THE PROPOSITION

by Judith Ivory

  She squinched it at him, but her eyes behind her lenses were smiling. He laughed again, so amused by her. Oh, her sweet face … her dear face with all its infinite movements and twists.

  She said, "No, sir. I'll wear any hat I choose, thank you. Now get out of my way. I want to dress for the occasion."

  * * *

  Winnie chose a little straw hat she hadn't worn in years, one with a small, forward brim. It was out of date, yet not too bad. Milly had put a new flower on it at the side and new ribbons. It was cheerful; yellow straw, little yellow roses, with dark green grosgrain.

  Indeed, not too bad. Like Winnie herself. Not too bad from this angle or that, especially in a not-too-bad little hat. Yes, she had a strong, healthy, if quirky, sort of femininity, she thought. No nonsense. And then, of course, there were her legs, which were beautiful, she was coming to think. No matter what she believed, though, the amazing part was, when she looked in Mick's face, there was no mistaking his sincerity: He thought her pretty, and she could have looked at that information on his face all day long.

  She looked forward to staring at it across a tea table at Abernathy's. Her heart was light, though her nerves were frayed. She wasn't certain he was ready for public inspection. She wasn't certain she was, for that matter. She had never gone to tea with a man, other than her own father.

  For all her own nerviness, Mick seemed perfectly calm, happy, in fact. Charming. He asked Mr. Abernathy for a table for two, please. "Yes, sir," the man said, and Mick laughed out loud.

  Winnie loved watching him act the gentleman, yet it terrified her to see him do it, too. Like watching someone on a high wire, someone she had put there, who carried somehow her fondest hopes, high, high up in the air overhead. She wanted to stand under him with a giant net. No, she wanted to get up there with him, hold onto his shirt, tie strings around each of his ankles. Don't fall. Don't let anything bad happen.

  As they walked behind Mr. Abernathy into his main tearoom, entering its refined air of soft chatter and long-fronded palms, questions popped into her mind. Did he know not to remove his hat? Not to raise his voice? Had she told him every single rule regarding a gentleman's behavior in public? Probably not. Could he extemporize his way through the moments that depended on what she'd forgotten to tell him?

  "Will this do?" asked Mr. Abernathy. He was seating patrons himself today.

  The teahouse wasn't crowded, though it was relatively full. He sat Winnie and Mick at a small table near the door. Good for a quick exit, she thought, then sat nervously, laughing at herself.

  They ordered tea and cake. The first five minutes went well, and she relaxed a little. Mick was beyond gentlemanly. He was attentive. He touched her hand at one point, and she blushed.

  In the heat that flushed through her, her mind warmed to a little fantasy. Suppose they went to tea together next Wednesday, too, after the ball was over? Suppose they went to tea next Wednesday, or perhaps the opera?

  Oh, yes, she answered herself. Imagine that—because that is the only way you'll see it, in imagination. Mick at the opera. Pah. He wouldn't like it. It wasn't his sort of entertainment. No, they had no future, not even one of Wednesday-afternoon teas. He didn't fit into her life—passing him off for an afternoon or an evening wasn't the same as passing him off for a lifetime. And she was hardly suited to catching rats—she'd proven that, when she'd all but climbed him like a pole then run away from fright.

  She watched Mick raise his teacup to his mouth, ever so beautifully, especially when she remembered the last time she'd seem him do it in this tearoom. But then his cup stayed in front of his mouth without his drinking. His eyes grew still and intent as he stared fixedly over the cup across the room.

  "Oh, no," he murmured. Then, "Don't look. But brace yourself. We have a visitor."

  The baroness from the seamstress's shop six weeks ago, the one who had bought Winnie her garters, came straight over to their table.

  Ignoring Winnie, she said to Mick, "Lady Randolf Lawnhurst, the Baroness of Whitting." She added coquettishly, "Blanche," then extended her arm toward him, her hand dropped at the wrist. "And we know each other, I do believe." Her face was smiling, though puzzled, one eyebrow was arched high in question. With relief, he realized, she couldn't remember the circumstances under which she knew him.

  Mick started to rise, being a gentlemen at the moment, when he would rather have told her to go jump in the Thames.

