THE PROPOSITION

by Judith Ivory

  "Once I'm up," she told him, "you'll follow me in. You sit opposite me with your back to the horses, or where the horses would be. You never sit beside a lady in a carriage, other than your own wife or daughter; you always sit opposite, always facing the direction from whence you are coming."

  "Backward," he clarified. "I face backward."

  "Correct."

  He was paying attention, which was good. He could see apparently the immediate value in what they were doing.

  She'd brought him out to the carriage house, knowing he'd learn more surely by doing than talking. She wanted him to begin moving through the night of the ball in his mind, knowing where to put himself, how to dance his way, so to speak, through the rules of politeness and protocol.

  Also, if she were honest, she'd brought him out here because she couldn't face watching his mouth in the usual way of their lessons. She couldn't bring herself to stare at it for the rest of the afternoon, fussing over how he put his tongue against his teeth when all she could remember was how, earlier, he'd put it against hers.

  She held on to his palm for balance as the vehicle rocked on its springs toward her slightly. She went up the steps. Mr. Tremore's fingers were strong in their grip of hers, helpful, steady. Nonetheless, she was eager to get her hand away. She let go the second she grasped the door frame.

  Then, just as she ducked under the doorway, she was suddenly halted. She made a horrible leap, literally and figuratively—for she jumped as if he'd yanked hold of the entire back of her dress, meaning to ravish her there on the steps of her coach. Behind her, she heard him say, "Sorry." Her skirts released.

  He'd simply tramped on them.

  She laughed nervously. "It happens occasionally."

  She tried to regain herself by backing out from under the carriage doorway and turning to stand up again. Edwina balanced on the top step, gripping the door frame on either side, both hands, in order to hold herself on the precarious little tread. She smiled down at him, or tried to. "And 'sorry' is perfectly fine." She did achieve a kind of smile, she thought. "Some gentlemen have more trouble than others with ladies' trains and sweepers." She paused, took a breath, then recuperated enough to say sincerely, "Let's try again, shall we? I don't doubt that you shall get it perfectly next try."

  He did. On the second attempt, Edwina made it uneventfully into the carriage and onto her seat, then watched the athletic Mr. Tremore hoist himself through the doorway with an energy and lightness that defied explanation, especially for such a large man. She was going to correct him, make him get in more sedately, but then thought better of it. The ladies she knew would probably enjoy watching him do that, swing in like some sort of primitive.

  He sat opposite her as instructed, then leaned to reach for the door.

  "No," she said. "Don't get it. A footman will close it on the night of the ball. Let him. You must become accustomed to people doing things for you. There will be servants everywhere."

  He looked uncomfortable with the information, but sat back, leaving the door swung out on its hinges.

  There they sat in the open-doored carriage in an open carriage house—they'd left the carriage house doors open as well to let in the daylight. A horse nickered down at the far end in its stall, the sound punctuating the tension of their first "lesson" since this morning. Winnie drew in a breath and took in the smell of hay and horses and well-oiled tack, while a rosy kind of light spun dust motes through the carriage doorway in a beam that ended in Mr. Tremore's lap.

  She swung her head away, looking quickly out the window of her marooned carriage. Through the opening, she stared down a hay-lined corridor of horse stalls, most of them empty now. Without looking at him, she began again. "At the ball," she said, "when you enter the house or any room in it, you let the ladies of your party go in ahead—"

  "There'll be ladies with us?"

  "Possibly. The Misters Lamont, I imagine, will take you to the ball. They may bring wives or the ladies on whom they pay call."

  "And you?"

  "What about me?"

  "Won't you be with us?"

  "No," she said, turning to look at him with surprise. "I'm just your teacher."

  "I want you there."

  "Well, I can't go."

  "Why not?"

  She paused, frowned. She didn't know how to explain; she didn't want to. "My cousin doesn't wish me there." She quickly added, "Nor do I wish to be in his house. As I was saying," she began again, "you open the door for any woman with whom you are walking, allowing her to pass through the doorway, then—"

  "Why don't you want to go? It sounds like your sort of fun. All these rules, and you're good at them."

