Mary Balogh - The Proposal

It was a hard, hot kiss, their open mouths pressed together, their tongues dueling, stroking, in her mouth, in his, back again. They breathed heavily against each other’s cheek. And ultimately they kissed softly and warmly and with lips only, murmuring unintelligible words.

“I think,” he said when he was finished, “I had better take you home.”

“I think so too,” she said. “And then you had better pull those invitations out of your pocket before it acquires a permanent bulge.”

“It would not do to be walking around looking like an imperfect gentleman,” he said.

“No, indeed.” She laughed and took his arm.

And she recklessly upgraded her chances of a future with him all the way from improbable to possible.

Though not yet to probable.

She was not that reckless.

Constance, it seemed to Hugo, was having the time of her life. She went shopping with Lady Muir and her cousin and sister-in-law one morning and ended up at a tea shop with an admirer and his mother. She went on a round of visits on another afternoon with the same three ladies and was escorted home by the son of the final household upon which they called, a maid trailing along behind at his grandmother’s insistence. She went driving in the park on two afternoons with different escorts. And each morning brought a steady stream of invitations, though so far she had attended only the one ball.

She was well launched upon society, it seemed, and she was happy. Not just for herself, though.

“All the gentlemen who have singled me out for attention want to talk about you, Hugo,” she told him at breakfast one morning. “It is very gratifying.”

“About me?” He frowned. “And yet they are courting you?”

“Well,” she said, “I suppose it is good for their prestige to be seen with the sister of the hero of Badajoz.”

Hugo was mortally tired of hearing that ridiculous phrase.

“But they are courting you,” he said.

“Oh, you must not worry, Hugo,” she said. “I am not going to marry any of them.”

“You are not?” he asked, his brows drawing together.

“No, of course not,” she said. “They are all very sweet and very amusing and very … well, very silly. But no, that is cruel. I like them all, and they are very kind. And they are all terribly in awe of you. I doubt any would be able to get his courage up to ask you for my hand even if he wished to do so. You do frown quite ferociously, you know.”

Constance was perhaps more sensible than he had realized. She was not pinning her matrimonial hopes upon any of the gentlemen she had met thus far. It was hardly surprising, of course. Her first ball had been less than a week ago. Perhaps he had mistaken her motive in wanting to attend that ball. Perhaps it was not even important to her to move up the social scale by marrying up.

It was an idea that seemed to be corroborated by other things happening in her life.

She went to the grocery shop one afternoon with her grandmother and met her other relatives there. She instantly adored them all and was adored in return. After that first visit she made time every day to go over there to see them—those of them who were not at the house fussing over Fiona, that was. And she spoke of them and of the shop and the neighborhood with as much enthusiasm as she showed when describing her dealings with the ton.

There was an ironmonger’s next to the grocery shop. The longtime owner had died recently, but his son had promised all his customers that he would keep it open and that he would not change a thing. It was, according to Constance, a veritable Aladdin’s den, with narrow aisles that twisted and turned until one was in danger of getting lost. They were so narrow that it was sometimes hard to turn around. And he had absolutely everything in the shop. There was not a nail or a screw or a rivet or nut or bolt that he did not have. Not only that, though. Just like his father before him, he knew exactly where to lay his hand upon even the smallest, most obscure item anyone happened to need. And there were brooms and ladders hanging from the walls, and shovels and pitchforks hanging from the ceiling and …

The story went on and on.

And Constance went in there every day, always with one or other of her relatives, all of whom were particular friends of Mr. Tucker’s. Indeed, her grandmother had almost adopted him as an extra son now that his father was gone. He was the same age as Hilda, according to Constance, or maybe a year or two younger. Perhaps three. He was funny. He teased Constance about her refined accent though she did not speak so very differently from everyone else and his accent was not too broadly cockney. She could understand him perfectly well. He teased her about her pretty bonnets. And he let Colin and Thomas, the two little boys, run about his shop to their hearts’ content, though he did insist one day when they tipped over two boxes of different nails and got them all mixed up on the floor that they pick them all up and then sit at the counter to sort them out again. It took them almost an hour, and he brought them milk and biscuits to make their fingers more nimble. And then, when they were finished, he ruffled their hair, told them they were good lads, and gave them a penny each on the condition that they leave the shop immediately and not return for at least an hour.

