The Proposal: Number 1 in series (Survivors’ Club)
The Proposal: Chapter 8

The last two days had been sunny and springlike in all but temperature. Today that deficiency had more than corrected itself. The sky was a clear blue, the sun shone, the air was warm, and—that rarest of all weather phenomena at the coast—there was almost no wind.

It felt more like summer than spring.

Hugo stood alone outside the front doors, undecided what he would do for the afternoon. George, Ralph, and Flavian had gone riding. He had decided not to accompany them. Although he could ride, of course, it was not something he did for pleasure. Imogen and Vincent had gone for a stroll in the park. For no specific reason, Hugo had declined the invitation to join them. Ben was in the old schoolroom upstairs, a space George had set aside for him for the punishing exercises to which he subjected his body several times a week.

Ben had assured George that he would look in upon Lady Muir when he was finished and make sure she was not left alone for too long after the departure of her friend.

Hugo had agreed to see Mrs. Parkinson on her way in George’s carriage, and that was what he had just done. She had looked archly up at him and simpered and commented that any lady fortunate to have him beside her in a carriage would never feel nervous—not about the hazards of the road at least, she had added. Hugo had not taken the hint to play the gallant and accompany her to the village. He had drawn her attention instead to the burly coachman up on the box and assured her that he had never heard of any highwaymen being active in this part of the country.

What he really ought to do, he thought now, since he had almost deliberately isolated himself for the afternoon, was go down onto the beach, his favorite old haunt. The tide was on the way in. He loved to be close to the water, and he liked being alone.

He had not looked at Lady Muir just now when he had stepped into the morning room to escort her friend to the carriage. He had merely inclined his head vaguely in her direction.

It was really quite disconcerting how much two reasonably chaste kisses could discompose a man. And probably a woman too. She had not spoken to him before he escorted her friend from the room, and though he had not looked at her, he was almost certain that she had not looked at him either.

Ach, this was ridiculous. They were behaving like two gauche schoolchildren.

He turned and stalked back into the house. He tapped on the morning room door, opened it, and stepped inside without waiting for an invitation. She was standing at the window, propped on her crutches, gazing out. At least, he assumed she had been gazing out. She was now looking at him over her shoulder, her eyebrows raised.

“Vera has gone?” she asked him.

“She has.” He took a few steps closer to her. “How is your ankle?”

“The swelling has gone down considerably today,” she said, “and it is far less painful than it was. Even so, I cannot set the foot to the ground and would probably be unwise even to try. Dr. Jones was very specific in his instructions. I am annoyed with myself for allowing the accident to happen, and I am annoyed with myself for being so impatient to heal. I am annoyed with myself for being in a cross mood.”

She smiled suddenly.

“It is a lovely day,” he said.

“As I see.” She looked back out through the window. “I have been standing here trying to decide whether I will take my book and sit in the flower garden for a while. I can walk that far unassisted.”

“When the tide is coming in,” he said, “it cuts one part of the long beach off from the rest and makes a secluded, picturesque cove out of it. I have been there often when I simply want to sit and think or dream, or sometimes when I want to swim. It is a couple of miles along the coast but is still a part of George’s land. It is quite private. I thought I might go over there this afternoon.”

Actually he had not given a thought to the cove until he started to speak to her.

“It can be approached by gig,” he added, “and the cliff is not high there. The sands are quite easy to reach. Would you care to come with me?”

She maneuvered the crutches and turned to face him. She was just a little thing, he thought. He doubted the top of her head reached his shoulder. She was going to say no, he thought, half in relief. What the devil had prompted him to make such an offer anyway?

“Oh, I would,” she said softly.

“In half an hour?” he suggested. “You will need to go upstairs to get ready, I daresay.”

“I can go up alone,” she said. “I have my crutches.”

But he strode forward, relieved her of them, and swung her up into his arms before striding off in the direction of the stairs. He waited for a tirade that did not come. Though she did sigh.

He went back for her half an hour later, after informing Ben that he was taking her out for a drive and gathering the things they would need to take with them—a blanket for her to sit on, cushions for her back and her foot, and, as an afterthought, a large towel. He had also gone to the stables and carriage house and hitched a horse to the gig and brought it around to the front doors.

This, he thought, was not a good idea. But he was committed now. And he could not feel quite as sorry as he knew he ought. It was a lovely day. A man needed company when the sun shone and there was warmth in the air. Not that he had ever before entertained such a daft thought. Why would a sunny day make a man feel lonelier than he felt on a cloudy day?

