However it was, no matter how much he was rationalizing instead of using plain common sense, he had come. He had sought her out, and he had told her quite baldly why he had come.
I came back here to offer you marriage, Miss Muirhead.
But he had said it only after she had had her own say on the subject.
I have had time to reflect upon what I suggested, and I have changed my mind. It was nothing but foolish impulse. I have forgotten it.
He liked her the better for her spirited words, for thumbing her nose at him to all intents and purposes. He liked her better for the fact that her chin had jutted upward and an almost martial gleam had lit her eyes.
“Why?” she asked him now.
It sounded like a challenge.
5
Chloe’s hands were still clasped behind her back. Tightly. For some reason the third finger of each hand was crossed over the forefinger.
“I have to marry,” he said in answer to her question. “Given that fact, I would rather it be to someone who neither expects nor craves what I cannot give. I can give my name with all it entails at the present and promises for the future, and I can offer security and respectability and protection. I can give a home and children. Indeed, the latter is what I will work most diligently to give. But you know all this. I can offer all the material benefits of my wealth and position. I will allow you freedom within the bounds of respectability. I will not, however, give love or romance or even a feigned affection I do not feel, though I will show unwavering respect and courtesy. You informed me a few mornings ago that you wish to be married, to have a secure home of your own, to have children of your own. You informed me that you have no wish for any emotional bond within marriage. Is this correct, Miss Muirhead?”
His eyes and his voice were quite devoid of emotion. Yet he was speaking of marriage—his own and hers. He could not have made it sound more impersonal if he had tried. But of course she was the one who had started it all. She had overheard what he said to his grandmother, and, remembering his words during the night that followed, she had seen the faint chance of improving her situation.
Improving?
I will not, however, give love or romance or even a feigned affection I do not feel.
What had happened to him? He had not been like this when he was a boy at school. Graham had always described him as a vibrant, charismatic figure, as a passionate leader everyone wanted to follow.
“Yes,” she said, matching the tone of her voice to his, “it is correct.”
“Then I offer you marriage,” he said.
Just like that. With a simple yes she could be a wife and mother. She could have a home of her own, the security and respectability of being a married lady. Never again, even if he predeceased her, would she feel essentially homeless and rootless and without identity. She would be Chloe Stockwood, Countess of Berwick. She would discover what it felt like to be with a man. For years she had wondered and ached with the secret and very unladylike longing to find out.
Then I offer you marriage.
She closed her eyes and wondered if being married under such bleak circumstances would actually be worse than remaining as she was. But how could it? Nothing could be worse . . .
I will allow you freedom within the bounds of respectability.
Did that mean what she thought it meant? And did it presuppose that he would take a similar freedom for himself? Would she be able to bear it?
She thought briefly of the dreams of romance and love and marriage with which she had embarked upon her come-out Season at the advanced age of twenty-one. And of the ghastly awakening that had killed those dreams. Reality was preferable. With this marriage she would at least know ahead of time just what to expect—and what not to expect. There would be no surprises and therefore no emotional ups and downs. There were always far more downs than ups when one allowed oneself to be caught up in emotion.
“A home?” she said, opening her eyes to look at him again. “In the country?”
“Elmwood Manor in Wiltshire is mine,” he said. “It is a sizable manor surrounded by a pleasingly landscaped park. I have not spent a great deal of time there since my boyhood, but I intend to change that—after my marriage.”
“You would live there in the spring?” she asked. “As well as in the summer and winter?”
“Neither London itself nor the spring Season holds any great appeal for me,” he told her. “I would be happy to avoid both. Once I am married I will be able to do just that. I wish for a wife for my home and a mother for my children, not for a hostess for my social life. I would never compel you to go where you had no wish to go.”
She almost asked him to promise. But a gentleman’s word was promise enough.
“Very well, then.” She gazed steadily at him while her fourth and little fingers crossed behind her back too. “I accept.”
He did not smile or toss his hat exuberantly skyward. Indeed, he looked almost menacing, with his hat’s brim shading his eyes and the scar slashing diagonally across his face. And he looked very large, perhaps because he was standing slightly higher on the slope of the lawn than she. Had she really just agreed to marry this morose stranger?
“I have brought a special license with me,” he said.
If he had closed one hand into a fist and driven it into her stomach she could not have felt more robbed of breath. She could not possibly be ready . . .
But what was there to wait or prepare for?
“My father?” she said. “Your mother?”
Oh, and a million other persons and considerations. A wedding outfit. Bride clothes. A church and invitations. A wedding breakfast. Betrothal notices. Time to think. None of which was essential. This was to be a marriage of necessity for him, a marriage of great convenience to her. It was not a match to be celebrated with family and friends and feasting and dancing. It was not an occasion a bride might be expected to look back upon for the next half century as the happiest day of her life. Their nuptials would be a mere formality, the sealing of a business arrangement to which they had mutually agreed.