Mary Balogh - The Proposal

The rest was all a little dizzying and was proof enough that it was not always a good idea to try to plan one’s future. He could never have predicted this.

His house without all the dust covers looked very different. It was elegant but without heart. Yet somehow his visitors made the place cheerful and livable, and he knew that he would spend the next several years adding the heart that was missing. His park looked bare but full of potential and really not too bad as it was. With a lily pond and a curved flower bed and some paths and seats, and with a wilderness walk with more trees and seats and a pavilion, it would be transformed. And perhaps he would plant some tall elms or limes on either side of the driveway. If one must have a straight drive, one might as well accentuate the fact.

His farm was the warmly beating heart of his property.

He was happy, he discovered in some surprise during those days. He had not really thought about happiness with reference to himself since … oh, since his father married Fiona.

Now he was happy again. Or at least, he would be happy if … Or rather when …

I love you, she had said.

It was easy enough to say. No, it was not. It was the hardest thing in the world to say. At least for a man. For him. Was it easier for a woman?

What a daft thought.

She was a woman who had not known real happiness, he suspected, for years and years—probably not since soon after her marriage. And now …

Could he make her happy?

No, of course he could not. It was impossible to make someone else happy. Happiness had to come from within.

Could she be happy with him?

I love you, she had said.

No, those words would not have come easily to Gwendoline, Lady Muir. Love had let her down in her youth. She had been terrified since then of giving her heart again. But she had given it now.

To him.

If she had meant the words, that was.

She had meant them.

His tongue had stuck to the roof of his mouth or tied itself in a knot or done something to make it impossible for him to reply.

That was something he must put right before the end of their stay here. Typically, he had talked quite freely about making love to her. He had even enjoyed being quite outrageous. But he had not been able to say what really mattered.

He would.

He offered an arm to both ladies.

“There is a litter of puppies in the loft in the stables about ready to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world,” he said. “Would you like to see them?”

“Oh,” Mrs. Rowlands said, “just like the one in the painting, Hugo?”

“Border collies actually,” he said. “They will be good with the sheep. Or at least one or two of them will. I will have to find homes for the rest.”

“Homes?” she said as they made their way downstairs. “You mean you are willing to sell them?”

“I was thinking more in terms of giving them away,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, “may we have one, Hugo? We have the cat to keep the mice out of the shop, of course, but all my life I have wanted a dog. May we have one? Is it very cheeky of me to ask?”

“You had better see them first,” he said, laughing and turning his head to look down at Gwendoline.

“Hugo,” she said softly, “you really must laugh more often.”

“Is that an order?” he asked her.

“It most certainly is,” she said severely, and he laughed again.

The anniversary celebrations had been planned for two days before the return to London. It would be best that way, Hugo had decided, so that everyone would have the day after to relax before the journey. Besides, it was the actual date of Mr. and Mrs. Rowlands’s anniversary.

There was to be a family banquet early in the evening. Then neighbors from the village and the surrounding countryside—neighbors of all social classes—were to come for some dancing in the small ballroom, which Hugo had expected never to use. He hired the same musicians who always played for the local assemblies.

“Don’t expect too much,” he warned Gwendoline when he was showing the ballroom to her and a few of his younger cousins on the morning of the celebrations. “The musicians are renowned more for their enthusiasm than for their musicality. There will be no banks of flowers. And I have invited my steward and his wife. And the butcher and the innkeeper. And a few other ordinary folk, including the people who lived nearby when I had my cottage.”

She stood directly in front of him and spoke for his ears only.

“Hugo,” she said, “would you find it a trifle annoying if every time you attended a ton event I spoke apologetically to you about the fact that there were three duchesses present and enough flowers on display to empty out several greenhouses and an orchestra that had played for European royalty in Vienna just the month before?”

He stared at her and said nothing.

“I believe you would be annoyed,” she said. “You told me to come to your world. I believe I can remember your exact words: If you want me, if you imagine that you love me and think you can spend your life with me, come to my world. I have come, and you do not have to apologize for what I am finding here. If I do not like it, if I cannot live with it, I will tell you so when we return to London. But I have been looking forward to this day, and you must not spoil it for me.”

It was a quiet little outburst. All around them cousins were laughing and exclaiming and exploring. Hugo sighed.

“I am just an ordinary man, Gwendoline,” he said. “Perhaps that is what I have been trying to say to you all this time.”

“You are an extraordinary man,” she said. “But I know what you mean. I would never expect you to be more than you are, Hugo. Or less. Don’t expect it of me.”

“You are perfect,” he said.

“Even though I limp?” she asked.

“Almost perfect,” he said.

He smiled slowly at her, and she smiled back.

He had never had a teasing relationship with any woman—or any sort of relationship, for that matter. It was all new and strange to him. And wonderful.

“Gwen,” Cousin Gillian called from a short distance away, “come and see the view from the French windows. Do you not agree that there should be a flower garden out there? Maybe even some formal parterres for ball guests to stroll among? Oh, I could grow accustomed very easily to living in the country.”

