The Brooding Earl's Proposition

by Laura Martin

  In frustration he threw down the papers he was carrying. He needed to get outside, get away and have time to think this over.

  India, the little voice in his head taunted him. India, where everything was simple, where the only person he had to look after was himself, and no one else got hurt if he failed.

  Glancing over his shoulder at the book of maps he had carried with him throughout the long voyage, he hesitated, then retraced his steps and picked them up from the desk. It couldn’t hurt to take them with him. Perhaps they would help him decide what he wanted to do with his life, whether he should stay here and try to be a better guardian, to take on responsibility for Selina as well as the girls, or whether to run back to where he felt safe and successful.

  Quietly he slipped out the door and padded along the corridor, making his way out to the stables before anyone could see what he was doing. Right now he needed to be alone, to have space to think. Selina would tell him none of this was his fault, but he couldn’t accept that. He needed to think long and hard and decide if Selina and the girls would be better off without him.

  * * *

  ‘The master has gone out,’ Mrs Fellows said, her face sour as usual, her eyes flitting over Selina in a disapproving manner.

  ‘Where has he gone?’ Since their engagement they had made a habit of having dinner together every evening after the children were in bed. Often the meal was cut short by a stray kiss that led to Matthew tumbling her upstairs to the bedroom and a night spent in each other’s arms.

  ‘Out. He didn’t deign to tell me he wouldn’t be here for dinner.’

  Selina frowned. He hadn’t told her either.

  ‘Are you sure he’s gone?’

  ‘Yes. His horse has gone from the stables and Tom said he left in a hurry earlier this afternoon, carrying a bundle with him.’

  Selina felt her heart sink in her chest as if it were made of the heaviest metal.

  ‘He didn’t say to Tom where he was going?’

  ‘Ask him yourself.’

  Selina stood, smoothing down her dress and trying to cover the absolute panic that was welling up inside her. He’d gone, suddenly and without any message. If it had been an emergency, he would have at least told one of the grooms or stable boys as they were getting his horse ready, he wouldn’t ever leave without giving at least a brief message to be passed on.

  Unless...she pushed the thought from her mind. He had been hit hard by Theodosia’s accident, blaming himself for the tumble she’d taken and the period of unconsciousness afterwards. Selina knew it had dredged up the old feelings of inadequacy, of not doing the right thing for the people he was responsible for, and she’d seen him withdraw into himself.

  It didn’t seem to matter that Theodosia was back to her normal self, bouncing around and creating havoc everywhere she went. Selina had tried to broach the subject with him a few times, but he’d smiled and told her nothing was the matter. Stubborn man. He was too used to doing everything by himself, coping with everything by himself, he didn’t see that talking and sharing could make one see a problem in a different light.

  ‘Tom,’ Selina called, spotting the young stable boy as she entered the yard. It was dark and she suspected he was soon heading to bed in his little nook above the stables.

  ‘Yes, miss?’

  ‘I understand you got Lord Westcroft’s horse ready for him earlier today.’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘Did he say anything about where he was going? Or when he would be back?’

  ‘No, miss.’

  ‘Mrs Fellows said he was carrying something with him?’

  ‘A book, miss, all tatty and heavy.’

  Selina felt her heart sink. It was his book of maps, the maps he’d carefully hand drawn over the years he’d spent in India. Maps of the country he loved so much, the country where he’d finally been able to be happy in himself.

  There wasn’t any reason to take them if he was just going for a ride about the countryside or a few drinks in the local tavern.

  ‘He’s gone,’ she whispered, earning her a puzzled look from Tom. She gave him a weak smile and quickly headed back to the house. Inside she made her way directly to his study, almost raising her hand to knock on the door before she remembered he wasn’t there.

  There was a noticeable gap on the desk where the tattered book of maps normally sat, a gap that made Selina let out a little cry. Her legs felt weak underneath her and somehow she managed to make it to one of the comfortable armchairs.

  She sat there for a moment, still in shock, before the tears started to stream down her cheeks.

  ‘You fool,’ she muttered to herself. ‘You absolute fool.’

  For so long she’d guarded herself against letting anyone close. After the betrayal of her father, after finding out how he had never bothered to marry her mother, she’d said time and time again she would never trust a gentleman, not even one who seemed kind and caring like her father. Then she had fallen for Matthew and pushed away all her doubts, allowing herself to trust and hope, and look where that had got her.

  Selina closed her eyes and sobbed, feeling as though her heart was pulling apart in her chest. Every little sound, every little creak of the old house made her look up, hating the hope that flared inside her that Matthew might have made a mistake, that he might have just spent too long in the tavern.

  ‘Enough,’ she said eventually. It was completely dark and still outside the window now and the candle she’d brought in with her had burned down to nothing. It was time to go to bed, alone for the first time in weeks, and in the morning she would have to start rebuilding her life for a second time.

  * * *

  Selina awoke with a pounding headache and wished she could just roll over in bed and bury her head under the pillow. Instead she took a few deep breaths and stood up, moving around her room as if she were wading through honey, but eventually managing to get dressed.

