“I wouldn’t either. You’ve been a complete dunderhead. But I’m always astounded at the generosity that lurks in the hearts of women.”
His shoulders hunched in despair. “She probably won’t even see me.”
Silas sighed again and crossed to pick up the decanter. This time Garson didn’t wave him away. “There’s only one way to find out.”
“Losing Morwenna nearly killed me.” Garson took a gulp of brandy, but it didn’t help. “It will be worse if I lose Jane.” Going on without his wife by his side would curse him to an eternal darkness that would make his moping about Morwenna look like a stroll in Green Park.
“Take heart, my friend. And have courage.” Silas returned to his chair and raised his glass in Garson’s direction. “Sometimes love means throwing yourself off a cliff, without knowing whether a safe landing waits at the bottom.”
*
Chapter Thirty-Eight
*
It was a couple of hours before dawn when Garson rode up to the dower house for the third and final time. Whatever happened today, whether Jane gave him his marching orders or decided to come back to him, there would be no more visits to Hampshire to claim his conjugal rights.
In the day and a half since he’d left Silas, his heart had rocketed from hope to despair. Now he was impatient to settle his fate for good or ill. He’d wasted too many years mired in old misery. It was long past time to set a new pattern.
Jane had once loved him. Did she still? He couldn’t wait any longer to find out. Every moment’s delay was torture.
He threw himself off the back of the hack he’d hired at Winchester, when he’d last changed horses. Garson stumbled to the ground. London to Winchester, then back again, with this latest trip following so quickly tested any man. If his wife threw him out on his arse, he’d have to find an inn somewhere close to rest and eat before he returned to Town.
And a future as bleak as an Arctic wilderness.
He settled the horse in a stall. After he blew out the lantern, he stared grimly into the darkness. Just what the devil would he do, if Jane rejected him?
He squared his shoulders. Silas had described falling in love as jumping off a cliff. Only now, as Garson teetered on the brink of elation or despair, did he comprehend quite what his friend meant. Generally he wasn’t a praying man, but he prayed that his wife saw fit to give him a second chance.
“Wish me luck, old fellow.” He patted the raw-boned, but surprisingly fleet bay that had carried him this far.
The horse whickered and lowered his head to the manger. No reassurance there.
Garson left the stable and walked around the house to climb the front steps. In the moonlit silence, the crash of the iron knocker resounded like the herald of doom. Soon he heard the bolt slide back, and his wife stood in the doorway, holding a candle. His heart stuttered to a stop, then began to race. His hands fisted at his side, as he resisted the urge to sweep her up in his arms. Physical desire couldn’t solve the problems between them. Only talking could. He hoped to God he found the right words.
“Hugh!” she said in shock. “What on earth are you doing here?”
It was a mild June night, and she wore one of the floaty silk peignoirs he’d bought her in Salisbury. The sweet memory of those days struck him like a blow and rendered him as tongue-tied as a nervous schoolboy in the headmaster’s office. Before he could muster an answer, an older woman in a muslin nightcap fluttered up behind his wife. “My lady, who is it?”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Darrell.” Jane turned to reassure her. “It’s my husband, Lord Garson.”
“Lawks a mercy,” the woman muttered. Garson assumed Mrs. Darrell was the housekeeper. “I was afeared cutthroats turned up to murder us in our beds.” She managed an awkward curtsy in her voluminous nightwear. “My lord.”
“Please go back to bed,” Jane said. “I’ll look after his lordship.”
“Very good, my lady.” The woman cast him a curious gl
ance, before she trudged back the way she’d come, leaving Garson alone with his wife.
Jane raised the candle to illuminate his face. “What is it?”
“I needed to see you.”
Her silvery eyes were wide and dark. “Has something happened?”
Indeed it had. He’d discovered how much he loved her. Not before time, damn it.
But he couldn’t blurt that out on the doorstep. He suddenly realized he was acting like a blasted idiot. Again. He should have waited until daylight before he came to see her, taken time to line up his arguments. Not to mention wash and put on a clean shirt and comb his hair. After those long hours in the saddle, he must look like a complete gypsy. “There’s nothing to worry about, Jane.”