Chapter 6

Chapter Six

H annah returned to her seat on the sofa, her throat tight with emotion. She'd never received a proposal of marriage before. And she certainly hadn't anticipated receiving one from James Beresford, Viscount St. Clare. She hadn't even known he admired her until he'd said so.

But admiration wasn't love.

She hadn't done wrong to refuse his offer. They were ill-suited; their visions for the future too disparate to guarantee any chance of happiness for either of them. It had been a kindness really, telling him no. Even so…

She rather felt as if she was going to cry.

"Hannah?" Her father entered the drawing room, balancing some of his weight on his ebony cane. The injury he'd suffered to his right leg while serving as a cavalry captain in the Peninsular Wars necessitated the use of it. "Is Lord St. Clare?—"

"Gone," she said bleakly.

Her father exhibited no surprise as he came to sit beside her on the sofa. He leaned his cane next to him. "I had anticipated he might be."

"Did he apply to you for?—"

"He did."

Hannah couldn't imagine what that scene might have been like. Her father was a former soldier, and not generally warm in his dealings with others. His kindness and gentleness were reserved for his family alone. "What did you say to him?" she asked.

"That the decision was yours to make."

She gave her father a wretched look. "How do you know I've made the right one?"

Papa set a reassuring hand on her back. "Your mother and I have confidence in you, sweetheart."

Her eyes stung with the threat of tears. "I refused him."

Papa's expression was solemn. "I had anticipated that as well."

"I fear I hurt him."

"He'll recover."

"You didn't see his face." Hannah recalled the way James had looked after he'd risen from the sofa. "He made himself vulnerable to me and I injured his pride."

Her father rubbed her back. "You've done him a service," he said. "Some men benefit from being knocked down a peg. It's character building."

"I'd no idea of knocking him down. I only said that I shouldn't like to have to change in order to be accepted."

Papa's brows lowered. "Did he ask you to change?"

"He requires a wife who can move in London society. A lady who will be successful there. He thought that, with an effort—" Hannah stopped herself. "But that isn't what I want."

"What do you want, pet?"

She gave him a faint, rueful smile. "A marriage like yours and Mama's, of course."

Papa's stern countenance softened at the mere mention of her mother. "Ah. Something to aspire to, indeed."

"Will you tell her about Lord St. Clare's visit when she returns?"

"I will."

"She will be shocked."

"No. That she won't be," Papa said. "What she will be is even prouder of you than she already is."

"Proud? Because I rejected the heir to an earldom?"

"Because you listened to your heart."

"I don't know," Hannah said. "It's aching awfully at the moment."

"There will be other proposals," her father promised her. "Better ones. Soon, that ache you feel will be but a distant memory."

Hannah found the thought of future marriage proposals cold comfort after what had just passed. As for her heart, she sincerely hoped her father was right.

* * *

James walked the streets of Bath for over an hour, his emotions in turmoil. He was stunned. Hurt. Perhaps even angry, though whether at Hannah Heywood or himself he couldn't tell.

When he thought of it, he couldn't even remember quitting the Heywoods' house. He had no recollection of retrieving his hat and gloves from the footman, or of departing from Camden Place. It was only Hannah's words that remained.

I do not wish to marry you.

Of all the eventualities James had accounted for, an outright rejection hadn't been one of them.

His pride was to blame. He'd been so certain of being accepted.

Though perhaps not entirely certain.

When he'd entered the drawing room and seen her there, looking so quiet and self-contained, an unaccountable tremor of doubt had assailed him. It was that which was to blame for his botching his proposal. If he had, indeed, botched it.

Again, he couldn't quite remember.

He thought he had spoken to her frankly, acknowledging the obstacles, but asserting his belief that together they could overcome them. He'd told her that he admired her, hadn't he? That he thought only of her?"

James raked a hand through his hair in frustration.

"Marriage isn't a waltz," she'd said . "I don't desire to be led. When I marry, it will be to a gentleman who values me as I am."