She came and linked her arm through Gwendoline’s and bore her away to give her opinion.

“There will be ball guests here maybe once every five years, Gill,” Hugo called after them.

She looked saucily back over her shoulder and spoke to him—loudly enough for everyone else to hear.

“I daresay Gwen will have something to say about that, Hugo,” she said.

Oh, yes, his family had not been slow to realize that she was here not only because she had introduced Constance to the ton.

It was a busy day, though looking back later, Hugo realized that he might just as well have lain back on his bed all day, his ankles crossed, his hands clasped behind his head, examining the design on the canopy over his head. His butler had everything completely under control and actually had the effrontery to look annoyed—in a thoroughly well-bred manner, of course—every time Hugo got under his feet.

He had even produced flowers from somewhere to decorate the dining table. And when Hugo glanced into the ballroom again just before dinner to make sure the floor was gleaming again after being walked over during the morning—it was—he was astonished to see that it was decorated with flowers too, and lots of them.

How much was he paying his butler? In all good conscience he was going to have to double the amount.

The dinner was excellent, and everyone was in exuberant spirits. There was conversation and laughter. There were speeches and toasts. Mr. Rowlands, who had got to his feet to thank everyone, impulsively bent from the waist and kissed Mrs. Rowlands on the lips, setting up a boisterous cheer around the table. Then, of course, Cousin Sebastian, not to be outdone, had to get to his feet to thank everyone for their congratulations on his looming anniversary, and he had to bend to kiss his wife on the lips and set up another roar of appreciation. Hugo wondered fleetingly if any ton dinner would include such raucous displays and put the thought firmly from his mind. Gwendoline was leaning forward in her chair and clapping her hands and smiling warmly at Sebastian and Olga. And then she was turning her head to talk animatedly with Ned Tucker at her right.

Two small, exquisitely decorated cakes were carried in, one for each couple, and the two ladies sliced them, to the applause of everyone else, and the two men handed around pieces for everyone to sample. And everyone seemed agreed when the meal was ended and it was time to remove to the ballroom for the arrival of the outside guests that they would not be able to stuff another morsel of food inside themselves until at least tomorrow.

“I daresay all the supper dainties will have to be consumed by my neighbors, then,” Hugo said.

“Let’s not be hasty, lad,” his Uncle Frederick said. “We are to dance, are we not? That will work up a fresh appetite soon enough, especially if the tunes are lively.”

And finally it was time to stand in the doorway of the ballroom, greeting the outside guests as they arrived. Hugo had Fiona beside him and Constance beside her and just wished that his father could be here now to see them. He would have been happy.

He glanced about the ballroom, seeing all the familiar faces, knowing that he had done the right thing in bringing everyone here for a few days. The right thing for them, and definitely the right thing for himself. Maybe there would always be a little darkness in his soul when he remembered the brutality of war. He would far prefer to nurture life than to take it. But, as he had explained to Gwendoline in different words, life was not made up of neat blacks and whites but of a vast whirlwind of varying shades of gray. He would no longer beat himself to a pulp over what he had done. Perhaps in doing it he had averted a greater evil. And perhaps not. Who was to know? He could only continue his journey through life, hoping that along with experience he was picking up some wisdom.

If there was some darkness in his soul, then there was also a considerable amount of light. One bright ray of it was at the far side of the ballroom, dressed prettily but simply in a pale lemon silky gown with scalloped hem and short, puffed sleeves and modest neckline—and a simple gold chain as her only ornament. Gwendoline. She was talking with Ned Tucker and Philip Germane—and looking back at him with a smile on her face.

He winked at her. Winked. He could not remember ever winking before in his life.

But his steward was entering the ballroom with his wife, and the vicar and his wife and son and daughter were coming behind them. Hugo turned his attention to his guests.

It was all really quite delightful, Gwen decided during the next hour. She paused to examine the thought, but there was no condescension in it. People were people, and these people were enjoying the occasion with unabashed pleasure. There was none of the restraint and polite ennui one encountered all too often with the ton, so many of whose members seemed to believe that it was either naïve or vulgar to enjoy anything with too great an exuberance.

The orchestra made up in enthusiasm what it lacked in skill. Most of the sets were vigorous country dances. Gwen danced them all, having assured the few people who were bold enough to ask that her limp did not deter her from dancing. And in no time at all she was flushed and laughing.

Mrs. Lowry, Hugo’s Aunt Henrietta, drew her aside between the second and third sets and asked her without preamble if she was going to marry Hugo.

“I was asked once and said no,” Gwen told her. “But that was quite a while ago, and if I were to be asked again, I might give a different answer.”

Mrs. Lowry nodded.

“His father was my favorite brother,” she said, “and Hugo has always been my favorite nephew even though I did not set eyes on him for years. He never ought to have gone away, but he did, and he suffered, and now he is back, just as tender-hearted as ever, it seems to me. I don’t want to see his heart broken.”

Gwen smiled at her.