The Proposal: Number 1 in series (Survivors’ Club)
The Proposal: Chapter 16

Gwen danced the first two sets with her cousins. She was able to relax and make light conversation with them while keeping an eye upon Constance Emes. But there was nothing to worry about there. She was pretty and vivacious enough to attract more than enough partners even if she had nothing else to recommend her. But in fact there was much else. She had Lady Muir as her sponsor, and she was the sister of Lord Trentham, the famed hero of Badajoz. That fact buzzed quickly about the ballroom after it had been whispered in a few ears, probably, Gwen guessed, by her own relatives. And, perhaps most important of all, Miss Emes was rumored to be as rich as any of the most eagerly courted heiresses of the ton.

Gwen’s task for the rest of the evening would consist of nothing more onerous than screening the gentlemen who would vie to dance a set with the girl so that no blatant rakes or fortune hunters would be granted the favor. Constance danced the first set with Allan Grattin, youngest son of Sir James Grattin, the second with David Rigby, nephew through his mother of Viscount Cawdor, and the third with Matthew Everly, heir to a decent property and fortune of ancient lineage even though there was no title in the family. They were all perfectly respectable young gentlemen. The Earl of Berwick, one of the members of the Survivors’ Club, had bespoken the supper set with Constance though he was aware of the fact that she could not waltz until permitted to do so by one of the patronesses of Almack’s. Being seen in his company for that set, though, and during supper could do the girl nothing but good.

Gwen danced the third set with Lord Merlock, with whom she had been on amiable terms for the past two or three years and whom she had allowed to kiss her at Vauxhall last year. They smiled warmly at each other now, and he complimented her on her looks.

“You are the only lady of my acquaintance,” he said, “who actually gets younger each year. It will surely get to the point at which I will be accused of trying to rob the cradle.”

“How absurd,” Gwen said, laughing as the figures of the set separated them for a few moments.

After kissing her, he had asked her to marry him. She had said no without hesitation, and he had taken her rejection in good part. He had even chuckled at her prediction that he would probably be vastly relieved in the morning.

She wondered now if he had been relieved. She might have encouraged him to renew his courtship this year if she had not already invited Lord Trentham to do the same thing. She wished she had not done that. Although she did not know Lord Merlock very well, she was quite confident that he would be an agreeable husband. He was well bred and good-natured and mild mannered and—well, uncomplicated. If there were any skeletons in the cupboard of his life, she did not know of them. Though one never really did, did one?

Anyway, she had extended that invitation to Lord Trentham, and she was definitely not going to complicate her own life by stringing along two suitors at the same time.

Lord Trentham had left the ballroom ten minutes after the first set began. Gwen had known the moment of his leaving even though she had not been watching him directly. She had wondered if he would return. But of course he would. He had asked her to dance. Besides, he would want to keep an eye upon his sister.

He came back. Of course he did. And he did not even wait until the last moment before the fourth set began. He came to stand beside her as soon as the third set ended, and then he completely ignored her. He spoke instead to his sister, who was eager to give him an exhaustive account of every moment of the ball so far. She fairly bubbled over with excitement as she spoke. The girl knew nothing about fashionable ennui, Gwen thought—thank goodness. There was nothing more ridiculous than a young girl, fresh from the schoolroom and the country, decked out in virginal white, and looking bored and world-weary at yet another ball and yet another partner.

The Earl of Berwick joined them, and Miss Emes eyed his facial scar.

“You were an officer, my lord?” she asked. “And you knew Hugo in the Peninsula?”

“Alas, not, Miss Emes,” he said, “though I did know of him. There was not a soldier in the allied armies, from the generals on down to the newest recruit in the ranks, who did not know of Captain Emes, later Major Lord Trentham. He was what we all aspired to be and failed to become. We might all have hated him with a passion had he not been so dashed modest. I met him at Penderris Hall in Cornwall while we were both recovering from our war experiences, and I stood in speechless awe of him until he invited me not to be so daft. He did mention the existence of a sister. I am sure he must have. But he did not, the rogue, mention the fact that she was—and is—one of the loveliest ladies in the land.”