  Despite the late hour she had turned in Selina had barely slept, spending most of the night tossing and turning until the bedsheets had become so tangled she’d thrown them on to the floor in frustration. Now she felt numb, as if separated from her body and looking down on the world from a distance.

  She couldn’t pretend that part of her had hoped Matthew would sneak into her bed in the middle of the night, that she’d been wrong in her assumption that he’d left. The empty space when she had awoken had made the ache in her chest throb and pulse even more.

  ‘What are we doing today?’ Theodosia asked, bouncing around the room already, making Selina feel a little nauseous as she tried to follow the rapid movement.

  ‘Are you unwell, Miss Salinger?’ Priscilla came closer and peered at Selina’s face. ‘You look terrible.’

  ‘I do feel a little poorly,’ Selina admitted, passing a hand across her forehead. ‘Perhaps this morning you girls could choose a book each to read quietly. I’m sure in an hour I’ll feel better.’ She was sure of no such thing. In an hour Matthew would have still abandoned them and broken her heart.

  Priscilla looked as though she were going to say something, but thought better of it, dragging her sister over to the well-stocked bookshelf in the corner of their room and choosing books for both of them.

  Selina sat on the window seat, looking out at the gloomy morning. There was a thin fog covering the ground, floating wispily among the flowerbeds. In the sky the sun was pale and weak, hardly breaking through the clouds and bestowing only a little light on the garden below. As she looked out she felt her life slipping away from her, felt that horrible helplessness she had after her father had died and her half-brother had thrown her out.

  ‘No,’ she said, louder than she had planned to.

  ‘Is something wrong, Miss Salinger?’ Priscilla looked up from her book as she spoke.

  ‘I think I need to do something, girls,’ she said, surprising
herself with her words. She paused, wondering if it was a foolish notion and then pushed away the doubts. Matthew had left and once again she was at the mercy of a man’s whims. That was going to go on no longer. ‘I need to travel to Cambridgeshire, to see my brother.’

  The idea of confronting her brother, of seeing him again, made her feel giddy, but she knew she could avoid it no longer. She closed her eyes, then nodded resolutely. When she had left London she had heard her brother had moved temporarily to the house in Cambridge while Northrop Hall was undergoing repairs after damage to the roof. It would be hard seeing William living in the home she had loved so much, the home she had hoped would one day be hers, but that couldn’t be helped.

  ‘Now?’ Theodosia asked.

  ‘Yes. Well, as soon as possible.’ If she left it too long, she might lose her nerve.

  ‘What about Lord Westcroft?’ Priscilla’s eyes were sharp and probing and Selina shifted under her gaze.

  ‘He’s gone.’ There was no point hiding it from the girls, they would find out at some point their guardian had left. This way they could begin adjusting to his abandonment.

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘I think he’s gone back to India,’ Selina said, a little more softly.

  ‘Without saying goodbye?’

  ‘He was upset by your accident, I think he blamed himself and somehow told himself we would be better off without him.’

  ‘Are you sure he’s gone?’

  ‘He’s not here, he took his maps with him, I can’t see where else he would be.’

  ‘But he never told you.’

  She shook her head, trying to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill.

  ‘He’ll be back,’ Theodosia said with a conviction Selina envied.

  Priscilla nodded, thoughtfully, then turned back to Selina. ‘But that shouldn’t stop us from going to confront your horrible toad of a brother.’

  ‘You won’t be doing any confronting, young lady,’ Selina said, having to repress a smile at the thought of William being given Priscilla’s hard stare.

  ‘We’ll have to come with you, you can hardly leave us here by ourselves.’

  It was true. In her fire and anger she hadn’t thought what she was going to do with the girls while she stormed into her brother’s house and demanded to see her father’s will.

  ‘No...’ Theodosia’s eyes widened theatrically ‘...you can’t leave us behind.’

  ‘I wouldn’t leave you behind. Perhaps I should just write to him instead,’ Selina said, knowing any letter would probably be thrown in the fire unopened. Then she shook her head resolutely. Matthew had gone, leaving the girls in her care without any instruction or farewell. She would take them to Cambridge and she would confront her brother. It was time to take control of her life and if that meant bringing the two little girls along with her then that was what she would do.

  ‘Go to your bedrooms and start to pack a bag,’ she instructed. ‘We’ll be gone for a week, maybe two at the most. I’ll come in to help you shortly.’

  Selina stood, looking out over the gardens, and wondered if she was making a mistake. Perhaps Matthew would change his mind, perhaps he would decide India wasn’t the answer to all his problems. Perhaps, but she couldn’t rely on it, she couldn’t rely on him. Now she was going to make her own future.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Matthew walked up the drive, leading his horse by the reins. His head was thumping, the consequence of far too much alcohol the night before. It was now twenty-four hours since he’d left Manresa House, twenty-four hours during which he’d drunk copious amounts of alcohol, but also done a lot of thinking. For the first hour in the tavern he’d pored over the maps of India, tracing the familiar lines and invoking all the good memories. He’d regaled the other patrons with tales of tigers and poisonous snakes and the perils of the Indian Ocean, talking into the night, reminiscing.

