An Innocent Proposal

by Helen Dickson

  “I—no, of course not,” she murmured, which was not quite the truth, for, despite the anxiety that had plagued her throughout the evening about Sophie’s friendship with Sir Charles Meredith, the thought that something awful might have befallen Alistair on the long and lonely ride from Rotherfield had begun to worry her. “Or—maybe—just a little,” she admitted hesitantly.

  Alistair smiled. “Then I am pleased to discover that my wife does not forget about me altogether when I am away from home,” he teased gently, and Louisa became riveted by his sparkling gaze that contemplated her for a moment seriously.

  The warmth and privacy of the room, enhanced by the presence of the dying fire, invited silence, wrapping itself around them, which was as well, for there were so many things each wanted to say but could not—not now when a slender thread of something deep was beginning to grow between them. Louisa was sorry she would have to spoil the moment by telling him about Sophie, knowing exactly what his response was going to be when she did, and she wanted to hold back for as long as possible, to maintain and savour this wonderful sense of closeness between them for just a little while longer. But it was not to be.

  Alistair turned and fixed her with a level gaze, his instinct telling him it must be a matter of some importance to have kept her from her bed.

  “What is it that is so urgent you have to come seeking me? Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “Yes,” she replied, meeting his eyes. “Alistair, I have to speak to you. I have no wish to intervene in matters of which I am ignorant, but I am extremely worried about Sophie.”

  His jaw tightened and he frowned, standing up and going to rake the embers in the hearth. “Is it so important that it cannot wait until morning?” he asked, with his back to her, a trace of exasperation in his voice.

  “Yes, it is.” Louisa rose and went to stand beside him. Unable to find any way of softening the blow, she came straight out with it. “It—it not only concerns Sophie, Alistair, but Sir Charles Meredith, also.”

  Alistair stiffened and rose to his full height. His eyes were hard as they fastened on Louisa’s, giving her all his attention, and the sweet, unexpected drift of happiness she had felt only moments before was already melting into the shadows. “What are you saying?” he demanded. “What has Charles Meredith got to do with Sophie?”

  “A friendship has developed between them—a close one, if what Sophie has told me is true.”

  “Sophie always speaks the truth.”

  “I know. That is why I am so concerned.”

  “How close?”

  “As yet, I do not believe it has gone beyond the bounds of propriety.”

  Quickly Louisa told Alistair all that had occurred that day, and everything Sophie had disclosed about the depth of her feelings for Sir Charles. Alistair listened in a stony silence, cold and disbelieving, aware of nothing except the quiet voice of his wife and the implacable hatred he felt for Charles Meredith. He had expected Louisa to tell him something unpleasant, but not this—not that Charles Meredith had deliberately wormed his way into his sister’s affections in order to avenge himself on him. He began pacing the room, his anger tight-leashed, but Louisa could sense it emanating from him in waves and see that his mind was working furiously.

  When she fell silent his face darkened and rage struck him as her words brought home the inevitability of the truth. He felt as if someone had bludgeoned him. Raking a hand through his hair, finally he erupted.

  “My God! I should have foreseen something like this. How long has it been since he first approached her?”

  “Since before we were married. He came to Wyndham in September for a while, and they met at the home of one of Sophie’s friends, whose family also happen to be friends of Lady Meredith, Sir Charles’s mother,” Louisa explained. “Whether their meeting was by chance or design, only you will be able to decide that, Alistair.”

  “Charles Meredith is not a man of sense and honour. I knew he wanted to avenge himself on me—but I did not believe he would stoop so low as to use my seventeen-year-old sister to do it. The man is as cold, crafty and calculating as a snake,” Alistair said through clenched teeth.

  “I’m so sorry, Alistair,” Louisa whispered.

  “And what did you say to her?” he asked, swinging round to face her. “I hope you made it plain what my feelings would be when I found out about this, and that I will not tolerate her friendship with this man—a man who is my most bitter enemy and almost twice her age.”

  “Of course I did, but how could I make her understand why when I do not know myself?” Louisa cried indignantly. “Sophie is a high-spirited girl and refused to listen to anything I had to say. As far as she is concerned Charles Meredith is Mr Perfect—whose intentions are entirely honourable. She became angry and resentful of my interference. After our confrontation she flounced up to her room, locked herself in and has refused to come out since. You have told me nothing about what occurred between you and your first wife, or Sir Charles’s part in it, Alistair, so how could I be expected to tell Sophie anything when I am almost as ignorant of the facts as she is?”

  “I’m sorry, Louisa. It’s not your fault. But please believe me when I say that Charles Meredith’s enmity was not of my seeking. I had no idea when I married Marianne that she had already promised herself to him. Had I known this and the terrible repercussions, I would never have proposed to her in the first place. No doubt it gave him immense satisfaction knowing that she made my life a living hell.”

  “And did Sophie not know of this—living here with you both? I do not know how it could have been concealed from her.”

  Alistair shook his head dejectedly. “No. She was away staying with Julia at Richmond for most of the time—and was too young to understand anyway. After that—after Marianne died—I had no reason to tell her anything.”

  “Until now,” Louisa said quietly. “Don’t you think you should?”

