Page 45 of The Baron’s Reluctant Bride (Marriage Mart Scandals #4)
Jameson offered the faintest shadow of a smile. “She did consent to become my wife, did she not?”
“A matter of decidedly questionable taste in gentlemen,” Christopher grumbled, yet he reached out and clasped Jameson’s arm, offering a steadying support. “Lean upon me before you collapse like some overwrought figure in a Drury Lane tragedy.”
Step by agonizing step, the two men traversed the short front walk, the scrape of Jameson’s boots against the stone a testament to his grim determination.
The townhouse loomed before them, its elegant windows and ivy-framed facade exuding an air of regal composure—utterly at odds with the tempestuous emotions churning within Jameson’s breast.
They had scarcely reached the first step when the front door was flung open with unceremonious haste, and there she stood.
Barefoot, her breath coming in ragged gasps, enveloped in a floral shawl that had clearly been donned in frantic haste, her dark curls cascading down her back in glorious rebellion against every hairpin she had employed.
Her cheeks were flushed with colour, her eyes wide and luminous, and her lips parted in stunned disbelief.
She gazed upon him as if he were a phantom conjured from the depths of a love she had dared to cherish.
Jameson froze, his grip tightening on the wrought-iron banister. “Gemma,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.
She blinked once, as if to assure herself of the reality before her.
And then she moved with the swiftness of a launched projectile.
Like a cannonball composed of lace, fury, and an aching longing, she propelled herself down the steps—nearly unseating Christopher in her impetuous descent—and collided with her husband with a force that very nearly sent him reeling.
Her arms wound tightly around his neck, her face buried in the curve of his shoulder, her hands clutching desperately at his coat lapels.
“You ridiculous man!” she sobbed, pressing fervent kisses against the side of his face between each breathless utterance. “You absurd, impossible, insufferable man—I believed you were lost to me!”
Jameson staggered but managed to maintain his hold, one arm banding protectively around her waist, the other bracing them both against the sturdy railing. “I very nearly was,” he murmured into the fragrant cascade of her hair. “But I kept thinking of you.”
“Gemma,” he said, his voice raw with a potent cocktail of relief and lingering fear.
“You must know—the distance that sometimes stretched between us, the silences that lingered… they were never born of a lack of affection. Quite the contrary. I would have forever carried the weight of regret had I allowed such a chasm to persist. It was that very fear, that profound unwillingness to lose the burgeoning connection we shared, that compelled me to propose that alliance in the cellar that day, a pact forged amidst such…unpleasant circumstances. Yet, even with that bond established, that fragile bridge built between our disparate worlds, I found myself ensnared by the treacherous currents of overthinking. My intentions, however misguided in their execution, were always rooted in a fierce desire to protect you. I laboured under the delusion that I was obliged to keep my affairs separate from yours, to shoulder the burdens alone, believing it the only way to shield you from the darker aspects of my life. But I was profoundly mistaken. Utterly, irrevocably wrong.”
She shook her head, the motion causing fresh tears to slip from her brimming eyes and trace glistening paths down her flushed cheeks.
“I was consumed by terror, Jameson,” she whispered, her voice trembling with the raw memory of her fear.
“The moment they took you… the sheer, brutal finality of it. I thought and I truly believed that I had lost you. And in that agonizing abyss of despair, I came to a stark and undeniable realization: this matrimony, this initial arrangement born of strategic necessity, has inexplicably, irrevocably, become the very axis upon which my world now turns. You have become the sun around which I orbit.”
Jameson’s breath hitched in his throat, a sharp intake of air that spoke volumes of the emotion swelling within him.
“I love you, Gemma,” he confessed, his voice thick with sincerity.
“Not merely for your impeccable poise, nor for the societal weight of your name, nor even for the shrewd alliance we so pragmatically forged in that damp cellar. I love you for the unyielding courage that burns within you, for the keenness of your intellect, for the unwavering spirit with which you have faced every adversity. I love the way you never ceased to fight, not merely on my behalf, but steadfastly beside me, an equal in every sense.”
A watery smile bloomed through her tears, a radiant testament to the depth of her affection. “And I, my dearest Jameson, love you for precisely those same qualities. Even when your propensity for brooding and your occasional bouts of infuriating stubbornness threaten to drive me to Bedlam.”
A shared laugh, quiet and shaky, escaped their lips then, a fragile melody amidst the lingering tension. They clung to one another with fierce intensity, two survivors who had weathered a perilous storm and now sought solace in the tangible reality of their reunion.
“I am here, my love,” he murmured, pressing his forehead gently against hers, his gaze unwavering. “And I swear to you, I am not going anywhere. Not now. Not ever.”
“And you, sir,” she replied fiercely, her grip tightening possessively on his coat, her eyes blazing with a newfound resolve, “are never again to be out of my sight. Not for a single moment. Ever.”
A discreet cough interrupted them.
“Ahem.”
Both Jameson and Gemma turned, slightly dazed, breathless, still holding on to one another.
Christopher stood a few steps below, arms crossed, one brow raised with theatrical exasperation. “As stirring as this is, and truly, I could weep into a monogrammed handkerchief, you are still bleeding , Jameson.”
Gemma blinked, glancing down—then gasped. “Oh, heavens above!”
A fresh bloom of crimson had spread beneath Jameson’s coat, darkening the fabric at his side.
Jameson attempted a weak shrug. “It’s a very minor wound.”
“You were shot,” Christopher said flatly.
“Only once,” Jameson replied with great dignity.
“You absolute menace,” Gemma scolded, already looping her arm beneath his. “What sort of man declares his undying love and then keels over on the doorstep? You are not dying in my front hall, do you hear me?”
“I wasn’t planning to,” Jameson murmured, swaying slightly.
“Christopher, help me,” she ordered, tone brooking no argument.
“I always do,” he said with an easy smirk, slipping to Jameson’s other side. “Though I would like it noted that I am due a very long nap and a commendation from the Crown.”
“After the wound is cleaned and stitched,” Gemma said, dragging them both toward the door. “And possibly after I throttle my husband for good measure.”
“Make sure you aim for the uninjured side,” Christopher muttered.
They staggered inside, the door swinging shut behind them with a gentle click . The soft glow of lamplight spilled across the foyer, bathing the trio in warmth and familiarity.
Jameson winced as they guided him to the settee, but managed a crooked smile. “You realise, if I perish from this, I expect the most dramatic funeral London has ever seen.”
“I’ll hire three choirs and a weeping soprano,” Gemma said, already barking orders for hot water and bandages. “But first, you’ll live , you impossible man. And then you’ll explain why my best linens are now ruined.”
Christopher sank into a chair. “As you can understand, this all would’ve made an excellent opera. Intrigue, peril, romance, near-fatal blood loss... Someone fetch a composer.”
Gemma ignored him. She knelt beside Jameson, fussing over him with a hand that trembled ever so slightly. “You are never doing something like this again. No secret plans. No reckless heroics. And absolutely no getting shot at.”
“I’ll do my best,” Jameson murmured, catching her hand and pressing it to his lips. “But I make no promises where your heart is concerned. That, I fear, is already in very grave danger of being stolen again. Daily.”
She rolled her eyes and kissed his temple.
Christopher groaned. “Very well then. I’m going to find brandy. Or laudanum. Possibly both.”
And as the house stirred into life behind them, and the light of a new day filtered through the windows, something shifted.
The danger had passed. The lies had crumbled.
And in their place stood something far messier and more marvelous—love, earned not by grand gestures alone, but by grit, honesty, and the stubborn, joyful act of choosing each other.
The future remained unwritten, but it had never looked brighter.