Mary Balogh - The Proposal

“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.

Or perhaps it was because none of the others had kissed her—twice.

Ben was appointed to take dinner with her. Both he and she seemed happy with the arrangement. Not long after dinner she suggested retiring to her room.

“You are in pain, Lady Muir?” George asked.

“Hardly at all when I keep still,” she said. “But you are a club. I daresay the evenings are the time when you most enjoy being together for companionship and conversation. I will withdraw.”

She was sensitive too. And tactful. More evidence of the perfect lady.

“There is really no need,” George said.

“A sprained ankle qualifies as a war wound,” Ben said, “and a club stagnates if it never increases its membership. We will expand to include you, Lady Muir, at least for this year. Consider yourself an honorary member.”

She laughed.

“Thank you,” she said. “I am honored. Actually, I am in some discomfort even if it does not quite amount to pain. I shall be more comfortable lying on my bed.”

“I shall summon a footman, then,” George said, but Hugo was already on his feet.

“No need,” he said. “I shall carry Lady Muir upstairs.”

He resented her most because she disturbed him. He did not dislike her, as he had yesterday. But she was of an alien world. She was beautiful and elegant and well dressed and self-possessed and charming. She was everything a lady ought to be. And she attracted him, a fact that annoyed him. He had always been able to look at ladies, even sometimes to appreciate their looks and allure, without ever desiring them. One ought not to desire alien species, no matter how beautiful they were.

Was he totally daft?

He had even told her this afternoon—alas, there was no possibility that his memory was playing tricks on him—that he would like to bed her.

He wondered if he ought to apologize. But an apology would only bring that scene in the garden alive again. It was perhaps best forgotten or at least left to lie dormant.

Besides, how could one apologize for kissing a woman twice? Once might be explained away as an impulsive accident. Twice suggested definite intent or a serious lack of control.

His foot was on the top stair before either of them spoke.

“You have been very silent tonight, Lord Trentham,” she said.

“At the moment I need all my breath to carry you,” he told her.

He paused outside her room while she turned the handle of the door. He stepped inside with her and set her down on the bed.

He propped a few of the many pillows behind her back and positioned one beneath her right foot. He straightened up and clasped his hands behind his back. Someone had already lit the candles, he realized.

He would love to turn on his heel and leave the room without another word or a backward glance, but he would make himself look like an idiot or an unmannerly clod if he did so.

“Thank you,” she said. And in the next breath, “I am sorry.”