  “Yes—I see that I shall have to. I’m sorry if she gave you a difficult time, Louisa, and I shall speak to her in the morning. But if she thinks she can flout my wishes and my authority then she is mistaken. I shall keep her locked in her room twenty-four hours a day if necessary—in order to make damned sure she does not see Meredith again. He is a worthless libertine who has seduced half the women in London and has the morals of a sewer rat. If he makes any further attempt to contact Sophie—or so much as looks her way—I swear I shall run him through.”

  Louisa blanched at the ferocity of his words, believing he meant it. “Do you intend confronting him, Alistair?”

  “Eventually I shall—but first of all I intend speaking to Sophie. When she has told me everything that has passed between them, then I shall decide. But how in God’s name has it managed to go on for so long without my knowing about it before now? Had you no notion of this?”

  Louisa stared at him bleakly. It was as if the sun had suddenly gone out and her heart began to pound. It was the moment she had dreaded, but she had to answer him honestly, having learned to her cost to be truthful in all matters where Alistair was concerned. She swallowed hard.

  “Yes, I confess I did. But not from anything Sophie said—or by her behaviour.”

  Alistair looked at her quizzically, speaking with an ominous quiet. “Then how, Louisa? How?”

  Nervously she turned her head away, but he leaned towards her and placed his hands firmly on either side of her face to force her to look at him.

  “Answer me,” he demanded harshly. “Do not lie to me.”

  She met his eyes bearing down into hers. “From—from Sir Charles,” she whispered, fearful of his reaction.

  Inside the room there was no sound at all, the air becoming thick and suffocating. Alistair’s eyes continued to stare into hers, as hard and cold as ice floes, and then, into the reverberant silence, he said, in accusing, disbelieving, angry tones, “You’ve seen him? You have spoken to Charles Meredith?”

  She nodded.

  He took her by
the shoulders, his grip so powerful it hurt. He would not spare her as he brought his face close to hers, contorted with disappointment and rage. “When? When did you see him?”

  “Before we were married—when I was shopping with Julia. I—I was waiting for her in the street when we met quite by chance.”

  Alistair dropped his hands and seemed to recoil from her. “As were all your meetings with that gentleman, I seem to remember,” he said scathingly. “And what did he say? What did he tell you?” he demanded.

  “When I told him I was going to marry you, he—he became angry—a different person, almost—and he—he told me he blamed you for Marianne’s death—that he hated you and that he was patient, that eventually he would repay you for all the wrongs you had done him. He—he also implied that he had already become acquainted with Sophie,” she finished quietly.

  “Did he, indeed? And did he gain your sympathy, Louisa?” Alistair asked with a savagery that made her tremble. “Did he manage to blacken my name sufficiently so that you thought you were marrying the devil incarnate?”

  “No,” she cried tearfully, raising her face imploringly to his. “He could never do that.”

  “And you thought to keep this from me? How could you let it happen, Louisa? Don’t you realise I could have put a stop to it then?”

  “I know that now. Please forgive me, Alistair. I deeply regret not telling you. I—I suppose I didn’t believe him, thinking that he was just trying to make mischief and that it would come to nothing. I did not want to stir up trouble when there might be none.”

  “Not even your wildest imaginings could conjure up the kind of trouble Charles Meredith is capable of stirring up.”

  “Please tell me what happened, Alistair—between you and Marianne?” Louisa blurted out the question before it could be halted, but it was reasonable, one she felt she had to ask.

  The unexpectedness of the question caused Alistair to draw a long breath and his face to harden even more. His face took on a chalky pallor and deep lines appeared at the corners of his mouth. His manner immediately became detached and cool and he averted his gaze, and for a fragile moment before he looked away Louisa thought she saw a weariness and a terrible pain in his eyes. Without thinking, she reached out, but before her hand touched his sleeve he turned and met her look with a harsh smile, and the illusion of pain vanished.

  His look, which became closed, as it always did when Marianne’s name was mentioned, gave her every indication that what she had asked was not to his liking, and, with the high-pitched sensitivity of a woman in love, she knew she had come close to touching a raw nerve in him. With this latest disclosure about Sophie to worry about, she should have known that now was not the time to ask him to open his heart about Marianne.

  He shook his head. “Enough for now,” he said harshly, her simple question, innocent though it was, enough to raise him to fury, which he struggled to keep under control. “Marianne is dead. Leave it at that for now.”

  “Why won’t you tell me what happened?” she persisted, knowing she was forcing an angry confrontation with him but unable to stop herself.

  “Because I don’t wish to discuss it at this time,” came the fierce reply. “From the very beginning Marianne set out to make a fool of me. In fact,” he said, his lips sneering cruelly, his body as taut as a bowstring as he felt the selfish need to inflict the pain that was twisting his gut on someone else, “she possessed the same kind of rapacious tendencies—the same deceit, the same sharp claws beneath velvet gloves—that you should recognise yourself.”

  Louisa’s eyes flamed and she recoiled instantly from the injustice of his unfair and uncalled-for attack, his words destroying her last shreds of self-control. The face she turned on him was white with anger, her eyes glittering, her voice when she spoke low and quivering with indignation.