  She stopped him. "No, no, don't get up. I don't mean to intrude." She already had, of course. "It's just that I'm sure we've met, yet I can't remember where." She was asking him to explain her own confused memory.

  Settling back into his chair, Mick smiled and shook his head. In his best, most posh syllables told her, "I'm sorry. I don't believe I've had the pleasure." He tried to look dismayed, disarmed.

  "Oh, but I'm sure—"

  "No," he insisted, smiling, "I don't think so."

  She tilted her head, frowned, then smiled, then frowned, like neon flickering in a glass tube, off and on, off and on, all the while studying him. She shook her head, then her smile widened as she announced cheerfully, "You're wrong. I know you, I'm certain."

  Ah, well. Since she was certain. "You do look familiar," he allowed.

  Winnie made a sound, a surprised, censuring little click of her tongue. She was alarmed, no doubt, at hearing him go in this direction,

  While the baroness openly flirted with him, flapping her eyelashes, rolling her shoulders under her boa. "Are you from here?" she asked.

  "No," he said quickly.

  "Where are you from?"

  He blurted what was as far away as he could think of. "Paris."

  Under the table, Winnie kicked him.

  He laughed at the heady sensation of two women taking after him at once.

  "Paris?" The baroness was delighted. "I love Paris! Where in Paris?"

  He knew of only one landmark in that city, so he said it pleasantly. "The Eiffel Tower."

  Behind the baroness, out of her line of vision, Winnie put her hand over her mouth, her eyes widening, part horror, part mirthful disbelief she held back.

  "The Eiffel Tower," the baroness said, perplexed. "You live in the Eiffel Tower?"

  He could hear in her tone this was wrong. "No, no," he amended, "I was suggesting we might have met there."

  She thought the information over, as if trying to make his hypothesis plausible. "When did you last visit the Eiffel Tower?"

  "Oh, I go there all the time," he said. When he saw on the baroness's face that this wasn't right either, he thought to add, "I know it's foolish. Even trite, since, well, the most common of persons knows of the place. But I can't help myself. It's simply so—" He had no idea what he was talking about.

  She finished for him. "Yes, so amazing. And the fountains—"

  "Oh, yes, especially the fountains. And—" And what? What to contribute to the conversation? He held out his hand. "And the tower itself."

  "Oh, yes. A marvel. Those French."

  "Indeed." He smiled and said, "Well, it was lovely meeting you again."

  She blinked, seemingly at a dead end. Thank God. "Yes," she said. "Very nice to see you." She turned to go. He thought he was free of her trouble, but she turned all the way, full circle, and came back after only moving away a foot. "Your name," she said and smiled. "I don't remember your name. Please remind me." She eyed him with an interest that was a shade warmer than was polite and so reminiscent of their last encounter he wanted to shake her.

  Remind her indeed. He dare not. If he repeated the name Tremore, she might remember its context. He looked down at his teaspoon, turning it over. He read the names off the back and flipped them over. "Bartonreed," he said. "Michael Edgerton, the Viscount of Bartonreed."

  "Bartonreed," she repeated blankly. She couldn't seem to think of anything further to ask. "Well, then, Lord Bartonreed." She wanted more information, but had run out of latitude to acquire it. "A pleasure," she said.

  Once she'
d left, Winnie leaned forward and whispered, "You gave her the wrong name!"

  "I couldn't give her Tremore. She knows it."

  "She knows it!" she repeated, though her tone was more emphatic. It questioned him.

  He didn't want to explain. Besides, they were past the problem.

  Winnie, of course, didn't like to miss a chance to worry. "Oh, crumbs, oh, crumbs," she said. She put her long fingers to her mouth, pressing them, then spoke over the tips. "Now you have to remember 'Bartonreed'—where did you come up with that?—and answer to it. Will you be able to?"

  "I'm sure. But we can go ahead and use—"

  "No, we can't. She's the wife of the Master of the Hounds for the Queen. She'll be at the ball."

  "Oh, bloody hell," he said and sat back. He did laugh this time, and richly. Bloody hell.

  Winnie, though, was losing her sense of humor. "Stop it," she said. "You're going to mess this up."

  "No, I won't."

  She leaned toward him, her face furrowing, squinching up and down both, as it could. Intently, she asked him, "Do you know what it would be like to fail in front of the bon ton?"

