Mary Balogh - The Proposal

The sun was shining just as brightly the following day, though Gwen could see when she stood at the morning room window before Vera arrived that the tree branches were swaying today. It must be windy. And it was a little cooler too, the Duke of Stanbrook had said after an early morning ride.

When Vera arrived, she reported darkly that all her friends agreed with her that they would suffer for this weather by having no summer at all.

“Mark my words,” she said. “It is just not natural to have all our good weather this early in the year. I am quite determined not to enjoy it. I will merely become low in spirits when the rain starts, as it inevitably will, bringing the cold with it. And it is not in my nature to feel low, as you very well know, Gwen. I have come to cheer you up. There was no one to greet me when I arrived five minutes ago except the butler. I am not one to complain, but I do think it discourteous of His Grace to neglect the sister-in-law of Sir Roger Parkinson so blatantly. But what is one to expect?”

“Perhaps the carriage returned with you sooner than he anticipated,” Gwen said. “He did not neglect to send the carriage, after all, and that is the most important thing. It would have been a long walk for you. And here comes the tray with coffee and biscuits for two. I do thank you for coming, Vera. It is very good of you.”

“Well,” Vera said as she looked closely at the plate of biscuits on the tray a footman had just set down, “it is not in my nature to neglect my friends, Gwen, as you very well know. I see we are not important enough to be offered the raisin biscuits we had yesterday. It is just plain oatmeal for us today.”

“But how tedious it would be,” Gwen said, “to be given the same foods day after day. You will be so good as to pour, Vera?”

A little over three hours later, Vera was on her way home despite her suggestion that Gwen must be giving in too readily to low spirits if she still needed an afternoon rest as a consequence of her little accident.

Gwen, of course, did not need to sleep. She had slept too much last night, or at least she had lain on her bed for too long. She had taken the coward’s way out and sent down her excuses when the usual footman had arrived in her room to carry her down to the drawing room at dinnertime. Her outing had left her fatigued, she had claimed, and she begged His Grace to excuse her for the rest of the evening.

She had slept. She had had long wakeful spells too, though, during which she had relived the events on the beach and wondered what Lord Trentham would have said if she had allowed him to continue what he had started to say in the gig on the way back to the house.

Gwendoline, he had said after drawing a deep breath.

And she had stopped him.

She would forever wonder what he would have said.

But she had had to stop him. She had been feeling raw with emotion and quite unable to handle any more. She had been desperate for time alone.

She had not seen him since he had carried her up to her room after they took tea in the drawing room with everyone else. He had not spoken a word. Neither had she. He had merely set her down on the bed, stood back and looked at her with those intense dark eyes of his, inclined his head stiffly, and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

She opened her book, but it was hopeless to try to read, she realized after a few minutes, during which time her eyes had passed over the same sentence at least a dozen times without once grasping its meaning.

The swelling seemed to have completely disappeared about her ankle today, and most of the pain had gone with it. But when Dr. Jones had called earlier, while Vera was here, he had bound her ankle again and advised her to continue to keep her weight off the foot and to have patience.

It was very hard to be patient.

The carriage from Newbury might possibly arrive tomorrow. More probably it would come the day after tomorrow. It was an endless wait, whichever it turned out to be. She wanted to be gone now.

She gave up all pretense of reading and set the book facedown across her waist. She laid her head back against a cushion and closed her eyes. If only she could take a brisk walk outside.

If she had not fallen in love with him, she thought, she did not know what words would describe the state of her heart. This was more than just lust or the memory of what they had done together down in that cove. It was certainly more than simple attraction and far more than just liking. Oh, she was in love. How foolish!

For she was no green girl. She was no hopeless romantic. It was a love that could bring nothing but heartbreak if she tried to cling to it or pursue it. She probably could not pursue it anyway. It took two. She would be leaving here soon. Although both she and Lord Trentham would be in London later in the spring, it was unlikely their paths would cross. They moved in different circles. She would not settle for an affair. She doubted he would. And they were both agreed that marriage was out of the question.

Oh, why could Neville’s carriage not arrive today?

And then, even as she was thinking it, there was a light tap on the morning room door and it opened quietly. Gwen looked fearfully—and hopefully?—over her shoulder and saw the Duke of Stanbrook standing there.

She was not disappointed, she told herself as she smiled at him.

“Ah, you are awake,” he said, pushing the door wider. “I have brought you a visitor, Lady Muir. Not Mrs. Parkinson this time.”

He stepped to one side and another gentleman strode past him into the room.

Gwen sat bolt upright on the sofa.

“Neville!” she cried.

“Gwen.”

Her eyes did not deceive her. It really was her brother, his face all anxious concern as he hurried across the room toward her and bent over her to catch her up in a great bear hug.

“What have you been doing to yourself while my back was turned?” he asked her.

“It was a silly accident,” she said, hugging him tightly in return. “But it was my bad leg that I twisted, Nev, and I still cannot put any weight on my foot. I feel terribly foolish and really something of a fraud, for it is only a sprained ankle, yet it has caused no end of trouble to numerous other people. But what a wonderful surprise this is! I did not expect the carriage until tomorrow at the earliest, and I certainly did not expect you to come with it. Oh, poor Lily and the children, having to do without you for several days all because of me. I will not be very popular with them, I daresay. But oh, dear, it feels like a year instead of less than a month since I was at home.”