  She made an impatient face. "I don't like my cousin, and he doesn't—"

  "What's he like?"

  "Who? Xavier?"

  "Is that his name?"

  "Yes. And he's very old, very charming, and very well-connected. You'll probably like him. Most people do."

  "Not if he doesn't like you."

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again without speaking. She wasn't sure whether to applaud or laugh at his loyalty. "All right, then you'll kowtow because you'll be afraid of him. Those who don't like him, fear him. He is powerful."

  "You don't."

  "Pardon?"

  "You're not afraid of him."

  She did laugh then, short and abrupt. "Yes, I am. That's why I don't go. May we continue please?" Without waiting for an answer, she said, "Above all, at the ball, please see to it that you do not allow yourself to be alone with a woman under thirty. Never. Not for a minute. It would be disastrous. A lady under thirty may be with a gentleman only in the company of a chaperone. Otherwise—"

  "How old are you?" He leaned back, put one arm along the top of the seat, making himself perfectly comfortable. He could do that. Wherever Mick Tremore went—she envied the ability—he could make himself at ease.

  She scowled a moment. "Nor does a gentleman ask a lady her age."

  "Then how's he supposed to know if she needs a chaperone?"

  She turned her scowl into a quick, fierce scrutiny, but his expression seemed to honestly question the logic. She muttered, "I'll be thirty. Thirty on the twenty-ninth."

  "Of April?" This month.

  "Yes." Her birthday was in three weeks.

  He leaned back into the seat, smiling. "Then you need a chaperone."

  "I most certainly do. But I can't afford one and my family doesn't care. I promise you, though, that the families of those ladies attending the duke's ball will ruin you if you take one of them aside—"

  He laughed. "What? Will they cut my vast fortune out from under me?"

  "No." He'd best understand. "They would find what mattered to you, then they'd take your ferrets, take your dogs, have you beaten, then thrown into jail. It would take you years to get out, if you ever could."

  He sobered.

  She tilted her head, looked at him directly. "Mr. Tremore," she said, "the people we are going to fool are the most powerful people in England." She let that sink in. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. Fooling them is one thing. But if you compromise one of their daughters, put her in a position to have to marry you, only to discover that you are entirely inappropriate for marriage, well, they will have your hide."

  And mine, too, she might have added.

  She let the picture she'd painted for him fade into silence. She didn't want to unnerve him, only be sure he was warned fairly.

  The peculiar thing was, she wasn't afraid they would fail. She was afraid, in her worst moments recently, that he would succeed too well.

  She looked at his clean-shaven face, his tall, well-favored looks. As if in complicity with her fears, he leaned just then, and light cut across the side of his face and shoulders, delineating how perfectly handsome he was. A tremor ran through her.

  Heaven above, to pass him off, she had to teach him to be halfway consistent with his manners and speech—and, if she could, this man was going to stop h
earts. On the night of the ball, he would walk into that room and doctors were going to have to be called, because women were going to faint dead away, have seizures, heart attacks. He was the sort of man who sent female hearts pounding, sent windpipes into asthmatic fibrillations, who addled brains till nothing but nonsense came out.

  God help the female upper class. Because if he polished up half as well as she was beginning to think he could, every woman in the ballroom, when he walked in, was going to become a raving idiot. Mindless giggles and fluttering fans would travel along with him like an epidemic of smallpox—no woman would go without a slight case; some, if allowed, would develop a fatal instance.

  This singularly handsome man nodded now, then murmured, "I wish you were coming with me."

  Oh, yes, that's what he needed. A gawky, six-foot-tall woman, whom Xavier had turned out into the streets, walking behind him like a lovesick calf.

  A lovesick calf. Oh, dear. Edwina looked down. The shadows on her side of the carriage thankfully hid her, for she'd made herself blush. Poor fool, she was fascinated by the man who Mick Tremore was becoming. Or no. Idiot that she was, she was fascinated by the man who resisted becoming exactly as she tried to make him. Fascinated by him, appalled at herself. A confusion that was becoming typical of her attitude toward him. Excited, boggled, frightened—unable to stop herself from wanting to stare at him, yet unable to look at him for more than a few seconds.

