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But that hug, just now, told him that she might already be starting to think she was falling in love with him. She wasn’t one to do anything in a half-hearted fashion. Many women imagined themselves in love with a man once she’d gone to bed with him. Besides which Clare had such strong religious beliefs about the sanctity of marriage, she was bound to try to convince herself it was love driving her, rather than lust. It would be the only way her conscience would be able to deal with it.
He groaned. She was the one who was trying to do her best, while he kept on hanging back, like a coward. The least he could do was match her. So he finally did what he should have done earlier. He hugged her, hard. It felt like total surrender. But he was done wrestling with his conscience. From this moment on, he was just going to live with her the way he wanted to be able to live. As though they had chosen to marry each other because it was what they both wanted, with all their hearts.
It wouldn’t last, of course. But he might have one day, or possibly two before it all came crashing down round his ears. Then at least when it all went sour, when this affection she was starting to feel for him turned back to antipathy, when she routinely performed her wifely duties with the air of a martyr rather than with startled pleasure, he could look back on this short interlude and be able to treasure the taste he’d had of what marriage to her could have been like. If only…
‘Wh-what do you want to do with me?’ She was staring up at him, confusion pleating her brow.
‘Poor love, I haven’t been much of a husband to you, up to now, have I?’
‘Well, you didn’t wish to be one, did you?’
He sighed. It was about time he owned up to some aspects of the truth. Aspects that might stand him in good stead when she learned the rest of it.
‘I have wanted to marry you since you were about sixteen.’
Her mouth dropped open. ‘No.’
‘Yes. Did it mean so little to you, my first proposal, that you have forgotten it entirely?’
A frown flitted across her face. ‘That day at the duck pond, you mean?’
‘Yes. Not the most propitious of times to ask you, I admit. I am not surprised you turned me down.’
‘Turned you down? That was…you were…serious?’
He nodded.
‘But you were laughing your head off. I thought you were making fun of me.’
‘No…’ He’d never considered that might be a factor in her total rejection of him. ‘Is that what you thought? Is that why you refused to let me court you?’
‘Let you court…?’ She frowned in evident confusion. ‘What are you talking about? You never came near me again, during that visit to Kelsham Park.’
‘Because I had been told you found my proposal offensive. That you would never lower yourself to receive addresses from a man with such lax morals. That—’
She gasped. ‘No. I didn’t. I mean, I might have thought it, but who could have told you that without even asking me first?’
‘That response did not come from your lips? From your heart?’
‘No! I thought you—’
He was doomed not to discover what she thought he’d done, because the landlord chose that moment to return with a waiter bearing a tray of refreshments. And Clare, predictably, took a step away from him, disengaging herself from his arms, her cheeks flushing pink.
He let her have her space. Even though what he wanted was to haul her back into his arms and smother her face with grateful kisses.
She hadn’t rejected his proposal in that offensive manner. She hadn’t even known he’d proposed, not in earnest. She’d thought he’d been mocking her…
Oh, good lord, what a coil.
He ran his fingers through his hair as he watched the landlord and waiter make a production of setting out Clare’s tea things and a tankard and jug for him, along with a selection of delicately cut sandwiches and tiny cakes on a low table before the fire.
‘While the weather is fine, my lord, my lady,’ said the landlord obsequiously, ‘might I suggest taking a walk along the newly laid gravel path which extends from the town end of the harbour along the shoreline…’
And as for this time, now he came to think of it, not one of the reasons she’d given for trying to evade marrying him had to do with him or his morals. She’d kept saying she wasn’t good enough. Hadn’t got a title. Or any social address…
