Kitty had clearly accepted the fact of her husband’s imminent death. Gabby’s heart twisted. What if it were Quill lying there? Without thinking about it, she rose and walked over next to him.

Quill looked down at her and smiled. He put an arm around her shoulders. “Mother, Gabby has decided to marry me rather than Peter,” he said.

Gabby instinctively looked at Peter, but he wasn’t angry. As a matter of fact, he smiled and nodded at her most genially.

Kitty Dewland’s eyes rested on Gabby and Quill in bewilderment and then lightened. “I am so happy, Quill! And dear Gabrielle.” She rose and walked over, taking each of their hands. “I always hoped that my children would marry for love, as I did.” She bent and kissed Gabby. “A double welcome to the family, dearest.”

She kissed her elder son and then paused. “We shall soon be in mourning, Quill.”

He nodded. “Perhaps I should marry Gabby tomorrow, by special license, Mama.”

A glimmer of tears shone in Kitty’s eyes, but her voice was quite steady. “Perhaps that would be for the best, dearest.”

Quill leaned down and kissed his mother on the cheek.

She blinked away tears. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be maudlin. It’s just that Thurlow would have liked to see you and Gabrielle …”

“Shall we be married in Bath?” Quill suggested.

One tear escaped and rolled down Kitty’s cheek. “That would be very amenable of you, Quill.”

“Then that is what we shall do, Mama.” He drew his mother over to a chair and she sank into it, clearly exhausted.

Lady Sylvia took charge. “Time we told the servants to pack,” she said. “And then we must have that meal before Cook has conniptions. If we’re going to be in a carriage half the night, we need some hot food first.” She rang the bell and snapped at Codswallop when he appeared. “Quill, you’d better go out and rouse Beilby Porteus. He is a bishop, and he is also a friend of the family. He’ll hand over a license with no fuss.”

It took most of the night to reach Bath, and there was little conversation in the coach. Gabby finally fell asleep on Quill’s shoulder as they jolted their way down the Bath road.

The following morning Gabby dressed in the most demure of Madame Carême’s gowns, and Margaret piled her hair into an elaborate design. Most surprisingly, Margaret then produced a wedding veil, a beautiful bit of gauze embroidered with white-on-white flowers.

“Where on earth did you find a veil?” Gabby asked, startled. She hadn’t thought there would be anything weddinglike about the ceremony, under the circumstances.

“The master fetched it from Madame Carême yesterday,” Margaret explained, deftly pinning it to her mistress’s hair.