  She could be one of them if she weren't careful, she realized. One of the brainless, fluttering nincompoops she was perpetually trying to educate to be better, stronger, more self-sufficient—sanguine yet open-eyed about what society truly had in mind for a woman.

  Her gaze rested on her own folded hands in her lap. What had she been saying? She couldn't remember. She lifted her face, looked toward him, then spoke to the place where the coach ceiling came within inches of his head.

  She began again. "When the carriage arrives, you alight first with the gentlemen, seeing to the ladies of your party, if you are the last man out." Yes, yes, out. She needed to get out of the carriage. Bringing him into it hadn't been the good idea she'd thought. "The footman holds the door. You step down, turn, offer your hand."

  He said nothing.

  "Do you have this then?" She glanced at him.

  He leaned forward, his arms onto his thighs—and the beam through the doorway suddenly lit up the entire side of him. It made the sleeve of his shirt stark white, the silk of his vest sheen softly, and gave a round sleekness to the craggy breadth of his shoulders.

  He nodded solemnly. Then let out a soft laugh. "No. I don't have it." He shook his head almost fondly. "But you'll repeat it when I do it wrong. You love to tell me rules."

  * * *

  Possibly, she did. At the end, though, there was a surprisingly gentle moment that broke any rules Edwina knew.

  He stood below her on the ground, offering his hand up to her exactly right, convincingly a gentleman. She gave him her hand, her fingers bending over the side of his as he pressed his thumb to her knuckles. Perfect, perfect. He did so much so well so quickly sometimes. Then he said from nowhere, "You all right then?"

  When she'd stepped down, level with him, he squeezed her hand and held it. They stood, hand in hand, for a few seconds longer than was necessary.

  What could he possibly mean? she thought. Here she was standing next to him, tidy, full of good information, in control of herself—doing her work with grave dignity. But, odder still, for one instant she wanted to answer his question by throwing her forehead onto his chest and wailing, No, no! I'm not all right at all!

  She said, of course, "Yes. I'm fine."

  He smiled, making a quick, little nod. "Good." He smiled wider, though his sideways, slanting good humor was almost a wince when he added, "Glad to hear it, loov." He nodded again. "No worse for wear?"

  Ah. "No worse for wear," she repeated.

  If she harbored any resentment for his part in their rough morning, she forgave him completely in that instant. She looked at his smooth lip and smiled.

  "Good," he said again. "Good." And he meant it. Relief settled tangibly on him. "So shall we go in and do your vowels again then?"

  She smiled perfunctorily, while thinking, Oh, no! She couldn't decide how to avoid spending this afternoon and all subsequent afternoons, evenings, and mornings for the next four weeks watching his mouth form sounds. She nodded, full of deceit. "Yes. Shall we?"

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  « ^ »

  As Edwina and Mr. Tremore crunched along the gravel drive that led back to the house, she asked herself, So what in the world were you thinking, when you suggested your game in the first place? That it would be innocent? That you could throw him out if it wasn't?

  You misled yourself, Winnie. You set yourself up for a month of discomfort.

  Indeed. The best that could be made of the situation, she thought, was to pretend that she hadn't made a horrible, indecent fool of herself and that he hadn't behaved like a bull in a mating paddock. This morning didn't exist. She wished he hadn't referred to it, even obliquely.

  She wanted the idiosyncratic structure of his speech. She wanted to take it apart and rebuild it—something that could well yield a paper to read before the Royal Philological Society. It was a once-in-a-lifetime project that, on top of everything else, was free, since she was being paid to do it. He needed the money he could earn if he carried the bet off, and he might gain in the process a way to speak himself into a better station in life. They both had losses if they stopped and advantages if they did not. Yes, here they were, treading along toward the house and an arrangement they neither could afford to back out of, not without great cost.

  Moreover, either one of them would have been hard-pressed to explain what had gone wrong with a bet in which the Lamonts now had a great deal invested.

