The Proposal: Number 1 in series (Survivors’ Club)
The Proposal: Chapter 19

I have decided,” Lord Trentham said. “I am not going to court you.”

Gwen picked up her embroidery without really realizing she was doing so, and began to stitch. She had been about to say, Is it for certain this time? But there was nothing in his face that suggested he might be inviting some verbal sparring from her.

He had arrived at the house just as she was about to leave with Lily and her mother. They were going to make a round of afternoon calls with Lauren. Neville was at the House of Lords.

“Very well,” she said.

He was standing in the middle of the drawing room, in his usual military stance, though she had invited him to be seated. He was glowering. She knew he was. She did not have to lift her head to confirm the fact.

“If you would be so good as to escort Constance to the remaining entertainments she has agreed to attend,” he said, “I would be grateful to you. But it does not matter if you feel you cannot do it. She has begun to understand that the world of the ton is not necessarily the promised land.”

“I will certainly do that,” she said. “And she may accept more invitations too if she wishes. I will be happy to continue to sponsor her. There is no such place as the promised land, but it would be foolish to reject even an unpromised land as worthless without first inspecting it thoroughly. She has taken well with the ton and can expect to make a perfectly respectable match with a gentleman of her choosing if she should so desire.”

He stood there looking down at her, and she wished she had not picked up her embroidery. She had to concentrate hard to keep her hand steady. And her green silk thread, she noticed, was filling in the broad petal of a rose instead of the leaf on its stem. The other petals were a deep rose pink.

She decided she would not be the one to break the silence.

“I daresay,” he said, “your family had a thing or two to say about your allowing yourself to be caught up in that unseemly scene yesterday.”

“Let me see.” She held the thread above her work for a moment. “My brother was in favor of slapping a glove across Jason’s face and calling him out for the insult he so publicly dealt me—and himself. But Lily persuaded him that it would be a far worse punishment for a man like Jason to be soundly ignored. My cousin Joseph also wanted to call him out, but Neville told him that he must stand in line. Lily suggested that we add Mrs. Carstairs to our list of ladies to be called upon this afternoon, since her husband did something extraordinary yesterday and the lady always looks so desperately lonely anyway. Mama said that she had never been more proud of me than when I told Jason that I chose my own companions—and when I took your arm after the Duke of Bewcastle invited us to join him and the duchess for tea. She added that as far as she could see, I chose my companions both wisely and well. Lauren told me that after watching you take that verbal assault with such stoic dignity, she suspected every unmarried lady within hearing range and a few married ones too fell head over ears in love with you. Elizabeth, my aunt, thought it must have been very painful for me to watch Viscount Muir, the man who succeeded to my husband’s title, behave so badly in public. At the same time she thought I must be proud of how my chosen companion conducted himself with such dignity and restraint. She considers you a true British hero. The duke her husband believes that rather than tarnishing your fame, Jason’s vicious lies and their exposure by Mr. Carstairs have actually enhanced it. Shall I continue?”

She attacked her embroidery with renewed vigor.

“Your name will be on lips all across London today,” he said. “It will be coupled with mine. I am sorry about it. But it will not happen again. I shall stay in town awhile longer for Constance’s sake, but I will remain in my own proper milieu and among my own people. Society gossip, I have heard, soon dies down when there is nothing new to feed it.”

“Yes,” she said, “you are quite right about that.”

“Your mother will be relieved,” he said, “despite what she said to you yesterday. So will the rest of your family.”

She had finished embroidering the green rose petal. She did not finish it off. It would be easier to unpick later if she did not. She threaded her needle through the linen cloth and set it aside.

“I suppose that somewhere in the world,” she said, “there is someone else with as great a sense of inferiority as you possess, Lord Trentham, though it must surely be impossible that there is anyone with a greater sense.”

“I do not feel inferior,” he said. “Only different and realistic about it.”

“Poppycock,” she said inelegantly.

She glared up at him. He scowled back.

“If you really wanted me, Hugo,” she said, “if you really loved me, you would fight for me even if I were the queen of England.”

He stared back at her. His jaw line was granite again, his lips a hard, thin line, his eyes dark and fierce. She wondered for a moment how she could possibly love him.

“That would be daft,” he said.

Daft. One of his favorite words.

“Yes,” she said. “It is daft to believe that you could possibly want me. It is daft to imagine that you could ever love me.”

He resembled nothing more than a marble statue.

“Go away, Hugo,” she said. “Go, and never come back. I never want to see you again. Go.”

He went—as far as the door. He stood with his hand on the knob, his back to her.

She glared at his back, buoyed by hatred and determination. But he must go soon. He must go now. Please let him go now.

He did not go.

He lowered his hand from the knob and turned to face her.

“Let me show you what I mean,” he said.

She looked back at him, uncomprehending. Her hands were all pins and needles, she realized. She must have been clasping them too tightly.

“This has all been a one-way thing,” he said. “Right from the start. At Penderris you were in your own world, even if you did feel awkward at landing there uninvited. At Newbury Abbey you were in your own world and among your own family, not a single one of whom, I noticed, was without a title. Here you have been right in the center of your world—in this house, on the fashionable circuit in Hyde Park, at the Redfield House ball, at the garden party yesterday. I am the one each time who has been expected to step into a world that is not my own and prove myself worthy of it so that I can aspire to your hand. I have done that—repeatedly. And you criticize me for not feeling at home in it.”

