by Candace Camp
“I thought you found her charming,” Rose added, puzzled.
Camellia shrugged. “I didn’t mean that I dis like her. I liked her more at first. But last time … I don’t know. She seemed disappointed that the vicar’s wife and the squire’s wife liked us.”
Mary stared at Camellia for a moment, frowning. “I think Lady Sabrina did not feel well. She had a headache.”
“I am sure you must be wrong, Camellia.” Rose looked troubled. “She has been most kind to us.”
“Well, you shall have ample time and opportunity to discover exactly how you feel about Sabrina,” Charlotte told them. “In the meantime, I think we had best get these things sorted and given to the maids to put away. It’s almost time to dress for dinner.”
As Mary had suspected, Prue, happy to at last dress Mary in clothes that befitted a lady, was almost ecstatic when Mary suggested that she also arrange her hair in the manner Lady Vivian had suggested. It took her far longer to dress than Mary was accustomed to—and was more than she was willing to do on a daily basis. But the results, she couldn’t help but think, were worth it.
Mary was unable to suppress a certain smug satisfaction when she entered the anteroom where they all gathered before the evening meal and Royce looked at her, then straightened, staring as if he had never seen her before. Mary gave him a regal nod before she strolled over to join Fitz and Lily in conversation.
She could feel Royce’s eyes on her throughout the meal. She managed to refrain from returning his gaze most of the time, though once she could not help but turn her head toward him. His green eyes were intent on her, and when their gazes met, something sparked in his eyes that sent an answering shiver down her spine. Quickly she turned her gaze back to her meal, waiting for the tremor of sensation to subside.
After the meal, she was careful to sit between two of her sisters on the sofa in the drawing room, so that when the men rejoined them after their port, there was no possibility of Royce conversing with Mary alone. Whatever he had wanted to discuss this afternoon—probably another lecture about how wrong the whole incident in the summerhouse had been and how much he regretted it, with added declarations that he would make sure it never happened again—she did not want to hear it tonight.
However, Mary was well aware of how single-minded Sir Royce could be, so she had little hope that he would simply abandon the idea of a conversation. It did not surprise her, therefore, when the following morning Sir Royce jumped up to follow her out of the breakfast room as soon as she had finished her meal.
Reaching out to take her arm, he said without preamble, “I would like to speak with you in private.”
Mary’s heart began to thump. His face was remote and deadly serious; she felt almost as if she did not know him. She grabbed at the first excuse she could think of. “I’m sorry, but it’s time for our lessons with Miss Dalrymple.”
“I’m sure she would not object to our taking a stroll about the garden first.”
It was pointless, Mary knew. She had to face him sometime. She might as well get it over with. It would be awful; already her insides were churning, but she hoped she would get through it without giving way to tears.
“Of course.” Mary smiled stiffly. “Pray let me get my bonnet.”
When she returned with her hat, Sir Royce was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. He led her down the hall and held open the back door for her. Mary swept out onto the terrace and trotted down the steps, tying on her bonnet as she went. She did not look at him, and she was relieved that he did not offer her his arm as they walked along in silence. She tried to think of some commonplace topic, some pleasantry, but her head was too filled with memories of the day before. She could not keep out the sight of his face, suffused with desire, or forget the feel of his chest beneath her hand, the taste of him upon her tongue …
She picked up her pace.
“I had not realized we were in a race,” Royce commented dryly.
“I like a brisk walk.”
“Clearly. But I have something to say to you, and I have no desire to chase you down the path shouting at the top of my voice.”
“Then perhaps you should not have asked to go for a walk.”
“Mary, please … I know you are angry with me, and you have every right to be. But allow me the opportunity to—to do what I can to set it right.”
Mary stopped, surprised, and turned to him. “I am not angry.”
“You should be. I—my actions were reprehensible. I behaved like a cad. I have no excuse.”
Mary’s face burned. “There is no need to apologize. You were not the only participant.”
