The Proposal

They had not been talking. It had seemed unnecessary to do so.

She had been feeling … safe.

“Oh?” she said. “Why, this time?”

“I am too important for you,” he said. “I am the hero of Badajoz.”

She smiled. It was the first time he had spoken voluntarily about that episode in his life. And he had made a joke of it.

“Alas,” she said, “it is too true. But I draw consolation from the fact that you are too important for anyone. You must marry someone, however. You are a lusty man but far too important to frequent—”

Oh, dear, she was not made for this kind of banter.

“Brothels?” he said.

“Well,” she said, “you are too important. And if you must marry, then it follows that you must also court the lady of your choice.”

“No,” he said. “I am too important for that. I merely have to crook my finger and she will come running.”

“Fame has not made you conceited by any chance?” she asked him.

“Not at all,” he said. “There is nothing conceited about acknowledging the truth.”

She laughed softly, and when she looked up at him, she saw what might be a smile lurking about the corners of his lips. He had been trying to make her laugh.

“Do you plan,” she asked, “to crook your finger at me?”

There was a rather lengthy pause before his answer while they crossed the road and he tossed a coin to the young crossing sweeper who had cleared a pile of steaming manure out of their path.

“I have not decided,” he said. “I will let you know.”

Gwen smiled again, and they entered the park.

They walked past the fashionable area, where crowds were still driving or riding or walking, though they did not linger there. Even so, their arrival was noticed with far more interest than she alone would have drawn, Gwen thought, and numerous people called out to them or even stopped for a brief exchange of greetings. Both of them were delighted to see the Duke of Stanbrook riding with Viscount Ponsonby. The duke invited them to take tea with him the following afternoon. Constance Emes waved cheerfully from Mr. Hind’s barouche some distance away.

But they strolled onward rather than walk the circuit like everyone else, and passed far fewer vehicles and pedestrians.

“Tell me about your stepmother,” she said.

“Fiona?” He looked at her in some surprise. “My father married her when I was thirteen. She was working at a milliner’s shop at the time. She was extremely beautiful. He married her within a week or two of meeting her—I did not even know about her until he announced abruptly one day that he was getting married the next. It was a nasty shock. I suppose most lads, even thirteenyear-olds, imagine that their widowed fathers loved their mothers so dearly that they could never again even look at another woman with desire. I was fully prepared to hate her.”

“And did forever after?” she said, nodding to a trio of gentlemen who passed them and tipped their hats to her and glanced at Hugo in open awe. He seemed unaware of their existence.

“I like to think I would have recovered some common sense,” he said. “I had had my father to myself most of my life and I adored him, but I was thirteen and already knew that my life did not revolve about him. But it was soon obvious that she was horribly bored. It was obvious why she had married him, of course. I suppose there is nothing too terribly wrong in marrying a man for his money. It is done all the time. And I don’t think she was ever unfaithful, though she would have been with me a few years later if I had allowed it. I went off to war instead.”

“That was your reason for going?” She looked up at him, her eyes wide.

“The funny thing was,” he said, “that I could never bear to kill even the smallest, ugliest creature. I was forever carrying spiders and earwigs out of the house to set them on the doorstep. I was forever rescuing mice from traps on the rare occasions when they were still alive. I was forever bringing home birds with broken wings and stray dogs and cats. For a while my cousins used to annoy me by calling me the gentle giant. And I ended up killing men.”

Much was explained, Gwen thought. Ah, much was.

“Is your stepmother not close to your uncles and aunts and cousins?” she asked.

“She felt inferior to them,” he said, “and consequently believed they despised her. I do not believe they did. They would have loved her and welcomed her into the fold if they had been given the opportunity. They all came from humble origins, after all. She cut herself off from her own family in the belief, I suppose, that they would drag her down from the level she had reached by marrying my father. I went to call on them a week ago. They have never stopped loving her and longing for her. Incredibly, they do not seem to resent her. Her mother and her sister have spent some time with her already, and this morning her mother brought her two young grandchildren, Fiona’s nephews. There are still her father and brother and sister-in-law to be met, but I am hopeful that it will happen. Perhaps Fiona will get her life back. She is still relatively young, and she still has her looks.”

“You do not still hate her?” she asked as he moved her off to the side of the path for an open carriage that was coming toward them.

“It is not easy to hate,” he said, “when one has lived long enough to know that everyone has a difficult path to walk through life and does not always make wise or admirable choices. There are very few out-and-out villains, perhaps none. Though there are a few who come very close.”

They both looked up at the occupants of the carriage, which had slowed to pass them.

It was Viscountess Wragley with her younger son and daughterin-law. Gwen always felt desperately sorry for Mr. Carstairs, who was thin and pale and apparently consumptive. And for Mrs. Carstairs, who always looked discontented with her lot in life but was always at her husband’s side. Gwen did not know either well, since they avoided most of the more vigorous entertainments of the Season.

She smiled up at them and bade them a good afternoon.

The viscountess inclined her head regally. Mrs. Carstairs returned Gwen’s greeting in a listless voice. Mr. Carstairs did not speak. Neither did Lord Trentham. But Gwen became suddenly aware that the two men were gazing at each other and that the atmosphere had become inexplicably tense.

And then Mr. Carstairs leaned over the side of the carriage.

“The hero of Badajoz,” he wheezed, his voice filled with contempt. And he spat onto the ground, well clear of the two of them.

“Francis!” the viscountess exclaimed, her voice coldly shocked.

“Frank!” Mrs. Carstairs wailed.

“Move on, coachman,” Mr. Carstairs said, and the coachman obeyed.

Gwen stood frozen in place.

“The last time I saw him,” Lord Trentham said, “he spat directly at me.”

She turned her head sharply and looked into his face.

“Mr. Carstairs was the lieutenant you told me about?” she asked. “The one who wanted you to abort the attack on the fortress?”

“He was not expected to live,” he said. “He obviously had massive internal injuries as well as plenty of outer ones. He was coughing blood and a lot of it. He was sent home to die. But somehow he lived.”

“Oh, Hugo,” she said.

“His life is ruined,” he said. “That is obvious. It must be doubly difficult for him now to know that I am here and that I am being greeted as a great hero. He is as great a hero, if that word applies to either of us. He wanted to abort the charge, but he followed when I led onward.”

“Oh, Hugo,” she said again, and for a moment she rested the side of the bonnet against his sleeve.

He did not move them back onto the path but instead led her across an expanse of grass toward a line of ancient trees and among them along a far narrower path that was quite deserted.

“I am sorry you were exposed to that,” he said. “I shall escort you home if you wish and stay away from you in future. You may take Constance to the garden party and those other two places if you will be so good—or not, if you choose. You have already done a great deal for her out of the kindness of your heart.”

“Does this mean,” she asked him, “that you will never crook your finger at me?”

He turned his head and looked down at her, as grim a soldier as she had ever seen.