The Proposal

“The paintings need to go.” She smiled at him. “Was the house fully furnished when you purchased it?”

“It was,” he said. “It was built by a man who, like my father, made his money in trade. He built it with all the best materials and furnished it with all the best furniture and never actually lived in it. He left it to his son when he died. But his son did not want it. He went off to America, to make his own fortune, I suppose, and left the house for an agent to sell.”

Sad, she thought.

“Just as I went off to war and left my own father,” he said.

“But you came back,” she reminded him, “and saw him before he died. You were able to assure him that you would take over from him and care for his business and his wife and daughter.”

“And I have just realized something else,” he said. “It would have broken his heart if I had been killed. So I am glad for his sake I did not die.”

“And for my sake?” she said.

He framed her face with his great hands and held it tilted up to his.

“I am not sure I am much of a gift,” he said. “What do you think of my family and Connie’s?”

“They are people,” she said. “Strangers who will become acquaintances, even perhaps friends during the coming days. They are not so very different from me, Hugo, and perhaps they will find that I am not so very different from them. I look forward to getting to know them all.”

“A diplomatic answer,” he said.

And perhaps a little naive, his expression seemed to say. Perhaps it was. Her life was as different as it could possibly be from that of Mavis Rowlands, for example. But that did not mean they could not enjoy each other’s company, find common ground upon which to converse. Or was that a naive belief?

“A truthful answer,” she said. “What about Mr. Tucker?”

“What about him?” he asked.

“He is not a relative,” she said. “Is there something between Constance and him?”

“I think there may be,” he said. “He owns the ironmonger’s shop next to her grandparents’ grocery. He is sensible and intelligent and amiable.”

“I like him,” she said. “Constance is going to have a wide variety of choices, is she not?”

“The thing is,” he said, “that she thinks your boys, the ones you introduce to her at balls and parties, are sweet, to use her word, but a bit silly. They do not do anything with their lives.”

“Oh, dear.” She laughed. “She has told you that too, has she?”

“But she is enormously grateful to you,” he said. “And even if she marries Tucker or someone else not of the ton, she will always remember what it felt like to dance at a ton ball and to stroll in the garden of an aristocrat. And she will remember that she might have married one of their number but chose love and happiness instead.” “And she could not find either with a gentleman?” she asked him.

“She could.” He sighed. “And indeed she may. As you say, she has choices. She is a sensible girl. She will choose, I believe, with both her head and her heart, but not one to the exclusion of the other.”

And you? she wanted to ask him. Will you choose with both your head and your heart? She said nothing but patted her hands against his chest.

“I am going to have to take you back to the house soon,” he said, “if you are to have any sort of rest before dinner. Why are we wasting our time talking?”

She gazed into his eyes.

He bent his head and kissed her openmouthed. She slid her hands to his shoulders and gripped them tightly. A wave of intense yearning, both physical and emotional, washed over her. This was his home. This was where he would spend much of the rest of his life. Would she be here with him? Or would this prove to be just a weeklong episode and nothing else? Not even a week, in fact.

He lifted his head and brushed his nose across hers.

“Shall I tell you my deepest, darkest dream?” he asked her.

“Is it suitable for the ears of a lady?” she asked in return.

“Not in any way whatsoever,” he said.

“Then tell me.”

“I want to have you in my bedchamber in my own house,” he said. “On my bed. I want to unclothe you a stitch at a time and love every inch of you, and make love to you over and over again until we are both too exhausted to do it anymore. I want to sleep with you then until we have our energy back and start all over again.”

“Oh, dear,” she said, “that really is unsuitable for my ears. I feel quite weak at the knees.”

“I am going to do it too,” he said, “one of these days. We are going to do it. Not yet, though. Not in the house, anyway. Not while I have guests. It would not be proper.”

Not in the house, anyway.

“It would not,” she agreed. “And Hugo? I cannot have children.”

Now why had she had to introduce reality into fantasy?

“You don’t know that,” he said.

“I did not conceive in that cove at Penderris,” she said.

“I mounted you once,” he said. “And I was not even trying.”

“But what if—?”

He kissed her again and took his time about it too. She slid her arms about his neck.

“That is the excitement of life,” he said when he was finished. “The not knowing. It is often best not to know. We don’t know that we will ever actually make love all night on my bed at the house here, do we? But we can dream about it. And I think it will happen. There will come the time, Gwendoline, when you will be drenched with my seed. And I think at least one of them will take root. And if it does not, at least we will have fun trying.”

She felt breathless again and considerably weaker about the knees. And she could hear the sound of children’s voices approaching from a distance. Typically of children, they all appeared to be talking—or, rather, yelling—at once.

“Explorers,” he said, “heading this way.”

“Yes,” she said and took a step back from him.

He offered his arm and she took it. And the world was the same place.

And forever different.

Hugo had worked hard during his years as a military officer, probably harder than most since he had so much to prove—to them, to himself. He had worked hard during the previous few weeks, learning the businesses again, taking the reins of control into his own hands, making it all his own. Yet it seemed to him during the course of the stay in the country that he had never worked harder than he did now.

Being sociable was hard work. Being sociable when one had all the responsibility of being host was infinitely harder. One had everyone’s enjoyment to see to. And it was not always easy.

He doubted he had ever enjoyed any week so much.

Providing entertainment was actually no trouble at all. Even a rather barren park was like a little piece of heaven to people who had lived their lives in London, and a very small piece of London at that, as was the case with Fiona’s relatives. And even to his own relatives, most of whom had traveled a little more widely, the chance to wander about in a private park for almost a whole week without the press of work and the continuous noises of a large city was a wonderful thing. And the house delighted everyone, even those who could see its shortcomings. Hugo, who had never been able to explain to himself what exactly was wrong with the house, now knew. His predecessor had furnished and decorated it all-in-one, probably using the services of a professional designer. It was expensive, it was elegant, and it was impersonal. It had never been lived in—not until he moved in last year, that was. Those of his guests who could see the problem amused themselves by wandering about endlessly and making