‘Not as much as I deserved.’

  ‘And yet just now you still could not trust me?’

  Gray knew he had to be honest even if it meant stripping away all his pride, laying himself utterly open to her. ‘I am not used to being unsure, Gabrielle. I am not used to feeling insecure. Damn it, I have never been in love before, never felt jealousy like this. I thought I had been careful. Too careful to have got you with child. And I was not and that I could have been careless, could have risked you like that—it is hard to admit.’

  ‘I thought it impossible, too. You were not careless, we were both too ready to believe it would be safe.’ Her smile was a little shaky, but it was there and, suddenly, he felt hope. ‘That is why I didn’t realise until we were at sea and Jane made me work it out. It was the second time we made love. I am certain. You had been exhausted. You probably still were. You had woken from a deep, deep sleep and I think left it just a fraction of a second too long. I was rather clingy, I suspect, which cannot have helped. I saw a very good doctor the other day. He said it really is a very unreliable method.’

  She is being generous, far more generous than I deserve, and now she looks so fragile.

  He tried to imagine how a single woman, a gentlewoman with a reputation to preserve, must feel, realising that she was with child and alone. ‘Are you well? You’ve lost weight, you are pale and cold and I have upset you.’ He poured chocolate and put a tart on a plate. ‘Eat, drink, get warm.’

  ‘I’ve not been feeling much like eating, that is all it is.’ But Gabrielle took the cup and sipped. ‘The doctor says I am very well.’ After a while she put down the cup, reached for his hand, looking down at their joined fingers, not up at his face. ‘Why did you come?’

  ‘To tell you I have solved it. I have unravelled our Gordian knot. I can marry you and Frost’s will be safe.’

  ‘And I was here to book a passage back to England. I was coming to tell you that I loved you and that I trusted you—if you still want to marry me, I would like that, too. If you love me.’ She looked up then.

  He did not know what she saw in his face, clearly not the startled joy that he felt, because Gabrielle stumbled on, looking back at their hands. She began to stroke her thumb over his. ‘I wanted to tell you that, although I am so happy about the baby, that isn’t why I want to marry you. I realised that I cannot put fear before love and I cannot love you without trusting you. Some things are more important than tradition or business or inheritance.’ She looked up and met his gaze and he knew it would be all right, that his love had come to meet him halfway. More than halfway. ‘Tell me how you solved the puzzle.’

  ‘I remembered my tutor talking about Alexander the Great cutting the knot, which is what every schoolboy remembers. But there was something else. He was a real old pedant. Plutarch said that Alexander pulled out the linchpin and then he could see the working of the knot and he simply unravelled it. He did not cut it. The moral of the story is that he saw the essence of the problem, not a violent solution to it that would damage everything.’

  He took a bite of the tart in front of him, realised he was starving hungry and demolished the rest. ‘That’s good. Yes—the problem is that, whatever we do or want, when you marry me all that is yours becomes mine. But if you do not own Frost’s before the wedding, then it isn’t mine.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘We have been fixated with the indisputable fact that everything that is yours on marriage becomes mine. So you set up a trust before the wedding. You put the entire business into it and you set out the terms. You, or whoever you nominate, will always have total control. There will be trustees, but you always have the casting vote. The profits all go back into the trust to be spent on the business. And you will nominate your successor or successors.

  ‘I have never heard of a woman doing that, but I think we can organise it so that you can dissolve the trust and settle the business on a child, or children, of yours when they are ready. The lawyers I spoke to in London thought it should be possible, but there is the question of Portuguese law. But we can make it safe, keep it as you want it, even if it stays in trust for ever.’

  Her face lit up as she worked it out. ‘It would be difficult managing from England, but we can do it,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Oh, Gray, it is perfect.’

  ‘I was thinking about the distances, too. There are times you would want to be in Portugal and times I need to be in Yorkshire, or in London. But I spent a lot of time talking to Henry, once we’d picked each other up off the carpet and started seeing sense. He knows enough to convince me that, if we don’t mind travelling, we can divide our time between both countries.’

  ‘You would be willing to do that?’

  Gray nodded. For Gabrielle he would travel across the Atlantic and back regularly, let alone the Bay of Biscay. ‘With peace in Europe, travel will become easier every year. There will be steam ships making the journey soon, I wouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘But that is brilliant. Of course it would work—why did we never think of it before?’ Gabrielle jumped to her feet, leaned across the table, kissed him full on the mouth.

  ‘Because we were fixed on the fact that a woman’s property transfers to her husband on marriage. We couldn’t see past it to arranging matters so that you put the company safely aside before then.’

  They sat and smiled at each other for a while as the scent of chocolate wove through the air between them.

  We must look like besotted fools, he thought.

  ‘When did you decide you could trust me?’ he asked eventually when his heart rate had slowed to something almost normal and the urge to grin had subsided.

  ‘I think I always knew, it was just that, when Thomas died, protecting Frost’s became the most important thing, all that I had to hold on to of him, of my parents. Of my life. To protect it I needed a child to leave it to. And then, when I realised that the child was a reality, I saw that a business, a legacy, meant nothing. Only the baby and you mattered.