He told Constance funny stories about his customers, though they were never unkind stories. And he insisted on the afternoon it rained upon walking her all the way home while holding over her head a very large black umbrella he had dug out from somewhere at the back of his shop. He would not sleep that night, he had told her, if he had let her walk home without it and thus caused the demise of her bonnet.

Hugo listened to the lengthy, enthusiastic accounts with interest. There was a certain glow about his sister whenever she spoke of the ironmonger that was not there when she talked about any of the gentlemen who danced attendance on her.

All of which suggested to Hugo that he might have avoided all this business with the ton. There need not have been the Redfield ball, and there need not be the upcoming garden party. And there need not have been any renewal of his acquaintance with Lady Muir.

His life would have been altogether more peaceful if he had not seen her again after Penderris.

They were starting to fall in love with each other. No, actually they were more than just starting. And it was mutual. He had even begun to think that it was all possible between them. So had she. But romance did not last forever. Not that he had any personal experience with romance, but all his observations of life had taught him that. It was what remained to a relationship after the first euphoria of the romance had faded that was important. What would be left to him and Gwendoline, Lady Muir? Two lives that were as different as night and day? A few children, maybe—if she could have them? And decisions to make about where they would be educated. She doubtless would want to pack them off to posh schools as soon as they had passed the toddling stage. He would want to keep them at home to enjoy. Would there be anything of love left to them when the romance had dimmed? Or would it all be used up with the energy they would expend upon trying to meld two lives that could not be melded?

“What happens to love when the romance is gone, George?” he asked the Duke of Stanbrook on the afternoon he and Lady Muir had gone to tea, as invited. The Duke and Duchess of Portfrey had been there too, but it was the afternoon it rained unexpectedly—the same afternoon Tucker walked Constance home from the shop. The duke and duchess had taken Lady Muir home in their carriage since Hugo had not brought his.

“It is a good question,” his friend said with a wry smile. “As a young man I was taught by all who had authority and influence over me that the two should never be mixed—not by someone of my social stature, anyway. Romance was for mistresses. Love, though it was never defined, was for wives. I loved Miriam, whatever that means. I enjoyed a few romances in the early years of our marriage, though I regret them now. I owed her better. If I were young now, Hugo, I believe I would look for love and romance and marriage all in the same place, and bedamned to any dire warning that the romance would grow thin and the love even thinner. I regret much in my life, but there is no point, is there? At this moment we are both in exactly the spot to which we have brought ourselves through our birth and our life experiences, through the myriad choices we have made along the way. The only thing over which we have any control whatsoever is the very next decision we make. But pardon me. You asked a question. I do not know the answer, I regret to say, and I suspect there is none. Each relationship is unique. You are in love with Lady Muir, are you?”

“I suppose so,” Hugo said.

“And she is in love with you.” It was a statement, not a question.

“It is hopeless,” Hugo said. “There is nothing but romance to recommend it.”

“That is not so,” the duke said. “There is more, Hugo. I know you rather well, and so I know much of what lies beneath the granite, almost morose shell with which you have cloaked yourself to the public view. I do not know Lady Muir well at all, but I sense something … Hmm. I find myself stuck for the appropriate word. I sense depths to her character that can match your own. Substance is perhaps the word for which my mind is reaching.”

“It is still hopeless,” Hugo said.

“Perhaps,” the duke agreed. “But those who are most obviously in love and well suited to each other often do not withstand the first test life throws their way. And life always does that sooner or later. Think of poor Flavian and his erstwhile betrothed as a case in point. When two people are not well suited and know it but are in love anyway, then perhaps they are better prepared to meet any obstacles in their path and to fight them with all the weapons at their disposal. They do not expect life to be easy, and of course it never is. They have a chance of making it through anyway. And all this is pure conjecture, Hugo. I really do not know.”