“For feeling inferior,” she said.

“For feeling different,” he insisted. “Does there not seem something a bit unfair about it all?”

“Unfair?” She sighed. Perhaps he was right. She just wanted him to go and be done with it. He was going to go eventually anyway. It might as well be now. Her heart would be no less broken a week from now or a month.

“Come to my world,” he said.

“I have been to your house and met your sister and your stepmother,” she reminded him.

He looked steadily at her, without any relaxing of his expression.

“Come to my world,” he said again.

“How?” She frowned at him.

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

Her eyes wavered and she looked down at her hands. She stretched her fingers in an effort to rid them of the pins and needles. It was true. He had been the one to do all the adapting so far. And he had done well. Except that he was uncomfortable and unsure of himself and unhappy in a world that was not his own.

She would not ask how again. She did not know how. Probably he did not either.

“Very well,” she said, looking up again, glaring at him defiantly, almost with dislike. She did not want her comfortable world to be rocked more than it already had been by meeting and loving him.

Their eyes continued to do battle for a few silent moments. Then he bowed abruptly to her, and his hand came to rest on the knob of the door again.

“You will be hearing from me,” he said.

And he was gone.

While Gwen and Lily had been on Bond Street this morning, they had met Lord Merlock and had stood talking with him for a while before he offered to take them to a nearby tea shop for refreshments. Lily had been unable to accept. She had promised her children that she would be home in time for an early luncheon before they all went to the Tower of London with Neville. But Gwen had accepted. She had also accepted an invitation to share his box at the theater this evening with his four other guests.

She was still going to go. She was going to do her best to fall in love with him.

Oh, how absolutely absurd. As if one could fall in love at will. And how unfair to Lord Merlock if she were to flirt with him as a sort of balm to her own heartbreak without any regard whatsoever for his feelings. She would go as his guest, and she would smile and be amiable. Just that and no more.

How she wished, wished, wished she had not taken that walk along the pebbled beach after her quarrel with Vera. And how she wished that having done so, she had chosen to return by the same route. Or that she had climbed the slope with greater care. Or that Hugo had not chosen that morning to go down onto the beach himself and then to sit up on that ledge just waiting for her to come along and sprain her ankle.

But such wishes were as pointless as wishing the sun had not risen this morning or that she had not been born.

Actually, she would hate not to have been born.

Oh, Hugo, she thought as she picked up her embroidery again and looked in despair at the lovely silky green petal of her pink rose.

Oh, Hugo.

Gwen neither saw nor heard from Hugo for a week. It felt like a year even though she filled every moment of every day with busy activity and sparkled and laughed in company more than she had done in years.

She acquired a new beau—Lord Ruffles, who had raked his way through young manhood and early middle age and had arrived at a stage of life perilously close to old age before deciding that it was high time to turn respectable and woo the loveliest lady in the land. That was the story he told Gwen, anyway, when he danced with her at the Rosthorn ball. And when she laughed and told him that he had better not waste any more time, then, in replaceing that lady, he set one slightly arthritic hand over his heart, gazed soulfully into her eyes, and informed her that it was done. He was her devoted slave.

He was witty and amusing and still bore traces of his youthful good looks—and he had no more interest in settling down, Gwen guessed, than he had in flying to the moon. She allowed him to flirt outrageously with her wherever they met during that week, and she flirted right back, knowing that she would not be taken seriously. She enjoyed herself enormously.

She took Constance Emes with her almost everywhere she went. She genuinely liked the girl, and it was refreshing to watch her enjoy the events of the Season with such open, innocent pleasure. She had acquired a sizable court of admirers, all of whom she treated with courtesy and kindness. She surprised Gwen one day, though.

“Mr. Rigby called this morning,” she said at the Rosthorn ball. “He came to offer for me.”

“And?” Gwen looked at her with interest and fanned her face against the heat of the ballroom.

“Oh, I refused him,” Constance said as if it were a foregone conclusion. “I hope I did not hurt him. I do not believe I did, however, though he was understandably disappointed.”

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 replace 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 mother reached out and patted her hand though she made no additional comment.

“I am taking Sylvie and Leo to the park this morning while Neville is at the House,” Lily said. “Come with us? I can take the baby too if you do. You can do all the running after balls. It seems they will never learn how to catch them.” She laughed.

“Of course I’ll come,” Gwen said, getting to her feet. “Perhaps they cannot catch, poor things, because their mother cannot throw. Aunt Gwen to the rescue.”

For three years Hugo had jealously guarded his privacy in the country, first at his cottage and then at Crosslands. It was his own domain, his refuge from the tumult of the world. He had never invited anyone to stay, even his fellow members of the Survivors’ Club, and he had only rarely invited neighbors for dinner and cards.

But things had changed.

Actually, everything had changed.

