But compared to what she now felt for Dellamont—well, there was no comparison.
The idea of spending time with Austin didn’t fill her with the thrill of anticipation she’d felt when she’d known she would be seeing Crispin. She’d never experienced with her father’s assistant the simmering awareness of him as a man, of herself as a woman, that she felt with Dellamont. She didn’t lie awake at night dreaming of kissing Gilling or feeling his hands caressing her body, as she so often had and still did with Crispin.
With the Viscount, she hadn’t had to hide her love for and expertise in mathematics or her desire to work in the engineering world. He’d admired, even seemed proud of her for it. Though admittedly she’d manoeuvred him into doing it, he’d even gone out of his way to allow her, for one afternoon, to become an active part of that world.
Don’t live without passion, the Viscount had advised. Not that she found Austin in any way repellent, but the idea of kissing him didn’t send fingers of fire licking along her veins as it did when she remembered kissing Crispin. She could imagine giving herself to the Viscount with enthusiasm, a melting heat spiralling from her very centre as she recalled the caress of his tongue on hers.
If she were truly honest, when she envisioned the man she wished she could invite to share her life and her bed, the face that appeared was... Crispin’s.
Which meant that as she’d feared and secretly long suspected, she truly had fallen in love with Crispin d’Aubignon.
How could she have committed such a colossal blunder?
Should she have refused him that day in Lady Arlsley’s garden?
But marrying him was impossible. As appealing as the man was, he was the wrong man from the wrong world. Her travesty of a Season had demonstrated that she would never be accepted as a part of his. And if she entered it anyway, ostracised and alone, she would lose all of hers.
There’d be no more working at the engineering office. She would probably have to limit her visits with her parents and grandparents, if she were permitted to visit them at all. She’d certainly not be able to entertain them at the Earl’s house.
More important than any other consideration, though, was that having witnessed all her life the tender love her parents shared, she knew she could not marry anyone who offered her less than the all-consuming love she now realised she felt for Crispin.
Crispin, who had a deep aversion to marriage and would enter wedlock most unwillingly.
Even if the shock of emptiness after their abrupt parting made him, too, realise what they felt for each other was love, would he be able to overcome his instinctive resistance to marriage and offer his whole heart? She didn’t believe he saw her only as a novelty to toy with, as Lord Hoddleston had always claimed, but could she hold his affection over the long term? Or with his bitter experience of domestic life, was he doomed to feel constrained by marital bonds, to eventually lose interest in the strange, unconventional woman he’d wed, and go on to pursue other ladies?
Fidelity in marriage was not a virtue valued in his world. It was absolutely required by her.
So...she couldn’t marry Dellamont, who had made an offer only because his honour required it. Though she was sure he liked her and he’d admitted outright that she attracted him, he hadn’t added to his proposal, as Austin had, even a modest claim of deep fondness.
Knowing now how she truly felt about him, she wasn’t sure she could meet him again as a friend, if he should show up again at her father’s office.
But one thing she did know for sure. She couldn’t marry Austin Gilling.
Some time tonight or tomorrow, she would have to tell him so.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The day after celebrating Alex and Jocelyn’s nuptials, Crispin had set off from Edge Hall to return to London. Tempted as he was to ride straight through, in addition to arriving mud-spattered and weary, it would be far too late to call at Cranmore’s office. Better to break the journey—and mull over strategy on the way.
But perhaps that hadn’t been the best approach, since after two days of hard riding, Crispin arrived back at his rooms in Jasmin Street not just weary, but conflicted.
While watching joy on the face of his friend as he took the hand of the lady he made his wife, he’d been inspired with the courage to reach for the same happiness himself. And though by now he was certain the emotion he felt for Marcella was fully deserving of the description ‘love’, he was not truly certain whether he dared repeat his proposal.
He had no illusions that asking her to wed him wouldn’t mean asking her to leave her world for one that had already demonstrated it could treat her with indifference at best, cruelty and condescension at worst. Was it really fair to ask her to take that risk—for him?
More fundamentally, she had grown up in a happy home and expected the eventual marriage she made to provide the same tranquillity and delight. A tranquil home filled with congenial spouses and children was something he knew nothing about. Could they weather the inevitable disagreements caused by the difference in their backgrounds, upbringings and expectations of life? Hang on to the excitement and joy that made their association thus far so wondrous?
But when he thought of being with her, he saw not the dissimilar background, but all the similarities in interests, outlook and goals. Besides, though society at large might never fully accept her, he didn’t intend to spend much time among the ton. He had no doubt that his closest friends would embrace her, and she would enjoy participating in the activities and interests of their unconventional wives and families.
Though he wasn’t sure he could make her happy, when he thought again of his initial goal of wedding a conventional ton maiden who would ask nothing more from him than eventually becoming a countess, with the right to rule over his establishment and raise his children, it suddenly occurred to him that by doing that, he might well fall into his father’s destructive pattern.