He carried Lady Muir back downstairs and settled her in the gig before taking his place beside her. He gathered the ribbons in his hands and gave the horse the signal to start.

Spring was her favorite season, she had told him two days ago, full of newness and hope. Somehow today he could understand what she meant.

It was one of those perfect days in early spring that felt more like summer except for a certain indefinable quality of light that proclaimed an earlier season. And the green of the grass and leaves still held all the freshness of a new year.

It was the kind of day to make one rejoice just to be alive.

And it was the kind of day on which one could wish for nothing better than to be driving out in the air with an attractive man beside one. For some reason she could not quite fathom, and despite the nuisance of her sore ankle, Gwen felt ten years younger this afternoon than she had felt in a long while.

She ought not to be feeling any such thing. But, on the other hand, why not? She was a widow and owed allegiance to no man. Lord Trentham was unmarried and, at present at least, unattached. Why should they not spend the afternoon in each other’s company? Whom were they likely to harm?

There was nothing wrong with a little romance.

If she had brought a parasol with her, she would have twirled it exuberantly above her head. Instead, she played a sprightly tune on an invisible keyboard across her thighs before clasping her hands more quietly in her lap.

The gig proceeded a short way along the driveway in the direction of the village, but then it looped back behind the house along a narrower lane, which then ran parallel to the cliffs, in the opposite direction from the village. There was a patchwork quilt of brown, yellow, and green fields and meadows on the one side, the cultivated park of Penderris on the other. The sea, several shades deeper blue than the sky, was visible beyond the park. The air was fragrant with the smells of new vegetation and turned soil and the salty tang of the sea.

And with the faint musky odor of Lord Trentham’s soap or cologne.

It was impossible to keep her shoulder and arm from brushing against his on the narrow seat of the gig, Gwen discovered. It was impossible not to be aware at every moment of his powerful thighs alongside hers, encased in tight pantaloons, and of his large hands plying the ribbons.

He was wearing a tall hat today. It hid most of his hair and shaded his eyes. He looked less fierce, less military. He looked more attractive than ever.

Her physical response to his presence was a little unnerving since she had never really experienced it with any other man. Not even with Vernon. She had thought him gorgeously handsome and wondrously charming when they had first met, and she had tumbled very quickly and willingly into love with him. She had liked his kisses before they married, and she had often enjoyed the marriage bed after.

But she had never felt like this with Vernon or anyone else.

Breathless.

Filled with an exuberant energy.

Aware of every small detail with her senses. Aware that he was aware, though neither of them spoke during the journey. At first, she could not think of anything to talk about. Then she realized that she did not really need to talk at all and that the silence between them did not matter. It was not uncomfortable.

After a mile or two the lane sloped downward, and almost at the bottom of a long hill they turned onto an even narrower track in the direction of the sea. Soon even the track disappeared, and the gig bounced over coarse grass to the edge of the low cliff.

Lord Trentham got out to unhitch the horse and tether it to a sturdy bush nearby. He allowed it enough room to graze while they were gone.

He draped a blanket over his arm and handed her some cushions, as he had done when he took her into the garden two days ago, and he lifted her out and carried her down to the cove below along a narrow zigzagging path, across a gentle slope of pebbles, and onto flat golden sand. Long outcroppings of rock stretched out to the sea on either side of the small beach. It was indeed a private little haven.

“The coastline constantly surprises, does it not?” she said, breaking the long silence at last. “There are long, breathtakingly lovely stretches of beach. And sometimes there are little pieces of paradise, like this. And they are equally beautiful.”

He did not answer. Had she expected him to?

He carried her in the direction of a large rock planted firmly in the middle of the little beach. He took her around to the sea side of it and set her down on one foot, her back against the rock, while he spread the blanket over the sand. He took the cushions from her arms and tossed them down before helping her to sit on the blanket. He propped one cushion behind her back, plumped one beneath her right ankle, and folded the other beneath her knee. He frowned the whole while, as though his task required great concentration.

Was he regretting this? Had his invitation been impulsive?

“Thank you,” she said, smiling at him. “You make an excellent nursemaid.”

He looked briefly into her eyes before standing up and gazing out to sea.

There was not a breath of wind down here, she noticed. And the rock attracted the heat of the sun. It felt more than ever like a summer day. She undid the fastenings of her cloak and pushed it back over her shoulders. She was wearing just a muslin dress beneath it, but the air felt pleasantly warm against her bare arms.

