Chapter 19

G wen led Tom across her back garden in silence. She wasn’t sure why his demeanor had changed so suddenly, but he’d gone from being jovial to somber the second they’d stepped outside.

She wondered if it was the reality of her work as a beekeeper settling in. She knew it wasn’t a very ladylike pursuit.

And yet… she really didn’t think Tom cared about that. He hadn’t seemed put off when they’d done the washing up together. And he was the son of a blacksmith, for pity’s sake! The soft-handed men of her class might disdain her for such a laborious pursuit. But she had thought her odd habits were normal by working-class standards.

So, perhaps it was something else, although Gwen could not fathom what.

She gestured to the stone wall that lined the back of the garden. “Here are my bee boles.” Little wooden doors were built into the stone facade, two high. Gwen swung one open and showed him the domed basket inside. “This sort of hive is called a skep. In the spring, I’ll bring them out into the garden. But in the winter, I keep them shut up tight to help the bees stay warm.”

“Say,” Tom said, taking a step back. “Should we be wearing gloves or nets, or anything?”

Gwen smiled. “In the springtime, yes. But believe me, the bees are none too eager to come out in this weather. We’ll be fine.”

She shut the first door and opened another one, sighing as it listed on its hinges. Peering into the dim stone box, she saw that the skep, which was one of her more decrepit ones, had sagged so it was lying on its side. “Oh, dear. What’s happened here?” She tugged up her sleeves, preparing to right the skep. It would be no easy task, as she’d left around forty pounds of honey inside so the bees would have sufficient nutrients to survive the winter.

She grunted as she attempted—unsuccessfully—to restore the skep to its upright position, then felt gentle hands on her shoulders. “Gwen, bun, what are you doing?” Tom eased her out of the way, then leaned forward, righting it with ease.

Tears pricked at her eyes; he really was very kind. “Thank you, Tom.”

“That’s all right.” He gestured to the skep. “It’s hot to the touch!”

“Yes.” Gwen swiped a surreptitious thumb beneath her eyes. “That’s how the bees stay warm during the winter. By constantly fluttering their wings.”

“You sure do know a lot about it,” Tom said, and it might have been her imagination, but she thought he sounded impressed.

He leaned down to look at the little door. “Do you have a hammer and a few nails? I can fix this if you like. Although…” He frowned, swinging the door back and forth experimentally. “The hinges are bent.”

“That one has always been in poor repair,” Gwendolyn confessed. “Aunt Agatha slowed down in her later years. I’ve tried to fix as many things as I could in the last few months, but this is what I meant when I said there was a lot of work to be done.”

She spent the rest of the morning showing him around. Mariah wasn’t supposed to return from visiting her family until tomorrow, so they planned to spend one more night together before Tom returned to London.

When the sun was high overhead, Gwen went inside to prepare some luncheon. She was busy laying out bread and cheese and ham when she heard a pounding coming from the back garden. Peering out the kitchen window, she saw that Tom had found a hammer and some nails and was busy repairing the more decrepit of her bee boles.

She called him in, and they ate a companionable luncheon. They did the washing up as they’d done this morning, with Tom washing and Gwen drying.

“So,” Gwen said, hanging up the dish towel, “what do you want to do this afternoon?”

She glanced up at Tom and noticed heat flaring in his eyes. He took a slow step toward her, then another. “Considering we’ve only got one more night together, I find myself wishing I hadn’t left the bed so early this morning.”

Gwendolyn’s heart gave a heavy thump . “We could always go back,” she suggested, trying to make her voice light.

He brushed a kiss across her lips. “What are we waiting for?”

He hurried toward her bedroom. Gwen started to follow, then realized she was still wearing the apron she’d donned to do the washing up.

She went back and hung it on a hook, but before she could join Tom in the bedroom, she heard voices from her front garden.

She froze, wondering if it could be Joseph and his men.

But then, she noticed that the voices were high in pitch and accompanied by a suspicious amount of giggling.

“Do you think she’ll like it?”

“Of course, she will!”

“And you’re sure she doesn’t get back until tomorrow?”

“I’m sure. Why do you ask?”

Gwen recognized the last voice as that of Mariah. There was the metallic scrape of a key being inserted into the lock. She watched, petrified in horror, as the latch began to turn.

Another voice, one she now recognized as Miss Mercy Charbonnel, answered Mariah’s question. “On account of the smoke coming from the… chimney.”

Miss Mercy trailed off as the door opened and she spied Gwen standing in the middle of the front room gaping senselessly. Gwen saw that in addition to Mariah and Miss Mercy, the magistrate’s wife, Mrs. Smithers, her solicitor’s wife, Mrs. Reynolds, the choirmaster’s wife, Mrs. Hervey, and the vicar’s wife, Mrs. Pritchard, were all peering through the door at her. They bore a variety of Christmas greenery, a few wrapped packages, and what appeared to be a Christmas pudding.

