A Convenient Engagement

by Kimberly Bell

  Hannah jumped up, returning to her bench with a last comforting squeeze for Jane.

  “Much better. Bloody whalebone. I swear the devil himself invented women’s undergarments.”

  “Aunt Mattie,” Jane hushed.

  “Aunt Mattie nothing. It’s just us in this carriage, and we’ve followed a sleepless night with a miserable day. I’ll be as vulgar as I please, thank you very much.”

  Jane pursed her lips but didn’t continue her admonishments. Instead she directed an explanation to Hannah. “Aunt Mathilda doesn’t travel well.”

  “That’s like saying the pope is ‘a touch religious,’ dear.” Mathilda rearranged herself into a sitting position. “I despise travel. One of Harold’s finer points was his love of staying at home.”

  “I truly am sorry, Mathilda.”

  “A necessary evil, dear.” Mathilda pinned Hannah with a shrewd stare. “But since you’ve dragged me out to the middle of nowhere and we have nothing pressing at the moment, may we discuss something serious?”

  “Of course. Anything.”

  “You really ought to marry Rhone.”

  Anything except that. “Mathilda—”

  “I’m all for female independence, but I suspect you’re letting yourself be ruled by fear.”

  “He’s the first man I’ve spent any real time with.” Deflecting the question was Hannah’s best recourse. She knew the aftermath of her fears far too well to discredit their validity.

  “That doesn’t mean he isn’t the right one,” Mathilda said.

  “It doesn’t mean he is, either,” Hannah countered.

  “All I’m asking is that you consider it, dear.”

  “I will,” she lied. She couldn’t afford to consider it. If she let her guard drop for even a moment, she’d be trussed up and declared his legal property before sunrise. Hannah had already lost sight of her independence once, letting Gavan tie her up in apron strings the minute there was danger, and look what had happened. Without even realizing, she’d let herself become isolated from her friends. Not that his intentions had been sinister, but it hardly mattered. It was too easy for him to absorb every ounce of her attention.

  Now that she was finally part of the world, Hannah had no intention giving it up—even for love. She would enjoy her time with Gavan to the fullest, and when the temptation to stay became too strong, she would leave.

  * * *

  “. . . and it took them three days to find him,” Gavan finished, flourishing his fork.

  Hannah laughed into her wineglass. “Ewan? I don’t believe it.”

  “Don’t be fooled by his current domesticity. My cousin was once a holy terror.”

  Gavan waved off the innkeeper’s attempt to fill his wineglass. He still had a powerful urge to drink himself into a stupor, especially during the long hours in the carriage with Ewan and Bennett, but he found he enjoyed having a clear mind for his evening meals with Hannah. If she didn’t realize how wildly unhappy she would be without him, these would be some of the last moments they spent together. Gavan wanted to remember them.

  “Tell me one of your childhood antics,” he prompted. “And spare me no detail.”

  Hannah shook her head. “There weren’t any, truly. Life at Idyllwild was . . .”

  Her entire expression changed, the rosiness diminishing in her cheeks. With a blink, she straightened her shoulders and gave him a sad smile. ”. . . very controlled.”

  The life she’d led before coming to London—what he knew about it, anyway—made him furious. His minx was far too vivacious to be locked away in a drawing room. “Now it’s my turn to disbelieve. Even the formidable Sir Thomas is no match for you.”

  She laughed. “There was this one time . . .”

  “I knew it!” Gavan leaned back, rubbing his hands together in exaggerated anticipation. “Regale me.”

  “When I was very young, I was desperately trying to keep one of the barn cats as a pet.” An endearing blush formed on her cheeks.

  “Trying?”

  “He preferred chasing mice in the dairy shed to being dressed up in doll clothes.”

  “How odd,” Gavan interjected.

  Hannah laughed again. “Just so. The grooms would capture him for me, but before I knew it, he would sneak back out.”