  "The bon ton?"

  "Yes. Every. Single. Family in England that matters?"

  He raised his brow. "Every single person at the ball matters to you?"

  "Well, no." She made a befuddled frown, then shook her head. "Oh, I don't know. Some do; most don't. They all mattered to my parents."

  "Ah," he said. He laughed gently at her. "Loovey, how sweet. I'll do my best. I'd love for your parents to be proud of me—and proud of you, too—even though they're dead."

  She let out a laugh at this, a squawk, half of distress for being teased, half of release, then nodded, biting her lips together. She admitted, "I'm so nervous."

  "I can see that." She nearly always was, bless her.

  He hoped her nervousness this time didn't make her put her fingers into things beyond good judgment. He hoped she'd leave him be so he could do what he needed to his way. But she either would, or she wouldn't. He would deal with her as she came.

  For now, he signaled the waiter, asking for milk instead of cream for his tea. As the waiter left, however, Mick watched trouble circle back around to them.

  Smiling, a look of triumph on her face, the baroness left her own party once more to bear down on Mick and Winnie's table.

  He leaned forward and whispered, "Finish your tea, loov. She's found something more to say to us."

  The baroness walked up to their table again, wagging a thoughtful finger at Mick, and said, "Niece." That was the word she used, though he was fairly certain she meant a place, when she continued, "In Nice at the Hotel Negresco. You were on the floor." She frowned, as if it were painful to draw so hard on a memory that resisted. She bridged her flawed recollection with an invention of her own. "Yes," she said with certainty now, "you were the one who found my cat. Positively heroic, you were." She frowned, then smiled, doing that flicker of uncertainty again. Then, as if perfectly logical, she let loose a torrent of what he thought to be French.

  He nodded politely till she finished, then took a chance saying, "Excuse me, but my fiancée doesn't speak French. May I present Miss Edwina Bollash. We're to be married in June." That should shut the woman up and make her leave him alone.

  But, no, she was fascinated. "Miss Bollash? Lady Bollash?" she corrected. "Lionel Bollash's daughter?" The baroness was surprised, but riveted.

  Next to Winnie, however, the woman looked calm. Win had been startled apoplectic by his announcement. "Michael," she began, then laughed, then couldn't get whatever else she was going to say out for a few seconds. "You're, um—ah, not supposed to say that. That is, tell people yet." To the baroness, apologetically, she said, "It's not official. We haven't announced it. We aren't really."

  Mick reached across and patted her hand. "Winnie, my dove, don't start again. You promised. Don't say you're making me wait longer, because I can't. I can't wait to make you my own."

  Win's jaw dropped. No halfway about it, her mouth looked unhinged for a second. Then she giggled, blushed, and looked away. The perfect picture of a sweet, shy bride.

  Oh, to have it be true, he thought. Wouldn't that be something?

  The baroness turned and studied Winnie now with rapt curiosity. She glanced at Mick, then once more attempted to speak to him in French.

  He held up his hand, shaking his head, a man being firm. "In English, Lady Whitting. Please."

  Lady Whitting, ha! He was enjoying himself! Nonetheless, he thought they should cut their tea short. His luck was holding, but he had no idea what the baroness might latch onto next.

  To Winnie, he said, "Are you finished, darling?" He took out the chiming watch that he loved to look at for any reason, and that he was probably going to have to return. Too bad. He popped its cover. Ding-ding, ding-ding… It continued to chime till the hour exactly. Four o'clock. "Goodness," he said. "I had no idea it was so late. We have to meet Lord Rezzo at five. We'd best be going." He stood. To Winnie: "Dear one, you gather your things, while I take care of the bill."

  She grabbed his forearm. "You can't pay," she hissed, though suppressed laughter was now making her all but delirious. She tried to speak under her breath, but her voice carried anyway. "You have no money," she said.

  "Of course, I do, dear heart. I have a fresh twenty." He turned toward her fully, wiggling his eyebrows, a gesture only she saw. "A very, very fresh-sh-sh"—he let the sound run—"twenty. Let's go see how it spends."

  "Michael!" she said with giddy panic.

