The mention of her family brought a lump to her throat, and she looked down trying to swallow it. She felt wretchedly torn in two.What can I do?
“Miss Watson?” he prompted. “This cannot have come as a surprise to you, surely?”
She swallowed again and cleared her clogged throat.I should accept.Everything pragmatic screamed at her to do so. The needs of her family also. But then her father’s image rose up in her mind’s eye, and she recalled his words to her: “If anything ever feels wrong in your heart, my dearest Sarah, no matter how much your head may tell you to do it, do not. For if you do not listen to your heart, you will never be happy. And the last thing I want is for my children to be unhappy.”
Papa’s words hammered in her head, and her heart clenched. The truth of the lies she had been telling herself burst in upon her. On the one hand, she had secretly hoped, foolishly, that an offer would mean he had some partiality for her, something that might burgeon into love with time. On the other, she had pretended to herself that she could accept his offer and do herduty because her family required it of her. Both she realized now were fallacies.I am weak and selfish. I can’t do it.
“Your Grace—” she stopped and took a breath. “I am sensible of the honor you do me, but—” His eyes widened in surprise and her heart skipped and thudded again. “I cannot accept your kind offer.”
His expression darkened into a frown. “Can I ask why not? I can see no impediment to our union, unless”—a fiery light came into his eyes that she had not seen before—“unless your affections are already engaged?”
She swallowed desperately, her heart thudding wildly. She snatched at this excuse for her wayward behavior. “Yes! Yes, they are—so you see—I—cannot. I’m so sorry!” For it was true her affections were engaged, by him, and she could not—she just could not—marry him, knowing he didn’t care for her in return. Tears scalded her eyes and ran down her cheeks as she looked away, tearing her hand out of his grip.
“I see.” His voice was grim, and she flinched as she moved away to stand with her back toward him. “I think you might have alerted me to this circumstance earlier, Miss Watson!”
“You are right, I should have done so. I am sorry. I”—she wiped her cheeks with the handkerchief from her pocket—“I-I have only just recently realized the full magnitude of my feelings.”
“I see,” he said again. “Well, I will not trespass on your time any longer, Miss Watson. I wish you well. Good day!” She heard the door snip behind him and the sound of his feet descending the stairs. She turned back to the couch and sank down, giving full vent of her feelings in a hearty bout of tears.
Daphne came in a moment later.
“My dear, what is it? What happened?” She came at once to the couch and sat beside Sarah, putting an arm around her.
“He—proposed and I refused—him!” sobbed Sarah into her sodden handkerchief.
“Good God, why?” wailed Daphne.
“He d-doesn’t l-love me!”
“Well of course not, you silly girl! Good heavens, you know that love has nothing to do with marriage! Did you think I loved Lord Holbrook when I married him?”
Sarah sobbed harder.
“My dear,” Daphne rubbed her arm comfortingly. “Love is something that comes later, if you’re lucky, and I would think your chances of finding love with His Grace are high. In any case, he would be a considerate and kind husband, which is much more than many women can say they have.” She sighed. “Your parents’ marriage is the exception not the rule, my dear. I thought you understood that.”
“Yes!” said Sarah soggily. “I know, but when it came to the point I just c-couldn’t!”
*
Robert left thehouse in Brooke Street in a state of bewildered agitation and repaired to his club, by far too troubled to show his face in Berkeley Square. Flinging himself into a chair in the corner of the room and demanding a drink, he stared fuming at the fire and tried to make sense of what had happened between last night and this morning.
He had debated whether to hint at his burgeoning feelings and decided against it in the face of her fleeing from him at Vauxhall and his uncertainty whether she nursed any nascent feelings for him. He’d decided to be pragmatic, offer her the marriage of convenience he had begun this odd courtship with. He had thought that based on their discussions she would understand and accept that. But now it appeared that it was amoot point because her feelings were engaged.By someone else.Which would neatly explain his inability to gain her affections.
He wasn’t sure what was making him more upset, her refusal or the reason for it. He only knew that the moment she uttered those words—I have only just realized the full magnitude of my feelings—an anger the like of which he could never recall feeling before seized him.
Who? Who was she in love with?He took the proffered glass from the waiter and swallowed a sizeable mouthful of fiery liquid. He tried to recall any gentlemen that had been paying serious court to her, but he had been so engrossed with his own pursuit of her and the mistaken belief that he had no genuine rivals, he had taken little notice.
He snorted at his own hubris.It serves me right for being such a coxcomb, he supposed. She accused me of unconscious arrogance, and by Jove she is right. What a set down!He swallowed the last of the whisky and rose—he was too keyed up to sit. He left the club to attend Gentleman Jackson’s boxing saloon to work off some of the fury tying his muscles in knots.
Two hours later he was leaving the establishment, feeling marginally better but still with a knot in his stomach, and ran into Ashford in the street, who dragged him back to the club for a meal. Not that he felt like eating.
“Out with it,” said Ashford, tucking into his bloody steak. “You’re like a bear with a sore head.”
Robert sipped his red wine and toyed with a gravy-covered mushroom. He glanced around to ensure they couldn’t be overheard and said quietly, “I proposed to Miss Watson, and she refused me.”
Ashford paused in the cutting of his steak and raised his eyebrows. “Really? Did she give you a reason?”
Robert swallowed some more of the wine to dislodge the mushroom, which seemed to be stuck. “It appears the lady has aprior attachment of which I was completely unaware! God damn it all to hell, why didn’t she tell me? I would never—” he stopped, finished his glass, and waved the waiter over to refill it.
