Mary Balogh - The Proposal

“The fresh air has been lovely,” Lady Muir said. “It is sheltered and really quite warm down on that little beach.”

Good Lord, even to his own ears they sounded like a pair of coconspirators being so overhearty in their enthusiastic simulation of innocence that they proclaimed themselves as guilty as hell.

“I imagine,” Ralph said, “that drawing room conversations today are loud with predictions of the dire suffering we are surely facing as punishment for today’s glorious weather.”

“No doubt,” Flavian said, “it will snow tomorrow. With a strong north wind. And we will never again be so foolish as to think of enjoying such an unusually lovely day.”

They all laughed.

“You do not have your crutches with you, Lady Muir?” George asked.

“Crutches are not much use on cliff paths and pebbles and sand,” Hugo said. “I’ll drive her up to the doors and carry her inside.”

“Off you go, then,” George said, giving Hugo a penetrating look. He had not been fooled, at least, and it would be nothing short of a miracle if Flavian had. Or Ralph, for that matter. “I daresay Imogen has seen us all arrive and has ordered the tea tray brought up.”

Hugo proceeded on his way to the house, a silent Lady Muir beside him.

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?