The Proposal

by Mary Balogh

  “And was it?” he asked.

  She closed her eyes briefly.

  “Sometimes,” she said, “life is too complicated for there to be a simple answer to a simple question. I did indeed love him, and he loved me. Often our love was blissful. But … Well, sometimes it seemed to me that Vernon was two different people. Often—most of the time, in fact—he was cheerful and charming and witty and intelligent and affectionate and a whole host of other things that made him very dear to me. But occasionally, although he remained in many ways much the same, there was something almost … oh, desperate about his high spirits. And I always felt at such times that there was the finest of fine lines between happiness and despair, and he trod that line. The trouble was that he never came out of it on the side of happiness. He always tumbled the other way. And then for days, occasionally even for a few weeks, he was plunged into the blackest of black moods and nothing I could say or do would pull him free—until one day, without any warning at all, he would be back to his usual self. I learned to recognize the moment when his mood was turning to the overe-xuberant. I learned to dread such moments because there was no coaxing him back from the brink. Though for the last year his moods hovered most of the time between black and blacker. And you are the only person, Lord Trentham, to whom I have spoken of such things. I have no idea why I have broken my silence with a near stranger.”

  She was partly horrified, partly relieved that she had revealed so much to a man she did not even particularly like. Though there was much, of course, that she had not said.

  “It is this place,” he said. “It has been the scene of much unburdening over the years, some of it all but unspeakable and all but unthinkable. There is trust in this house. We all trust one another here, and no one has ever betrayed that trust. Did you go on that mad ride when Lord Muir was in one of his excitable moods?”

  “At that time in my marriage,” she said, “I still clung to the belief that I could avert his black moods by humoring his wild whims. He wanted me to ride with him that day and brushed aside all my protests. And so I went, and I followed wherever he led. I was terrified that he would hurt himself. What I thought I could do to keep him from harm just by being with him I do not know.”

  “But it was not he who was hurt,” he said.

  Except that in many ways he had been hurt as badly as she. And neither of them had been hurt as badly as their child.

  “No.” Her eyes were shut tight again. Her spoon was clutched, forgotten, in one hand.

  “But it was he who got hurt on the night he died,” he said.

  She opened her eyes and turned her head to look coldly at him. What was he? Her inquisitor?

  “That is enough,” she said. “He did not abuse me, Lord Trentham. He never raised a hand or voice to me or belittled me or lashed out at me with words. I believe he was ill, even if there is no name for his illness. He was not mad. He did not belong in an asylum. Neither did he belong on a sickbed. But he was ill nevertheless. That is hard for anyone to comprehend who did not live with him constantly, day and night, as I did. But it is true. I loved him. I had promised to love him in sickness and in health until death parted us, and I did love him to the end. But it was not easy, for all that. After his death I grieved deeply for him. I was also weary of marriage to the marrow of my bones. That one marriage brought me great joy, but it also brought almost more misery than I could bear. I wanted peace afterward. I wanted it for the rest of my life. I have had it now for seven years and am perfectly content to remain as I am.”

  “No man could change your mind?” he asked.

  Even just yesterday she would have said no without any hesitation at all. Even this morning she had been in denial of the essential emptiness and loneliness of her life. Or perhaps that brief moment on the beach had been instigated by nothing more serious than her quarrel with Vera and the bleakness of her surroundings.

  “He would have to be the perfect man,” she said, “and there is really no such thing as perfection, is there? He would have to be an even-tempered, cheerful, comfortable companion who has known no great trouble in his life. He would have to offer a relationship that promised peace and stability and … Oh, and simplicity with no excessive highs and lows.”

  Yes, she thought, surprised, such a marriage would be pleasant. But she doubted there was a man perfect for her needs. And even if there was one who seemed perfect and who wished to marry her, how would she know for sure what he was like until after she had married him and lived with him and it was too late to change her mind?

  And how could she ever be worthy of happiness?

  “No passion?” he asked her. “He would not have to be good in bed?”

  Her head snapped around in his direction. She felt her eyes grow wide with shock and her cheeks flame with heat.

  “You really are a plain-spoken man, Lord Trentham,” she said, “or else an extraordinarily impertinent one. Pleasure in the marriage bed need not involve passion, as you put it. It can be simply shared comfort. If I were looking for a husband, I would be happy with the shared comfort. And if you are looking for a wife who is practical and capable, passion cannot count a great deal with you either, can it?”

  She was feeling horridly discomposed and had spoken quite indiscreetly.

  “A woman can be practical and capable and lusty too,” he said. “She would have to be lusty if I were to marry her. I am going to have to give up other women when I wed. It would not be seemly to seek my pleasure outside my marriage bed, would it? It would not be fair to my wife or a good example to my children. And there is middle-class morality for you, Lady Muir. I am lusty but believe in marital fidelity.”

  She set her spoon down on her plate, careful this time not to let it clatter. And then she spread her hands over her face and laughed into them. Could he possibly have just said what she knew very well he had said?