Gwen’s heart was flying. The door to her bedroom was open, but if Tom heard her friends come in, he would know he needed to stay hidden.

Gwen shook herself. She ought to say something, loudly, to alert him to the fact that they were no longer alone.

She was just parting her lips when disaster struck, in the form of a shirtless Tom swaggering out of her bedroom. He raised an arm overhead, leaning his elbow against the doorframe.

Behind her, someone breathed a dreamy sigh. Gwen was fairly certain it was Miss Mercy.

Tom, who was standing at a right angle to the front door and did not seem to notice that they had company, gave her a lurid look. “What’s taking so long, Gwen?” Just when she thought things could not possibly get worse, he smacked the front of his hip, drawing attention to the telltale bulge tenting the falls of his trousers. “I’ve been waiting for you. Eagerly , as you can…”

Gwen cleared her throat loudly. It wasn’t difficult to mark the moment he caught sight of the small crowd that had gathered in her front room. His eyes bulged out comically, and he froze perfectly still. After a moment of fraught silence, he slowly backed into her bedroom.

Gwen’s cheeks were aflame. “It isn’t what you think,” she began, even though it was exactly what they thought. “That is, um…”

Gwen trailed off, struggling to formulate a plausible excuse and failing utterly.

Mariah stepped forward. “Ladies, that was Tom Talbot.” Mariah had never met Tom before, but she was one of the few people who knew how Gwen had really divested herself of her virginity, and it probably wasn’t difficult to parse the identity of the six-and-a-half foot, extremely muscular man with whom Gwen was sharing a bed.

Shooting her mistress a significant look, Mariah added, “He’s Miss Gwendolyn’s betrothed.”

Suddenly, Gwen couldn’t breathe. “My?—”

“Ladies, a thousand apologies,” Tom said, striding back into the room, this time wearing a shirt. He nodded to each of them. “Tom Talbot. A pleasure to meet you.”

Mariah fixed Tom with another one of her looks. “I was just telling everyone that you and Miss Gwendolyn are to marry.”

Oh, God . How Gwen wished a great hole would open in the floor and swallow her whole. Tom didn’t want to marry the likes of her! Just look at him! He could have his pick of the most beautiful women in England.

Gwen, on the other hand, found that the notion of marrying a man she’d known for a total of four days was not nearly as alarming as it should have been. Then again, Tom was slightly wonderful. He had even cooked for her this morning. Cooked! And insisted on helping with the washing up. And cheerfully started repairing her crumbling bee boles, without being asked.

He was just so nice to have around, both in the bedchamber and out of it. She knew she was a fool, but she was halfway in love with him already.

She gazed at Tom, heart in her throat, waiting for him to deny it.

Instead, his eyes blazed. “That’s right.” He cleared his throat, his voice slightly hoarse. “Gwen and I are to be married, just as soon as it can be arranged.”

Gwen almost swooned. What was going on? Obviously, he couldn’t mean it!

He was probably thinking that pretending an engagement would help tamp down the scandal, and they could have Gwen cry off in a few weeks. Given the extreme impropriety of the situation in which they’d been caught, Gwen doubted it would make any difference, but she couldn’t think of another reason Tom might have agreed to Mariah’s ruse.

Mrs. Pritchard was peering at Gwen, her expression more of concern than censure. “Gwendolyn? Is it true?”

Gwen had no idea what was going on, but contradicting Tom didn’t seem like a clever thing to do. She crossed the room and looped her arm through his. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way. I know it must have been a terrible shock.”

“I wasn’t planning on being here today,” Tom said. “But you see, Gwen’s brother tried to kidnap her yesterday.”

“He what?” Mrs. Reynolds cried as Mrs. Pritchard exclaimed, “Oh, Miss Gwendolyn! Are you all right?”

Tom proceeded to explain how Joseph had attempted to seize Gwen, and he had sallied forth to the rescue. “I know this is a bit irregular, but I don’t like to leave her alone right now. God knows what he’ll try. And the sooner we’re married, the better.”

“I don’t like her to be out here with only Mariah for protection, either,” Mrs. Reynolds said.

Mrs. Smithers nodded. “And she is a widow, after all.”

“And they’re going to marry,” Mrs. Pritchard noted. “It’s all coming right in the end.”

“And sometimes the clarion cry of passion cannot be denied!” Mrs. Hervey proclaimed.

Gwendolyn winced. She turned to Miss Mercy. “I am particularly sorry that you had to witness this scene.”

“Oh, I’m not!” Miss Mercy snapped open a pink lace fan and began fluttering it vigorously. “This is quite the most exciting Boxing Day I’ve ever had.”