His eyebrows rose, and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I should have known that you would not respond in the typical way.”
“I am sorry if I am not sufficiently well-bred. No doubt you would prefer it if I collapsed with the vapors, but I am afraid I have no idea how to do that and I would feel perfectly ridiculous attempting it. What happened, happened, and it seems to me that the best thing is to simply go on and—and forget it.”
“I am afraid I cannot do that,” he responded gravely. “I crossed a line, and I must apologize for that.”
“Very well. I accept your apology.” Mary nodded at him and turned away.
“Wait. I have not finished.”
She pivoted back. “What else is there to say?”
“Here. Let us sit down.” He led her to a stone bench.
“All right.” Mary sat down, eyeing him warily.
Royce sat beside her, then rose and walked a few steps away, turned, and came back. “I, um, I had a speech prepared, but it sounds unbearably foolish now as I think of it. I—Mary, will you—that is, well, I am asking you to marry me.”
Mary stared at him, at first barely comprehending what he had said. For an instant, joy surged up in her, and her heart began to pound. She envisioned marrying him, living with him, spending the rest of her life by his side, her nights in his bed. The rush of yearning that sprang up inside her startled her. But a moment later, her pragmatic self took over. She was not the lady of a manor; she was plain Mary Bascombe.
“Why are you asking me?” she said, suspicion in her voice.
He gaped at her. “Why? I think it should be obvious.”
“Not to me. Are you doing this to salvage my reputation? Because it’s the gentlemanly thing to do after … what happened yesterday?” She could feel a flush rising up her throat into her face, and she glanced away. “I assure you, there is no need. I will not reveal it.”
His face registered shock. “I don’t feel impelled to marry you because someone might find out about it—though, of course, it’s vital to your reputation that it remain a secret. I could not do other than marry you after … after taking your innocence as I did.”
“Is that what you call it?” she said dryly.
“What the devil is that supposed to mean?” He scowled at her. “I am a gentleman. Perhaps the men you are accustomed to seduce and abandon innocent young girls, but I am not that sort of man.”
“Do not worry.” Mary sent him a flashing glance. “I absolve you of all blame. I take full responsibility for my actions. I am a grown woman, not a child, and I was well aware of what I was doing.”
He stared at her. “What are you saying?”
“I think it is clear enough. I do not expect you to propose marriage. I have no intention of chaining you to me for life because of a single mistake. An accident of fate.” Mary stood up, her color high.
“I would not call it an accident,” he retorted. “However spontaneously it transpired, I was fully aware of what I was doing. And of the consequences.”
“The consequences—I take it you mean the punishment of marrying me.”
“No! Blast it, you have the most damnable way of twisting things. It is not a punishment. It is, rather, the logical result of what we did.”
“What we did is not enough upon which to base a marriage.”
“It is no
t the only basis for the marriage. Merely the precipitating factor. There are numerous reasons …”
Mary folded her arms and regarded him skeptically. “Indeed. What are they? And don’t you dare tell me that not offending Lord Stewkesbury is one of them.”
“What? No. It has nothing to do with Oliver.” Royce scowled. He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “Well, obviously, there is an attraction between us. I think we would deal well together, both in and out of bed. I have an adequate income; I can support you in a pleasant style, and I am not ungenerous. You have seen Iverley Hall and found it commodious, I believe. At present I rent only a few rooms in London, but, of course, during the Season, we can lease a house in Mayfair or even purchase one, if you find you enjoy the social whirl.”
“My. You present an excellent case for the benefits marriage would provide me,” Mary said crisply, trying to keep a rein on her temper. “I cannot help but wonder why you should wish it.”
“A beautiful wife is something any man would wish for,” Royce replied stiffly. “A connection to the Talbot family is a good thing. The old earl would have been pleased to see it.”
“That is why you wish to marry me?” Mary stared. “To please my grandfather?”