He had struck just the right tone with her. She gazed worshipfully at her brother for a few moments and then—with blushes—at Lord Berwick. How wonderful still to be so innocent, Gwen thought. He had spoken in such a way that the flattery appeared more kindly than flirtatious. His manner was almost avuncular, in fact, though he was surely only in his middle twenties.

He must have left his youth behind on a battleground in Spain or Portugal.

Lord Trentham was a silent member of the group, and he had still not even glanced Gwen’s way. She might have been exasperated had she not begun to understand him rather well. Ferocious and dour as he looked on the outside—and he looked both at this moment despite the fondness in his eyes when they rested upon his sister—he was very unsure of himself in a social situation. At a ton event, anyway. He might protest that he was middle-class and proud of it, and that might even be true. It probably was, in fact. But it was nevertheless true also that he was intimidated by the ton.

Even by her.

She had an unbidden memory of him wading out of the sea with unconscious grace in that cove at Penderris, water streaming from his almost naked body, his drawers clinging to his hips and thighs. And of his shedding those drawers later after he had carried her into the sea. He had not been intimidated by her then.

Couples were gathering on the ballroom floor for the waltz, and Lord Berwick bowed to Constance and extended a hand for hers.

“Shall we go in search of a glass of lemonade and a comfortable sofa from which we may observe the dancing?” he suggested. “Though it is probable that I will have eyes only for a certain nondancer.”

“Silly,” Constance said with a laugh as she set her own hand along the top of his.

Gwen watched them make their way toward the refreshment room and waited. She felt rather amused—and almost breathless with anticipation.

“I have waltzed on one occasion in my life,” Lord Trentham said abruptly, his eyes on the departing figure of his sister. “I did not squash my partner’s toes, and I did not go prancing off in one direction while she wafted gracefully in another. But my performance did incite laughter as well as derisive applause from everyone else present at that particular assembly.”

Oh, goodness. Gwen laughed and unfurled her fan.

“They must have been very fond of you,” she said.

His eyes snapped to hers and he frowned in incomprehension.

“Polite people,” she said, “do not laugh at someone or applaud him derisively unless they know he will understand their affection and join in their laughter. Did you laugh?”

He continued to frown at her.

“I believe I did,” he said. “Yes, I must have. What else could I do?”

She fanned her face and fell a little more deeply in love with him. How she would love to have seen that.

“And so,” she said, “you are now brimful of dread.”

“If you were to look down,” he said, “you would see that my knees are knocking. If there was not so much noise in the room, you would hear them too.”

She laughed again.

“I have danced three vigorous sets in a row,” she said, “and though my ankle is not aching, it will be if I do not use some common sense and rest it. I trust the Earl of Berwick. Do you?”

“With my life,” he said. “And with my sister’s life and virtue.”

“There is a balcony beyond the French windows,” she told him, “and a pretty garden below. It is not a very chilly evening. Walk out there with me?”

“I am probably depriving you of the pleasure of performing your favorite dance,” he said.

He was.

“I believe,” she said, “I will enjoy strolling with you more than I would waltzing with someone else, Lord Trentham.”

Unwise words indeed. She had not planned them. She was not a flirt. Or never had been, anyway. She had spoken the simple truth. But sometimes truths, even simple ones, were best kept to oneself.

He offered his arm and she slipped her hand through it. He led her across the floor and out onto the deserted balcony and down the steep steps to the equally deserted garden below. It was not totally dark, however. Small colored lanterns swung from tree branches and lit the graveled walks that meandered through flower beds bordered by low box hedges.

From the ballroom above came the strains of a lilting waltz.

“I must thank you,” he said stiffly, “for what you have done and are doing for Constance. I do not believe she could possibly be happier than she is tonight.”

“But I have been at least partly selfish,” she said. “Sponsoring her has given me great pleasure. And we have, I am afraid, spent a great deal of your money.”

