Mary Balogh - The Proposal

She had still not fully tested her reaction to finding Hugo here. She knew now why he had come. But why? The fact that they could never marry each other had always been something upon which they were both agreed.

Why had he changed his mind?

She would, of course, say no. Being in love with a man was one thing—even making love with him. Marrying him was another thing entirely. Marriage was about far more than just loving and making love.

She nodded to the footman who was waiting to open the library door for her.

With every mile of his journey to Newbury Abbey, Hugo had asked himself what he thought he was doing. With every mile he had tried to persuade himself to turn back before he made a complete ass of himself.

But what if she was with child?

He had kept on going.

The more fool he. There had been that excruciatingly embarrassing fifteen minutes or so in the drawing room. And that had been followed by an equally embarrassing interview with Kilbourne in the library.

Kilbourne had been perfectly polite, even friendly. But he had clearly thought Hugo daft in the head for coming here and expecting that Lady Muir would listen favorably to his marriage offer. He had looked slightly embarrassed and had all but told Hugo that she would not have him. She had loved her first husband dearly, he had explained, and had been inconsolable at his death. She had vowed never to marry again, and she had never yet shown any sign of changing her mind about that. Hugo must not take it personally if she refused. He had almost said when she refused. His lips had formed the word and then corrected themselves so that he could say if instead.

Hugo was still in the library—alone. Kilbourne had gone back up to the drawing room, promising that he would send his sister down as soon as she appeared there herself.

Perhaps she would not come down. Perhaps she would send Kilbourne back with her answer. Perhaps he was about to come face to face with the greatest humiliation of his life.

And serve him right too. What the devil was he doing here?

He had done nothing to help his own cause either, he remembered with a grimace. The only thing she had had to say when he had seen her earlier was that she looked like a drowned rat. And he, suave and polished gentleman that he was, had agreed with her. He might have added that she looked gorgeous anyway, but he had not done so and it was too late now.

A drowned rat. A fine thing to say to the woman to whom one had come to offer marriage.

He thought the library door would never open again, but that he would be left to live out the rest of his life rooted to the spot on the library carpet, afraid to move a muscle lest the house fall about his shoulders. He deliberately shrugged them and shuffled his feet just to prove to himself that it could be done.

And then the door did open when he was least expecting it, and she stepped inside. An unseen hand closed the door from the other side, but she leaned back against it, her hands behind her, probably gripping the handle. As though she were preparing to flee at the first moment she felt threatened.

Hugo frowned.

Her borrowed dress was too big for her. It completely covered her feet and was a little loose at the waist and hips. But the color suited her, and so did the simplicity of the design. It emphasized the trim perfection of her figure. Her blond hair was curlier than usual. The damp must have got to it despite the bonnet she had worn and the umbrella she had held as she came hurtling up across the lawn. Her cheeks were flushed, her blue eyes wide, her lips slightly parted.

Like a foolish schoolboy, he crossed both sets of fingers on each hand behind his back and even the thumbs of his two hands.

“I came,” he said.

Good Lord! If there were an orator-of-the-year award, he would be in dire danger of winning it.

She said nothing, which was hardly surprising.

He cleared his throat.

“You did not write,” he said.

“No.”

He waited.

“No,” she said again. “There was no need. I told you there would not be.”

He was ridiculously disappointed.

“Good.” He nodded curtly.

And silence descended. Why was it that silence sometimes felt like a physical thing with a weight of its own? Not that there was real silence. He could hear the rain lashing down against the window panes.

“My sister is nineteen,” he said. “She has never had much of a social life. My father used to take her to visit our relatives when he was still alive, but since then she has remained essentially at home with her mother, who is always ailing and likes to keep Constance by her side. I am now her guardian—my sister’s, that is. And she needs a social life beyond mere family.”

“I know,” she said. “You explained this to me at Penderris. It is one of your reasons for wanting to marry a woman of your own kind. A practical, capable woman, I believe you said.”

“But she—Constance—is not content to meet her own kind,” he said. “If she were, all would be well. Our relatives would take her about with them and introduce her to all kinds of eligible men, and I would not need to marry after all. Not for that reason, anyway.”

“But—?” She made a question of it.

“She has her heart set upon attending at least one ton ball,” he said. “She believes my title will make it possible. I have promised her that I will make it happen.”

“You are Lord Trentham,” she said, “and the hero of Badajoz. Of course you can make it happen. You have connections.”

“All of them men.” He grimaced slightly. “What if one ball is not enough? What if she is invited elsewhere after that first? What if she acquires a beau?”

“It is altogether possible that she will,” she said. “Your father was very wealthy, you told me. Is she pretty?”

“Yes,” he said. He licked his lips. “I need a wife. A woman who is accustomed to the life of the beau monde. A lady.”

There was a short silence again, and Hugo wished he had rehearsed what he would say. He had the feeling that he had gone about this all wrong. But it was too late now to start again. He could only plow onward.