  “Did you give him a stern talking-to?”

  “Many times, but he was unimpressed with the authority of a four-year-old girl.”

  Gavan imagined a tiny Hannah attempting to bend a tomcat to her will through lecture. “I assume this story does not end with you placidly accepting his decision to live a less civilized life?”

  “If only. I couldn’t determine how he was escaping. This was the most vexing mystery in my young life, so I decided drastic measures were warranted in the discovery of its answer.”

  “What did you do?”

  Her blush turned a deep crimson. “I inked his paws.”

  The scene unfolded in Gavan’s mind, complete with black paw prints across every available surface. Laughter poured from him in waves.

  “It wasn’t just the carpets, although they were certainly ruined,” she said around her own laughter. “My father was taking pity on the tomcat and carrying him outside.”

  The mention of her father immediately dampened Gavan’s mirth. He did not bear an abundance of affection for her parent. “From what you’ve told me of Sir Thomas, I can’t imagine he responded with humor and understanding.”

  Hannah shook her head, taking a sip of her wine. “This was before. When my mother was alive, he was delightful. Afterward, he came into my room, covered in ink smudges, and tried to pretend he was cross. But he couldn’t keep from smiling!”

  “Did you lock him in the tower for his treason?”

  She laughed again, her joy in the memory apparent. “We had a discussion on the nature of animals, wild and domestic. He was still Sir Thomas after all, just much less stern.”

  “It must have been jarring to see him change.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Gavan regretted them immediately.

  Joy turned to pensiveness as she stared into her wineglass. “For a long time I thought it was something I had done. I thought it was somehow my fault that she died and he was angry with me.”

  If only he had accepted his past with the same quiet dignity as Hannah accepted hers. She was open with her pain, but there was no bitterness there. At a loss for a better response, Gavan lifted his empty wineglass in a mock toast. “To our esteemed parents and their many flaws.”

  “I wasted so much effort hating my father for who he became after my mother died. Now that it’s behind me . . .” She frowned down at her plate.

  Gavan waited, not wanting to say the wrong thing and discourage her from continuing.

  “He was just a man. Would it have been better if he were stronger—if he could have had more thought for his child? Certainly. But we cannot change what is past, and we are all weak in our way.”

  “You’re far kinder to his memory than I would be.”

  “I hope, when all is said and done, that someone will be as kind to mine.”

  He reached out, tracing the skin on the inside of her wrist with his thumb. Just a touch, he reminded himself. Just enough to convince her to consider a different future. “Then so it shall be.”

  She looked up, the beginnings of a smoldering heat starting in her eyes. “Perhaps we should be kind to each other in the present.”

  “I would like nothing more.” The center of her palm received his kiss in the gesture that Gavan now considered, along with so many other things, Hannah’s alone. “But for now, I must bid you good evening.”

  Confusion marked her face as he made his exit from the table. Gavan was pleased to discover his retreat felt significantly less cowardly with a higher purpose behind it.

  * * *

 
; On the final night of the trip, Hannah woke out of habit rather than from nightmare and listened to the steady breathing of her companions. Every night prior, they had sat up with her after the nightmare came, drinking tea and sharing stories. Hannah knew they were exhausted. She didn’t have the heart to wake them, but neither could she fall back asleep.

  Ever since she and Rhone had discussed her father, Sir Thomas had been on her mind. Not as a reminder of the ways her childhood had been less than ideal, and not as her father—but as a person. She tried to imagine him as her friend instead of her parent. Could she judge Jane as harshly, if she lost the love of her life and became cold and rigid? Hannah knew she could not. Could she judge Rhone?

  The latter question had been her unwelcome company for days now. Hannah slipped out of bed, putting on her wrapper as she made her way to the room’s tiny window. Outside the world was dark.

