The Proposal

by Mary Balogh

  There was, of course, his other reason for deciding to marry. He was not a natural celibate, and his need for sex—regular, lusty sex—had been asserting itself all too painfully for the past while and warring against his contrasting inclination toward privacy and independence.

  He had decided when he left Penderris three years ago that above all else he wanted a life of peace. He had sold out of the army and settled in a small country cottage in Hampshire. He had supported himself by growing a kitchen garden and keeping a few chickens and doing odd jobs for his neighbors. He was big and strong, after all. His services had been much in demand, especially among the elderly. He had kept quiet about his title.

  He had been happy. Well, contented, anyway, despite all the warnings from his six friends here that he resembled an unexploded firecracker and was surely going to burst back to life again at some time in the future, perhaps when he least expected it.

  Last year, after his father’s death, he had purchased Crosslands Park not far from the cottage and set up on a slightly grander scale there. Somehow word of his title had leaked out. He had proceeded to grow a somewhat larger garden and cultivate a few crops, to keep a few more chickens, and to add a few sheep and cows. He had hired a steward, who had in his turn hired some laborers to help with the farm work. Hugo had continued to do much of it himself, though. Idleness did not suit him. He still did odd jobs for his neighbors too, though he steadfastly refused to accept payment. His park was undeveloped, his house partly shut up since he used only three rooms with any regularity. He had a very small staff.

  But he had been happy there for a year. Contented, anyway. His life was unexciting. It lacked challenge. It lacked any close companionship even though he remained on good terms with his neighbors. It was the life he wanted.

  And now he was going to change everything by marrying—because really he had no choice.

  The letter lay long forgotten in his lap. Imogen was still in the conservatory. She sat on one of the window ledges, her legs drawn up before her, a book propped against them. She was reading.

  She felt his eyes on her and looked up, closing the book as she did so.

  “It is time for luncheon,” she said. “Shall we go in?”

  He got to his feet and offered his hand.

  Lady Muir, he learned in the dining room, was in the morning room, George having judged it a more cozy place for her during the daytime. A footman had carried her down, and George himself and Ralph had taken breakfast in there with her. She had asked for paper and pen and ink afterward in order to write to her brother. Mrs. Parkinson was with her now and had been for the past few hours.

  “Poor Lady Muir,” Flavian said. “One feels almost inclined to rush to her rescue like a knight in bright armor. But one might f-find oneself being coaxed into escorting her friend home, and the prospect is enough to make any knight turn tail and run and bedamned to chivalry.”

  “It is all taken care of,” George assured him. “Before the lady arrived, I suggested to Lady Muir that in her weakened condition she might perhaps wish to rest this afternoon instead of facing the exertions of a prolonged visit. She understood me perfectly and agreed that yes, indeed, she expected to need a sleep after luncheon. My carriage will be at the door in forty-five minutes.”

  The clouds had moved off and the sun was shining an hour later when Hugo was standing out on the terrace, trying to decide whether to take a long walk along the headland or to be more lazy and stroll in the nearer park. He decided upon the lazy alternative and spent an hour wandering alone about the park. It was not at all elaborately designed, but even so there were flower gardens and shady walks and tree-dotted lawns and a summerhouse in a dip that sheltered it from any wind blowing off the sea. The small structure offered a view along a tree-lined alley to a stone statue at the far end.

  It all made Hugo think with some dissatisfaction about his own park at Crosslands. It was large and square and barren, and he had no idea how to make it attractive. One could not just stick alleys and arbors and wilderness walks any old where. And the house rather resembled a large barn from which all the animals had fled. It could be lovely. He had sensed that when he had decided to buy it.

  But whereas he could appreciate beauty and effective design when he saw them, there was no creative corner of his mind in which original designs would pop to life. He needed to hire someone to plan it all for him, he supposed. There were such people, and he had the money with which to employ their services.

  He wandered back to the house after an hour or so.

  Was Lady Muir really sleeping, he wondered as he let himself in at the front door. Or had she simply been glad to avail herself of the excuse with which George had presented her to get rid of her tiresome friend? If she was alone in the morning room and not sleeping, of course, George would surely have arranged that someone bear her company. He was good at such niceties of hospitality.

  Hugo did not need to go near her. And he certainly did not want to. He would be very happy never to see her again. It was difficult to explain, then, why he paused outside the morning room door and leaned his ear closer to it.

  Silence.

  She was either upstairs, resting, or she was in there, sleeping. Either way, he was quite free to proceed on his way to the library, where he planned to write to Constance and to William Richardson, the very capable manager of his father’s businesses, now his own.

  His hand went to the handle of the door instead. He turned it as silently as he could and pushed the door ajar.

  She was there. She was lying on a chaise longue, which had been turned so that she would have a view out through the window to the flower garden beyond. It already sported a few spring flowers and a whole lot of green shoots and buds, unlike Hugo’s flower garden at Crosslands, of which he had been very proud last summer. He had planted all summer flowers and had had a glorious show of blooms for a few months and then … nothing. And they had all, he had learned later, been annuals and would not bloom again this summer.