Lord Trentham hesitated for a few moments and then sat down beside her, his back against the rock, one leg stretched out in front of him, the other bent at the knee, his booted foot flat on the blanket, one arm draped over his knee. His shoulder was a careful few inches away from her own, but she could feel his body heat anyway.

“You play well,” he said abruptly.

For a moment she did not understand what he was talking about.

“The pianoforte?” She turned her head to look at him. His hat had tipped forward slightly on his head. It almost hid his eyes and made him look inexplicably gorgeous. “Thank you. I am competent, I believe, but I have no real talent. And I am not angling for further compliments. I have heard talented pianists and know I could practice ten hours a day for ten years and not come close to matching them.”

“I suppose,” he said, “you are competent in everything you do. Ladies generally are, are they not?”

“The implication being that we are competent in much but truly accomplished in little and talented in even less?” She laughed. “You are undoubtedly right in nine cases out of ten, Lord Trentham. But better that than be utterly helpless and useless in everything except perhaps in looking decorative.”

“Hmm,” he said.

She waited for him to be the next to speak.

“What do you do for fun?” he asked.

“For fun?” That was a strange word to use to a grown woman. “I do all the usual things. I visit family members and play with their children. I attend dinners and teas and garden parties and social evenings. I dance. I walk and ride. I—”

“You ride?” he asked. “After the accident you had?”

“Oh,” she said, “I did not for a long while after. But I had always enjoyed riding, and not doing so cut me off from much interaction with my peers and much personal pleasure. Besides, I hate not doing something simply because I do not have the courage. Eventually I forced myself back into the saddle, and more recently I have even forced myself to encourage my mount to a pace faster than a crawl. One of these days I shall actually allow it to gallop. Fear must be challenged, I have found. It is a powerful beast if it is allowed the mastery.”

He was gazing with half-closed eyes at the incoming water. The sun was glinting off its surface.

“What do you do for fun?” she asked.

He thought about it for a while.

“I feed lambs and calves when their mothers cannot,” he said. “I work in the fields of my farm and particularly in the vegetable garden behind the house. I watch and somehow participate in all the miracles of life, both animal and vegetable. Have you ever smoothed bare soil over seeds and doubted you would ever see them again? And then a few days later you see thin, frail shoots pushing above the soil and wonder if they will ever have the strength and endurance to survive. And before you know it, you have a sturdy carrot or a potato the size of my fist or a cabbage that needs two hands to hold.”

She laughed again.

“And that is fun?” she asked.

He turned his head and their eyes met. His looked very dark beneath the brim of his hat.

“Yes,” he said. “Nurturing life instead of taking it is fun. It makes a man feel good here.” He patted a lightly closed fist against the left breast of his coat.

He was titled. He was very wealthy. Yet he worked on his own farms and toiled in his own vegetable garden. Because he enjoyed doing so. Also because it offered him some absolution for having spent his years as an officer killing men and allowing his own men to be killed.

He was not the hard, cold ex-military officer she had taken him for when they first met. He was … a man.

It was a thought that made her shiver slightly, though not from cold.

“How are you going to go about replaceing a wife?” she asked him.

He pursed his lips and looked away again.

“The man who manages my father’s business empire,” he said, “or mine, I ought to say, has a daughter. I met her when I went to London for my father’s funeral. She is very lovely, very well schooled in all the skills a woman would need to be the wife of a wealthy, successful businessman, very willing—as are her mother and father—and very young.”

“She sounds ideal,” Gwen said.

“And frightened to death of me,” he added.

“How old is she?” she asked.

“Nineteen.”

“Did you do anything to make her less frightened?” she asked. “Did you, for example, smile at her? Or at least not frown? Or scowl?”

He turned his eyes on her again.

“She was courting me,” he said. “Her parents were courting me. Why should I do the smiling?”

Gwen laughed softly.

“Poor girl,” she said. “Will you marry her?”

“Probably not,” he said. “Undoubtedly not, in fact. She would not be lusty enough for me. And my own lust would cool in a hurry if she were to cringe away from me in bed.”

Oh! He was deliberately trying to shock her. Gwen could see it in the hardness of his eyes. He thought she was mocking him.

“Then she will have had a happy escape,” she said, “even if she does not realize it. You need someone older, someone not easily intimidated, someone who will not cringe from your lovemaking.”

