The Proposal

by Mary Balogh

  “You do not still hate her?” she asked as he moved her off to the side of the path for an open carriage that was coming toward them.

  “It is not easy to hate,” he said, “when one has lived long enough to know that everyone has a difficult path to walk through life and does not always make wise or admirable choices. There are very few out-and-out villains, perhaps none. Though there are a few who come very close.”

  They both looked up at the occupants of the carriage, which had slowed to pass them.

  It was Viscountess Wragley with her younger son and daughterin-law. Gwen always felt desperately sorry for Mr. Carstairs, who was thin and pale and apparently consumptive. And for Mrs. Carstairs, who always looked discontented with her lot in life but was always at her husband’s side. Gwen did not know either well, since they avoided most of the more vigorous entertainments of the Season.

  She smiled up at them and bade them a good afternoon.

  The viscountess inclined her head regally. Mrs. Carstairs returned Gwen’s greeting in a listless voice. Mr. Carstairs did not speak. Neither did Lord Trentham. But Gwen became suddenly aware that the two men were gazing at each other and that the atmosphere had become inexplicably tense.

  And then Mr. Carstairs leaned over the side of the carriage.

  “The hero of Badajoz,” he wheezed, his voice filled with contempt. And he spat onto the ground, well clear of the two of them.

  “Francis!” the viscountess exclaimed, her voice coldly shocked.

  “Frank!” Mrs. Carstairs wailed.

  “Move on, coachman,” Mr. Carstairs said, and the coachman obeyed.

  Gwen stood frozen in place.

  “The last time I saw him,” Lord Trentham said, “he spat directly at me.”

  She turned her head sharply and looked into his face.

  “Mr. Carstairs was the lieutenant you told me about?” she asked. “The one who wanted you to abort the attack on the fortress?”

  “He was not expected to live,” he said. “He obviously had massive internal injuries as well as plenty of outer ones. He was coughing blood and a lot of it. He was sent home to die. But somehow he lived.”

  “Oh, Hugo,” she said.

  “His life is ruined,” he said. “That is obvious. It must be doubly difficult for him now to know that I am here and that I am being greeted as a great hero. He is as great a hero, if that word applies to either of us. He wanted to abort the charge, but he followed when I led onward.”

  “Oh, Hugo,” she said again, and for a moment she rested the side of the bonnet against his sleeve.

  He did not move them back onto the path but instead led her across an expanse of grass toward a line of ancient trees and among them along a far narrower path that was quite deserted.

  “I am sorry you were exposed to that,” he said. “I shall escort you home if you wish and stay away from you in future. You may take Constance to the garden party and those other two places if you will be so good—or not, if you choose. You have already done a great deal for her out of the kindness of your heart.”

  “Does this mean,” she asked him, “that you will never crook your finger at me?”

  He turned his head and looked down at her, as grim a soldier as she had ever seen.

  “It means that,” he said.

  “That is a pity,” she said. “I had been beginning to think that I might, just might look favorably upon your courtship. Though admittedly pride might prevent me from going running toward a crooked finger.”

  “I cannot ever expose you to anything like that again,” he said.

  “I must be protected from life, then?” she said. “It cannot be done, Hugo.”

  “I know nothing whatsoever about courtship,” he told her after a brief silence. “I have not read the manual.”

  “You dance with the woman in question,” she said. “Or, if it is a waltz and you are afraid of tripping all over your feet or treading all over hers, then you stroll outdoors with her and listen to her pour out all her deepest, darkest secrets without either looking bored or passing judgment. And then you kiss her and make her feel somehow … forgiven. You call on her when she is feeling weary to the bone and take her walking. You make sure to lead her along a shady, deserted path so that you may kiss her.”

  “A kiss each day?” he asked. “That is a requirement?”

  “Whenever possible,” she said. “It takes ingenuity on some days.”

  “I can be ingenious,” he said.

  “I do not doubt it,” she told him.

  They strolled slowly onward.

  “Gwendoline,” he said, “I may seem like a big, tough fellow. I am not sure I am.”

  “Oh,” she said softly, “I am quite sure you are not, Hugo. Not in all the ways that matter, anyway.”

  I am not tough either. Or a tease.

  At least she did not think she was a tease.

  She desperately needed to think. She was still very tired. She had slept only in restless fits and starts last night, and today there had been the painfully emotional afternoon with Lauren and now … this.

  “A kiss a day,” he said. “But not necessarily as a signal of courtship on either of our parts. A kiss merely because conditions are favorable and we wish to get physical.”

  “It sounds like a good enough reason,” she said, laughing. “Kiss me, then, Hugo, and rescue today from seeming somehow … dismal.”

  Tree branches laden with their spring coat of light green leaves waved above their heads. The air was fragrant with the smell of them. A chorus of invisible birds was busy with their mysterious, sweet-sounding communications. In the distance a dog barked and a child shrieked with laughter.

  He turned her back to a tree trunk and leaned his body against hers. His fingers pushed past the sides of her bonnet into her hair while his palms cupped her cheeks. His eyes, gazing into her own in the shade of the trees, were very dark.

