The Proposal

She said it without any conceit.

“I believe,” the girl added, “his pockets are rather to let, poor gentleman.”

“He would have been a very good match for you nevertheless,” Gwen said. “His grandfather on his mother’s side was a viscount. He is handsome and personable. He would have treated you well, I believe. But if you do not feel any deep affection for him, then none of those things matter and I can only congratulate you for having the courage to refuse your first offer.”

“If he had no money,” Constance said, “he might have some relative purchase a commission in the military for him or become a clergyman. Both are considered quite unexceptionable careers for the upper classes. He might be someone’s steward or secretary with only a little lowering of his pride. Marrying a rich wife is not his only option.”

“And that is what he was trying to do with you?” Gwen asked. “Did he admit as much?”

“He did when I pressed him,” Constance said. “And he was hardly embarrassed at all. He assured me that we had equal assets to bring to a marriage—money on my part, lineage and social standing on his. And he assured me, I believe truthfully, that he had an affection for me.”

“But you were not convinced it was an equal exchange?” Gwen asked.

The girl frowned and unfurled her own fan.

“Oh, I suppose it was,” she admitted. “But what would he do for the rest of his life, Lady Muir? He would have all my money with which to be idle, but … why? Why would any man choose to be idle?”

Gwen laughed.

“Mr. Grattin is coming to claim his set with you,” she said.

The girl smiled brightly at her approaching partner.

She had not mentioned Hugo. She did not mention him all week, and Gwen did not ask.

You will be hearing from me, he had said the last time she saw him. And she had expected to hear the next day or the day after.

More fool she.

And then she did hear. He sent a letter, which was beside her plate at breakfast one morning with a bundle of invitations.

“Constance’s grandparents will be celebrating the fortieth anniversary of their marriage in two weeks’ time,” he wrote. “These are my stepmother’s parents, the grocery shop owners. A cousin on my father’s side and his wife will be celebrating their twentieth a few days later. Both sides of the family have agreed to spend five days with me at Crosslands Park in Hampshire in order to celebrate the occasions. If you would care to join us, you may travel in the carriage with my stepmother and sister.”

There was no opening greeting, no personal message, no specific dates given, and no assurance at the end that he was her very obedient servant or any such courtesy. Just his signature, boldly scrawled but without any affectation. It was perfectly legible.

“Trentham.”

Gwen smiled ruefully down at the single sheet of paper.

Come to my world.

“Is it a joke you are able to share, Gwen?” Neville asked from his place at the head of the table.

“I have been invited to a five-day house party in the country in the middle of the Season,” she said.

“Oh, how lovely,” Lily said. “Whose?”

“Lord Trentham’s,” she said. “It is in celebration of two wedding anniversaries, one on his father’s side of the family and one on his stepmother’s. Both families will be there, at Crosslands Park in Hampshire, that is. And me if I care to go.”

They all looked at her in silent inquiry for a few moments as she folded the note carefully and set it back beside her plate.

“He wishes to introduce you to his family,” Lily said. “That is significant, Gwen. He is serious about you.”

“But it is a little strange,” Gwen’s mother said, “that he has invited only Gwen. Is he about to renew his addresses to you, Gwen?”

“On the contrary,” she said. “When he came here last week, it was to inform me that he had decided not to court me. He was horribly embarrassed by that scene at the Brittling garden party, you know, and feared that he had embarrassed me too.”

“Yet he has invited you to a house party?” her mother said. “And you are to be the only guest who is not a member of his family or his sister’s? And why would he come here to tell you that he was not going to court you?”

“I invited him to court me,” Gwen said with a sigh, “when he came to Newbury Abbey.”

“There!” Lily exclaimed. “I have been right all along. Admit it, Neville. Gwen and Lord Trentham are head over heels in love with each other.”

“Who are Mrs. Emes’s people?” Gwen’s mother asked.

“They are small shopkeepers,” Gwen said with a rueful smile. “His own people are successful businessmen. So is he. He is also a farmer on a small scale. His head, I believe, is with his businesses, but his heart is firmly with his lambs and chicks and other live-stock. And with his crops and garden.”

“And so,” Neville said, “having courted you for the first part of the Season, Trentham is now inviting you to court him for the second part, is he, Gwen? It makes some sense. You ought to know what it is you would be marrying into if you were to wed him.”

“There is no question of my marrying him,” she said.

“Is there not?” he said. “Then you will refuse his invitation?

Why subject yourself to the company of shopkeepers and businessmen, after all, if there is no serious purpose to it?”

“Gwen must not be pushed, Neville,” her mother surprised her by saying. “Clearly she has tender feelings for Lord Trentham just as he has for her. But theirs would be no easy or ordinary match—for either of them. He has acquitted himself well at ton gatherings, especially during that sordid episode at the garden party, for which he was in no way to blame. But he has never looked quite comfortable despite all his well-deserved fame. Gwen does not yet know how comfortable she would be in a gathering of his people, especially one that is destined to last for five days. How clever of him to think of that. Only the most hopeless romantic would be foolish enough to believe that a marriage concerns no one except the two people involved. It concerns a great deal beyond that, not least their families and the society with which they are accustomed to mingle.”

“You are quite right, Mother,” Lily said, gazing along the table at Neville. “But even so, it is the two people concerned who matter most. I dare not think what my life would be now if Neville had not fought for me when I believed a workable marriage between us was an impossibility.”

“There is no question of marriage between Lord Trentham and me,” Gwen said again.

Which was a ridiculous thing to say, of course. Why else had he invited her?

If you want me, Gwendoline, if you imagine that you love me and think you can spend your life with me, come to my world. You will find that wanting, even loving, is not enough.

And why was she thinking of accepting? No, she must be honest with herself. Why was she going to accept? Because she wanted him? Because she imagined that she loved him? Because she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him? Because she was determined to prove him wrong?

She did not imagine that she loved him.

“Then do not go,” Neville said.

“Oh, I am going,” she said.

Neville shook his head and half smiled. Lily clasped her hands to her bosom and beamed with delight. Gwen’s