  “I am really quite, quite sure,” she said, “that this has been the strangest day of my life, Lord Trentham. And now it has culminated in a short lecture on lust and middle-class morality.”

  “Well,” he said, pushing back his chair and getting to his feet, “that is what you get when you sprain your ankle within sight of a man who is not a gentleman, ma’am. I will remove that tray from across your lap and set it down on the table here with my dishes. You have finished eating, have you?”

  “I have,” she said while he suited action to words and then turned back to look down at her.

  “Why the devil,” he asked her, “were you staying with Mrs. Parkinson? Why are you her friend?”

  She raised her eyebrows at both the blasphemy and the questions.

  “She lost her husband lately,” she said, “and was feeling unhappy and lonely. I know both feelings. I knew her long ago and have corresponded with her from time to time ever since. I was free to come and so I came.”

  “You realize, I suppose,” he said, “that she feels nothing whatsoever for you, but only for your title and your close connection with the Earl of Kilbourne. And that she will come here daily only because it is Penderris Hall, home of the Duke of Stanbrook.”

  “Lord Trentham,” she said, “Vera Parkinson’s loneliness is very real. If I have helped alleviate it in some small degree during the past two weeks, then I am satisfied.”

  “The trouble with the upper classes,” he said, “is that they rarely speak the truth. The woman is a horror.”

  Oh, dear. Gwen feared she would hug that last sentence to herself with glee for a long time to come.

  “Sometimes, Lord Trentham,” she said, “tempering the truth with tact and kindness is called good manners.”

  “You use them even when you scold,” he said.

  “I try.”

  She wished he would sit down again. Even if she were also standing he would tower over her. As it was, he looked like a veritable giant. Perhaps the enemy against whom he had led the Forlorn Hope had taken one look at him and fled. It would not surprise her.

  “You are n
ot by any manner of means the sort of woman I am in search of as a wife,” he said, “and I am in a totally different universe from the husband you hope to find. But I feel a powerful urge to kiss you, for all that.”

  What?

  But the trouble was that his outrageous words aroused such a surging of raw desire to all the relevant parts of her body that she was left gaping and breathless. And despite his massive size and his cropped hair and his dour, fierce countenance, and his lack of gentlemanly manners, she still found him overpoweringly attractive.

  “I suppose,” he said, “I ought to restrain myself. But there was the coincidence of that meeting on the beach, you see.”

  She closed her mouth and mastered her breathing. She was not going to let him get away with such impertinence, was she?

  “Yes,” she heard herself say as she gazed into his eyes far above her own, “there was that. And there is a school of thought, I have heard, that claims there is no such thing as coincidence.”

  Was he really going to kiss her? Was she going to allow it? She had not gone unkissed for seven years. She had allowed a few restrained embraces from various gentlemen of her acquaintance. But never from any to whom she had felt any greater attraction than liking. And none from any real physical desire—not on her part, anyway.

  For a few moments she thought he would not kiss her after all. There was no unbending of his stiff posture and no softening of his expression. But then he leaned forward and downward, and she lifted her hands to set on his shoulders. Oh, goodness, they were broad and solid. But she knew that. He had carried her …

  He touched his lips to hers.

  And she was engulfed in a sudden heat of desire.

  She expected that he would crush her in his arms and press his mouth hard against hers. She expected to have to ward off a hot outpouring of ardor.

  Instead, he spread his hands lightly on either side of her waist, his thumbs beneath her bosom but not pushing up against it. And his lips brushed softly over hers, tasting her, teasing her. She moved her hands in to cup the sides of his great neck. She could feel his breath against her cheek. She could smell that faint soap or cologne scent she had noticed earlier—something enticingly masculine.

  The heat of her desire cooled. But what replaced it was almost worse. For it was not a mindless embrace. She was very aware of him. And she was very aware that, despite all appearances, there was gentleness in him. She had felt it in the touch of his hands on her ankle, of course, but she had ignored it then. It had seemed to be contrary to all else she had observed of him.

  He lifted his head and looked steadily into her eyes. Oh, goodness, his were no less fierce than they usually were. She gazed right back and raised her eyebrows.

  “I suppose,” he said, “if I were a gentleman, I would now be offering abject apologies.”

  “But you gave me advance warning,” she said, “and I did not say no. Shall we agree, Lord Trentham, that this has been a very strange day for both of us, but that now it is almost over? Tomorrow we will put all this behind us and return to more decorous behavior.”

  He stood upright and clasped his hands behind him. She was beginning to recognize it as a familiar pose.

  “That seems sensible,” he said.

  Fortunately, there was no time to say more. A tap on the door was followed by the appearance of two servants come to clear the table and take away the trays. And within moments of the door closing behind them, it opened again to admit the duke and his other guests returning from the dining room.

  Lady Barclay and Lord Darleigh came to sit close to Gwen and engaged her in conversation while Lord Trentham moved away to play cards with three of the other gentlemen.

  If she were to awake now, Gwen thought, she would surely judge the dream of today to be the most bizarre she had ever dreamed. But alas, the events, beginning with the arrival of her mother’s letter this morning, had been just too bizarre not to have been real. And was it possible to dream of taste? Somehow she could still taste Lord Trentham on her lips, though he had eaten the same food and drunk the same wine as she.