He hesitated, then went on, “Perhaps. Partly. He—he was very good to me, and I know he would have been happy to have me actually in the family. He spoke with regret about the split between him and his daughter. I am sure he would have provided for you and your sisters had he known of your existence. But since he did not, yes, he would want Oliver and Fitz and me to do our best for you.”
“Well, you may be perfectly happy with marrying to suit the old earl, but I, sir, am not.” Mary’s eyes flashed.
“I am not marrying to suit the earl; it is only one of the factors that—”
“Please, spare me any more talk of your ‘factors.’ I have heard more than enough. Your vision of marriage is a trifle cold-blooded for me.”
“Marriage usually is,” he retorted.
“Love doesn’t enter into it?”
“I have no intention of marrying for love. I don’t believe in love or in throwing one’s life away for the elusive prospect of it. A man fancies himself in love and wakes up with a wife who makes his life a living hell for forty years.”
“If that is your view of marriage, it seems to me that you should not marry at all,” Mary shot back. “Certainly, I have no interest in being locked into such a marriage.”
“Come, Mary, I would not have taken you for a romantic miss.”
“No, clearly you take me for a woman who is so desperate for a husband that she will accept even the most spiritless and insulting of proposals. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am not in so bad a case. What I gave you yesterday I gave freely, out of my own desire, not to blackmail you into wedlock. I have no interest in marrying a man for his income or because I like his house! Even less would I do it because some hardheaded, hard-hearted old man whom I never met would have wanted me to. I am a practical woman, but that doesn’t mean I am bloodless. I saw my parents, and however little they had and however ‘poor’ a marriage they made, they were happy . They loved each other. I could not settle for anything less. When I say yes, it will be to a man who cannot live without me—not one who has to talk himself into it. Least of all one who proposes simply because he is a ‘gentleman.’”
Mary whirled and strode back to the house, leaving Royce staring after her.
Mary charged up the stairs, fueled by the heat of her fury. She could not join her sisters in their daily deportment lesson feeling the way she did now. She could scarcely talk or even breathe, she was so filled with anger; one idiotic rule from Miss Dalrymple would probably make her erupt.
As she passed the small sitting room, however, she saw that Rose was there alone, sitting before one of the trunks they had hauled in. The trunk was open, with a few things piled in front, and Rose was bent over a book. She looked up and smiled when she heard Mary at the door.
“Good! There you are. Miss Dalrymple gave us the morning off since you were walking with Sir Royce—it is amazing how much more amenable she is now that Cousin Charlotte is here. Charlotte just suggested to her that we take the lessons another time, and Miss Dalrymple smiled and agreed, as though she were the most reasonable woman in the world.”
“You are going through Mama’s things?” Mary asked as she walked over to her sister. She was surprised at how calm her voice sounded.
“Shh. Don’t tell the others. I said I’d wait. Camellia and Lily are still downstairs at breakfast with Cousin Charlotte. Charlotte is a late riser, and you know how Lily loves to dawdle over her coffee. But I couldn’t resist taking a peek. Look, it is Mama’s diary.” She showed a small leather-bound book. “Nothing very remarkable—she was only ten, I think, according to the date on it. Just things that she ate or walks with her sisters or her studies. Imagine—her governess was already making her walk with a book on her head, just as Miss Dalrymple does with us.” Rose chuckled. “She hated it. Camellia will be happy to hear that.”
“How nice.” Mary tried to swallow her agitation as she knelt beside her sister. She took the small book and smoothed her hand across the old leather cover.
Rose frowned and reached out to touch Mary’s hand. “Sweetheart … what’s the matter? You seem upset.”
“Do I?” Mary tried to smile, but the effort was feeble.
“Yes. What happened? Miss Dalrymple said she saw you walking into the garden with Sir Royce. Was he lecturing you again? Did he make you unhappy?”
Mary jumped to her feet, hardly noticing that the diary tumbled from her hands onto the floor. “Oh, Rose! He asked me to marry him!”
Her sister gaped at her. “He—he what?”
“He asked me to marry him. I have never been so astonished in my life.”