  At the house, they discovered a pocket watch had arrived—Mr. Tremore held it up, delighting in it. It chimed in pairs, ding-ding, ding-ding. Inside the boxes that had arrived with it—that he and she opened instantly like curious children there in the hallway—were two pairs of day boots, some men's formal evening slippers, a pair of dark kid gloves, a pair of white formal ones, and two top hats, one for evening made of black silk and one for day, a dark brown thing made of beaver felt that was luscious to touch. Edwina hadn't seen anything like it up close in a dozen years.

  Surprised by the man's day hat (for what purpose did the Lamonts think he needed it?), she raised it from its box, then stood there holding it balanced on her fingertips inside the crown. She turned it, imagining it on the head of a man who knew how to wear it. The crown was high, rigid, and perfect, with a black band, while the felt of the crown and brim were softer than the underbelly of a cat. It was lined in silk.

  As she held the hat up, examining it, Mr. Tremore abandoned the watch. "Well, I'll be buggered," he said, coming over. Then he corrected himself, laughing. "What an astonishing hat." It came out half-right—he found the an properly, but missed the H. An astonishing 'at.

  He plucked it off her fingers and set it onto his head. The astonishing hat fit him perfectly, of course; it had been made for him. But the way he set it on his head was the truly astonishing part: at an ever-so-slight angle, instinctively debonair. Well, Edwina thought. She had wanted to see the hat on a man who knew how to wear it, and here he was.

  She stepped out of the way, so he could see himself in the hallway mirror. His expression in reflection liked what he saw, then she watched a ripple of displeasure pass over his face as his eyes dropped to his upper lip. He truly did look different wearing a top hat—and no mustache.

  "I'm sorry," she murmured.

  He glanced at her. "About the mustache? Don't be. You didn't shave it off."

  "I made you do it. I made us both feel awful."

  He turned toward her, taking the hat off with a flourish of his wrist. The man loved style and show, and, honest to goodness, he actually had a little. He had a
way about him. "You do this with everything, don't you, Winnie?"

  "Do what?"

  He shook his head. "All this thinking," he said. "It's like a superstition with you."

  "Superstition?"

  "Like throwing salt over your shoulder."

  "Now, see here—"

  "Winnie," he said, "let me tell you about my mum. Grand lady. Great mother. But a superstitious loon when it came to God. When I made her mad, she'd say"—he did a full Cornish accent quite well—"'Yee be a bad boy, Mick, but yee'll git what yee deserve. God'll see to it.' Then I'd fall and skin my knee and she'd say, real smug-like, 'See?' like God had shoved me down, not my own clumsiness or hurry. In the end, she died spitting up stuff from her lungs."

  He looked down a moment, frowned. Then continued, "Hard and ugly for her, you know. I told her she didn't deserve it, but she cried and cried, full of teary regret. Oh, the confessions we got. She was sure she had done something wrong or hadn't done something right. But, you see, none of us believed bad of her. It was impossible. She was the gentlest woman. Couldn't hit us. The only weapon she had, when we were bad, was to promise us damnation. While us children just rolled our eyes at her, 'cause, see, not a one of us believed we were mortal: We felt so safe in her care."

  He grew quiet for a few seconds, then said, "Don't die like that, Winnie. Or live like that either. Like you can know every little thing before it happens or can explain a mess away by retelling it to yourself a hundred times."

  She frowned at him. "Sometimes, Mr. Tremore, it's good to question oneself—"

  He leaned toward her. "Winnie, what I did, I was lookin' for a way to do. You just gave me the chance. Maybe not even that much. It's over. Let it go. You worry too much over everything."

  "I care about details and my own behavior. I like to look at what I can, then rethink—"

  He interrupted, shaking his head sadly. "No, the nits and picks will give you the miseries, if you let them. They'll weigh you down like stones, make you sad and dotty. They did my mum. You didn't do anything so awful, so can we go on now? You're a good girl, Winnie Bollash. Kind and decent. Right generous with yourself. You ain't a snoot like I said when I first got here. I take it back." He grinned then added, teasing, "Or mostly you ain't."