The Earl's Practical Marriage Read online

  The Marquess opened his mouth to speak, but Giles pressed on. ‘She obviously considers me a most unsatisfactory suitor and I cannot blame her. You have no need to share your opinion of my cow-handedness, Father, and there is no need to lecture me with advice on courtship either. I am taking her out walking this afternoon and I hope I will make a better fist of it this time.’

  ‘The chit is being coy, I have no doubt. She means to accept you—she would be all about in the head to turn you down, Giles, and she might have been a sad romp as a girl, but she was not lacking in wits.’

  ‘That is all very flattering, sir, but—’

  ‘What time are you going to the gardens?’

  ‘About four, I thought. It is rather cloudy now, but it seems set to improve later.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, good fortune, Giles—and send in my man on your way out, will you?’

  * * *

  Later, as he sat in his room, working out just how he was going to word that afternoon’s proposal, Giles realised he still had no idea what he could say to convince Laurel to accept. He had laid out all the practical reasons for her, but the problem was that he feared he knew exactly why she had hesitated—she had expected him to say he loved her.

  It was a perfectly reasonable expectation, because otherwise why propose to her and not to anyone else—she had been quite clear that there must be any number of other suitable ladies out there if all he wanted was an eligible bride. But how could he make declarations of a love he did not feel to Laurel? He refused to lie to her—it was bad enough that he was having to deceive her about his motives—but he did not want to hurt her either. Or give her cause to refuse.

  Making love to Laurel was another matter. He could do that with pleasure—it was a delight and she was an attractive woman—but he could imagine what she would say, and feel, if she realised that he was quite capable of making love to her while not feeling any deeper emotion than liking combined with sexual attraction.

  How much did she understand about men, about sex and desire? Not a great deal, he imagined, not if the sum total of her social life was neighbourhood society and an occasional local assembly. Not that a sophisticated understanding about the capacity of men to separate desire and love would make it any less painful if she realised how he felt.

  What if he told her the truth about the financial position, about the debt and her dowry? What if he put it to her almost as a business proposition rather than a romantic one? Giles rocked back in his chair and chewed the end of his quill as he tried to shape such a proposal into something that might be acceptable. Could he present it as an opportunity for Laurel? She would gain the title, a fine estate, security, the chance to have a family. Many women would leap at the offer.

  The front legs of his chair hit the carpet with a thud. But not Laurel. She appeared to have the independence she was seeking now and he sensed that the strange, romantic, free-spirited girl he had known would want more of marriage. Much more. Laurel, he very much feared, would want love, an emotional partnership. If he laid out the facts, then she would ask him directly if he would have even thought of marrying her if it had not been for the land and the debt, and the honest answer to that question was no. And he could not lie to her, not about that.

  * * *

  ‘I told Phoebe that I am going to discuss this very frankly with you.’ Laurel sidestepped an enthusiastic small boy chasing a hoop along the path. The garden was rather more crowded this afternoon and there were several couples and groups taking advantage of the brightening weather.

  ‘Excellent.’

  She looked up at Giles, walking by her side, and was unable to resist a wry smile. ‘You said that with almost adequate enthusiasm.’

  ‘I am out of practice for frank discussions with ladies.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it.’

  ‘At least you could tell I am not in the habit of making proposals. I made a sorry fist of it, did I not?’

  ‘In what way?’ she asked. It would not do to let him off the hook so easily. And, of course, he might be the veteran of goodness knew how many botched proposals, although that did seem rather unlikely.

  ‘I began with shocking suggestions about making love to you and then followed that up with an exceedingly prosaic proposal.’ Giles sounded gloomy enough to have been thinking carefully about the matter.

  ‘True. Both shocking and prosaic, a most peculiar mixture.’

  ‘May I try again?’

  ‘To make love or to propose?’

  ‘I suspect that reversing the order might be advisable this time.’ When she turned her head to look at him she found he was watching her and that the gloomy tone was lightened by the hint of a smile.

  ‘You are trying to make me laugh, Giles. You are a rogue and I suppose you know that perfectly well. Yes, you may try again, but I warn you now, I am expecting to refuse again.’ She rather thought he was offering her dream, her heart’s desire that she did not deserve and, without love, she did not think she could bear it. She should have trusted him, talked to him and, surely, it was too late now?

  ‘Shall we sit on that bench? It is shielded by roses on either side, we will not be overheard, but it is not compromisingly secluded.’ Giles took her nod as approval and turned to cross the grass to the seat.

  It was a very good choice, Laurel decided. The roses smelt delightful and certainly added some much-needed romance. ‘Very well, Lord Revesby, you have my full attention.’ She folded her hands together neatly in her lap, tucked her feet under her skirts and regarded him with all the prim solemnity she could conjure up. Giles had always known how to make her laugh and she should not be yielding to the temptation to tease him back now, but, oh, he did so lift her spirits.

  ‘I am a rogue? You are deliberately trying to put me out of countenance with your Puritan Miss impersonation.’

  ‘I am waiting, my lord.’

  Giles rolled his eyes, took a large handkerchief from his pocket, laid it out on the grass and went down on one knee.

  ‘Lord Revesby! We are in public.’ She reached out and tugged at his shoulder. Of course the wretched man did not stir.

  ‘Lady Laurel, I am attempting to perform an adequately romantic proposal in the correct style.’

  ‘Well, stop it this moment before someone who knows me sees us. Look—that group of ladies is walking this way! Get up, do, Giles, pretend you have dropped something. I despair of you—why should I marry a man who is as provoking now as he was as a boy?’

