Or had this proposal been a spur-of-the-moment thing? Was he just acting out of some fit of gallantry because Richard had been so insulting?
Gallantry? She almost laughed out loud. There was nobody less likely to indulge in a fit of gallantry than Lord Deben. And he never did anything on the spur of the moment. He laid careful plans. After giving everything a lot of thought.
If he really meant this proposal …
But then, supposing he didn’t? Supposing he felt secure in the knowledge she would turn him down?
His kneeling at her feet like this, expecting a rebuff, would therefore be a very dramatic act of … well, what, exactly?
Perhaps he still felt he was in her debt. He had gone to absurd lengths to repay her for coming to his rescue on the terrace in the first place. Or perhaps this was his way of repaying her for … well, for having so very nearly ruined her, that night on the sofa at the Swaffhams’ ball. Could he be suffering from a guilty conscience? He had looked rather tortured at one point that night. And again, earlier, when she said his movements were of no interest to her. Perhaps this was his way of offering her the chance to have her revenge upon him.
She could do so very easily by turning him down. It would be the talk of the town. How he had gone down on one knee at Lady Twining’s literary evening, for all to see, and claimed his heart beat only for her. He was laying his pride, his future, and his reputation as a consummate lover on the line here. If Lady Carelyon were here, she was sure she would be urging Henrietta to grind his pride into the dust.
If she had wanted to take revenge for the liberties he’d taken, and the harsh way he’d repudiated her afterwards, now was the time to do it.
But then, he was giving her the chance to make this anything she wanted it to be. If she refused him, she would have revenge on him. If she accepted him, she would have revenge on Richard for his neglect, and then the litany of insults he’d just heaped on her head. If she were to repudiate them both, and stalk out of the room with her nose in the air, she would not only have paid them both back, but would become a minor celebrity. Everyone would be talking about the girl over whom two men had practically come to blows at what was supposed to have been an elegant, intellectual evening held in aid of a worthy cause.
And to top it all, Miss Waverley would be beside herself with envy, for both of the men on whom she’d set her sights were fighting over Henrietta.
But had he really thought about what would happen if she accepted his proposal? Because he’d made it in public, he wouldn’t be able to back out, as Richard had warned him.
Though he really didn’t look as if he cared.
Perhaps he didn’t.
And that was where her deliberations came full circle. He had to marry someone and so it might as well be her.
Well, she didn’t want revenge. Not on anyone. She wasn’t a vengeful person.
But she would like to marry Lord Deben.
If only … no, she thrust aside the little voice that clamoured if only he loved me. A girl who waited for Lord Deben to fall in love before accepting a proposal would wait for ever. If she was going to marry him, she had to take him exactly as he was and hope that, over time, her love for him would melt away one or two layers of cynicism.
But she was not going to let him walk all over her in the meantime.
‘My lord,’ she began tremulously, ‘I am well aware that you do me great honour by proposing to me. And I thank you for it.’
‘Henrietta,’ said Richard. ‘I’m warning you …’
‘And, upon certain conditions,’ she said, blocking him out by keeping her eyes fixed on Lord Deben’s wicked smile, ‘I rather think I might accept.’
‘Name them,’ said Lord Deben swiftly.
‘Hold hard, Hen,’ said Richard, at the exact same moment.
‘Speak your mind, my angel,’ said Lord Deben. ‘Tell me what conditions I must meet to win your approval and your hand.’
Taking her courage in both hands, she said, ‘If I agree to become your wife, I shall expect you to be completely faithful to me. If I ever discover you have broken your marriage vows, I shall … I shall …’ The thought was so appalling that she found her eyes sting with tears.
‘Break my nose?’ he supplied helpfully.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! A man like him will never be faithful to you! Look at him. He appears to think this is funny. When it’s my whole future at stake.’
‘Not yours, Richard,’ she said firmly. ‘Mine. For I must tell you that whether I choose to accept this proposal from Lord Deben or not, nothing on earth would ever induce me to make the monumental mistake of becoming your wife. Should you ever,’ she said pointedly, ‘get round to asking me.’
‘What?’
‘You heard her, Bishop,’ drawled Lord Deben with a smug smile. ‘She has far too much intelligence to throw herself away on a country bumpkin like you.’
Hearing someone fling the words Richard had used to belittle her right back at him made her want to cover his face with kisses.
‘She was born,’ said Lord Deben with a touch of hauteur, ‘to preside over the houses of a man of influence in this country. To act as his hostess whether he invites politicians or peers, foreign ambassadors or tenants to his table.’
A sudden qualm struck her. ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t. I’d be rude to them. You know how outspoken I can be …’
‘When you are a countess,’ he countered smoothly, ‘you can be as rude as you like to people and they will just say you are charmingly eccentric.’
‘No, but I wouldn’t want to let you down.’
‘You could never do that. And I will endeavour never to betray your trust in me by giving you cause for jealousy.’
‘Really?’ Hope timidly tried to push aside her doubts.
It didn’t quite succeed. He was not exactly saying he would be faithful. Only that if he strayed, he would be discreet about it.