  He had much to learn. He had grown up in London and had then gone off to fight wars.

  Either she had not heard the door open or she was asleep. It was impossible to tell which from where he stood. He stepped inside, shut the door as quietly as he had opened it, and walked around the chaise until he could look down at her.

  She was asleep.

  He frowned.

  Her face looked pale and drawn.

  He should leave before she awoke.

  Gwen had nodded off to sleep, lulled by the blissful silence after Vera left and by the dose of medicine the Duke of Stanbrook had coaxed her into taking when he had discerned from the paleness of her face that she was in more pain than she could easily endure.

  She had not seen Lord Trentham all morning. It was a great relief, for she had awoken remembering his kiss and had found the memory hard to shake. Why ever had he wanted to kiss her, since he had given no indication that he either liked her or was attracted to her? And why on earth had she consented to the kiss?

  She certainly could not claim that he had stolen it before she could protest.

  Neither could she claim that it had been an unpleasant experience.

  It most decidedly had not been.

  And that fact was perhaps the most disturbing of all.

  She had endured Vera’s visit for several hours before the duke himself came to the room, as promised, and very courteously yet very firmly escorted her out to his waiting carriage after assuring her that he would send it for her again tomorrow morning.

  Vera had been quite vocally put out at being left alone with Gwen throughout her visit. When their luncheon had been brought to the morning room, delicious though it was, she had protested at the discourtesy of His Grace’s not having invited her to join the rest of his guests at the dining room table. She was chagrined at the arrangements that had been made for her return home—and its early hour. She had assured His Grace on her arrival, she had told Gwen, that she would be happy to
walk home and save him the trouble of calling out his carriage again if one of the gentlemen would only be kind enough to escort her at least part of the way. He had ignored her generous offer.

  But what could one expect of a man who had killed his own wife?

  How she hoped, Gwen thought as she drifted off to sleep, that Neville would not delay in sending the carriage for her once he received her letter. She had assured him that she was quite well enough to travel.

  Would she see Lord Trentham today? It was perhaps too much to expect that she would not, but she did hope that he would keep his distance and that the duke would not appoint him to take dinner with her again this evening. She had embarrassed herself enough with regard to him yesterday to last her for the next lifetime or two.

  He was the last person she thought of as she fell asleep. And he was the first person she saw when she woke up again some indeterminate time later. He was standing a short distance from the chaise longue upon which she lay, his booted feet slightly apart, his hands clasped behind his back, frowning. He looked very much like a military officer even though he was dressed in a form-fitting coat of green superfine and buff-colored pantaloons with highly polished Hessian boots. He was frowning down at her. His habitual expression, it seemed.

  She felt at a huge disadvantage, stretched out for sleep as she was.

  “Most people,” he said, “snore when they sleep on their back.”

  Trust him to say something totally unexpected.

  Gwen raised her eyebrows. “And I do not?”

  “Not on this occasion,” he said, “though you do sleep with your mouth partway open.”

  “Oh.”

  How dare he stand there watching her while she slept. There was something uncomfortably intimate about it.

  “How is your ankle today?” he asked.

  “I thought it would be better, but annoyingly it is not,” she said. “It is only a sprained ankle, after all. I feel embarrassed at all the fuss it is causing. You need not feel obliged to keep talking about it or asking me about it. Or to continue keeping me company.”

  Or watching me while I sleep.

  “You ought to have some fresh air,” he said. “Your face is pale. It is fashionable for ladies to look pale, I gather, though I doubt any wish to look pasty.”

  Wonderful! He had just informed her that she looked pasty.

  “It is a chilly day,” he said, “but the wind has gone down and the sun is shining, and you may enjoy sitting in the flower garden for a while. I’ll fetch your cloak if you wish to go.”

  All she had to do was say no. He would surely go away and stay away.

  “How would I get out there?” she asked instead and then could have bitten out her tongue since the answer was obvious.

  “You could crawl on your hands and knees,” he said, “if you wished to be as stubborn as you were yesterday. Or you could send for a burly footman—I believe one of them carried you down this morning. Or I could carry you if you trust me not to become overfamiliar again.”

  Gwen felt herself blushing.

  “I hope,” she said, “you have not been blaming yourself for last evening, Lord Trentham. We were equally to blame for that kiss, if blame is the right word. Why should we not have kissed, after all, if we both wished to do so? Neither of us is married or betrothed to someone else.”

  She had the feeling that her attempt at nonchalance was failing miserably.

  “I may take it, then,” he said, “that you do not wish to crawl out on your hands and knees?”

  “You may,” she said.

  No more was said about the burly footman.

  He turned and strode from the room without another word, presumably to go and fetch her cloak.

  That had been nicely done of her, Gwen thought with considerable irony.

  But the prospect of some fresh air was not to be resisted.

  And the prospect of Lord Trentham’s company?

  Chapter 6

  It was chilly. But the sun was shining, and they were surrounded by primroses and crocuses and even a few daffodils. It had not occurred to Gwen before now to wonder why so many spring flowers were varying shades of yellow. Was it nature’s way of adding a little sunshine to the season that came after the dreariness of winter but before the brightness of summer?