“Well, don’t go getting any ideas,” Mrs. Reynolds said, taking Miss Mercy’s arm. “We’d best leave these two alone, as they have a wedding to plan.”

“I’ll let Mr. Pritchard know that he’ll be needed for the service,” Mrs. Pritchard said, setting the Christmas pudding down on the table by the window.

Her friends deposited their gifts and filed out the door.

Once everyone had gone except Tom and Mariah, Gwen collapsed on the sofa. “Oh, God. What will we do now?”

“Get married,” Tom and Mariah said in unison.

Gwen’s eyes flew to Tom. Whereas her heart was flying and she felt ill, he looked strangely calm. “But you don’t want to marry me!”

Tom came and sat beside her on the sofa. “Mariah, is there any chance Gwen and I could have a word?”

“Of course,” Mariah said, hastening through the kitchen door.

Tom took both of her hands in his. His brown eyes were bright. “Look, Gwen—I know this is happening too fast. But I’m not upset about it.” He squeezed her hands. “I like you. I really, really like you. And… you’re going to think this sounds cracked, but I think we could be good together.”

“You do?” Gwen asked, voice breaking.

He brought a hand up to trace her jaw. “I do. We certainly rub along well in the bedchamber. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? We get along. I liked spending Christmas with you, having the snowball fight in the park. I liked eating breakfast with you this morning. I even like your bees! Not that I know too much about them, but I feel like I could help you with them. Do the heavy lifting, repair your bee boles, that sort of thing. I could help you expand and start a business the way you want to.”

His eyes were bright with excitement. “People have heard of me, and I think you saw that I’m pretty good at talking my way into things. I’ll bet I could sweet-talk some rich toff who owns an orangery into letting you put your bees in there. And I’m good at selling things, too.” His expression grew hesitant. “And the truth is…”

Gwen pressed his hands. “The truth is?”

The words came out in a rush. “Remember how I told you about the problem I have? With the ringing in my ears? And how I need some noise to distract me from it?” She nodded, and he blew out a breath. “I slept better last night than I’ve done in ages. I’m pretty sure it’s your bees. They make just the right amount of sound to cover the ringing.”

Ah . So that was it. It made no sense that this impossibly handsome, popular, charismatic man would want to marry the likes of her . But she was not the primary attraction. Tom had said he wanted to get out of London, to settle in a small town like the one where he grew up, but he was unable to do so because of the ringing in his ears. But Gwen, with her bee boles out back, happened to have the precise situation that made his dream possible.

The thing she needed to decide was whether she minded being married not for herself, but for her bees.

Tom was still speaking. “It just”—he waved his hands, struggling to explain—“it feels like fate, you know? Like the Almighty’s trying to tell me something. That this is where I belong. Here. With you.”

The fact was, people married for practical reasons every single day. An impoverished lord chose an heiress. An aspiring naval officer married a captain’s daughter. The only thing that was unusual was that Gwendolyn’s appeal lay not in the fortune Aunt Agatha had left her, but in the thousands of bees buzzing out back. But she needn’t let that hold her back.

The real question was, did she want to be married to Tom? Her heart answered at once—a resounding yes . She squeezed her eyes shut. She needed to think . He certainly seemed like the sort of man she would want for a husband. She couldn’t picture him spending her inheritance; gracious, he wouldn’t even pay a couple of pounds for a dress coat that had been made in the present century! He didn’t scorn her for her odd, bluestocking tendencies, or her propensity to do work with her own hands. He even approved of her plans to run her own business.

This might be her only chance to have a family, to have children of her own. She pictured Tom in the park yesterday, cheerfully throwing snowballs and letting the children tackle him. He would be a wonderful father.

And he was kind. So very kind, for all that he made his living beating other men to a pulp.

Was there anything more important than that?

It seemed that she had been silent for too long, because when Gwen opened her eyes, sad resignation was etched on Tom’s face. “I understand that I’m probably not the sort of fellow you would ever consider for?—”

“No,” Gwen said, voice trembling. “That’s not true at all. You’re wonderful, Tom. I hope you know that. I was trying to think it through because, as you said, this has happened very quickly. But upon consideration, I would like to be married to you, too. I think we will do well together. I—I hope so.”

A smile dawned on his face, like the first rays of light breaking over the horizon. “That’s grand,” he said, his voice curt, as if he would like to say more but couldn’t. He cleared his throat. “That’s grand, Gwen. If it’s within my power to make you happy, you will be.”

He brought his hands up to frame her face, then leaned in and kissed her. Gwendolyn’s heart pounded so hard she wasn’t sure how it didn’t burst. And for the first time in her life, she thought maybe, just maybe, she was going to get a happy ending.