Page 74 of Desperate Proposals
He instead turned to Hughes, a sharp retort at the ready, when Towle raised his hand from his perch in a wingback chair. Marcus reluctantly held his tongue.
“Gentlemen,” Towle warned.
Then he fixed his gaze upon Marcus.
“Hartley, how goes your countryside sojourn? Taken my advice, I gather?”
“After a fashion. I’ve certainly taken a wife.”
“Ah, so I heard! A baron’s daughter, is that right?”
“Precisely,” Marcus replied. “Local lass.”
Towle nodded his approval. “Well done. And do you find marriage agreeable?”
Marcus smiled feebly before uncrossing his arms. In a way, it was like being called before the headmaster. But how to respond to such an inquiry?
Admit that marriage was frustrating and distracting, exactly as he’d always feared it would be? That he’d made a calculated gamble which had thus far yielded a wife who ran cold in the daylight but so hot at night as to part him from his senses? And that rather than boost his prospects among his constituents, he’d only managed to win the ire and opposition of the mealy-mouthed James Robert Reed?
“Daughter of a local lord?” McCrea guffawed. “I reckon he’s set up for a quiet walkover, then.”
“You would reckon incorrectly,” Marcus said with a sigh.
“I thought you stood unopposed?” McCrea’s smile faded. The entire room quieted; they were all too aware of their colleagues’ poor showings in recent by-elections.
Not wanting to spook his compatriots, Marcus responded with a noncommittal shrug.
Thankfully Towle spoke again before the mood could descend further.
“Ferguson,” he cut in, his tone all business now. “Tell me more of the new building at Victoria University. What has the reception been?”
Without his wife to hand, Ferguson managed to sputter out a vague account, and the room forgot Marcus for the moment. Arms crossed once more, he paced back to the other side of the fireplace, wondering how Evelyn was getting on.
After another hour of conversation and drinking, when his comrades were good and soused, Marcus found Towle beckoning him over.
“Have a drink, lad. It’s a celebration,” Sir Philip said in a gentle tone, lifting his own glass.
Marcus shook his head. “I am celebrating. I toasted with water.”
Towle sighed. “And where is this wife of yours? Will you not dance?”
“I would,” Marcus said ruefully, “but she will not.”
“My word, did you finally meet your match? Have you managed to find someone as self-serious as you?”
Irritation pricked at the back of Marcus’s neck. He thought of Evelyn bent over her dressing table, how handsome she’d looked with her lips forming an uncontrollable moan. He thought of her sly glances after making a spectacular joke, and then pretending she had been completely in earnest. He thought of her kneeling alongside Leonora, placing a tentative hand upon the inconsolable young girl.
“Of course not,” he finally admitted, taking it on the chin.
“Then I wonder at your long face. I cannot recall ever seeing you so…” Towle frowned, then reached up to scratch his scraggly side-whiskers.
“Preoccupied?” Marcus supplied.
“No.”
“Morose?”
“No.” Towle shook his head. “Pitiable.”