  ‘I love you or I would never have lain with you. I love you, so it became intolerable that I could not bring myself to let go and trust you to do the right thing. I needed a good shaking, I suspect—and suffering from morning sickness in the Bay of Biscay with one very astringent female companion was certainly that.’

  She was smiling, he saw with relief. Smiling even though the tears swam in those lovely brown eyes that had ensnared him almost at first sight.

  ‘Where shall we be married?’ Gray asked.

  ‘There is an English church in Porto. We could be married there and then have a big party at the quinta.’ Gabrielle seemed to come out of a happy haze. ‘I suppose the sooner the better, before I cause a scandal with my flowing skirts to conceal my condition.’

  ‘I’ll send for my mother and the twins. The sooner they get to know you, and love you, the better. The children can all grow up in both countries. They will flourish on it.’

  ‘Shall we go and find the chaplain of the English church?’ Gabrielle looked ready to jump up and begin wedding planning that moment.

  ‘Later. Now, you will eat another pastry and drink your chocolate and get warm and I will find a cab. Once we’ve seen the chaplain I will take you back to your hotel and we will do soothing, restful things like making lists.’

  Gabrielle laughed. ‘If you think that excited women making wedding plans is going to be soothing, you, my love, are in for a surprise.’ But she ate another tart and drained her chocolate and put her hand into his to prove that she was warm enough.

  The baker took Gray’s money with a twinkle in her eye and a look of approval that had been missing before.

  A romantic, Gray thought. And I am turning into a romantic, too.

  ‘If we go to the agent’s office I will write a letter to my mother and make sure it goes on the next ship back.’

  ‘Invite Henry, as well,’ Gabrielle said. ‘He can see something of port production first hand and he can take ship to America equally well from here.’

  ‘And I will signal that my suspicions were entirely unfounded?’

  She looked up, an expression of total innocence on her face. ‘Oh, yes, that is a good thought.’

  ‘Scheming hussy,’ Gray said. My scheming hussy. He smiled to himself as he pressed her hand tighter to his side. ‘They should arrive just before Christmas.’

  ‘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?’

  ‘I didn’t have to run away quite so far.’ She put her robe on a chair, suddenly shy. ‘Jane is packing and we can be away tomorrow morning. If you want me to stay, that is.’

  ‘No.’ Gray shook his head. ‘No, I do not want you to stay.’ Then, before the sudden pang in her stomach could turn into anything worse he held out his hand. ‘I need you to stay, Gabrielle. I need you to stay for the rest of time and beyond.’ She reached out and took his hand in hers, let him draw her in until she could rest her head on his chest, listen to his heart beating, strong and sure. ‘If I was a proper gentleman I would do no more than press a respectful kiss on your lips until the wedding night. Unfortunately I do not appear to have a gentlemanly bone in my body because what I want to do is to make love to you from now until the wedding, pausing only for sleep and food.’

  Gaby listened to the rumble of his words in his chest, felt the brush of his lips in her hair and released the great shuddering breath she seemed to have been holding since the moment she discovered she was pregnant. Perhaps from the moment when she realised she loved him and could not have him.

  ‘That sounds like an admirable programme to me,’ she managed, before he was kissing her, lifting her until her whole body was plastered to his, her hands on his shoulders, dizzy with the feeling of weightlessness, with the magic of his lips against hers, the taste of him.

  Gray let her slide gently down his body, his strength supporting the lingering descent until she was standing on the floor again. ‘I had a very good night’s sleep last night,’ he remarked with apparent inconsequentiality.

  ‘So you don’t think you might fall asleep after you make love to me?’ Gaby found that if she stood on tiptoe she could nibble her way around his right earlobe and trace the sharp, elegant whorls of his ear with the tip of her tongue. It had the intriguing effect of making him growl, deep in his throat.

  ‘Shall we see?’

  Her gown sagged suddenly. He had been unfastening it blind, she realised. A modest woman would make a grab for the bodice as it slid. Gaby wriggled and the entire gown slipped down, over her hips, to the floor. Gray bent his head to nuzzle at her breasts, exposed as they swelled above the edge of her corset. Then that was released and Gray pulled it up, over her head and tossed it aside.

  ‘I am not going to ask how you learned to do that.’ It came out as a gasp as his lips fastened on to her left nipple, the sensations striking down, straight to her belly, lower, until she was shifting restlessly, her thighs tight together as though she could contain the vibrations that seemed to be shaking her.

  Gray switched to the other breast, his tongue sweeping lavish, wet, delicious strokes over and over while his hands continued undressing her. She did not realise her shift and petticoats had gone until she felt the cooler air on her back, then the slide of the coverlet under her as Gray lifted her again and laid her down on the bed.

  ‘I am wearing too many clothes.’ He stripped with an urgent efficiency that was arousing in itself.

  Gaby kicked off her shoes and reached for her garters.

  ‘Leave them.’ Gray knelt on the end of the bed at her feet and looked at her.

  Blushing just a little, Gaby leaned back on her elbows and studied him in her turn. The winter evening was drawing in and he had lit the lamps in the room, bathing his skin in a flickering golden glow that slid over the breadth of his shoulders, the moulding of muscle in his arms and torso. She looked lower to where he was erect and felt her eyes widen as he seemed to thicken under the touch of her gaze.