  As dawn had broken he’d still not slept, but a wonderful clarity had stolen over him as the sun had begun to rise in the sky. India had been wonderful, it had been the place he had made his fortune, but more than that it was the place he had learnt to respect himself again. There he had been a success, he’d built something to be proud of, but that didn’t mean he should go running back there now.

  That would be cowardly. Now he had people he cared about, people he loved. He could never leave Selina behind, the very idea of never seeing her face again made him feel sick to the stomach. And then there were the girls. Again he saw Theodosia’s little body bounce as she hit the ground after falling from the back of her horse, he heard the sickening crack and felt the desperate panic that followed.

  ‘You’ll never be better if you don’t try,’ he had murmured to himself.

  Suddenly it had all seemed so clear. It was hard caring for someone, hard taking responsibility for them, but it would be even harder to leave them behind.

  ‘I love them,’ he’d said, loud enough to draw the landlord in from the small kitchen behind the bar. ‘I love them, all three of them.’

  ‘Do you need any assistance, my lord?’ the landlord had asked, surveying him critically.

  ‘No. I need to get home.’

  Matthew had just left without a word. Selina would be worried. The girls would even notice his absence. He needed to get back to Manresa House.

  He’d stood, his head spinning as soon as he’d levered himself to his feet. Instantly he was cursing the alcohol he’d drunk the night before and quickly he had to sit back down.

  ‘I’ve a comfy bed upstairs, my lord. A few hours’ sleep and you’ll feel much better.’

  He had taken the offer of the bed from the landlord this morning and slept for eight hours straight. When he’d awoken the day was already mostly gone and he’d felt a dread inside him at the thought he’d left Selina on her own and worrying for so long.

  He’d ridden most of the way back to Manresa House, the residual headache from his excesses the night before not getting the better of him until he’d reached the wrought-iron gates at the front of the property. There he had dismounted and now he was walking slowly towards the house.

  Matthew expected Selina to come running from the door. Perhaps angry, perhaps relieved, but definitely there.

  The house was dark, the front door remained closed and when he tried the handle it refused to turn, staying resolutely locked. He hammered on the door, listening for the shuffling footsteps of Mrs Fellows and having to restrain himself from calling out to hurry her along.

  ‘Where’s Selina?’ he asked before the door was even half-open.

  ‘Gone.’ Mrs Fellows looked surprised to see him and took a moment to look him up and down before she remembered who she was speaking to. ‘Gone this afternoon, my lord.’

  ‘Gone? Where?’

  ‘To Cambridge.’

  ‘And the girls?’

  ‘She took them with her.’

  Matthew had to reach out a hand to steady himself, feeling the rough stone exterior beneath his fingers.

  ‘She said you’d gone to India, my lord, seemed quite convinced of it.’

  He closed his eyes, hardly able to restrain the shout of frustration that wanted to break forth from deep inside. He should have anticipated this. Matthew could imagine Selina finding his study in darkness, with no note but just his damned book of maps missing, and jumping to all the wrong conclusions. He knew she found it difficult to trust anyone after what had happened with her father and her brother, he should have anticipated this would happen.

  ‘Cambridge,’ he repeated weakly.

  ‘Come inside, my lord. I’ll get you something to eat from the kitchen.’ They were the kindest words he thought Mrs Fellows had ever spoken to him and even her expression had softened a little.

  Not knowing what else to do, Matthew allowed himself to be led inside. There was a fire burnin
g low in the drawing room and as he slumped into one of the chairs a maid scuttled in to build it up.

  Cambridge. Although he would much rather her here in his arms with him, he had to admire her grit. Selina thought she’d been abandoned by the man she loved and instead of wallowing in self-pity she’d decided to take control of her own life and confront her brother over the dubious conditions of her father’s will.

  Quickly he stood, feeling his head spin for a moment, and cursed again the alcohol he’d imbibed the night before.

  ‘I need to catch them,’ he declared to the empty room. On horseback, riding fast, he could catch a carriage that had left a few hours earlier within a day or two at most. Selina would be back in his arms and the girls under his care.

  If she’ll have you, the voice in his head said. Matthew sank back down into the chair. Surely when she realised he hadn’t run away to India, hadn’t abandoned her and the girls at the first sign of trouble, then she would forgive him.

  ‘Cook is preparing you a light supper, my lord,’ Mrs Fellows said as she stalked into the room.

  ‘I need to go after Miss Salinger and the girls. Tell Roberts I will need a fresh horse and a comfortable saddle.’

  ‘I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do, my lord,’ Mrs Fellows said stiffly, in a tone that said she was about to do exactly that, ‘but it is dark outside and the roads are treacherous at this time of year. You will hardly be any use to anyone with a broken neck.’

  He opened his mouth to protest, but deep down he knew Mrs Fellows was right.

  ‘Damn,’ he cursed, pressing his lips together to stop any further profanities escaping.

  ‘I’ll tell Roberts to have the horse ready for you at first light.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He leaned back in the chair, wondering if he would still be able to catch up with Selina and the girls before they reached Cambridge. He would give anything to be holding Selina in his arms, kissing her, carrying her upstairs to their bed.