  It wasn’t so much that she thought less of Rhone for his tendency toward indulgence—in many ways it was what she liked about him—it was the way it made any shared future unpredictable. She could be responsible enough for both of them, but what of the aftermath if something happened to her? Could she wash her hands of the consequences, knowing she wouldn’t be around to be taken to task for them?

  Hannah took the lock off her imagination for a moment. She envisioned a life where she and Rhone were married. It was full of laughter and passion and all of the glorious things she’d been missing her whole life. It was painful how she longed for it, even knowing it was just a construct of her own mind. She added a child and the ache grew. He had her eyes and Rhone’s rebellious forelock, and she lost her heart to him immediately.

  She let herself live there in that moment for a good long time. Laughing, loving, growing. Learning to be parents. Discovering each other all over again in the thousand ways their child took after each of them. She let herself truly feel how good it could be. Then she removed herself, and it ruptured down the middle.

  The child’s confusion. Rhone’s grief. He hadn’t said anything, but she’d seen the way he was drinking less often—that would disappear. His black moods would become more frequent. Their child wouldn’t understand. Fear would join confusion and loneliness as Rhone retreated from him to try to limit the damage. Ewan and Rhone would argue. Ewan would take their child, and Rhone would run to some far-reaching place in the world that didn’t hold any memories of her. Their child would be alone in the world, just as she had been.

  Were there worse futures? Undoubtedly, and one could argue that the beauty of the beginning was worth the aftermath. It was too close, though, to Hannah’s own experience. Firsthand knowledge prevented her from being able to discount it as an acceptable cost. Not for her child, with his trusting honey brown eyes. She couldn’t.

  Confirmation that she was right, that the idyllic scene in her imagination could never be hers, was cold comfort. She put the future away and returned her focus to the present. There was joy to be had in Rhone’s company. Hannah intended to hoard as much of it as she could while she was able, in the hope that it would sustain her after she left.

  I was bored. Ewan went to bed already.

  The memory of the night he climbed into her window—the first part of it, anyway—brought a smile to her face. Before she had fully made the decision, she managed to creep out the door without waking anyone. Rhone’s was the next door over, and she tapped lightly on it.

  The silent wait in the hallway was a long one, and she almost turned around, but then she heard the thump of feet hitting the floor. After a few more moments, the door pulled back a crack. Rhone stood behind it in a dressing gown, hair rumpled, with a supremely sleepy expression on his face.

  “Hannah?” His perturbed frown changed to confusion. “What are you—?”

  Not keen to be discovered out in the hallway in her current state, Hannah ducked under his arm and into his room.

  “. . . doing here?” He turned to face her. “Is everything all right?”

  “I was bored. Everyone else was asleep.”

  * * *

  Gavan scrubbed a hand through his already raucous hair but did not mention the obvious fact that he had also been asleep. He still wasn’t sure he understood the situation. Was there danger? Why was she bored? Why was she even awake?

  “Where’s your valet?” she asked, looking around the room.

  “Pickling himself in gin, probably.”

  “Not steadfastly defending your virtue, then.” She stepped closer and ran a finger down the edge of his silk banyan.

  Oh, bloody hell. Gavan took a step back. “Hannah.”

  “Gavan,” she mimicked playfully as she followed him.

  “I appreciate . . . I’m quite flattered even, but—” But I want to lay you out on this bed and bury myself in you so deep you forget we were ever separate, even though all you want is a bit of fun.

  The adventurous fingertip had reached the tie of his robe and begun to undo it.

  “But we can’t do this.” He stopped her hands before they traveled beyond the reach of his willpower.

  Her smile was sultry. “Don’t worry. I won’t ask you to make love to me.”

  As if he couldn’t—hadn’t—lost his soul from the feel of her hands and lips alone. “We can’t do the rest of it, either.”

  She finally registered the sincerity of his objections. “Why not?”

  “Have you changed your mind about marrying me?”

  “Rhone.” She took a step back from him.

  The distance broke his heart. He asked the question even though he already knew the answer. “Will you marry me?”