Not that he would ever treat a lady with the disdain and lack of respect his mother endured from his father. But he though he wasn’t sure he could guarantee Marcella happiness for a lifetime, he realised that he would be in great danger of guaranteeing he made a conventional, submissive wife unhappy. Because sooner or later, he would begin resenting her...because she wasn’t Marcella.
The unique, unusual, talented woman he really wanted.
There was nothing for it, then. He would have to risk his whole heart, despite the devastation that could occur if it all ended badly. Offer his heart, and hope that independent, unconventional Marcella Cranmore would accept the challenge of wedding him.
* * *
Two mornings later, fired with an enthusiasm underpinned by terror, Crispin woke before dawn. After dressing with care, he presented himself at Richard Cranmore’s office at the earliest hour he could expect anyone to be manning a desk.
To his frustration and disappointment, he found attached to the door a note indicating the office was closed for two weeks and requesting anyone interested in contacting the firm to post a letter, or pay a return call when the engineer returned from Newcastle.
Stumped, Crispin retrieved his horse and went to ride in the park while he decided what to do next. Waiting another two weeks was unacceptable.
Had the whole family returned to Newcastle—where he recalled Marcella saying her father had another office and her grandfather a country estate?
Turning his horse back towards the gate before he’d completed one circuit, Crispin headed for his club where he could find a good breakfast and a copy of Debrett’s.
He needed to discover the location of the country estate of Sir Thomas Webbingdon and hope the whole family had indeed gone there.
* * *
Several days later, Crispin rode into the pleasant coastal town of Tynemouth. He’d stopped first at Cranmore’s office in Newcastle, exerting some charm and using his standing as an investor to induce
the clerk to reveal that although his employer was not in the office, he could be found at the home of his father-in-law, Faircastle House, which was located near the coast just north of Tynemouth.
Crispin covered the ten miles in good time, found the posting inn at Tynemouth the helpful employee had recommended, and enjoyed a fine dinner in the taproom. Despite the impatience that made him fume at yet another day’s delay, there was no point presenting himself at Sir Thomas’s house after dark and uninvited.
He would bathe, dress in clean garments, and ride out from Tynemouth tomorrow.
Would he find Marcella there? It seemed now like an eternity since he’d last seen her. A long, lonely, unfulfilling void he never wished to be stranded in again. Whatever it took, he must convince Marcella to marry him.
* * *
The next day, after waking again before dawn, Crispin waited as long as he could stand it before riding out to Faircastle House. After handing over his horse to the servant who saw him approach, he walked up to rap on the front door.
The maid who conveyed him to a pleasant reception room said she would inform Miss Marcella that he had asked to see her.
He wished somehow he could have come upon her unannounced. He worried that, forewarned of his presence, she might try to have him sent away. He didn’t intend to leave until he had asked her face to face how she felt about him and whether or not she thought they might have a future.
* * *
After pacing back and forth for several minutes, the sound of the opening door had him looking up, his pulse stampeding and a shock going through him as he saw her dearly missed face. He found himself in front of her, bowing, without having any conscious memory of crossing the room.
For a moment, they simply stared at each other, Crispin drinking in every detail of her lovely form, supremely conscious of that familiar surge of desire at her nearness. With difficulty, he restrained himself from seizing her and pulling her into his arms.
‘Lord Dellamont, what a surprise!’ she said, her eyes seeming to rove over him with as much hunger as his were inspecting her. ‘Are you investigating potential investments in the area?’
‘Nothing to do with railways.’
‘Then why are you here?’ she asked, motioning him to towards the sofa.
Too nervous to sit, he said, ‘I think you know why I’m here.’
‘After discovering that my family had left London, you came here to...investigate continuing our friendship?’
‘I want much more than that now. It’s my dearest hope that perhaps you now want that, too.’
In his rosy imaginings, at this point, she threw herself into his arms and declared she’d come to realise she loved him, too. Instead, unsmiling, with a sudden reserve that sent a wave of panic through him, she said, ‘If I understand your meaning, you are envisioning something more formal and...permanent?’
Swallowing hard, he nodded.
‘If that is true, then what has changed? I seem to recall you were determined to avoid wedlock.’
‘I was opposed to wedlock in general. But when I think about spending my life with you, all I see is...joy. Joy and enthusiasm and a richness I’d never experienced until I started sharing the things that matter most to me with you. A joy and richness that, like a lackwit, I didn’t fully appreciate until we parted.’
‘So this time, you come to me motivated by more than just honour?’
‘When I proposed before, although my heart was urging me to it even then, I was not quite able to push myself to offer you a full commitment. I’ve told you what kind of childhood I had. Fights, arguments, constant brangling. How could I let myself in for that? With no experience of anything else, how could I guarantee I would not revert to that pattern and drag you down into it? So I resisted, even though I knew you were different. That we shared more interests and were more in harmony than I’ve ever been with anyone else, even my closest friends. At first, suffering through the chill and despondency of leaving you, I tried to tell myself it would get better. That after I began to forget the delight of being with you almost daily, I’d become my old self again. Be content in my solitude again.’
‘But you weren’t.’
‘No. The misery just got worse.’
