Page 59 of Wit, Wiles and Courtship

His cousin came without delay and sauntered into the study, unannounced and as one without a care. Rowe was waiting for him.

“Close the door, will you? My mother is out at present, but I should like to have a conversation without her hearing it. She will surely attempt to give me advice otherwise. I do not know when she will be back.”

Miles obliged, removed his hat, and came and sat next to Rowe.

“Here.” Rowe poured a glass of brandy for his cousin, then took another sip from the glass he was nursing. He was not in the least disguised, but it did seem to have taken the dull edge off from his disappointment.

“Careful,” Miles admonished. “I’ve never seen you take to brandy before your guest arrives.”

“Two sips only,” Pembroke said. “And I knew you were coming to join me at any minute.”

“Sounds desperate.” Miles accepted the drink, then folded his hands, his eyes resting on him, waiting for what he knew Rowe would say when he was ready.

“I am in love with Camilla.”

“Dorothea guessed as much,” Miles said. Rowe looked at him in vague surprise, and he added, “She has not spoken to her sister about it, though, so I cannot tell you how Camilla feels. If it’s any comfort, my wife thinks Camilla’s heart belongs to you.”

If only that were true. “Camilla turned me down.”

Miles raised an eyebrow, then frowned as he digested the news. It was a while before he spoke again. “I must say I am surprised. I had my own suspicions that she felt something for you and would not have expected her to refuse. What reasons did she give?”

“She said we did not suit.”

Miles looked like he would say something, but Rowe went on. “I must say that it is the most incomprehensible sentiment coming from a girl with whom I have spoken on any and every topic, have shared all manners of jokes with, and with whom I have been more open than with anyone else. Whenever we are together, it is abundantly clear that we do suit. She cannot truly believe her claim, can she?”

“I don’t know.” Miles took another sip of his brandy. “Sometimes women will say a thing but they really mean something else. Might you have done something to make her confused about what you truly feel?”

Rowe threw up his hands in exasperation. “All I did was kiss the woman and tell her that I wanted to marry her.”

Miles turned to peer at him. “You kissed her first. And then you said, ‘I want to marry you?’” he clarified.

“Yes, I did kiss her first, and don’t read me a lecture about kissing a girl that I’m not betrothed to, for I was already certain I wanted to marry her. It’s just in that instance I could not help myself. The occasion presented itself and I took it. That is all.”

Miles ignored his belligerence. “And then you said, ‘I want to marry you.’ Exactly like that?”

Rowe thought back. “I think I said, ‘I suppose I shall have to marry you.’” He faced Miles expectantly, and his cousin returned a look heavy with irony.

“You kiss a woman and tell her, ‘I suppose I shall have to marry you.’” He enunciated the words, placing an accent on the word have. Suddenly Rowe’s eyes opened and he stared at Miles, his jaw dropping. How? How had he missed that subtlety?

“I bungled the proposal,” he said, torn between dismay and hope that he might yet set things to rights.

“Spectacularly,” Miles confirmed without pity. “She had no choice but to think that you only said it because you kissed her first. You will need to go and tell her how you truly feel. And don’t do it halfway,” he admonished. “At least not if you don’t want to suffer the rest of your life for your idiocy. That, and miss out on a woman who is perfect for you.”

Rowe ignored the insults, which he fully deserved. “Is she at home now?”

“She was when I left. I suppose I can get you an interview with her if you’d like to return with me,” Miles said, then added with a nostalgic smile. “This reminds me of another conversation we had in this room, about two years ago.”

Rowe stood, in no mood to reminisce about Miles’s proposal to Dorothea when he had one to make himself. “Let me get my hat.”

“Yes, do so. And even if you have only had two swallows of brandy, I advise you to chew on some mint leaves or something. Anything so that she does not think you are coming to her again, bosky, to ask for her hand in marriage over some misplaced sense of honor.”

The thought gave Rowe chills.

“Excellent notion,” he said, and strode off at once to take the advice.

Camilla crouched in the garden at the back of the house, pulling up some of the weeds. She knew little about gardening but had decided to start on one little patch. She did not know if what she was pulling up were weeds or plants, but they didn’t look like plants. She was not even sure that anything had ever bloomed in the plot of land since they had been in residence.

It eased her heart to do something outdoors. It had not been difficult to turn down Pembroke. Not so very difficult. He had only proposed out of duty. She would not sentence him or herself to a lifetime being bound in marriage when the proposal came out of duty. She would rather never marry anyone than to suffer that fate.