  Chapter 5

  The members of the Survivors’ Club stayed up long after Hugo had carried Lady Muir up to her bed. It was their custom to relax during the day, sometimes together or in smaller groups, often alone, but to sit up together deep into the night, talking upon the more serious matters that concerned them.

  This night was no exception. It began with apologies from Vincent and teasing from everyone else. Vincent was teased about his loose tongue, Hugo about the happy progress of his search for a wife. They both took it in good part. There was no other way to take it, of course, that would not draw worse.

  But finally they all grew more pensive. George had been having a recurrence of the old dream in which he thought of just the right thing to say to dissuade his wife from jumping over the cliff at the precise moment when she did jump. He had been waking up in a cold sweat, crying out and reaching for her. Ralph had met the sister of one of his three dead best friends at a soiree in London at Christmastime, and she had lit up with delight at seeing him and with eagerness to talk about her brother with someone who had been close to him. And Ralph had been close. The four of them had been virtually inseparable all through school and had ridden off to war together at the age of eighteen. He had watched the other three being blown to pieces just a fraction of a moment before he had almost but not quite followed them into the hereafter. He had left Miss Courtney’s side to fetch her a glass of lemonade. He had fully intended to take it to her. Instead, he had walked right out of the house and left London the next morning. He had offered no explanation, no apology, and had not seen her since.

  By the following morning, Hugo was feeling horribly embarrassed about the previous evening. Most specifically about that kiss. He had no explanation for it. He was not a ladies’ man. He had always had a healthy sex life, it was true, though not so much in the past few years, first because of his illness and more recently because he was Lord Trentham—that millstone about his neck—and it somehow did not seem right to be dashing off to brothels whenever the mood took him. Besides, he lived in the country, far away from any such temptation. He could not remember kissing any respectable woman since he was sixteen and had found himself hiding in the same broom closet as one of his cousin’s school friends during a game of hide-and-seek at the cousin’s birthday party.

  He had never, ever kissed a lady. Or felt any burning desire to do so.

  He did not even particularly like Lady Muir. He had judged her to be an irresponsible, frivolous, arrogant, bored, spoiled aristocrat, albeit a beautiful one. Of course, the story she had told of her husband had added some depth to her character. She had undoubtedly suffered a difficult marriage, with which she had coped as best she was able. And she did, he admitted grudgingly, have a sense of humor and an infectious laugh.

  All of which was no explanation at all for his sudden urge to kiss her after he had removed her dinner tray from her lap. Or an excuse for giving in to that urge.

  And why, in the name of all that was wonderful, had she allowed it? He had done nothing to ingratiate himself with her. On the contrary, he had been downright surly. He had a tendency to be that way with the upper classes, members of the Survivors’ Club excepted. He had not been well received by his fellow officers in the military. The majority of them had treated him with disdain and condescension, a few with open hostility for his daring to break into their ranks just because his father could afford to purchase his commission. Their ladies had ignored him entirely, just as they ignored their servants. All of which had not particularly bothered Hugo. He had wanted to be an officer, not a member of any social club. He had wanted to distinguish himself on the battlefield, and he had done that.

  But last night he had kissed a lady. For no reason at all except that she had set her hands over her flushed face and laughed helplessly after he talked about giving up whores when he married. And there had still been laughter in her voice
when she had spoken—I am really quite, quite sure, that this has been the strangest day of my life, Lord Trentham. And now it has culminated in a short lecture on lust and middle-class morality.

  Yes, that was what had made him want to kiss her.

  He wished to God he had kept his wishes on a tighter rein.

  He was going to have to avoid her as much as he possibly could for the rest of her stay here. It was going to be dashed awkward coming face to face with her again.

  It was a resolve he kept until after luncheon. He spent the morning, while it rained outside, in the conservatory with Imogen. While she watered the plants and did magical things to them that made them look fresher and altogether more attractive, he read the letter from his half sister that had arrived with the morning post. Constance wrote to him at least twice a week. She was nineteen years old and basically a lively, pretty girl who was ready and eager for beaux and marriage. But her mother was a selfish, possessive woman who had used her delicate health and ailments real or imagined to manipulate those around her for as long as Hugo had known her. She kept her daughter a virtual prisoner at the house, always at her beck and call. Constance rarely went out except to run brief and specific errands. She had no friends, no social life, no beaux. Not that she complained openly to Hugo. Her letters were invariably cheerful—and almost empty of any real content because she really had nothing to say.

  It was Hugo’s duty to set that all right. A duty impelled by love. And by the fact that he was her guardian. And by a promise to his father that he would secure a happy future for her as far as he was able.

  She was one of the main reasons for his decision to marry. He did not have the slightest idea how to launch her onto middle-class society on his own or how to steer suitably eligible middle-class men in her direction. If he married … No, when he married, his wife would know how to introduce her sister-in-law to the sort of men who could offer her security and happiness for the rest of her life.