The Proposal

There was no mattress beneath her back, only the sand beneath the blanket. Who would have guessed sand was so hard and unyielding? But she did not care.

She did not care.

She probably would. Perhaps soon.

But not now. Not yet.

He mumbled something after a minute or two and rolled off her to lie beside her, one arm flung over his eyes, one leg bent at the knee.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I must have been crushing you.”

She tipped her head to one side to rest against his shoulder. Was it possible that sweat could smell this good? She thought about lifting her dress up over her breasts and pushing down her skirt over her legs, but she made neither concession to modesty.

She slid into a relaxed state halfway between sleeping and waking. The sun shone warmly down on them. The gulls were calling again. Eternally calling. Sounding harsh and mournful. The sound of the sea was there too, as steady and as inescapable as a heartbeat.

She did not believe she would ever be sorry.

But of course she would.

The eternal cycle of life. The balance of opposites.

She came back to full consciousness when he got to his feet and, without a word to her, strode the short distance to the water. He waded in a little way and bent to wash himself.

Washing off the sweat?

Washing off her?

She sat up and set her dress to rights after reaching beneath it and somehow doing up her laces. She drew her cloak about her shoulders and clasped it at the neck. Suddenly she felt a little chilly.

They drove back to the house in near silence.

The sex had been good. Very good indeed, in fact. And all the more so because he had been starved of it for too long.

But it had been a mistake anyway.

A colossal understatement.

What was one supposed to do when one had bedded a lady? And when it was quite possible that one had impregnated her?

Say thank you and leave her?

Say nothing?

Apologize?

Offer her marriage?

He did not want to marry her. Marriage was not about beddings. Not exclusively about them, anyway. And the parts of marriage that were not the beddings were every bit as important as those that were. A marriage with Gwendoline was impossible. And, to be fair, that applied to both of them.

He wondered if she expected an offer.

And if she would accept were he to make one.

His guess was that the answer to both was a resounding no. Which made it safe to offer, he supposed, and somehow set himself in the right and appease his conscience.

Daft thought.

He took the option of saying nothing.

“How is your ankle?” he asked.

Idiot. Brilliant conversationalist.

“It is coming along slowly but surely,” she said. “I shall be careful not to do anything as reckless again.”

If she had been more careful a few days ago, she would have climbed safely past his hiding place, unaware that he was there, and he would not have spared her a thought since. Her life would be different. His would be.

And if his father had not died, he thought in some exasperation, he would still be alive.

“Your brother will send a carriage for you soon?” he asked.

It struck him suddenly that he could have offered to take her to Newbury Abbey himself and save her a few days at Penderris.

No. Bad idea.

“If he does not delay in sending it,” she said, “and I am sure he will not, then it may arrive the day after tomorrow. Or certainly the day after that.”

“You will be happy to be able to recuperate at home with your family about you,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, “I will.”

They were talking like a pair of polite strangers who did not have a whole brain between the two of them.

“You will go to London after Easter?” he asked. “For the Season?”

“I expect so,” she said. “My ankle will be healed by then. And you? Will you go to London too?”

“I will,” he said. “It is where I grew up, you know. My father’s house is there. My house now. My sister is there.”

“And you will want to look for a wife there,” she said.

“Yes.”

Good Lord! Had they really been intimate with each other on the beach in the cove less than an hour ago?

He cleared his throat.

“Gwendoline—” he began.

“Please,” she said, cutting him off. “Don’t say anything. Let us just accept it for what it was. It was … pleasant. Oh, what a ridiculous word to choose. It was far more than pleasant. But it is not anything to be commented upon or apologized for or justified or anything else. It just was. I am not sorry, and I hope you are not. Let us leave it at that.”

“What if you are with child?” he asked her.

She turned her head sharply and looked at him, clearly startled. He kept his eyes on the lane before them, looking steadily between the ears of the horse that trotted along ahead of the gig. Surely she had thought of that? She had the most to lose, after all.

“I am not,” she said. “I cannot have children.”

“According to a quack,” he said.

“I am not with child,” she said, sounding stubborn and a little upset.

He looked at her briefly.

“If you are,” he said, “you must write to me immediately.”

He told her where he lived in London.

She did not answer but merely continued to stare.

George and Ralph and Flavian must have been for a long ride. They were only just stepping out of the stable block as the gig approached. They all turned to watch it come.

“We have been to the cove,” Hugo said as he drew the horse to a stop. “It is always at its most picturesque at high tide.”

“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.