He perched on the edge of the sofa and squeezed her hands in his. He looked very dearly familiar.

“It was Lily who suggested I come,” he said. “Indeed, she insisted upon it, and there is no worse tyrant than Lily when she once has an idea stuck in her head. Apparently Devon and Cornwall are overrun with vicious highwaymen, all of whom will relieve you of your jewels and your blood, not necessarily in that order, if I am not with you as you travel, and all of whom will certainly turn tail and run for cover if I am.”

He grinned at her.

“Dearest Lily,” she said.

“But why are you not at Mrs. Parkinson’s?” he asked.

“That is a long story,” she said, grimacing. “But, Neville, the Duke of Stanbrook has been extremely kind and hospitable. So have his houseguests.”

“It has been our pleasure,” the duke said as Neville looked up at him. “My housekeeper will have a room made up for you, Kilbourne, while you and Lady Muir join me in the drawing room for an early tea. Lady Muir has crutches.”

Neville held up a staying hand. “I appreciate the offer of hospitality, Stanbrook,” he said. “But it is still quite early in the afternoon, and the weather is perfect for travel. If Gwen feels up to traveling with her foot elevated on the carriage seat, then we will leave as soon as her bags have been packed and brought down. Unless it will cause unnecessary inconvenience, that is.”

“It will be as you wish,” the duke said, inclining his head to Neville and looking inquiringly at Gwen.

“I shall be ready to leave as soon as I have changed into travel clothes,” Gwen assured them both.

Where was Lord Trentham?

She was asking the same silent question less than an hour later after she had changed and been brought back downstairs. The footman set her down in the hall, where Lady Barclay waited with her crutches. The Duke of Stanbrook and his other guests were all gathered there too, talking with Neville. Gwen shook them all warmly by the hand and bade them farewell.

But where was Lord Trentham?

It was as if Lady Barclay had heard her thought.

“Hugo came walking along the headland with Vincent and me after luncheon,” she said. “But when we turned back, he went down onto the beach. He often spends hours down there before he returns.”

All her fellow guests turned their eyes upon Gwen.

“I will not see him again, then,” she said. “I am sorry about that. I would have liked to thank him in person for all he has done for me. Perhaps you would say my goodbyes and express my thanks for me, Lady Barclay?”

She was not going to see him again.

Perhaps ever.

Panic threatened. But Gwen smiled politely about her and turned to the door.

Before Lady Barclay could reply, Lord Trentham himself appeared in the doorway, breathing heavily and looking large and flushed and fierce-eyed. He glanced around at them all, and then his eyes focused upon her.

“You are leaving?” he asked.

Relief flooded through her. And she wished he had stayed away a little longer.

The old contradictions.

“My brother has come for me,” she said. “The Earl of Kilbourne. Neville, this is Lord Trentham, who found me when I hurt myself and carried me all the way here.”

The two men looked at each other. Taking each other’s measure in that age-old male way.

“Lord Trentham,” Neville said. “Gwen mentioned your name in her letter. It sounded familiar then, and now that I see you, I understand why. You were Captain Emes? You led the Forlorn Hope on Badajoz. I am honored. And in your debt. You have been extraordinarily kind to my sister.”

He offered his right hand, and Lord Trentham took it.

Gwen turned determinedly to the Duke of Stanbrook.

“You have been kindness and courtesy itself,” she said. “Words are not adequate to express my gratitude.”

“Our club is to lose its honorary member,” he said, smiling in his austere way. “We will miss you, Lady Muir. Perhaps I will see you in town later in the year? I plan to be there for a short while.”

And then all the goodbyes were said, and there was nothing left to do but leave. It was something for which she had longed just an hour or so ago. Now her heart was heavy, and she dared not look where she yearned with all her heart to look.

Neville took a step closer to her, clearly intending to carry her out to the carriage, and she turned to hand her crutches to a footman who stood nearby.

But Lord Trentham moved faster than her brother and scooped her up into his own arms without a by-your-leave.

“I carried you in here, ma’am,” he said, “and I will carry you out of here.”

And he strode out through the doors and half ran down the steps with her, well ahead of Neville or anyone else.

“So this is it,” he said.

“Yes.”

There were a million things she wanted to say—surely that many. She could not think of a single one. Which was just as well. Really there was nothing at all to say.

The carriage door was open. Lord Trentham leaned inside with her and set her carefully down on the seat facing the horses. He took one of the cushions from the back of the seat opposite, set it flat, and lifted her foot onto it. He looked up into her eyes then, his own dark and blazing. His mouth was set in a grim line. His jaw looked more granitelike than ever. He looked like a hardened, rather dangerous military officer again.

“Have a pleasant journey,” he said before withdrawing his head from the carriage and straightening up beside it.

“Thank you,” she said.

She smiled. He did not.

At this time yesterday they were making love on the beach, he naked, she as good as.

Neville climbed into the carriage and took the seat beside her, the door was slammed shut, and they were on their way.