Page 9 of Weave me a Rope
Uncle Josh strode in already speaking. “Dee-Dee, what is this I hear about…” He broke off, his eyes blazed, and he took another two steps towards Spen, his face working, and his fists raised. Aunt Eliza, who had followed him into the room, gave an inarticulate cry of protest.
Cordelia stepped between them. “Stop, Uncle Josh. I kissed him first.”
“This is not what you think, sir,” Spen said, in almost the same breath.
Uncle Josh snorted. “Unless you plan to offer for my niece,” he scoffed, “it is exactly what I think.”
“Uncle Josh!” Cordelia scolded, while Spen tossed his hands in the air and groaned.
“I wanted to make it special. I rehearsed in front of the mirror and everything. And then that blackguard Richport spoilt it all,” he said, looking up at the ceiling. Then he turned his gaze to Cordelia and dropped to one knee.
“Cordelia Milton, from the day I first met you, I have been unable to keep away from you. I treasure every moment I spendwith you and think about you constantly when we are apart. I admire and esteem you more than I can say. I cannot imagine spending my life with anyone at my side except you. My heart is bound to yours, and if you can imagine the possibility of coming to care for me, then I beg you to honor me by agreeing to become my wife.”
He added, in a conversational tone, “I did not plan to make my speech in the presence of your uncle, of course, and I thought we could ask your aunt to stand out of earshot. But there you have it.”
He fell silent, gazing up at her hopefully, worry mounting in his expression as she floundered after a response. It was everything she wanted. Not the title and the appalling weight of history, but Spen himself. However, it couldn’t be true he wanted her, too. He was proposing because of Richport’s attack. She should have expected it. He was so wonderful he would sacrifice his own chance of an appropriate marriage because he thought she was ruined, and he wanted to help.
“You don’t have to do that,” she assured him. “I do not think the duke will admit he was bested by a woman and a commoner, and neither you nor Aunt Eliza will talk.”
He blinked at her, then looked horrified. “You think I am proposing because of what happened with Richport?”
“What happened with Richport?” Uncle Josh roared.
Cordelia had no attention to spare him. “Of course, Lord Spenhurst. I know what your aunt thinks of me.”
“My aunt is not proposing, my love. I am. Did you not listen to a word I said? Shall I repeat my little speech? I can, you know. I have been writing it for days. I learnt it by heart last night, and I have practiced it in the mirror at least a dozen times today.”
Her heart stuttered. “You have?”
“I was afraid my words would dry up when I tried to tell you how I felt. You take my breath away, Cordelia, and muddle mybrain. You have from the first, and I believe you will until we are old and grey.”
“You do?” Her own ability to form more words than the most basic seemed to have evaporated.
“I can prove I planned this,” he said, his eyes lighting up. He pulled a small box from his jacket pocket. He held it up and opened the lid. “Here. I had this made for you.”
Cordelia could not resist. She reached out a hand and touched the ring—a gold hand and a silver hand, clasping. The wrist of each was carved into a cuff and the cuff was decorated with tiny gems. On one cuff, they formed the letterC, and on the other the letterS. She took it from the box to examine it more closely, smiling at the clever way the silver and gold twined together on the other side of the ring.
“Well, Dee-Dee?” Uncle Josh said. “Give the man his answer and let him up off of his knee.”
“Cordelia Milton,” Spen began again. “From the day I first—”
As if in a dream, Cordelia found herself fitting the ring to her finger and saying, “Yes.”
“Yes?” Spen repeated, joy beaming from his face.
She gave him both hands and pulled him to his feet, laughing and crying at once. “Yes, Spen, I will marry you.”
Spen hugged her, then Aunt Eliza hugged them both, and then Uncle Josh hugged her and shook Spen’s hand. “You’ll be asking for her, mind,” he warned, “and agreeing to my conditions.” When Uncle Josh was much moved, his tongue slipped back to the Kentish of his childhood.
“Of course, sir. May I call on you tomorrow afternoon? I intend to inform my father in the morning.” Spen took Cordelia’s hands. “If he will not give his consent, Cordelia, I cannot marry until after my birthday in October. Once I am twenty-one, I no longer need to have his permission.”
“I do not wish to cause trouble between you,” Cordelia fretted.
Spen’s laugh had a bitter edge. He had not told her much about his father, but what he had said made the man sound most unappealing. “Any trouble will be of my father’s making, not yours. Nor mine, for that matter.”
“Well,” said Uncle Josh. “We’ll talk about all of that tomorrow, but tonight we’ll sit down and have a drink, and the lot of ye’ll tell me what happened with the Duke of Richport.”
*