  “I can’t.”

  The way she said it left him with little hope, but that “little” was more than he usually had. “Then we can’t.”

  “What is this? You don’t care about behaving properly.” She paced his room like the caged hellcat she was.

  “You’re right; I don’t. I care about you.” He sighed and sat on the bed.

  “And I, you. Why can’t that be enough? I know you want me.” She reached for him again.

  Gavan caught her hands before she could use them to change his mind. He placed a kiss in the center of her perfect palm. “I do, but I want all of you. Don’t ask me to lay with you at night if I can’t keep you in the morning.”

  “This is unbelievable.” She shook her head but didn’t pull her hand away.

  “Isn’t it, though?” He was a thousand kinds of fool. He’d almost lost her twice, could lose her at any moment, but he wanted more than just her present. He wanted her future. Even if it only lasted a week, he wanted her to want to spend it with him.

  She sat down beside him. “I care for you a great deal, you know. More than I ought to.”

  “I’m glad,” he said, and he was. “I mean to marry you, Hannah. I intend to convince you to change your mind.”

  “I won’t.”

  “We’ll see.” Gavan hoped the doubt he’d heard in her voice was really there, and that he wasn’t sabotaging the only time he would have with her.

  * * *

  It was midafternoon when they finally arrived at Castle Rhone, and Hannah was still trying to figure out last night’s encounter with Gavan. It shouldn’t matter that he had chosen to discontinue their physical relationship. He was entitled to make that decision, if that was what he wanted. Why, then, did it leave her so supremely out of sorts?

  She was pulled from her internal musings by Jane’s gasp. They had reached the circular end of the long, tree-lined drive, and the castle stood at its apex.

  “Oh, Hannah, look!” Jane made room at the window for her to see out.

  The home of Rhone’s childhood was not the boxy, defensible castle of Hannah’s minimal experience. Castle Rhone boasted towers of square, circular, and octagonal shape. It did not limit itself to any one style of roof, and the light-hued st
one was speckled with modern windows that twinkled in the late-afternoon sun. The entire thing came together in an effect that merely suggested a castle, in the most whimsical way possible.

  The coaches stopped, and Rhone was there to meet her when she stepped out.

  “This is not a castle.”

  “The Dalreochs may have made a few modifications to it since its original inception, but I assure you it began as a castle.”

  “It’s a mansion.”

  “It’s a castle. It says so in the name.” He placed her hand in the crook of his elbow as he led her forward.

  To make up for the lack of notice, given their hasty departure, Gavan’s cousin had left the carriages on horseback a few hours out. He was waiting for them at what Hannah imagined was once the gatehouse, before the inner bailey was subjected to a roof. Now the gatehouse served as a grand covered entryway.

  “Do you plan to woo me with your not-at-all-a-castle?”

  “If it will work, absolutely.” He smiled at her. “There’s an old bathhouse on the edge of the loch. Seamus turned it into a greenhouse. It’s full of exotic plants all year around.”

  “It sounds beautiful, Gavan. How have you ever stayed away?”

  “Not all beauty is worth its price.”

  Hannah followed his sight line and saw knots of people nodding in their direction and murmuring amongst themselves.

  A wiry old man stepped out from their midst and skewered Gavan with a disapproving glare. “So ye’ve come back, then. It’s about time.”

  “Really? It still feels a bit soon yet to me,” Gavan said in deceptively cheerful tones.

  The man shifted his glare to Hannah. “Who’s this, then?”

  Gavan sighed. “My fiancée, Miss Hannah Howard. Hannah, this is Angus.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. . . . Angus.” Hannah dropped a curtsy, thankful for the chance to recover from the awkwardness of the greeting.

  Gavan’s mouth twitched at the corner. “It’s first names here. Almost everyone is a bloody Dalreoch. It would be too confusing otherwise.”

  Angus’s scowl had deepened when she spoke. “Yer Anglish.”