She looked deliberately back into his eyes as she spoke, even though it took a great deal of effort. She had no experience in this type of talk.

“I have relatives in London,” he told her. “Prosperous ones. Success in business seems to run in the family, though no one was quite as good at it as my father. They will be happy enough, I daresay, to introduce me to eligible women of my own sort.”

“Your own sort being middle-class women who may possibly derive fun out of getting soil beneath their fingernails,” she said.

“In my experience, Lady Muir,” he said, his eyes narrowing again, “middle-class women can be every bit as fastidious as ladies. Often more so, because for reasons I replace hard to understand many of them aspire to be ladies. I have no plan to put my wife to work after I marry her—not work in the fields or barn, anyway. Not unless she chooses to involve herself. I once commanded men. I have no wish now to command women.”

Ah. This was not turning into the relaxing, perhaps slightly romantic afternoon she had anticipated.

“I have offended you,” she said. “I am sorry. There will be any number of eligible women only too eager to be introduced to you, Lord Trentham. You are titled and wealthy, and you have a hero’s reputation. You will be considered a great prize. And some women may not even be daunted if you scowl at them.”

“You are clearly not daunted,” he said.

“No,” she said, “but you are not courting me, are you?”

The words seemed to hang in the air between them. Gwen was very aware of the sound of the incoming tide, of the crying of gulls far overhead, of the intense gaze of his eyes. Of the heat of the sun.

“No,” he said, and he got abruptly to his feet and leaned back against the rock, his arms crossing over his chest. “No, I am not courting you, Lady Muir.”

He only wanted to bed her.

And she wanted to bed him. Everything in her eyes and the tense lines of her body told him that though she would surely deny it, even to herself, if he were to confront her with the fact.

Which he was not about to do.

He had some sense of self-preservation.

Bringing her here had been a ghastly mistake. He had known it from the first moment, even before he had carried her from the morning room to get ready for the outing.

For someone who had some sense of self-preservation, he appeared to have even more of a tendency toward self-destruction.

A puzzling contradiction.

She did not break the silence. He could not. He could not think of a mortal thing to say. And then he thought of one thing he could at least do. And that thought gave him something to say.

“I am going for a swim,” he said.

“What?” She turned her head sharply and looked up at him. She looked startled, and then her face lit up with laughter. “You would freeze. It is March.”

Nevertheless.

He pushed away from the rock and tossed his hat down onto the blanket.

“Besides,” she said, “you did not bring a change of clothes.”

“I will not be wearing clothes into the sea,” he told her.

That arrested the smile on her face—and brought flaming color to her cheeks. But she laughed again as he lifted his right foot to haul off his Hessian boot.

“Oh,” she said, “you would not dare. No, ignore that, if you please. You certainly would not be able to resist a dare, would you? No self-respecting man of my acquaintance ever would. Remove your boots and stockings, then, and paddle at the edge of the water. I shall sit here and gaze enviously at you.”

But after removing his boots and stockings, he shrugged out of his coat—not an easy thing to do without the help of his valet. His waistcoat came next, and she licked her lips and looked slightly alarmed.

He unknotted his neckcloth and flung it down onto the pile of garments that was beginning to accumulate. He dragged his shirt free of the waistband of his pantaloons and pulled it off over his head.

The air was perhaps not quite as warm as it had felt when he was fully clothed, but he was heated from within. Anyway, it was too late to change his mind now.

“Oh, Lord Trentham.” She was laughing again. “Do spare my blushes.”

He hesitated for a moment. But he would look an utter idiot if he merely wet his feet after all this. And soggy pantaloons would be horribly uncomfortable during the return journey to the house in the gig.

He really had no choice.

He peeled off his pantaloons and was left standing only in his drawers. He would not withdraw those, he decided somewhat reluctantly, even though he had only ever swum naked before.

He strode down the beach without looking at her.

The water on his feet and then about his ankles and knees and thighs felt as if it had just flowed from beneath the ice cap at the North Pole. It took his breath away even before he was fully immersed. But there was one consolation. It would be the perfect antidote to an unwilling and quite inappropriate ardor.

He dived under a wave, thought he was dead of shock, discovered he was not, and swam outward until he was beyond the foam of the breakers. Then he swam with powerful overarm strokes parallel to the beach until he could feel his arms and legs again and his breath steadied and the water felt merely cold. He turned and swam back the way he had come.

He tried to remember how long it was since he had had a woman. Since he could not come up with a satisfactory answer, it was obviously far too long.