“When did we first become friends?”
“I remember it so clearly. I was five and you were three. You fell and skinned your knee in the garden. You’d snuck away from your nanny and were outside when you weren’t supposed to be. I helped you up and escorted you to the manor.”
“Really? Is that it? I don’t recall the incident. How old would you say I was when I initially realized I was in love with you?”
He shifted uneasily. “You loved me?”
“Don’t be daft, my silly man. It probably flared when I was about twelve. That was when I noticed you in a whole new way.”
“Well . . .” He couldn’t deduce a reply, so he added nothing further.
“My mother demanded I wed Mr. Howell, and I thought I would die of a broken heart for the loss of you.”
In his opinion, she’d gotten over him quickly enough, but he didn’t mention it. “It was a difficult period, and you were always destined to be a bride for an oaf like him. Your mother wouldn’t have made any other choice for you.”
“Even then, even when I devastated you with my disregard, you were steadfast. Yet I took you for granted.”
“I didn’t mind.” He halted and frowned. “Let me retract that statement. I minded, but I understood your reasoning. You had to obey your mother.”
“Yes, I behaved like the dutiful daughter I’d been raised to be. I didn’t wish to ever be compared to my sister, Pamela. She eloped rather than heed my mother, and she’s been cut off from us ever since. I couldn’t have lived like that.”
“Pamela was more reckless than you, and after she’d caused such a furor, you couldn’t have done it too. It might have killed your mother to have both of you elope on her.”
“I agree, so I married Mr. Howell. It was my only genuine option, but I want you to comprehend that I paid for my sins against you. Every day I was wed, I paid.”
“Don’t share that kind of information with me. It’s too depressing.”
She squared her shoulders and shook off her moment of melancholy, then she said, “I’m a snob and an ingrate, and I constantly fret over how others view me. I have shrugged off your affection, and I have received much more devotion from you than I deserve.”
He smirked. “That’s all true.”
“I don’t have any money. My dowry was squandered by Mr. Howell, and I’ve come home to my brother with my hat in my hand like the worst beggar.”
“You’re lucky he opened the door to you,” he facetiously said.
“Ha! I slithered in before he arrived, and he was too polite to kick me out.”
“Where is this going, Margaret?” he inquired. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“I’m trying to tell you that I have loved you all my life. I’ve never stopped, and I’m an adult woman who can make her own choices. This is what I choose: Geoffrey Sanders, will you do me the honor of becoming my husband?”
He scowled ferociously, positive he’d misheard. “What did you just ask me?”
“Will you marry me?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Can’t you contemplate it for a minute? Why must that be your immediate answer?”
“Because it’s impossible.”
“Says who?”
“Says . . . everyone?” He was startled and completely flummoxed.
“When we separated years ago, we were little more than children. I obliged my mother by wedding the candidate she selected for me, but I’ve grown up, and my parents are deceased. No one will be allowed to pressure me ever again. I will decide, and I have decided that you should be my husband.”
“But . . . but . . . what would people think?”
“I don’t give two figs for any opinion but yours.”
“What about your brother? You may have determined that you’d like to shackle yourself to the hired help, but he would never let you.”
“He’d like me to be happy, and you will make me happy.”
“What about his fiancée? She’s more of a snob than you’ve ever dreamed of being. She most especially wouldn’t like it.”
“Of all the individuals in the world who get to order me about, she is so far down the list that she’s not even on the list.”
He chuckled, but miserably. It sounded so simple, as if they could flaunt society’s rules and finally be together, and it was amusing to realize how their stances had changed from when they were adolescents.
Back then, Sandy had begged her to run away with him, and initially, she’d promised she would, but reality had crashed down on them. He’d have been fired, and she’d have been disowned, so she’d submitted to her mother. Now here she was espousing his prior arguments.
It would have been humorous if it wasn’t so sad.
Yes, her parents were dead, but he couldn’t see that much else had been altered. Eons earlier, it had been declared that dissimilar people shouldn’t wed. There were too many obstacles to prevent a cohesive existence, but he hated for that to be true.
He yearned to marry her more than he’d ever wanted anything. Why couldn’t he have her? He’d loved her forever, and he supposed he would until he took his last breath. But so what? The fact that he loved her had no bearing on any aspect of it.
To his great consternation, she dropped to one knee and clasped hold of his hand, which stunned him. It was the man’s required role, but he was sitting like a bump on a log as she grew more absurd than she’d ever been.
“My dearest Sandy,” she said, “will you marry me?”
“Oh, Margaret . . .” He winced. “Don’t do this. It will kill me to refuse you.”
He attempted to pull away, but she simply tightened her grip. “Then don’t refuse. Why would you? A decade ago, we were boxed in by issues beyond our control, but we’re not now. We’re both widowed, and you have two boys who need a mother. I heartily toss myself at your feet and request that you let it be me.”
He hadn’t thought about his boys. Yes, they needed a mother, but how could it