  “Every day,” he said. “It is a heady thought.”

  “Yes.” She smiled.

  “Beddings every night,” he said. “Several times a night. And often during the day too. It would be the natural result of courtship.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “If I were courting you,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “And if I looked upon that courtship with favor.”

  “Gwendoline,” he murmured.

  “Hugo.”

  And his lips touched hers, brushed them lightly, and drew back.

  “The next time,” he said, “if there is a next time, I want you naked.”

  “Yes,” she said. “If there is a next time.”

  What were all the reasons why all this was an improbability, even if not an impossibility? What was one of those reasons? Even one.

  He kissed her again, wrapping both arms about her waist and drawing her away from the tree into his body, while her arms twined about his neck.

  It was a hard, hot kiss, their open mouths pressed together, their tongues dueling, stroking, in her mouth, in his, back again. They breathed heavily against each other’s cheek. And ultimately they kissed softly and warmly and with lips only, murmuring unintelligible words.

  “I think,” he said when he was finished, “I had better take you home.”

  “I think so too,” she said. “And then you had better pull those invitations out of your pocket before it acquires a permanent bulge.”

  “It would not do to be walking around looking like an imperfect gentleman,” he said.

  “No, indeed.” She laughed and took his arm.

  And she recklessly upgraded her chances of a future with him all the way from improbable to possible.

  Though not yet to probable.

  She was not that reckless.

  Chapter 18

  Constance, it seemed to Hugo, was having the time of her life. She went shopping with Lady Muir and her cousin and sister-in-law one morning and ended up at a tea shop with an admirer and his mother. She went on a round of visits on an
other afternoon with the same three ladies and was escorted home by the son of the final household upon which they called, a maid trailing along behind at his grandmother’s insistence. She went driving in the park on two afternoons with different escorts. And each morning brought a steady stream of invitations, though so far she had attended only the one ball.

  She was well launched upon society, it seemed, and she was happy. Not just for herself, though.

  “All the gentlemen who have singled me out for attention want to talk about you, Hugo,” she told him at breakfast one morning. “It is very gratifying.”

  “About me?” He frowned. “And yet they are courting you?”

  “Well,” she said, “I suppose it is good for their prestige to be seen with the sister of the hero of Badajoz.”

  Hugo was mortally tired of hearing that ridiculous phrase.

  “But they are courting you,” he said.

  “Oh, you must not worry, Hugo,” she said. “I am not going to marry any of them.”

  “You are not?” he asked, his brows drawing together.

  “No, of course not,” she said. “They are all very sweet and very amusing and very … well, very silly. But no, that is cruel. I like them all, and they are very kind. And they are all terribly in awe of you. I doubt any would be able to get his courage up to ask you for my hand even if he wished to do so. You do frown quite ferociously, you know.”

  Constance was perhaps more sensible than he had realized. She was not pinning her matrimonial hopes upon any of the gentlemen she had met thus far. It was hardly surprising, of course. Her first ball had been less than a week ago. Perhaps he had mistaken her motive in wanting to attend that ball. Perhaps it was not even important to her to move up the social scale by marrying up.

  It was an idea that seemed to be corroborated by other things happening in her life.

  She went to the grocery shop one afternoon with her grandmother and met her other relatives there. She instantly adored them all and was adored in return. After that first visit she made time every day to go over there to see them—those of them who were not at the house fussing over Fiona, that was. And she spoke of them and of the shop and the neighborhood with as much enthusiasm as she showed when describing her dealings with the ton.

  There was an ironmonger’s next to the grocery shop. The longtime owner had died recently, but his son had promised all his customers that he would keep it open and that he would not change a thing. It was, according to Constance, a veritable Aladdin’s den, with narrow aisles that twisted and turned until one was in danger of getting lost. They were so narrow that it was sometimes hard to turn around. And he had absolutely everything in the shop. There was not a nail or a screw or a rivet or nut or bolt that he did not have. Not only that, though. Just like his father before him, he knew exactly where to lay his hand upon even the smallest, most obscure item anyone happened to need. And there were brooms and ladders hanging from the walls, and shovels and pitchforks hanging from the ceiling and …

  The story went on and on.

  And Constance went in there every day, always with one or other of her relatives, all of whom were particular friends of Mr. Tucker’s. Indeed, her grandmother had almost adopted him as an extra son now that his father was gone. He was the same age as Hilda, according to Constance, or maybe a year or two younger. Perhaps three. He was funny. He teased Constance about her refined accent though she did not speak so very differently from everyone else and his accent was not too broadly cockney. She could understand him perfectly well. He teased her about her pretty bonnets. And he let Colin and Thomas, the two little boys, run about his shop to their hearts’ content, though he did insist one day when they tipped over two boxes of different nails and got them all mixed up on the floor that they pick them all up and then sit at the counter to sort them out again. It took them almost an hour, and he brought them milk and biscuits to make their fingers more nimble. And then, when they were finished, he ruffled their hair, told them they were good lads, and gave them a penny each on the condition that they leave the shop immediately and not return for at least an hour.