She nodded. ‘I told myself the same thing. But the sense of loss and hopelessness didn’t abate for me either. No matter how much I tried to tell myself that marrying an aristocrat, cutting myself off from my background and any association with the engineering world, would mean only heartache.’
‘So...you would now be willing to face that?’
‘I might be...for a man who could offer his whole heart. Just as I would be willing to offer mine.’
‘I had to come back to you, Marcella, but I can’t claim there’s no longer any risk. That I am certain I can make you happy for a lifetime.’
‘No one can claim that. We must make our own happiness, together. By weathering whatever comes, good fortune or ill. As my parents did. It could have destroyed them when they lost my brother and my mother was unable to bear another son. But they drew together, accepted it, neither blaming the other, and went on. Never forgetting the loss. But not letting the tragedy master them.’
‘That’s the kind of bond I would like to have, too. With you.’
She smiled then. ‘Good.’
His confidence increased at that encouragement, but before he could drop to his knees and deliver the proposal he’d come to offer, she held out a hand, halting him.
‘Then before you say anything more, you need to speak with someone else.’
‘Ah, yes. Do it properly this time. Ask your father for permission to address you.’
‘No, better to ask my grandda. The one whose wealth propelled us to make our first bargain should approve the possibility of a new one. I’ll take you to him.’
* * *
She led him upstairs, then knocked at a door. ‘Grandda, are you busy?’
‘Never too busy to see my little lass,’ the reply came before the door opened.
A tall, grey-haired man with his granddaughter’s bright green eyes stood on the threshold, his smile fading when he spied Crispin. Noting the powerful build, weathered face and shrewd expression, Crispin could easily believe this man, who’d begun as a boy wrestling coal from the bowels of earth, had persevered to invent and market machines that had earned him wealth and title.
‘Who is this young man?’ he demanded.
‘Grandda, may I introduce Crispin d’Aubignon, Viscount Dellamont. My grandfather, Sir Thomas Webbingdon.’
Noting Marcella had introduced him to her grandfather, rather than the higher title to the lesser one, Crispin suppressed a smile. The Earl would have been livid at being accorded lower status. The introduction just confirmed to him in what exceptional regard Marcella held Sir Thomas.
The entrepreneur waved them into the room and towards chairs placed in front of his desk. The dark-panelled library was full of books, the desk littered with papers that indicated Sir Thomas was still fully engaged in business enterprises. A fire burned low on the hearth where a mantel clock ticked, and from the large window on the side wall, Crispin caught a distant view of the sea.
‘What would a viscount be wanting with my granddaughter?’ the man’s gruff question recalled him.
‘I want your permission to ask her to marry me.’
Sir Thomas frowned. ‘Why should I grant ye her hand? She weren’t happy in London. My fault, I shouldn’t have supported her ma in sending her there. From my own dealings, I know how yer kind treat those not born among them. Ye would ask her to go back to that?’
‘Have you told him about the bargain?’ Crispin asked her.
‘No,’ she said, blushing. ‘You tell him.’
After nodding to her, he turned to Sir Thomas. ‘I don’t normally attend London society. My father pushed me
to court the “Factory Heiress” for her dowry. I wasn’t inclined to comply, but if I agreed, the Earl promised to allow my mother, whom he usually isolates in the country, to remain in London and participate in the Season she loves. At the time, I had no idea that your granddaughter, who impressed me very much when I met her in Bristol, was in fact the “Factory Heiress”.’
‘I was very impressed with him, too,’ Marcella broke in to say.
Smiling at that tribute, Crispin continued, ‘At my first ball, I was astonished to encounter Marcella. After we chatted and discovered we had both become embroiled in society to honour the wishes of family, we made a pact. I would pretend to court her, placating my father and allowing my mother time in London. While my courting her would discourage fortune hunters and dissuade the malicious from slighting her. No one would wish to offend a lady who might one day be a countess. We agreed we’d maintain the deception for a month or so, then part as friends and return to our former lives.’
‘I heard yer father the Earl has been struggling with decreased income from agricultural properties.’
Crispin shrugged. ‘I’ve been making other investments, so I will not be as dependent on income from land. The wealth of the future will come from other sources.’ He smiled. ‘As you well know, sir.’
Sir Thomas nodded. ‘I’ve heard about yer investments. Men can lose everything counting on foolishness, but ye seem to have a good head on yer shoulders. Ye’ve made sound decisions.’
Crispin looked up, surprised. Had this captain of industry investigated him?
As if to confirm that, Sir Thomas continued, ‘I may be an old man, but I still have my finger on the pulse of what’s happening. I’m no nob neither, but I have eyes and ears that let me know what’s happening in society. So I know this bargain of yourn didn’t protect Marcella.’
Her face paling, Marcella looked at her grandfather, stricken. ‘You...you know why I left?’
‘Don’t ye be going all sad-eyed, lass. I know what was said about ye was foul rubbish.’ Turning to Crispin, frowning, he accused, ‘Ye did nothing to rescue her good name.’
Harlequin Historical July 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 Page 47