  But he freed himself from her and backed with a slight bow from the table. Behind the baroness—who followed him, looking disappointed and bewildered—he watched Winnie put her hands over her face, aggrieved, laughing, hiding. He called to her. "Winnie, gather your things. We're leaving."

  Indeed, they'd best be gone. He wondered if the baroness were truly going to the ball on Saturday. Or if any of the other upper-class women he knew, several of them more intimately, would be there. Bloody hell, what a shock to realize he might actually know people at the gathering. An ugly shock. He laughed. A challenging shock.

  Outside, down the street, with Winnie's hand safely in his, he caught sight of an omnibus. A number six. Perfect. "Come on," he said. He started to run, pulling Winnie along.

  She followed, still laughing, a gamine making her escape. He could hear her, delighted by their strange encounter, drunk on it. "Where are we going?" she called.

  "We're trying to catch that bus." He pointed and tugged, encouraging her to move faster.

  "My carriage—"

  "One problem at a time, loovey. Come on, be quick."

  She wasn't as quick as he was. She held her hat and clopped down the pavement behind him, skirts kicking up around her wonderful legs.

  They weren't going to make it. The omnibus stopped. One man got off, two women got on. Mick called to the driver, but he and Winnie were still too far for anyone at the bus to hear him. Mick slowed. Still a block away, the horses of the omnibus lurched forward.

  "There'll be another," he said.

  Then a woman across the street, closer to the vehicle, called to the driver. The omnibus slowed and Mick said, "Come on. Run."

  Winnie did. She remembered the breathless chase he'd led the first day she'd set eyes on him. Now she ran with him, and it thrilled her. No other word to describe it. Thrill. Feeling his dry, warm hand around hers, his pulling her through traffic, then his arm about her back, her waist, lifting her, propelling her up a curb, taking her with him, then boosting her up the steps of the bus when she hesitated—oh, it was so bold and simply too much fun. She started laughing hard somewhere along the way, uncontrollably; she couldn't stop.

  In this condition, Mick wound him and her both all the way up the steps to the roof of the bus, the bench seat. From the top, she stood on her knees and waved to Georges, the coachman she shared with two neighbors. He saw her, then a second later, her own carriage pulled away from the curb
to follow. She turned around and slid down into the seat, and Mick's arm—he'd braced it on the bench back—slid down, too. He gripped her around the shoulders. He squeezed her to him as both he and she laughed without reserve.

  As they clopped past Hyde Park, then along the side and around Buckingham Palace, the two of them laughed like fools, recapping the baroness's confusion and surprise till they were slouched against the seat and each other, gripping the arm pieces to hold themselves up, till Winnie was wheezing from it. She couldn't catch her breath from the wild run topped off by laughing too much.

  When he became concerned with her breathing, she waved her hand. "It's all right. Asthma. It'll go away as soon as I settle down." She tried to get hold of herself, drawing in deep breaths, then letting them out slowly, with giggles.

  As she wheezed her way into sanity again, Mick frowned, smiled, shook his head, then touched her cheek. "Oh, you are a mess, my sweet duck. Such a sweet mess."

  He turned in the seat, his shoulder against the bench, his chest close enough to her arm that she could feel his humidity and warmth. He wanted to kiss her. She was becoming aware of the signs, how he moved close, how he watched her face, her mouth. Then she remembered that he wanted her to say it, to tell him. He waited.

  Oh, dear, if she were honest, she'd admit she loved all this kissing business. She could do it forever, give up eating, sleeping, just kiss his mouth, maybe lie down beside him, press her body against him. Just the kissing. She remembered it sometimes so vividly from that time in his room that memory brought a near-perfect echo of sensation, a lovely ripple of the same, if muted, pleasure.

  Sometimes, too, she remembered the other thing he'd done. The way his hand had sought her lower, the way he'd so fiercely seemed to want to touch her there. When she thought of it now, it wasn't so awful. Only intimate. Very, very intimate.

  Yes, she wanted him to kiss her, quick and strong; hard, as he had that time when his mustache was just freshly off. She wanted to say it. Kiss me. She wet her lips, opened her mouth—and her mind went blank. She sat there like a nit, nothing coming out but horrid, faint asthmatic wheezing. Which made her close her eyes in despair as a wave of the old feeling returned: a sense of being the least appealing woman on earth.