“What did you say?” Rose asked in a weak voice.
“I told him no, of course.”
“You did?”
“Did he really think that I was so plain, so dowdy, so utterly unattractive that I would leap at the chance to marry anyone?” Mary demanded, spreading her arms wide.
“No! Mary, he never said that!”
“Well, no, he did not. But only a person in those straits would have accepted his proposal. He said that we ‘would deal well together.’”
“Oh my.”
“Exactly. He pointed out that he had a ‘pleasant income’ and that I liked his house. Can you imagine? As if I would marry him because I enjoyed Iverley Hall! He also assured me that we could get a house in London because he’s ‘generous.’ Of course, for him the advantage would be doing something that would please the old earl. And being connected to the Talbots.”
“Mary, how awful!” Rose jumped to her feet and put her arms around Mary.
Warmed by Rose’s ready sympathy, Mary hugged her sister hard. It made the huge, tight knot in her chest lessen even though tears sprang into her eyes. She pulled away, dashing the drops from her eyes. “I refuse to cry about it.”
“Perhaps he did not mean it the way it sounds,” Rose offered helpfully. “Maybe he is merely infelicitous in his way of talking.”
“He is certainly that.” Mary sighed. “Thank you for throwing that rope to a drowning woman, but no, I fear it is a perfectly accurate expression of his feelings for me. It was the coldest, most bloodless proposal that was ever made.”
“Did he—did he say nothing about love?”
“No, not a word.” Mary’s voice rang with bitterness. “He did not say once that he could not live without me or—or that my eyes shone like stars. Or even how proud he would be for me to become Mrs. Sir Royce, or whatever they call it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“He thinks I’m unmarriageable, that’s what it is. That no one will have me because of my lack of decorum, my country bumpkin behavior, my deplorably American manners!”
“That is why he’s marrying you?”
“No, he’s m
arrying me because he’s a gentleman!”
“What? Mary, I don’t understand.”
Mary stopped, realizing suddenly where she had gone in her ire. She crumpled a little. “Oh, Rose … I have not told you all. I didn’t want you to hate me.”
“Silly. I couldn’t hate you.”
“No, you probably could not. But I know you will think less of me.” She sighed, then squared her shoulders in her usual way. “I told you that he kissed me.”
“Yes …”
“Yesterday, at the summerhouse, when he was so mad at me—”
“Mary!” Rose gasped. “Do not tell me Sir Royce forced you!”
“No! Goodness, no. It was nothing like that. It was mutual. But there were certain liberties taken.”
“You mean—”
Mary nodded, blushing to her hairline. “As Royce so circumspectly put it, my ‘innocence’ is gone.”
“Mary!” Rose sat down with a thump in the nearest chair.
“You do hate me. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you, but I couldn’t keep on pretending.”
“No, of course I don’t hate you. I’m glad you told me. It’s just so startling I scarce know what to say.”
“I was rather stunned by it myself.” Mary sank down in the chair next to her sister.
Rose reached out to take her hand. “Mary, tell me … what was it like? Was it awful? Frightening?”
“It was … wonderful.” A reminiscent smile curved Mary’s lips. “’Tis almost enough to make me agree to marry him. I felt—I felt—I’ve never felt anything like it. When he touched me, I felt alive all over, as if I was dancing inside. I felt beautiful and twitchy and absolutely sizzling.”
“Oh my.” Rose’s eyes brightened as she watched her sister’s glowing face. “Maybe you should marry him.”
“How can I marry a man who doesn’t love me? Who asked me because he felt obligated?”
After a moment, Rose asked softly, “Do you love him?”
“No.” Mary’s answer was swift and decisive. “I-I thought perhaps I might … have feelings for him.” She remembered with a swift stab of pain that moment when she had felt joined with Royce, so much a part of him that she scarcely knew where she began and he left off. “But now I see that it was purely physical lust. The sort of thing they warn us about. That is all. We—there is no love between us.”
