Mary Balogh - The Proposal

“To atone for what?” she asked softly. For some reason she had the blanket he had spread over her legs bunched against her bosom, held there with both hands.

He looked up with blank eyes, as though he had forgotten that she was there. Then awareness returned.

“I had killed close to three hundred men,” he said. “Three hundred of my own men.”

“Killed?” she asked.

“Killed, got killed,” he said. “It is all the same. I was responsible for their deaths.”

“Tell me,” she said, her voice still soft.

He returned his eyes to the ground. She heard him inhale deeply and exhale slowly.

“It is not for a woman’s ears,” he said. But he continued anyway. “I led my men up an almost sheer slope into the guns. It was certain death. We got stopped in our tracks when we were halfway up. Half of us were dead, the other half discouraged. Success seemed impossible. My lieutenant wanted me to give the order to retreat. No one would ever blame us. Going on was pointless suicide. But it was what we had all volunteered for, and I was determined to go on and die in the attempt rather than return defeated. I gave the order to advance and did not look back to see if anyone followed me. And we succeeded. Although there were almost none of us left, we had made the breach that enabled the rest of the forces to swarm in past us. Of the eighteen survivors, I was the only one unhurt. And a few more died afterward. But I did not care. I had accepted the mission and I had completed it successfully. I was showered with accolades and rewards. Only me. Oh, and my lieutenant won his captaincy. All the other men, living and dead, meant nothing. They were cannon fodder. Unimportant in life, instantly forgotten in death. I did not care. I was on a cloud of glory.”

He scuffed the gravel he had smoothed out earlier.

“And why should I not be?” he asked. “It was a Forlorn Hope. All those men were volunteers. All of them expected to die. I did myself, because I led from the front.”

Gwen licked her lips. She did not know what to say.

“Two days before I went out of my head,” he said, looking up at her with eyes that were quite frighteningly bleak, “I went to see two of the men. One was my lieutenant, newly promoted. He had massive internal injuries and was not expected to live. He had great difficulty breathing. He managed nevertheless to collect enough phlegm in his mouth to spit at me. The other had had both legs amputated and was unquestionably going to die though he was taking his time about it. I knew it. He knew it. He grasped my hand and … kissed it. He thanked me for thinking of him and coming to see him. He said it made him a proud man. He said he would die a happy man. And other daft things like that. I wanted to bend down and kiss his forehead, but I was afraid of what the other people milling about would think or say to one another afterward. I merely squeezed his hand instead and told him I would be back next day. I did go, but he had died half an hour before I arrived.”

He gazed at Gwen.

“And now you know my shame,” he said. “I went from great hero to gibbering idiot within a month. Are your questions all answered?”

There was a hardness in his eyes, a harshness in his voice.

Gwen swallowed.

“Feeling guilt when one has clearly done wrong,” she said, “is natural and even desirable. One can perhaps say or do something to put right the wrong. Feeling guilt when there has been no clear wrong is altogether more poisonous. And of course, Lord Trentham, you did not do wrong. You did right. There is no use in my laboring that point, however, is there? Countless other people must have told you the same thing. Your friends here must have said it. It does not help, though, does it?”

His eyes searched hers, and she lowered them while she busied her hands with restoring order to the blanket.

“I feel for you,” she said. “But your breakdown was shameful only when looked at from the perspective of tough, ruthless masculinity. One does not expect a military commander to care for the men under him. The fact that you did care—that you do care—makes you far more admirable in my eyes.”

“Not many battles would be won, Lady Muir,” he said, “if commanders placed the safety and well-being of their men ahead of victory over the enemy.”

“No,” she agreed. “I suppose not. But you did not do that, did you? You did your duty. Only afterward did you allow yourself to grieve.”

“You would turn my very cowardice into heroism,” he said.

“Cowardice?” she said. “Hardly that. How many commanders lead their men to certain death from the front? And then visit their horribly wounded men, especially those who will surely die? And even those who hate and resent them?”

“I brought you out here,” he said, “to enjoy the fresh air and the flowers.”

“And I have done both,” she said. “I feel considerably better. Even my ankle is not aching nearly as much as it was earlier. Or perhaps the effects of the pain medicine the Duke of Stanbrook suggested I take have not worn off yet. The air is lovely today even with the nip in it. I am reminded of home.”

“Newbury Abbey?” he said.

She nodded.

“It is as close to the sea as Penderris Hall is,” she said. “There is a private beach below the abbey with towering cliffs behind it. It is very similar to here. It is surprising, though, that I was walking down by the sea yesterday. I do not often go down onto the beach at home.”

“You do not like sand in your shoes?” he asked.

“Well, there is that too,” she said. “But also I find the sea too vast. It frightens me a little, though I am not sure why. It is not really the fear of drowning in it. I think it is more that the sea is a reminder of how little control we have over our lives no matter how carefully we try to plan and order them. Everything changes in ways we least expect, and everything is frighteningly vast. We are so small.”

“That fact can actually be comforting at times,” he said. “When we lash out at ourselves for having lost control, we are reminded that we never can be in total control, that all life asks of us is to do our best to cope with what is handed to us. It is easier said than done, of course. Indeed, it is often impossible to do. But I always find a stroll on the beach reassuring.”

