Page 28 of Desperate Proposals
“Do you not have any questions for me?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.” His demeanor shifted as he returned to the present with a startling alacrity, pinning her with a look she wasn’t quite sure she understood. “You said you’ve made inquiries. And you’ve no reservations about my family, my connections?”
“I believe I’ve already made myself clear on that matter.”
His eyes danced about, surveying every inch of her face, it seemed. Finally he relaxed, clapping his hands together as ifeverything were now entirely settled. “Wonderful. Shall we get on?” He reached for the door’s heavy metal ring.
It took her a moment to catch up, but she did, and nodded. He pushed the door open, holding it so she might pass.
“And what has the baron to say about all this?” he asked quietly. The rumble of his voice felt like a finger drawing a delicate line down her neck.
Evelyn froze in front of him. She schooled her features into nonchalance, a defense as familiar to her as mail was to a knight. “We will find out soon enough.”
“What?”
She ignored the question and moved on.
“And here is the chapel, obviously. It is not used for much these days, I’m afraid—only a small service on Sundays. Nothing more than that since Leonora’s christening.” Evelyn looked up to the ancient window, which had once been a beautiful thirteenth-century stained glass depicting Saint Milburga. Or so she’d been told. Now it was as plain as the plastered-over walls. This was her least favorite room in the manor.
“You mean to say you’ve not spoken with your father about us?” Once more he’d sidled up behind her, closer than she’d have preferred.
“Why?” She turned her head slightly, just barely catching sight of him in her periphery. “Are you unable to speak for yourself, Mr. Hartley?”
“One would expect that you might at least, oh, I don’t know, make mention of a potential suitor before luring said suitor to your family’s ancestral home.”
His words came out sounding harsh, but Evelyn was unperturbed.
“What might I have said? I’ve hardly spoken with Baron Methering these ten days past, about this or anything else.” She walked forward, her heels clicking against the flagstone. “Mygrandmother told me the walls here were half-paneled not long ago. How I wish they’d maintained them.”
“You don’t often speak with your father?” He punctuated the question with a scoff that suggested he didn’t believe her.
“Of course not,” she said, a bit sharpish. “Tonight will be the first time we’ve all dined together in a fortnight.” Facing away from him, she allowed herself a frown.
Baron Methering had thrown himself into his newest obsession as of late: pedestrianism. Wright had informed her that the baron was fine-tuning his stride; when he wasn’t walking circles around the manor, he was reading training accounts and poring over contest finish times. He kept to a strict diet, consumed mostly in his rooms. He’d informed Evelyn and Selina that he would allow a twice-monthly “indulgence” of a roast dinner, which was the only instance of him speaking to either of them recently. He never attended Sunday service in the chapel. Or breakfast, on any day of the week.
Her firsthand knowledge of his activities was limited to her daily observations of him from the windows of the long gallery. The other day she’d noticed him clutching a corn cob in each fist as he pumped his arms with each unnatural stride. Wright had explained that the baron had been inspired by the technique of an American competitive walker he had read about; the cobs supposedly absorbed one’s perspiration.
Evelyn couldn’t understand the fascination with walking, watching people walk, or least of all, reading about people walking, but she was grateful that it was far less dangerous than her father’s recent foray into climbing. That bit of fancy had been heart-stopping, to say the least.
“It’s exceptionally odd to me.” She started at Mr. Hartley’s booming voice, then listened to it echo off the high ceiling and throughout the nearly empty room.
“Is it?” She stared ahead of her, taking in the scant altar and the low railing before it as she had a thousand times before. She could hear his footsteps as he followed her down the aisle.
“You speak so highly of your family, of your pride in said family. Why, you’d even enter into a slapdash marriage with a fanatical liberal parliamentarian in order to provide for your brother’s widow and child. These are your values, as stated by you, not me. And yet… you don’t speak with your father, even as you live under the same roof?”
His scrutiny was palpable. Evelyn did not like that, although she did very much enjoy hearing Mr. Hartley call himself a fanatical liberal. Not that she would admit that to him. Nor would she even turn around, for she was very much afraid of pulling a face just then. Speaking of a family he knew nothing of, questioning her filial loyalty? It was all so tasteless.
When she did not respond, he sighed. “At any rate, Miss Wolfenden… do I have cause for concern with the baron?”
“Cause for concern?” She finally turned around and regarded his dark expression. “Why, I daresay he’ll hardly notice you.”
“Hardly notice me asking for his daughter’s hand?”
Evelyn blinked. “I am thirty years of age, as you’ve remarked upon yourself. He cannot forbid it. Still, I would rather avoid any unpleasantries, if you please.”
“Oh, by all means, of course,” he responded facetiously.
“It might not be as difficult as you think—I informed him as a young girl that I’d no intention to ever marry, you see, so he’s long since given up hope that it will ever happen.”