“My father’s money,” he said. “Her father’s money. But will she be as unhappy in the near future as she is happy now? She surely cannot expect many more invitations to balls or other events, and she surely cannot expect any of the gentlemen dancing with her tonight to dance with her again. Her mother, Lady Muir, is sitting at home with her mother and sister. They make a modest living from a small grocery shop and hardly qualify even as middle-class people.”

“And she is the sister of Lord Trentham of Badajoz fame,” she said.

He turned his head to look at her in the near darkness.

“You probably have not even noticed that the ballroom is buzzing with your fame,” she said. “For years people have waited for some glimpse of you, and suddenly here you are. Some factors transcend class lines, Lord Trentham, and this is one of them. You are a hero of almost mythic proportions, and Constance is your sister.”

“That is the daftest thing I have ever heard in my life,” he said. “It is that drawing room at Newbury Abbey all over again.”

“And for your own part,” she said, “I suppose it would be enough to send you scurrying back to the country and your lambs and cabbages. But you cannot scurry, for you have your sister’s happiness to consider. And her happiness is of greater importance to you than your own.”

“Who says so?” he asked her, scowling.

“You have said so by your actions,” she said. “You have never needed to put it into words, you know, though you have come close on occasion.”

“Damnation,” he said. “God damn it all.”

Gwen smiled and waited for an apology for the shocking language. None came.

“Besides,” she said, “even apart from your fame, rumor is also making the rounds that Miss Emes is quite fabulously wealthy. A pretty and genteel young lady who is properly chaperoned will arouse interest anywhere, Lord Trentham. When she is also richly dowered, she is quite irresistible.”

He sighed.

There was a wooden seat at the far end of the garden beneath the shade of an old oak tree. It faced across the flower beds toward the lighted house. They sat down side by side, and for a few moments there was silence again. She would not be the one to break it, Gwen decided.

“I am supposed to be courting you,” he said abruptly.

She turned her head to look at him, but his face was in shadow.

“Not supposed to,” she said, “only invited if you wish to do so. And with no promise that your courtship will be favorably received.”

“I am not sure I do wish to,” he said.

Well. Blunt speaking as usual. She should be relieved, Gwen thought. But her heart seemed to have sunk down to the soles of her dancing slippers.

“I don’t think I want to court a murderess,” he said, “if that is what you are. Though why I should object, I do not know, since I could myself be accused of multiple murders without too much of a stretching of the truth. And I have entrusted my sister to your care.”

Well. So much for romance and light conversation suited to the festive occasion of a ball during the Season.

He had no more to say. There were a few more moments of silence between them. This time she was going to have to break it.

“I did not literally kill Vernon,” she said. “Neither did Jason. But I feel as if we both did. I feel that we caused his death, anyway. Or that I did. And my conscience will always be heavy with guilt. You would indeed do well not to court me, Lord Trentham. You carry around enough guilt of your own without having your soul darkened with mine. We both need someone to lift us free of such heaviness.”

“No one can do that for you,” he said. “Never marry with that hope. It will be dashed before a fortnight has passed.”

Gwen swallowed and smoothed her fan over her lap. She could see the shadows of dancers through the French windows in the distance. She could hear music and laughter. People without a care in the world.

A naïve assumption. Everyone had a care in the world.

“Jason was visiting, as he often did when he had leave,” she said. “I hated those visits as much as Vernon loved them. I hated him, though I could never explain quite why. He seemed fond enough of my husband and concerned about him. Though he did go too far at the end. Vernon was in the depths of one of his blackest moods and he had gone to bed early one night. He had excused himself from the dining table, leaving Jason and me together. How we ended up out in the hall talking instead of being still in the dining room I cannot remember, but that is where we were.”

It was a marbled hall, cold, hard, echoing, beautiful in a purely architectural sense.

“Jason thought Vernon should be committed to some sort of institution,” she said. “He knew of a place where he would get good care and where, with a bit of firm, expert handling, he would learn to pull himself together and get over the loss of a child who had never even been born. Vernon had always been a bit weak emotionally, he said, but he could be toughened up with the proper training. In the meantime, Jason would take a longer leave and manage the estate so that Vernon would be free of worry while he recovered his spirits and learned how to strengthen his mind. The army would have been good for him, he said, but that had always been out of the question because Vernon had succeeded to the title when he was fourteen. Even so, his guardians ought not to have been so soft with him.”