An acrid sensation took root in James's chest. He had botched it, hadn't he? He'd implied he didn't value her. That he didn't want her for his partner.

And yet, he couldn't shake the unhappy suspicion that she'd have refused him regardless. From the moment he'd sat down beside her in her parents' drawing room, she'd been pulling away from him, attempting to stop him from saying what he'd come to say.

He felt like a prize fool.

By the time he returned to his family's house near the Circus, receiving hours had begun. The sound of feminine laughter drifted down the stairs, punctuated by Ivo's deep baritone voice.

James was in no mood to join his family in entertaining afternoon callers. Passing his hat and gloves to an obliging footman, he crossed the hall, heading for the billiard room. He'd nearly reached it when his father's voice sounded behind him.

"James," he said. "Back at last?"

James grudgingly came to a halt. He turned to face his father. "As you see."

Lord Allendale was dressed for home in tweed trousers and a loose-fitting sack coat. He stopped outside the doors to the library. "And how was Miss Heywood?"

James wasn't generally surprised by his father's prescience. This time, however, it gave him a decided jolt. "What makes you think I saw her?"

"Aside from the fact that you unexpectedly appeared at a ball last night, where you waltzed with her and dined with her, and then left without dancing with a single other lady?" His father's smoke gray eyes glimmered with a flash of wry humor. "Nothing at all."

James suppressed a scowl. "If you already have the answers to your questions, why do you bother asking them?"

"I don't have the answers. I merely make assumptions based on what I know of my children—and on what I'd have done in the same circumstances." The earl opened the door to the library, gesturing for James to precede him inside.

James was in too foul a mood for conversation. He nevertheless obeyed his father's unspoken command. Abandoning any idea he'd had of billiards, he stalked into the library.

His father followed him, shutting the door behind them. "You called on her, I presume."

James crossed the thick red and gold carpet to the tall shelves that lined the wall opposite. They were stocked with all the titles one might expect to find in a gentleman's library—great leatherbound tomes on history, philosophy, and geography. He absently scanned the spines. "Yes."

"Did you propose?"

"I did."

"And?"

James flashed his father a bitter glance over his shoulder. "She refused me."

Lord Allendale's brows lifted. This was plainly a turn of events he hadn't anticipated. "Did she?" he murmured to himself.

"In no uncertain terms." Turning, James leaned back against the bookshelves, folding his arms. The library stretched out before him, with its dark wood paneling, overstuffed chairs, and heavy red draperies. It smelled faintly of pipe tobacco.

His father regarded him from across the distance. "That explains why you look as though you'd swallowed poison," he said. "Sent you away with a flea in your ear, did she?"

James's jaw tightened reflexively. His relationship with his father had always been a good one. They rarely quarreled (except over what James had sometimes perceived as too much leniency afforded to his wild younger siblings). They also rarely talked with any degree of intimacy.

From childhood, James had been accustomed to keeping his troubles to himself. He'd never wanted to add to his parents' burdens. Today was no different.

Except that his usually glacial control was at its lowest ebb. He'd been humbled. Robbed of his defenses.

"On the contrary," he said in the same bitter tone. "She told me that she likes me very much."

"Ah." The earl strolled to join him by the bookshelves. "But not enough, I discern."

James shrugged. "She prefers to marry a man who will accept her as she is."

His father shot him an unfathomable look. "Did you imply that you wouldn't?"

A dull heat crept up James's throat. It wasn't embarrassment. It was annoyance. And not at his father or Hannah. James was annoyed with himself. "I might have done," he said. "Inadvertently."

"It isn't like you to do anything inadvertently."

James made no reply. What could he say? That he'd made a thorough hash of it? That much must be evident already.

His father reached past him to withdraw a large book from the shelf. He tested the weight of it in his hand. "A history of Great Britain through the reign of James II," he said. "The last in a series of books my grandfather made me read when I was a lad, traveling with him in Italy. I never did finish it."