Come to my world, he had said to Gwendoline. And suddenly he had ached with the need to give her the chance to do just that, not for a mere afternoon of tea and conversation or an evening of tea and cards, but for … well, for a long enough spell that she would know what it felt like to be out of her own comfortable domain.

You will replace that wanting, even loving, is not enough.

And he felt the desperate hope, the need to be proved wrong.

He could and would mingle with her world whenever it was necessary to do so, provided he could keep the reins of his businesses in his own hands and retreat to the country for several months of each year. But could she mingle with his world? More important, would she? Or, like Fiona, would she ignore them if they were to marry, pretend they did not exist?

He would not be able to bear that.

His family was important to him despite the fact that he had neglected them for years. He had rediscovered them lately, and he was not going to let them go again. Or marry a wife who would ignore them. And he had discovered Fiona’s family and liked them even though they were not related to him in any way. They were Constance’s family, though.

He had known about the upcoming anniversaries for a while. And he had been toying with the idea of inviting both families to Crosslands for a short time during the summer. It could not be for long. These were working people who could not afford to take lengthy holidays.

But why not invite everyone to Crosslands for the actual anniversaries? Why wait until summer? The possibility popped into his mind during the week following his last visit to Gwendoline. When he had told her she would hear from him, he had not known what she would hear. And when he had invited her to come to his world, he had not known quite how it was to be done.

But then he had known.

And everything had worked out wonderfully well. Despite the short notice, everyone was able to make arrangements to be away from their work for a week. And everyone was excited at the prospect of seeing his large country estate and being together there and celebrating two such grand events.

The only thing that remained to be seen was whether Gwendoline would be able to leave London in the midst of all the activities of the Season. And whether she would wish to. And whether she would.

It did not matter anyway, he told himself. He wanted to go for the sake of his family. It was time that he opened the whole of his life to them. And Crosslands and all he had there were a large and significant part of his life.

If Gwendoline could not come or would not, then that would be the end of it. He would not try to see her again, and he would put the pieces of his heart back together and move forward with his life. If she did come, on the other hand …

But he could not, would not think beyond that. He had told her that wanting, even loving, would not be enough for them. He was not sure he believed that. But he did not not believe it either.

And then he had a brief note from her, accepting his invitation.

His house, he remembered then, was like a barn. Although it was fully furnished, he had only ever used three rooms of it. The others were permanently shut up and covered in dust sheets. His servants could easily manage those three rooms and cater to his needs when he was there, but they would be quite overwhelmed by a house party. His stables and carriage house were well managed by a groom and his young helper. They would need more help, though, when a whole cavalcade of carriages and their attendant horses descended upon Crosslands. His park was barren, his flower garden bare soil.

Was there enough bed linen? Were there enough towels?

Enough dishes and cutlery?

Where would all the extra food come from? And who was going to cook it all?

But Hugo was not his father’s son for nothing. He advertised for a butler and chose with care from the seven applicants. After that, everything was taken out of his hands and he was made to understand that any interference on his part was neither necessary nor welcome. His new butler was a man after Hugo’s own heart.

Even so, he went into the country several days before his guests were due to arrive. He wanted to see what his house looked like without the dust sheets. He wanted to see what the gardeners the butler had hired had done with the park on such short notice. He wanted to make sure that the guest chamber with the best view had been assigned to Gwendoline.

Everything looked quite respectable, he was relieved and impressed to replace, and the butler had turned into a tyrant of efficiency, who demanded hard work and perfection of everyone and got both—as well as total devotion, even from the staff members who had been with Hugo for longer than a year and might have resented the newcomer.

The day when everyone was to arrive was fine though not sunny. And everyone made good time. But that was to be expected of people who were up at dawn every day to work instead of sleeping off the excesses of the night before until noon.

Hugo greeted everyone as they came and turned them over to the care of his housekeeper.

And at last he saw his own carriage approaching the house and felt an uncomfortable lurching of his stomach. What if she had decided after all not to come? Or what if she had so not enjoyed the company of Fiona and Constance and Philip Germane, his uncle on his mother’s side, that she would insist upon returning to town without further ado?

No, she would not do that. She had the manners of a perfect lady.

The carriage drew to a halt before the house, and he opened the door and set down the steps. Fiona came first, looking far less wan than Hugo had expected. Indeed, she looked considerably younger than she had when he first arrived in London.

Then came Gwendoline, dressed in varying shades of blue, and succeeding in looking as fresh as if she had just stepped out of her boudoir. She looked into his eyes as she set her gloved hand in his.

“Lord Trentham,” she said.

“Lady Muir.”

She descended the steps. He always forgot about her limp when he was not with her. She did not smile. Neither did she glower.

And then Constance was out of the carriage, helped by his uncle, and was demanding to know if everyone else had arrived and where everyone was.

“We will all be gathering in the drawing room for tea in half an hour or less,” Hugo said. “Fiona and Connie, the housekeeper will show you to your rooms. You too, Philip.”

He shook his uncle warmly by the hand.

And then he turned back to Gwendoline and extended an arm to her.

“Allow me to show you to your room,” he said.

“I merit special treatment?” She raised her eyebrows as she took his arm.

“Yes,” he said.

His heart was beating in his chest like a drum.