Page 35 of Desperate Proposals
“I should say not!”
“Oh, good—”
“It was beastly! Heaven knows I told myself I would never again endure such a day, after how long it took to arrive at your uncle’s horrible old pile that Easter. I should not like that very much, I said, traveling such a distance every year. Now here I am, cast to the winds on my own, exhausted and famished!”
“It is only Lancashire, Mama.” Marcus picked up her carpetbag. Slipping his free arm around her shoulders, he ushered her after the groom, who was quite a distance in front of them with her trunk.
She prattled on about his cousin Harmonia, her husband, and their baby girl as they walked. When they came upon Marcus’s newest purchase—a glossy, freshly painted coach—she looked to him, startled. He usually hired a cart to convey luggage, so rarely did he have visitors.
“Why, I am surprised. A carriage? You?”
“Like it?” he asked, not bothering to hide his smugness. “It was quite a decent price for what it is, just under two hundred pounds. A steal, really.”
He leaned forward and smacked his hand against the side of the vehicle. The new coachman he’d hired only a few days ago turned from his perch on the bench and gave him a censorious look. Murphy, a Liverpudlian who said little and smiled less. Marcus nodded by way of apology. He wondered how the man was getting on with the rest of the staff.
His mother stared at him, dumbfounded at first, then sharpening her gaze. “It is quite fine,” she said cautiously as he handed her up.
“Cast aside by some Mancunian lordling,” Marcus explained. He couldn’t help but add the jab, “For something newer and finer, no doubt.”
He let her stew in her thoughts for a time as they set off, enjoying the reupholstered seats and the recarpeted floor. Soon, though, he decided he could drag it out no longer.
“You probably wonder why I’ve asked you up here, after you had so eloquently sworn off long-distance travel.” His mother opened her mouth, but he continued on, eager to spit it out. “It’s because I’m to be married, you see.”
Her shriek of delight set him awash in a wave of happiness, which surprised him. Marcus crossed his arms, wondering at it. Unfortunately, her exclamation had also sent Walter into a frenzy, and he leapt from her lap to the floor, yapping in alarm as he then bounded up onto Marcus’s bench opposite.
“Walter! Walter! Down!” His mother reached out, gesturing for the creature to return.
Walter yapped at her, his tiny frame quivering. She looked back to Marcus, somehow able to ignore the dog’s barking. “But this is wonderful news! Who is she? And when is it? Why, you naughty boy, you ought to have told me—I’ve nothing appropriate to wear for the ceremony, or the breakfast!”
“Oh, you’ve already met her,” Marcus said casually, and lifted Walter up to his own lap with one hand hooked under the dog’stiny chest. Walter growled once more, then finally relaxed and settled into his new position.
His mother stared at him blankly.
“Recall, if you will, that time this summer when I promised to marry the next lady I set eyes upon.”
“Marcus.” Her voice dropped. “No!”
“What is the matter? Does your memory fail you? Miss Wolfenden is a well-bred lady. She needed a husband, and I, being the chivalrous type, was only happy to oblige.”
He left out the information that was pertinent to his own situation; namely, that her father was a baron and well-respected in the area. Though after having to endure not just one, but two dinners with the man, Marcus was not quite sure how that had come to be the case. He’d have to look at everything in Knockton with a more critical eye.
His mother had gone uncharacteristically silent, her lips pursed as she stared across at Walter in his lap. He remembered what Miss Wolfenden had said about companionship.Cats are nice, I find. Perhaps a dog, if one wishes to be set apart.With a small smile, he scratched behind Walter’s ear. Should he bestow a kitten upon Miss Wolfenden once they were wed, then? Or was she one who would wish to be set apart?
Then Mrs. Hartley spoke, interrupting his train of thought.
“He would be proud of you, you know.” She spoke with a voice he hadn’t heard her use since his childhood, when he’d had a fall or awoken from a bad dream. Calm, steady. Assured.
She spoke of his father. Lewis Hartley. The best man he’d ever known. The familiar grief came upon him suddenly, like an avalanche, nearly crushing his chest under its weight. He dared not speak, lest his voice break.
“I see him in you, even if you do not believe it yourself. Your goodness, your integrity.”
He recoiled inside at her words, and his mind rapidly summoned rebuttals for all of them. Marcus had ignored his family, working tirelessly for years, and for what? A heap of failures. There was his inability to shepherd any legislation to real action. The questionable things he’d done over the past few years in exchange for political support. The unfeeling way he’d handled Miss Wolfenden when she’d first come to him for help, and the cynical manner in which they’d come to their agreement.
“I… I also miss him. He raised you into a fine young man, as fine as he ever was.” She paused, her voice growing thick with emotion.
For several moments there was no sound but the gentle rattle of the wheels against the road and the clanking of the team’s tack.
Then she continued, with conviction. “But you’ve done enough. It’s enough, Marcus. You cannot marry every unfortunate woman in distress in London, you simply cannot. You ought to marry for happiness, not charity. You deserve to—”