She supposed that was quite a concession, from a man like him.
His face softened. ‘Unlike your country swain,’ he told her, ‘I will not regard marrying you as settling for anything. There is nobody else I could consider trusting with my future. My children. My heart.’
She looked at him. There was a pulse beating at his temple. It was beating very fast. His eyes were so intent upon her that she felt as though he was willing her, with every fibre of his being, to accept.
But then, if she didn’t, he was going to look perfectly ridiculous.
She closed her eyes and bowed her head. What she wished she could do, more than anything, was to bend down, cup his face in her hands and tell him to go away and think about it. Then, if he really meant it, to ask her again in a couple of days. In private.
During which time she could seriously consider whether she could cope with a lifetime of wondering where he was, and what he was doing, every time they were apart.
For several agonisingly long seconds it felt as though the entire room was holding its breath.
‘He will never be faithful to you, Hen,’ said Richard. ‘He will make you miserable.’
Yes. She’d accepted that one way or another, Lord Deben was going to break her heart.
Because if she didn’t marry him, he would certainly go out and find someone else. She’d already had a taste of how painful it could be, imagining him in the arms of another woman.
And at least if she was his wife, she would know that he would always come back to her once he’d tired of his temporary diversions.
‘On the contrary,’ said Lord Deben vehemently. ‘I shall be faithful unto death, now that I have found a woman to whom it will be worth being faithful.’
There was a collective gasp from the bystanders.
Henrietta opened her eyes and looked at him again. ‘Do … do you really mean that?’
‘Of course he doesn’t mean it!’
‘Richard, will you please keep out of this. Just because you don’t think I’m worth making any effort for, does not m
ean that I’m not worth it. And whether he means it or not, I’m jolly well going to marry him.’
She couldn’t let this chance slip through her fingers. She would never forgive herself. He might be asking her for all the wrong reasons, he might never make her happy, but at least there was a chance that he might. A chance she would never have if she refused him now.
‘Thank goodness,’ said Lord Deben, getting to his feet. ‘You have no idea how uncomfortable it is kneeling in such a fashion, in evening breeches. At one point I began to fear you had forgotten me altogether while you were squabbling with your childhood playmate.’
What a ridiculous thing to say. As if anyone or anything could make her forget him.
Though at the same time, it was good to hear him reduce everything that had passed between her and Richard to its proper perspective, for her own sake, as much as the assembled company. They had never loved each other. They had just grown up together, and almost, disastrously, drifted into a marriage that would have pleased both their families. Richard would be able to see that in time, too, though at the moment he looked absolutely furious.
There was just the tiny matter of her own conscience still to come to terms with. For whatever had prompted Lord Deben to propose to her, she was well aware she had just taken full and shameless advantage of the situation to get exactly what she wanted.
Him. For better or worse. For the rest of her life.
She hung her head.
‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ Lord Deben growled softly.
And then she felt his hand under her chin, lifting her mouth to his so that he could kiss her.
And being Lord Deben, he did not deliver a chaste kiss, the kind anyone might expect a newly betrothed man to bestow upon his bride-to-be.
No, he crushed her into his chest and kissed her fully and thoroughly.
Almost as though he was staking his claim upon her.
She could dimly hear gasps of outrage, then murmurs, and finally giggles as the kiss went on and on, and she was reduced to clinging to his lapels to stay upright, since her knees had turned to jelly. At one point she dimly registered the sound of footsteps stomping away. Richard, she supposed, furious at being balked of control of what he would consider her substantial dowry.
And then an increasingly strident female voice, repeatedly saying, ‘My lord! I must protest!’
Lady Twining was desperately attempting to restore decorum.
‘Please, my lord …’ She was still wringing her hands, Henrietta noted as Lord Deben turned to frown at her over his shoulder. He looked fierce enough to make her quail, yet she managed to squeak, ‘Please try to remember that this is a respectable drawing room. You cannot carry on like this here.’
From within the charmed circle of Lord Deben’s arms, Henrietta was incapable of feeling guilty for embarrassing her hostess. Once she’d recovered from the initial shock, Lady Twining would thoroughly enjoy recounting every detail of the dramatic events that had disrupted her evening. Everyone would want to know all about it and Henrietta could just picture her quavering voice, her recourse to the smelling salts as she teased out the details of the sordid squabble, the shocking proposal, and the subsequent depraved behaviour of the newly engaged couple. For weeks to come, she would have the cachet of being the woman in whose house the notorious rake, Lord Deben, had finally surrendered his bachelor status.
Lord Deben caught her eye at that point and it was clear to her, from the spark of amusement that flared between them, that he was thinking more or less the same thing.
‘I am sure my fiancée agrees with you,’ he said to Lady Twining, though he did not take his eyes from Henrietta for a second. ‘A respectable drawing room is the last place we wish to carry on.’
She knew he was about to do something even more scandalous before he’d swept her into his arms and off her feet.
‘We need privacy, do we not, my heart? Besides,’ he said to the room in general, ‘you all came here to listen to poetry, did you not? And Miss Lutterworth, I believe, has some ready to read to you.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Lady Twining, making frantic beckoning motions in Cynthia’s direction.