James's father had spent his formative years on the continent, being schooled by James's great-grandfather, the late Earl of Allendale. Travel, books, and a succession of eccentric private tutors had stood in lieu of Oxford or Cambridge. By the time James's father had returned to England, he'd been able to pass for a gentleman.

But only just.

There were few in fashionable society who had forgotten the ignominious circumstances of his birth. He'd begun life working in the stables at Beasley Park, the bastard offspring of a degenerate scullery maid and a legendary gentleman-turned-highwayman. It was only later that his legitimacy had been proven and he'd taken his rightful place as the heir to the earldom.

The rumors had nevertheless persisted.

James had been flayed by those rumors since he was a lad. He'd dealt with them daily when he was away at school, first spouted by boys and later by young men, like Fennick and the rest of his ilk. Men who wielded their flawless pedigrees like weapons against anyone they deemed a threat. Even now, when visiting London, there was always some loudmouth at James's club who—after dipping too deep—would spout off about the former stableboy who had become an earl.

It was the primary motive for James to marry well. The only remedy for the stain on the Beresfords' history was to link their family with another great house. One whose behavior, wealth, and pedigree were so unfailingly pristine that it would outweigh any hint of former scandal attached to the Beresford name.

That had been the plan, anyway, until he'd crossed paths with Hannah Heywood.

"I was determined that you and your brothers would do better than I did," the earl said. "Not a ramshackle upbringing, but a traditional one, befitting your station. Eton. Oxford. Respectable marriages into established, aristocratic families." He gave James a thoughtful frown. "As the eldest, I daresay you shouldered the bulk of that dream. It can't have been easy given the Beresford reputation."

"I haven't complained," James said.

"All the same…" The earl's frown deepened. "I believe I've asked too much of you."

James went rigid. Was his father implying that he hadn't been up to the challenge? That he'd failed in some way? "No more than is my duty," he said stiffly.

"Duty isn't the whole of a man's life. The very fact that you proposed to Miss Heywood tells me that you?—"

"Miss Heywood has saved me from a great piece of folly," James said. "I was wrong to propose to her, especially now that Kate and Ivo have fallen short of the mark."

They had been expected to marry well too. Instead, Kate had betrothed herself to an ex-naval lieutenant and Ivo was engaged to the unpolished daughter of their family's oldest enemy, a vile country baronet. Both were a far cry from the aristocratic matches that had long been envisioned for them.

"You'd hoped to wed a lady of consequence," his father said. "We all know that." He tucked the book under his arm. "But the heart wants what it wants."

"I've said nothing of hearts."

"No," his father acknowledged. "You haven't."

James was silent. He wouldn't be sorry he'd approached his proposal to Miss Heywood logically, even if it had resulted in a refusal. He'd seen first-hand where unbridled passion got one. Every member of his family had lost their head at one time or another, going back generations. It was the very reason the Beresfords were in this predicament.

"Perhaps if you had," his father went on, "Miss Heywood might have?—"

"There is nothing I could have said that would have persuaded her to accept me," James informed him. "That's the end of it."

"If you say it is, then it must be so." The earl smiled again as he turned to leave. "A pity. Particularly considering how assiduously you courted the girl."

The barb hit home.

This time James couldn't disguise the scowl that sank his brows.

He hadn't courted Hannah Heywood, it was true. He'd admired her yes, and he'd spent the past several months privately grappling with his attraction to her, but he'd made no outward show of it. Aside from a few dances, and the conversation they'd shared that night in the Beasley Park stables, there had been no intimacies between them. No sweet words. No lingering touches. No indication at all that he viewed her as anything more than a future relation by marriage.

When James had finally come to a decision in his own mind, he'd arrogantly assumed that would be enough. That Hannah would welcome his proposal. Instead, she'd had no warning of his intentions. His offer of marriage had taken her completely off her guard.

If he had it to do over again?—

But he didn't.

Polite as it was, her refusal had been absolute. All that was left was for James to put this debacle behind him.

His feelings for her would surely fade with time. He would come to be grateful that he had escaped his brief moment of madness unscathed. Until then, there was only one thing to be done.

He would return to London.