“Lady Muir,” he said, clutching his crossed fingers almost to the point of pain, “will you marry me?”

Plowing onward when one had not scouted out the territory ahead could be disastrous. He knew that from experience. He knew it now again. All the words he had spoken seemed laid out before him as though printed on a page, and he could see with painful clarity how wrong they were.

And even without that imagined page, there was her face.

It looked as it had that very first day, when she had hurt her leg.

Coldly haughty.

“Thank you, Lord Trentham,” she said, “but I beg to decline.”

Well, there. That was it.

She would have refused him no matter how he had worded his proposal. But he really had not needed to make such a mull of it.

He stared at her, unconsciously hardening his jaw and deepening his frown.

“Of course,” he said. “I expected no different.”

She gazed at him, that haughty look gradually softening into one of puzzlement.

“Did you really expect me to marry you merely because your sister wishes to attend a ton ball?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“Why did you come, then?” she asked.

Because I was hoping you were with child. But that was not strictly true. He had not been hoping.

Because I have not been able to get you out of my mind. Pride prevented him from saying any such thing.

Because we had good sex together. No. It was true, but it was not the reason he was here. Not the only reason, anyway.

Why was he here, then? It alarmed him that he did not know the answer to his own question.

“There is no other reason than that, is there?” she asked softly after a lengthy silence.

He had uncrossed his fingers and dropped his arms to his sides. He flexed his fingers now to rid them of the pins and needles.

“I had sex with you,” he said.

“And there were no consequences,” she said. “You did not force me. I freely consented, and it was very … pleasant. But that was all, Hugo. It is forgotten.”

She had called him Hugo. His eyes narrowed on her.

“You said at the time,” he said, “that it was far more than just pleasant.”

Her cheeks flushed.

“I cannot remember,” she said. “You are probably right.”

She could not possibly have forgotten. He was not conceited about his own prowess, but she had been a widow and celibate for seven years. She would not have forgotten even if his performance had been miserable.

It did not matter, though, did it? She would not marry him even if he groveled on the floor at her feet, weeping and reciting bad poetry. She was Lady Muir and he was an upstart. She had had a bad experience with her first marriage and would be very wary about undertaking another. He was a man with issues. She was well aware of that. He was large and clumsy and ugly. Well, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration, but not much.

He bowed abruptly to her.

“I thank you, ma’am,” he said, “for granting me a hearing. I will not keep you any longer.”

She turned to leave, but she paused with her hand on the knob of the door.

“Lord Trentham,” she said without turning around, “was your sister your only reason for coming here?”

It would be best not to answer. Or to answer with a lie. It would be best to end this farce as soon as possible so that he could get back out into the fresh air and begin licking his wounds again.

So of course he spoke the truth.

“No,” he said.

Gwen had been feeling angry and so sad that she hardly knew how to draw one breath to follow another. She had felt insulted and grieved. She had longed to make her escape from the library and the house, to dash through the rain to the dower house in her overlong dress and on her weak ankle.

But even the dower house would not have been far enough. Even the ends of the world would not have been.

He had looked like a stern, dour military officer when she came into the library. Like a cold, hard stranger who was here against his will. It had been almost impossible to believe that on one glorious afternoon he had also been her lover.

Impossible with her body and her rational mind, anyway.

Her emotions were a different matter.

And then he had announced that he had come—as if she must have been expecting him, longing for him, pining for him. As though he were conferring a great favor on her.

And then. Well, he had not even made any attempt to hide the motive behind his coming to offer her marriage. It was so that she would use her influence to introduce his precious sister to the ton and find a man of gentle birth to marry her.

He must have been hoping that she was with child so that his task would have been made easier.

She stood with her hand on the door after he had dismissed her—he had dismissed her from Neville’s library. She was that close to freedom and to what she knew would be a foolish and terrible heartbreak. For she could no longer like him, and her memories of him would be forever sullied.

And then it occurred to her.

He could not possibly have come here with the intention of telling her that his sister needed an invitation to a ton ball and that therefore she must marry him. It was just too absurd.

It was altogether possible that he would look back upon this scene and the words he had spoken and cringe. She guessed that if he had rehearsed what he would say, the whole speech had fled from his mind as soon as she stepped into the room. It was altogether possible that his stiff military bearing and hard-set jaw and scowl were hiding embarrassment and insecurity.

It had, she supposed, taken some courage to come here to Newbury.

She could be entirely wrong, of course.

“Lord Trentham,” she asked the door panel in front of her face, “was your sister your only reason for coming here?”

She thought he was not going to answer. She closed her eyes, and her right hand began to turn the knob of the door. The rain pelted against the library window with a particularly vicious burst.

“No,” he said, and she relaxed her hold on the doorknob, opened her eyes, drew a slow breath, and turned.

He looked the same as before. If anything, his scowl was even more fierce. He looked dangerous—but she knew he was not. He was not a dangerous man, though there must be hundreds of men, both living and dead, who would disagree with her if they could.