Gwen spread her fan across her lap, but in the darkness she could not see the delicate flowers painted there.

“I told him,” she said, “that no one was putting my husband in any institution. He was sick, but he was not insane. No one was going to handle him, firmly or expertly or any other way. And no one was going to strengthen his character. He was sick and he was sensitive, and I would nurse him and coax him into more cheerful spirits. And if he never got better, then so be it.”

She closed the fan with a snap.

“He had not gone to bed,” she said. “He was standing up in the gallery, without a light, looking down at us and listening to every word. We only knew he was there when he spoke. I can remember every word. My God, he said, I am not insane, Jason. You cannot believe I am mad. Jason looked up at him and told him quite bluntly that he was. And Vernon looked at me and said, I am not sick, Gwen. Or weak. You cannot think that. You cannot think that I need nursing or humoring. And that was when I killed him.”

Her fan was shaking on her lap. She realized that it was her hands that were shaking only when a large, warm, steady hand covered them both.

“Not now, Vernon, I said to him. I am weary. I am mortally weary. And I turned to walk to the library. I needed to be alone. I was very upset at what Jason had suggested, and I was even more upset that Vernon had overheard. I felt that a crisis point had been reached, and I was in no frame of mind to deal with it. I had my hand on the doorknob when he called my name. Ah, the anguish in his voice, the sense of betrayal. All in that one word, my name. I was turning back to him when he threw himself over the balustrade, and so I saw it from start to finish. I suppose it lasted for a second, though it seemed an eternity. Jason had his arms raised toward him as if to catch him, but it could not be done, of course. Vernon was dead before I could open my mouth or Jason could move. I do not believe I even screamed.”

There was a rather lengthy silence. Gwen frowned, remembering, something she almost never allowed herself to do of those moments. Remembering that there had been something puzzling, something … off. Even at the time her mind had not been able to grasp what it was. It was impossible to do so now.

“You did not kill him,” Lord Trentham said. “You know very well you did not. Depressed though Muir was, he nevertheless made the deliberate decision to hurl himself to his death. Even Grayson did not kill him. Yet I understand why you feel guilty, why you always will. I understand.”

It felt strangely like a benediction.

“Yes,” she said, “you of all people would know how guilt where there is no real blame can be almost worse than guilt where there is. There is no atonement to be made.”

“Stanbrook once told me,” he said, “that suicide is the worst kind of selfishness, as it is often a plea to specific people who are left stranded in the land of the living, unable for all eternity to answer the plea. Your case is similar in many ways to his. For one moment you were unable to cope with the constant and gargantuan task of caring for your husband’s needs, and for that momentary lapse he punished you for all time.”

“You put the blame upon him?” she said.

“Hardly,” he said. “I believe you that he was sick, that he could not simply pull himself free of his black moods, as Grayson seemed to think he could, especially with a bit of firm handling. I also believe you gave him your all—except when your all had drained you dry and for a moment you decided that you needed a little time to think and recover some strength so that you could give it to him again. I am not surprised that for seven years you have not looked for another marriage.”

She had turned one of her hands, she realized, so that it was clasped in his. Their fingers were laced. Her own was dwarfed. She felt curiously safe.

“Say my name,” she said almost in a whisper.

“Gwendoline?” he said. “Gwendoline.”

She closed her eyes.

“So often,” she said, “I hear only that other name, spoken over and over again in his voice. Gwen, Gwen, Gwen.”

“Gwendoline,” he said again. “Have you told this story to anyone else?”

“No,” she said. “And you cannot say this time, can you, that it is the house that has drawn such confidences from me. We are not at Penderris. It must be you.”

“You know instinctively,” he said, “that I will understand, that I will neither accuse you nor brush off your feelings of guilt as so much daftness. To whom do you feel closer than anyone else in the world?”

You, she almost said. But that could not be true. Her mother? Neville? Lily? Lauren?

“Lauren,” she said.

“Has she suffered?” he asked her.