  “That is not fair. I am not like that, Alistair. How dare you insult me? You make me sound grasping and greedy when I am neither. You think I’m like her, don’t you?” she said, growing angrier by the minute, feeling horribly humiliated. “But if you would take the trouble to get to know me you would find we are not remotely alike—if she was all those things you have just accused her of being.”

  Cold and rigid as a block of ice, Alistair watched her show of temper unmoved. “Calm yourself, Louisa. You are overwrought,” he said coldly, picking up the glass of brandy he had poured for himself earlier and gulping it back.

  “I am not,” she fumed, her eyes blazing. “Your accusations are inaccurate and unjust. How could I possibly know anything about Marianne? How could I possibly know what she was like? All I know is that the animosity between you and Sir Charles Meredith stems from your marriage to her—because he wanted to marry her himself.”

  “In that you are correct. But, as I have already told you, I was unaware of that fact when I proposed and she accepted me. Because of him, my marriage to Marianne was purgatory. Oh, at first I believed she loved me, but how quickly she changed towards me when, shortly after Mark was born, Charles Meredith came back into her life. Her sighs of contentment after making love became less frequent—dying altogether eventually. She gave herself to me with rigid submission because she was my wife and for no other reason. Her distaste for me was evident. She averted her eyes when I looked at her—became petulant. In fact, she hated me,” he admitted, his voice shaking.

  “And that is what all this is about, isn’t it, Alistair? You cannot forgive her for not loving you. How you must have suffered, but are you to go on allowing her to poison our lives together? All I ask is that there be honesty between us—honesty, trust and respect—if we are to live together as man and wife. Have you made up your mind to make me suffer for what Marianne did to you—for what I did—all your life?”

  “Of course not.”

  “When I came to you I was foolish beyond words,” she said, moving close to where he stood. “What I did that night had nothing to do with James’s IOU. What I gave you, I gave from the heart. Can you not remember how it was between us?”

  “Of course I remember. And I would be grateful not to be reminded of how I allowed my desire for you to carry me away. I’ve reproached myself for it many times.”

  Louisa threw back her head, her eyes meeting his proudly, a raw flame of anger springing to life in their depths. “Why?” she taunted, smiling contemptuously. “Was it so awful?”

  “Damn you, Louisa. You know it wasn’t.”

  She moved closer still so that she stood directly in front of him, almost touching him, looking provocatively up into his stormy eyes. “And what was I when I lay in your arms, Alistair? Was I wanton?”

  “What else?” he growled. “To be wanton is to show passion without love—and how could you show love when we were strangers?”

  “How indeed?” she replied drily, stepping away from him, reproaching herself severely for foolishly allowing herself to think that the softening of his attitude towards her when she had first entered the room might mean that he was prepared to forget her past conduct and treat her as his wife in every respect. She now realised their minds were running along different lines, that his mind was well and truly shuttered against her. She turned from him and moved towards the door, hurt and disappointment searing through her.

  “Wait,” Alistair commanded suddenly. “I have no wish to see you leave like this, Louisa.”

  She whirled round and faced him, seeing a faint smile lightening his sombre countenance, but she was tired and still angry and in no mood to be mollified. “How generous of you, especially considering that you have absolutely no sense of my feelings. If you had, you would never have set down such stupid, unreasonable terms as to how our marriage was to be conducted.”

  “Nevertheless, you entered into it with your eyes wide open. You knew what to expect, so if you feel disappointed and let down you have no one to blame but yourself. We agreed at the beginning—”

  “No,” she cried, livid. “We did not. You told me, and you expected me to ac
cept it with a meek compliance. You gave me no opportunity to argue, and since then you have taken great care to avoid being alone with me. Why, Alistair? Are you afraid you might find yourself wanting me again? Is that it?”

  His features tightened and his eyes became as hard as granite once more at her continued baiting, giving no indication now that he had been about to put an end to what she referred to as the “unreasonable’ state of affairs that existed between them. “Be patient, Louisa—”

  “So, I am to live in hope, am I?” she cut in with bitter irony.

  “No one chooses their own destiny, Louisa, and yours is not so miserable as you would have me believe.”

  She stared at him, wide-eyed, vulnerable and trembling with a mixture of rage and frustrated desire, her tantalising mouth hungry for his kisses, which were not forthcoming. And they never would be, she realised, for he was telling her that he had no intention of touching her—despite his moment of weakness earlier when he had kissed her so tenderly. He was going to abide by his original terms and make theirs a marriage in nothing but name. Bitterness rose up inside her like bile. When she had come in search of him she hadn’t known what to expect, but it certainly had not been this deep-seated, emotionless resistance.

  “Don’t worry, Alistair,” she said, her body trembling, her fists clenched by her sides. “I am not going to make a fool of myself by throwing myself at your feet. I know what to expect from you. You have made it plain enough. If I deceived you it was on one matter only and I am prepared to do anything to atone for it. I have never been guilty of such conduct before and never will be again—and my actions were not for my own sake but to save my brother from gaol and to save my home. I know now that in you—with your abominable pride and self-righteousness—there is no room for human weakness—that it is beyond you—and, it would seem, none for forgiveness, either.”