She smiled at him and was surprised to discover that she actually rather liked him. At least she understood him better than she had yesterday.

“The fresh air has brought color to your cheeks,” he said.

“And to my nose as well, no doubt,” she said.

“I was playing the gentleman,” he said, “and avoiding any mention of that. I have been trying hard not even to look at it.”

The joke surprised and delighted her. She lifted one hand to cover her nose and laughed.

He got to his feet and closed the distance between them. He took the blanket, which was still in an untidy heap across her waist, and spread it over her legs again before straightening up and looking down at her. He clasped his hands behind his back. Gwen reached for something to say and failed.

“I am not a gentleman, as you know,” he said after a beat of silence. “I have never wanted to be one. When I must mingle with the upper classes, they may accept me or reject me as they will. I am not offended at being considered inferior. I know that I am not. Only different.”

Gwen tipped her head to one side.

“What point are you making, Lord Trentham?” she asked.

“That I do not feel inferior to you,” he said, “though I am indeed very different. I have no ambition to court you or marry you and thus propel myself imperceptibly upward on the social scale.”

Yesterday’s irritation with him returned full force.

“I am glad for your sake,” she said, “since you would be bound for certain disappointment.”

“But I do find myself quite irresistibly attracted to you,” he said.

“Irresistibly?”

“I will resist if I must,” he said. “With one word from you I will resist.”

Gwen opened her mouth and closed it again. How had they got to this point? Just a few moments ago he had been baring his soul to her. But perhaps that was the explanation. Perhaps the emotion he had been feeling then needed to be translated into something else, something softer and more familiar.

“Resist what?” she asked, frowning.

“I would like to kiss you again,” he said, “at the very least.”

She asked the question that ought to have remained unasked.

“And at the very most?”

“I would like to bed you,” he said.

Their eyes locked and Gwen felt a rush of desire that fairly robbed her of breath. Good heavens, she ought to be smacking his face—except that it was far above the reach of her arm. Anyway, she had asked and he had answered. Suddenly it felt more like July than early March in the garden.

“Gwendoline,” he said. “Is that your name?”

She looked at him in surprise. But Vera had used her name yesterday in his hearing, of course.

“Everyone calls me Gwen,” she told him.

“Gwendoline,” he said. “Why shorten a name that is perfectly beautiful in its entirety?”

No one had ever called her by her full name. It sounded strange on his lips. Intimate. She ought to object quite firmly to such overfamiliarity.

He was Hugo. The name suited him.

He sat down beside her suddenly, and she scooted over to the inside of the seat to make room for him. He turned sideways and rested one hand on the back of the seat.

Was he going to—? Was she going to—?

He lowered his head and kissed her. Openmouthed. Her own mouth opened reflexively, and there was sudden heat between them. His tongue pressed hard into her mouth, and one of his arms came about her back while the other spread over the back of her head. Her hands, trapped inside her cloak, pressed against his broad, very solid chest.

It was not a brief embrace, as last night’s kiss had been. But it gentled, and after a while his lips roamed over her face, up over her temples, down to her ear, where she could feel his breath, his tongue, his teeth nipping the lobe. He kissed his way along her jaw and back up to her mouth.

I would like to bed you.

Oh, no. This was too much. And that was the understatement of the year. She pressed her hands against his chest, and he raised his head. She found herself gazing very deeply into those very dark, very intense eyes.

He was a little frightening. At least, he ought to be.

She drew breath to speak.

“You are both in grave danger of missing your tea,” a cheerful voice said, making them jump apart, “and it looks as if George’s chef has outdone himself with his cakes today—or so I have been informed. I have not tasted them yet. I elected to postpone the delight and come out here to summon you. Ralph saw from the morning room window when he went to fetch Lady Muir that you were both out here.”

Lord Darleigh, looking directly at them in that extraordinary way he had even though he could not actually see them, smiled sweetly.

“Thank you, Vincent,” Lord Trentham said. “We will be there in a moment.”

He got to his feet and folded the blanket over his arm while Gwen gathered up the two cushions. And then he stooped to scoop her up. He did not look at her, and she did not quite look at him. They did not speak as he carried her inside, following behind Lord Darleigh.

That had been very unwise, she thought. Another grand understatement. And indiscreet. The Earl of Berwick had seen them through the window. What exactly had he seen?

Lord Trentham carried her into the drawing room, where everyone greeted her politely and no one cast knowing glances at either her or Lord Trentham.

Hugo was more than usually silent and withdrawn for the rest of the day. And he found himself quite unfairly resenting the presence of Lady Muir. Without her, he would be relaxing with his friends, talking, laughing, teasing and being teased, playing cards, reading, sitting in companionable silence—whatever moved them, in fact. Activities at Penderris were rarely planned.

Everyone else seemed to be enjoying Lady Muir’s company. No one else appeared to resent her. Perhaps that was because she was a lady and was a part of their world. She joined in the conversation with apparent ease, yet without in any way trying to dominate it. She could talk on virtually any topic. She could listen and laugh and make just the right comments and ask just the right questions. She liked them all, it seemed, and they had grown to like her. She was the perfect lady.