“Oh, more than almost anyone I know,” she told him. “She grew up with us because her mother married my uncle and went off on a wedding trip from which they never returned. Her father’s people would have nothing to do with her, and her maternal grandfather would not take her. She grew up expecting to marry Neville, and she loved him dearly. But when he went to war, he married Lily secretly, thought the following day that she had been killed in an ambush, and came home without saying a word to any of us about her. His wedding to Lauren was planned. They were at the church in Newbury—it was packed with guests. She was about to walk down the aisle toward him and her happily-ever-after when Lily arrived, looking like a beggar woman. And so all Lauren’s dreams, all her sense of security, all her sense of self were destroyed again. It was a sheer miracle that she met Kit. Yes, she has suffered.”

“Then she is the ideal person for you,” he said. “Tell her.”

“About … what happened?” She frowned.

“Tell her everything,” he said. “Your sense of guilt will linger. It will always be part of you. But sharing it, allowing people to love you anyway, will do you the world of good. Secrets need an outlet if they are not to fester and become an unbearable burden.”

“I would not wish to burden her,” she said.

“She will not feel burdened.” He tightened his fingers about hers. “You think she imagines your marriage to have been perfect but blighted by tragedy. She probably believes, as others do, that you were the victim of abuse. You were a victim, but not exactly of abuse. She will be relieved to know the truth. She will be able to offer the comfort that I daresay you gave her during her far more public suffering.”

“The Survivors’ Club,” she said softly. “That is what they have done for you.”

“What we have done for one another,” he said. “We all need to be loved, Gwendoline, fully and unconditionally. Even when we bear the burden of guilt and believe ourselves to be wholly unworthy. The point is that no one is worthy. I am not a religious man, but I believe that is what religions are all about. No one is deserving, yet we are all somehow worthy of love anyway.”

Gwen lifted her gaze to the distant ballroom. Incredibly, everyone was still waltzing. The set had not yet ended.

“I do beg your pardon,” she said. “This is a social occasion. I ought to be helping you enjoy yourself, for you did not enjoy coming here and would not have done it if it had not been for your sister. I should be making you relax and laugh. I should be—”

She stopped abruptly. His free arm had come about her shoulders, and the hand that had been holding hers was loosely clasping her neck, her chin held firmly in the cleft between his thumb and forefinger. He lifted her chin and turned her head.

She could not see him clearly.

“Sometimes,” he said, “you say the daftest things. It must be the aristocrat in you.”

And he kissed her, his mouth firm on hers, warm, open. His tongue pressed into her mouth. She clasped his wrist and kissed him back.

It was not a brief embrace. Neither was it lascivious or even particularly ardent. But it was something she felt to the roots of her being. For, physical though it was, it was not about the physical. It was about … them. He was kissing her because she was Gwendoline, and he cared about her, warts and all. She was kissing him because he was Hugo and she cared about him.

After he had finished and had removed his hand from her chin in order to hold her hand in her lap again and she had tipped her head sideways to rest on his shoulder, she felt the soreness of unshed tears in her throat. For she was not, of course, in love with him. Or not just in love, anyway.

When had he become the sun and the moon to her, the very air she breathed?

And when had an impossibility become only an improbability?

She must not be swayed by romance. And perhaps that was all this was.

And the aftermath of her unburdening.

When had he grown so wise, so understanding, so gentle?

After he had suffered?

Was that what suffering was all about? Was that what it did for a person?

He moved his head and kissed her temple, her cheek.

“Don’t cry,” he murmured. “The dance must be almost at an end. And look, there is another couple out on the balcony and they are hovering at the top of the steps. We had better go in so that I can sit with Constance and Berwick at supper. So that we can sit with them.”

She lifted her head, dried her cheeks with the heels of her palms, and got to her feet.

“I still have to decide,” he said as she took his arm, “whether I want to court you or not. I’ll let you know. I am not sure I can bring myself to court a woman who limps.”

They were out from under the tree, and there was lamplight playing across his face when she looked up at him, startled.

He was not looking back at her. But there was a gleam of something in his eyes that might possibly be a smile.