  He told Constance funny stories about his customers, though they were never unkind stories. And he insisted on the afternoon it rained upon walking her all the way home while holding over her head a very large black umbrella he had dug out from somewhere at the back of his shop. He would not sleep that night, he had told her, if he had let her walk home without it and thus caused the demise of her bonnet.

  Hugo listened to the lengthy, enthusiastic accounts with interest. There was a certain glow about his sister whenever she spoke of the ironmonger that was not there when she talked about any of the gentlemen who danced attendance on her.

  All of which suggested to Hugo that he might have avoided all this business with the ton. There need not have been the Redfield ball, and there need not be the upcoming garden party. And there need not have been any renewal of his acquaintance with Lady Muir.

  His life would have been altogether more peaceful if he had not seen her again after Penderris.

  They were starting to fall in love with each other. No, actually they were more than just starting. And it was mutual. He had even begun to think that it was all possible between them. So had she. But romance did not last forever. Not that he had any personal experience with romance, but all his observations of life had taught him that. It was what remained to a relationship after the first euphoria of the romance had faded that was important. What would be left to him and Gwendoline, Lady Muir? Two lives that were as different as night and day? A few children, maybe—if she could have them? And decisions to make about where they would be educated. She doubtless would want to pack them off to posh schools as soon as they had passed the toddling stage. He would want to keep them at home to enjoy. Would there be anything of love left to them when the romance had dimmed? Or would it all be used up with the energy they would expend upon trying to meld two lives that could not be melded?

  “What happens to love when the romance is gone, George?” he asked the Duke of Stanbrook on the afternoon he and Lady Muir had gone to tea, as invited. The Duke and Duchess of Portfrey had been there too, but it was the afternoon it rained unexpectedly—the same afternoon Tucker walked Constance home from the shop. The duke and duchess had taken Lady Muir home in their carriage since Hugo had not brought his.

  “It is a good question,” his friend said with a wry smile. “As a young man I was taught by all who had authority and influence over me that the two should never be mixed—not by someone of my social stature, anyway. Romance was for mistresses. Love, though it was never defined, was for wives. I loved Miriam, whatever that means. I enjoyed a few romances in the early years of our marriage, though I regret them now. I owed her better. If I were young now, Hugo, I believe I would look for love and romance and marriage all in the same place, and bedamned to any dire warning that the romance would grow thin and the love even thinner. I regret much in my life, but there is no point, is there? At this moment we are both in exactly the spot to which we have brought ourselves through our birth and our life experiences, through the myriad choices we have made along the way. The only thing over which we have any control whatsoever is the very next decision we make. But pardon me. You asked a question. I do not know the answer, I regret to say, and I suspect there is none. Each relationship is unique. You are in love with Lady Muir, are you?”

  “I suppose so,” Hugo said.

  “And she is in love with you.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “It is hopeless,” Hugo said. “There is nothing but romance to recommend it.”

  “That is not so,” the duke said. “There is more, Hugo. I know you rather well, and so I know much of what lies beneath the granite, almost morose shell with which you have cloaked yourself to the public view. I do not know Lady Muir well at all, but I sense something … Hmm. I find myself stuck for the appropriate word. I sense depths to her character that can match your own. Substance is
perhaps the word for which my mind is reaching.”

  “It is still hopeless,” Hugo said.

  “Perhaps,” the duke agreed. “But those who are most obviously in love and well suited to each other often do not withstand the first test life throws their way. And life always does that sooner or later. Think of poor Flavian and his erstwhile betrothed as a case in point. When two people are not well suited and know it but are in love anyway, then perhaps they are better prepared to meet any obstacles in their path and to fight them with all the weapons at their disposal. They do not expect life to be easy, and of course it never is. They have a chance of making it through anyway. And all this is pure conjecture, Hugo. I really do not know.”

  There was no one else to ask. Hugo knew what Flavian would say, and Ralph had no experience. He was not going to ask any of his cousins. They would want to know why he asked, and then all of them would know, and they would all be in raptures because Hugo was in love at last. And they would want to know who she was, and they would want to meet her, and it did not bear thinking of.

  Besides, as George had said, no one could tell you about love or romance or what would happen if you married and the romance dwindled away. You could only find out for yourself. Or not find out.

  You could face the challenge or you could turn away from it.

  You could be a hero or a coward.

  You could be a wise man or a fool.

  A cautious man or a reckless one.

  Were there any answers to anything in life?

  Life was a bit like walking a thin, swaying, fraying tightrope over a deep chasm with jagged rocks and a few wild animals waiting at the bottom. It was that dangerous—and that exciting.

  Arrgghh!

  The day was perfect for a garden party. That was the first thing Hugo realized when he got out of bed in the morning and drew back the curtains at the window of his bedchamber. But for once the sunshine brought him no joy. Perhaps clouds would move in later. Perhaps by afternoon it would rain.

  It would be too late by then, though, to cancel the garden party. It would probably be too late anyway, even if it had been raining buckets out there already. No doubt the hosts would have an alternate plan. They probably had a ballroom or two hidden away in their mansion just waiting to accommodate the crème de la crème of English society—as well as Constance and him. And they would all be sumptuously decorated to look like indoor gardens.