  “This is so very lovely,” she said, breathing in the fresh, slightly salty air. “Spring is my favorite season.”

  She drew her red cloak more snugly about her as Lord Trentham set her down along a wooden seat beneath the window of the morning room. He took the two cushions she had carried out at his suggestion, placed one at her back to protect it from the wooden arm, and slid the other carefully beneath her right ankle. He spread the blanket he had brought with him over her legs.

  “Why?” he asked as he straightened up.

  “I prefer a daffodil to a rose,” she said. “And spring is full of newness and hope.”

  He sat down on the pedestal of a stone urn close by and draped his arms over his spread knees. It was a relaxed, casual pose, but his eyes were intent on hers.

  “What do you wish for your life that would be new?” he asked her. “What are your hopes for the future?”

  “I see, Lord Trentham,” she said, “that I must choose my words with care when I am in your company. You take everything I say literally.”

  “Why say something,” he asked her, “if your words mean nothing?”

  It was a fair enough question.

  “Oh, very well,” she said. “Let me think.”

  Her first thought was that she was not sorry he had come to the morning room and suggested bringing her out here for some air. If she were perfectly honest with herself, she would have to admit that she had been disappointed when it was a footman who had appeared in her room this morning to carry her downstairs. And she had been disappointed that Lord Trentham had not sought her out all morning. And yet she had also hoped to avoid him for the rest of her stay here. He was right about words that meant nothing, even if the words were only in one’s head.

  “I do not want anything new,” she said. “And my hope is that I can remain contented and at peace.”

  He continued to look at her as though his eyes could pierce through hers to her very soul. And she realized that though she thought she spoke the truth, she was really not perfectly sure about it.

  “Have you noticed,” she asked him, “how standing still can sometimes be no different from moving backward? For the whole world moves on and leaves one behind.”

  Oh, dear. It was the house, he had said last evening, that inspired such confidences.

  “You have been left behind?” he asked.

  “I was the first of my generation in our family to marry,” she said. “I was the first, and indeed the only one, to be widowed. Now my brother is married, and Lauren, my cousin and dearest friend. All my other cousins are married too. They all have growing families and have moved, it seems, into another phase of their lives that is closed to me. It is not that they are not kind and welcoming. They are. They are all forever inviting me to stay, and their desire for my company is perfectly genuine. I know that. I still have remarkably close friendships with Lauren, with Lily—my sister-in-law—and with my cousins. And I live with my mother, whom I love very dearly. I am very well blessed.”

  The assertion sounded hollow to her ears.

  “A seven-year mourning period for a husband is an exceedingly long one,” he said, “especially when a woman is young. How old are you?”

  Trust Lord Trentham to ask the unaskable.

  “I am thirty-two,” she said. “It is possible to live a perfectly satisfying existence without remarrying.”

  “Not if you want to have children without incurring scandal,” he said. “You would be wise not to delay too much longer if you do.”

  She raised her eyebrows. Was there no end to his impertinence? And yet, what would undoubtedly be impertinence in any other man she knew was not in his case. Not really. He
was just a blunt, direct man, who spoke his mind.

  “I am not sure I can have children,” she said. “The physician who tended me when I miscarried said I could not.”

  “Was he the man who set your broken leg?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And you never sought a second opinion?”

  She shook her head.

  “It does not matter, anyway,” she said. “I have nieces and nephews. I am fond of them and they of me.”

  It did matter, though, and only now at this moment did she realize how much it did. Such was the power of denial. What was it about this house? Or this man.

  “It sounds to me,” he said, “as though that physician was a quack of the worst sort. He left you with a permanent limp and at the same time destroyed all your hope of bearing a child just after you had lost one—without ever suggesting that you consult a doctor with more knowledge and experience of such matters than he.”

  “Some things,” she said, “are best not known for sure, Lord Trentham.”

  He lowered his eyes from hers at last. He looked at the ground and with the toe of one large booted foot he smoothed out the gravel of the path.

  What made him so attractive? Perhaps it was his size. For although he was unusually large, there was nothing clumsy about him. Every part of him was in perfect proportion to every other. Even his cropped hair, which should lessen any claim to good looks he might possess, suited the shape of his head and the harshness of his features. His hands could be gentle. So could his lips …

  “What do you do?” she asked him. “When you are not here, that is. You are no longer an officer, are you?”

  “I live in peace,” he said, looking back up at her. “Like you. And contentment. I bought a manor and estate last year after my father died, and I live there alone. I have sheep and cows and chickens, a small farm, a vegetable garden, a flower garden. I work at it all. I get my hands dirty. I get soil under my fingernails. My neighbors are puzzled, for I am Lord Trentham. My family is puzzled, for I am now the owner of a vast import/export business and enormously wealthy. I could live with great consequence in London. I grew up as the son of a wealthy man, though I was always expected to work hard in preparation for the day when I would take over from my father. I insisted instead that he purchase a commission for me in an infantry regiment and I worked hard at my chosen career. I distinguished myself. Then I left. And now I live in peace. And contentment.”