Nobody watched the hapless poetess as she mounted the podium. They were all enthralled by the spectacle of Lord Deben carrying his fiancée out of the room.
‘Poor Cynthia,’ said Henrietta as they reached the hall. ‘Nobody will pay her the slightest bit of attention now. They will all be far too busy discussing … us.’
‘At least they won’t be laughing at her behind their fans,’ said Lord Deben curtly. ‘Which is what you dreaded, was it not?’
All traces of amusement had left his face.
Now that they were alone in the hall, with no audience to perform for, it was as though he no longer saw any need to pretend to be deliriously happy. Or totally besotted. Or whatever impression he’d been trying to give in there.
He just looked weary.
‘What …’ she swallowed nervously ‘… what happens now?’
‘Now,’ he said, striding out of the front door and down the steps, ‘we go home.’ He nodded to the footman who’d come trotting out after them. ‘Fetch us a cab, would you?’
‘A cab? Don’t you have a coach waiting somewhere? And I have left my coat and outdoor shoes behind in the ladies’ retiring room.’
‘The reports of our betrothal, and the manner of it, and our hasty departure will soon reach my coachman. He can make his own way home. After all, he has the transport.’
‘Yes, but …’
‘And you don’t need outdoor shoes,’ he said, carrying her across the pavement to the cab, which had drawn up. He deposited her inside, stripped off his own tailcoat and wrapped it round her shoulders. ‘Nor do you need a coat for the short journey to Deben House.’
‘Deben House? Why are we going there?’
‘Because we need to talk. Somewhere where we won’t be interrupted. My servants will not dare to question my movements, in my own home. If I take you anywhere else, there’s bound to be someone who’ll try to make us pander to the conventions. We may be betrothed, but we still ought not to be alone with each other. So people will say. And I—hell!’ He raked his fingers through his thick dark curls as though almost at the end of his tether. ‘I cannot go on like this. It’s unbearable.’
She shrank into his coat and into the corner at the same time. It was unbearable?
‘Being betrothed to me, do you mean?’
‘No! How could you think that?’ He winced. ‘No, I know exactly how you could think that. I have not behaved … but—no. What I regret is the manner of my proposal. Kneeling there in silence, practically willing that oaf to goad you into it. He said he grew up with you. How could he not know that giving you a direct order would result in you doing the exact opposite? You all but said, so there, and stamped your foot when you told him you would jolly well marry me. How do you think it makes me feel, knowing you only accepted my proposal to spite him?’
‘I … I don’t know,’ she said in amazement. But it sounded almost as though it mattered to him. Which implied that he cared. More than just a little.
‘I thought it would be enough that I’d got you to say yes. But it seems where you are concerned, my conscience is particularly acute.’ He shut his eyes and threw his head back against the squabs. ‘God, before I met you I was not even aware I possessed a conscience.’
‘B-but you have done nothing you need feel guilty about.’
He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Oh, haven’t I? Do you not understand what I have done to you yet? I have robbed you of all choice. You have to marry me now, or for ever be condemned as a jilt. And do you know what is worse? Nobody will reproach me. Nobody. I can behave as badly as I wish and still be accepted everywhere. But if you make a bid for freedom you will be ostracised. You will have to spend the rest of your life hiding out in the depths of the countryside and even there you will not completely escape the repercussions of this night’s work.’
She laid a hand on his arm when he would have run his fingers through his hair again.
‘None of that will happen, if that is what is worrying you, because I am going to marry you. I will not back down.’
‘No. You are not the sort to back down from a challenge. That is just the trouble.’
The cab juddered to a halt and Lord Deben flung the door open.
‘I gambled on you doing just that. It was unforgivable,’ he growled, stalking away from her without a backwards glance.
She clambered out, unaided, and followed him up the front steps of the imposing mansion into which he’d just disappeared.
‘Oi,’ cried the jarvey as he saw both his passengers vanish without a backwards glance. ‘Wot about my fare?’
From inside, she heard Lord Deben order someone, in far-from-polite terms, to see to it.
As she stepped into a massive hall, a footman scurried past her and out into the night. Another stood gaping at her. She supposed she was quite a sight, draped in a man’s coat over her evening dress, but worst of all, unchaperoned and clearly the cause of his lordship’s ill humour.
She clutched the coat to her throat, wondering what to do next.
A door to her right flew open and Lord Deben emerged from it. ‘This is Miss Gibson,’ he told the perplexed footman. ‘Soon to be Lady Deben, unless she can come up with some way to overturn the damn-fool proposal I made her tonight.’ With that, he retreated into the room from which he’d briefly emerged, slamming the door behind him.
The footman blinked just once upon reception of that astonishing news, but then recovered his professional demeanour and asked if he could relieve her of her coat.
She shook her head, steeled herself to face up to whatever lay behind that door and went in pursuit of Lord Deben.
He had gone into a room that looked as though it was kept in readiness for when he returned in the evening. A fire was blazing in the grate. And Lord Deben was standing on the hearthrug with his back to it, already in possession of a drink.
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