm not in control of myself. I...I might lash out."
As if he could ever hurt her.
"I'll duck," she promised.
"I might weep."
"I'm already weeping." She dabbed her eyes with the back of her wrist.
"I..." He bent over, bracing his elbows on his knees. "Jesus. I think I'll be sick."
"Here." She held out her bonnet. "Use this."
He stared at it.
"Really," she started, "It's so ugly, you could only improve it."
His eyes met hers, wounded and dark.
"I can't make you leave me, can I?"
"No."
"Damn it, Miss Campbell."
As he looked away, he pressed a fist to his mouth, as though, to suppress a flood of emotion.
But Gwen could sense there were cracks in the dam.
She moved forward on the seat, until their knees met in the center of the coach.
"You're safe," she whispered. "In this space, with me...you're safe. Whatever happens in this cab, will remain here. I'm going home tomorrow night. No one need ever know."
With a curse and the swiftness of desperation, Arthur reached for her, grasping her by the hips and lowering his head to her lap, his hands fisted roughly in the fabric of her gown.
At last, with his face buried in her skirts, he released a sound...a growling, razor-edged howl of anger and anguish.
It built from his gut and erupted through his body.
Gwen could feel the force of it, sending tremors all through his joints and hers.
His fingers tugged at her, drawing her closer, holding her more tightly. And every hair on her body seemed to lift on end.
The sheer intensity of his emotion, terrified her.
Her first instincts, were to shrink from it, but she beat down the fear.
She laid one hand flat on his shuddering back and put the other into his hair.
Though her heart yearned to soothe Arthur with crooning words, Gwen resisted the urge.
There was no good in telling him she understood, or that everything would be all right. It wasn't true.
She couldn't possibly understand his loss...the sheer agony racking his body, was beyond her comprehension and everything would not be all right.
He'd lost someone, who could never be replaced, and he had been holding in the sorrow much too long.
"God." His voice was muffled by her skirts. "God damn it. God damn it."
Gwen wrapped her arms about his quaking shoulders, pressing a kiss to the top of his head and embracing him as tightly she could.
They stayed like that, as the coach rattled on through streets and neighborhoods she'd never seen before and would never visit again.
She had never known, how much a father could love his child...her own upbringing hadn't given her a clue.
But Arthur showed her today.
If one took every battered hope, in a grieving father's heart and laid them all down end to end...they could stretch across London.
Mile after mile, after mile.
Sometime later, emptied of all that pent-up emotion, the duke lay sprawled with Gwen on her seat.
"Tell me about her," she whispered. "Tell me everything."
"She was exactly this big." He touched the tip of his longest finger, then the crook of his elbow. "Her hair was like little wisps of spun copper."
"She must have taken after you."
"My hair is blonde."
"But your beard looks a bit ginger, when it grows in." She grazed his cheek with her fingertip. "I noticed it that first day. Did she have your fine blue eyes as well?"
"Maybe. They were that cloudy blue-gray, but the midwife said they'd darken."
He rubbed his face with one hand.
"She rarely opened her eyes, while I held her. I don't think she ever saw me at all."
"She knew you were there."
Gwen laid a hand on his chest, rubbing gently.
"She could feel your strong arms holding her. She would have known your voice. And your cologne...you have the most wonderfully comforting scent. I don't think I'd have ever left Spinster Cove with you, if you hadn't smelled so marvelous...but yeah, she probably kept her eyes closed, because she felt so safe."
Arthur let out a deep breath.
"I was so happy when she was born a girl."
"Truly? I thought men want sons."
Her own father had wanted sons.
When he received daughters instead, he'd never recovered from the disappointment. He even refused to give them names, other than those he'd chosen for boys.
It was only by the grace of the old vicar's pen, that she and Danielle weren't Daniel and Bedivere.
"I wanted a girl," Arthur said. "An illegitimate son would have had a harder time of it. He could never have been my heir, and I would have worried he'd feel lesser, no matter what attempts I made, to be a good father. But a daughter...I would have been free to spoil and cherish her. I had so many plans. You can't imagine."
Gwen bit her lip, grief-stricken for him.
"Oh, I can imagine."
"It wasn't just the nursery room. I had birthdays, holidays, outings...all planned out. And nursemaids already hired."
"Had you chosen her finishing school yet?"
A wry smile blossomed on his lips.
"I had started investigating possibilities."
"I'm sure you had." It eased her heart to see him smiling. Even a little.
Arthur closed his eyes.
"She lived less than a week. It's been the better part of a year. How can it be, that I still mourn her this much?"
"I can't pretend to understand how love works," Gwen said, sifting her fingers through his hair, smoothing a touch over his brow. "How many days have I known you? Not many more. And I doubt I'll ever go a day, without thinking of you, even if I should live to see ninety. I..."
She started, then stopped, but couldn't help it.
"I love you so."
His eyes flew open.
"I'm sorry," she said. "It's a poor time to say it."
"When would be a better time?" He rose to a sitting position next to her.
"I don't know." She knotted her hands in her lap. "Probably never. But I'm not good at hiding these things, and you deserve to hear it. I fell desperately in love with you this week."
He pushed a hand through his hair. It would be so easy to tell her, he loved her too, but he decided against it.
"I don't understand. We had an agreement, Miss Campbell, how did this happen?"
"I don't know...Vauxhall, the bookshop, those first kisses in your library...when I try to understand how it began, I go back and forth. I don't know how it started, I just..."
She made herself look at him.
"I feel rather sure, it's not going to end. Ever."
"Guinevere..." He cupped her face.
"Still, I can't be sorry for it. I won't be. I know we have to part, and my heart will break. But even if it's aching, at least I'll always know it's there," she said.
She gave him a weak smile.
"And the naughty books will make so much more sense," she ended.
The duke's mouth thinned to a solemn line. And he inhaled slowly.
Then, he raised his fist and banged on the coach top, to signal the driver.
"That's it. We're going home."
"Because you're unhappy?" Gwen asked.
"No."
He gave her a look that said, 'Isn't it obvious?'
"Because, lovemaking in a moving carriage, isn't all it's purported to be."
"Oh."
He hauled her into his lap and swept her into a passionate kiss.
"Guinevere."
His voice was a dark murmur against her lips.
"My heart, my dearest love. We are done with this cab. To do every wicked, delicious thing I mean to do to you, I need a bed. And hours."
Stay safe!