Noble Duty

31. Past Due

Saturday, 9th August 1718 – Pall Mall

Week followed week as we worked to undo the tangle wrought by the false interpretation of the report. The evenings anchored us both when I returned from Saviour Dock to the quiet, high-ceilinged rooms of the Pall Mall house.

The struggle for the Cavendish barony was warfare of another kind, fought with ancient parchment and the stubborn momentum of offices already set in motion. A comparison of Gillian's hand against documents held by her bankers and the family solicitors, along with the attestations of old acquaintances and members of the household, finally led the Court to formally confirm her identity.

When I entered the drawing room one August evening, the last sunlight cast long shadows across the Persian carpets. I was thankful to see them spread in their rightful place, freed from inventory sheets and the hands of Chancery clerks.

Gillian looked up from her needlework, her gaze falling on the sheaf of papers in my hand. "How do you endure that dreadful, jarring carriage ride to and from the wharves?"

"I do not suffer it, Gillian. I have not taken a carriage across the bridge since the day we arrived with our baggage."

She tilted her head in puzzlement. "You don't take the carriage? Surely not on horseback, dressed as you are – and it is too far, crowded and foul-smelling to walk. Unless you have learnt to fly, how do you cross the river?"

"On it. The streets are wholly unpredictable – clogged with market carts, livestock and every other hindrance London can devise. The river is far more reliable, so with a pleasant walk down through St James's Park to Whitehall Stairs and, depending on the tide, twenty to thirty minutes by wherry through an arch of London Bridge and onward to Saviour Dock."

Gillian stared at me for a moment, her lips parting in a mix of amusement and wonder. "Half an hour in peace, against an hour of jolting and delay. A true mariner. You have turned a miserable London trip into a simple navigation."

"A sailor always seeks the course with the fewest hazards, Gillian," I murmured as I sat and laced my fingers with hers. "And it ensures I am never late for dinner."

And speaking of late..." She paused, moved our hands low upon her abdomen and met my eyes. "It is not a certainty, Jarvis, but my courses might be late. The last one ended the day before we raised the Scilly Isles, and the one before that started on the tenth of June, the day we careened Atlantica on Cayo Biscayno. But my body has known sheer terror, and now the snail's pace of the Crown these past weeks. I have none of the aches that usually precede them, so it may simply be rebelling against the strain. But it might be... I am not sure."

I looked at her, my mind immediately setting the dates in order. If her courses kept that interval, she was a day, perhaps two days late. If she was indeed with child, the conception had occurred during those quiet nights aboard the ship before we reached the Channel – or possibly here after our arrival.

"If we wait until we reach Berkshire before the banns are called..." I paused and squeezed her hand. "They must be called upon three successive Sundays. Our wedding would be driven well into September."

She nodded. "Every gossip in the parish would count backwards from the christening. If the child came early, Richard might seize upon the dates and renew his accusations against the succession."

"True. We do not require certainty to act now, Gillian. Besides, if we wait for proof, we surrender the advantage of time. We need not wait upon certainty. We must act upon the possibility."

Gillian looked up, furrowing her brow. "You mean to marry here and abandon my plans for Berkshire? But even here, we would still have to wait for the banns."