  ‘Because I make you laugh?’ Giles stood up, retrieved his handkerchief and sat down beside her again, just in time before the ladies passed by.

  ‘Making me laugh is better than making me cry, but it is hardly the basis of a sound marriage. But you did give me all the sensible reasons yesterday evening so I suppose the more...emotional ones are still to be discussed.’

  ‘Laurel, I can give you liking and respect and friendship. Years of shared memories and dreams.’ He did not try to take her hands, or move closer and, somehow, that made her believe more in his sincerity.

  ‘But not love.’

  ‘Damnation, here comes another flock of chaperons. I could swear it is the local branch of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, on patrol.’

  This time the ladies, a trio, sat down on the next bench, close enough for the murmur of their voices to be heard, if not their words. Laurel managed, somehow, not to give way to giggles.

  ‘I refuse to discuss this in a whisper,’ Giles said.

  ‘Quite. Oh, no, here are the first group coming back and I recognise at least one of them. Mrs Atkinson, good afternoon.’ Laurel bowed slightly. Mrs Atkinson, one of Phoebe’s bosom bows, returned the gesture, glanced at Giles and walked on with her friends. They stopped a few yards away to admire a sundial.

  ‘And I have just realised that one of the group on the bench is Lady Druitt, who c
ame to visit my father the other morning as I was leaving. We are going to have to move, this place is like Almack’s on a Wednesday night.’ Giles was beginning to look hunted.

  ‘There’s the labyrinth, but at least three parties have gone in while we have been in the garden and no one has come out,’ Laurel said. ‘The children and nursemaids are all over on the other side of the lawns—are there any other areas?’

  Giles dug in his pockets and took out the little map of the grounds that they had been given with their tickets. ‘There’s a Wilderness, over by the sham castle.’ He pointed. ‘I can’t recall seeing anyone go that way. Shall we stroll over there now before anyone else appears?’

  Arm in arm, Laurel demurely twirling her parasol, they strolled towards the shady side of the grounds where the faux ruins could be glimpsed above small tress and artfully wild shrubbery.

  ‘I asked about love,’ she prompted.

  She saw Giles look down at her hand on his arm. She was very conscious of his masculinity, the strength under her fingers, the muscles in the long thighs hinted at beneath the tight buckskin of his breeches. ‘I can promise you truthfulness and trust,’ he said before the silence became awkward.

  ‘And you do not look for love in marriage?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or out of it?’ she asked before her courage failed her.

  ‘No.’ They were into the Wilderness now and he stopped and met her questioning gaze, his own eyes blue and clear and sincere. And bleak. ‘I do not. And I swear I would be faithful to you, Laurel. Always.’

  Chapter Eleven

  It was not a game any more, not an almost-unreal situation. Giles was serious about this and she had to make a decision. ‘I do not know what to say.’ Laurel slid her hand free and walked on. ‘I had intended to say no. I had expected that you would either flirt with me and try to seduce me into agreeing or that you would have changed your mind and realised that you had just spoken on a whim last night. Or perhaps that you would produce the same sensible reasons as you did before. But you have promised me something very different—honesty and trust. We could be friends again, couldn’t we? We could make something of this on that basis.’ She gestured as she spoke, sending parasol and reticule tumbling to the grass.

  Giles dropped to his knees, picking up her scattered belongings. He stayed where he was, looking up at her, and it was hard not to reach out and touch his face, tug at his shoulder, pull him up to kiss her. But they needed to talk this through, not be lost in some physical attraction.

  ‘Yes. We could. Laurel, earlier, before I proposed at all, you said you had decided not to marry—that was not because of any distaste for the intimate side of it, was it? Your kisses say not, but kisses are not all there is to it.’

  ‘I know that.’ She did reach out then and urge him to his feet. ‘When I had recovered from the shock of what I had overheard that day in the barn I did some investigating. It is remarkable what one can find on the bookshelves of even the most respectable houses when the libraries are old and large and things are forgotten and overlooked.’

  ‘You shock me now.’

  ‘You think women should be ignorant of the physical facts of marriage? My reading certainly made me aware of why girls are so strictly chaperoned.’

  ‘No. I do not think women should be ignorant, but I would like to think there are things that you and I could discover together. Will you say yes, Laurel? It would make me very happy if you did.’

  ‘What was that?’ A twig snapped, somewhere behind them.

  Giles looked round. ‘A bird, perhaps. It cannot be people—they would not be so quiet.’

  ‘No, of course not. Oh, I do not know what to do for the best. Let us walk a little further, I really do not want to be interrupted.’ She should not even be considering marrying a man who did not love her, one with whom she had such a past history. She expected to feel a sharp reaction to her own foolhardiness, goosebumps or qualms or dizziness, but all she could feel was a warm glow of happiness. Perhaps... Giles did not love her, but together they could build a strong marriage, she was certain of it.

  ‘This is very confusing, you know. I have been an elder sister, almost a governess for so long. Then I decided that I would be an independent single lady and now you are trying to turn my life upside down.’

  ‘And back to where it was nine years ago.’ Giles bent down and took both her hands, raised them to his lips. ‘Shall I try seduction again? It seemed to make a very favourable impression last time.’

  She tugged her hands free. ‘Giles, I cannot think when you do that.’ Half-a-dozen steps took her around another bend in the path and into a damp and overgrown glade. ‘Oh!’

  The three men who had been crouched down around a sack on the ground stood up, slowly, moving apart as they did so. There were objects on the sack, she saw, purses and something like a cudgel, a knife—no, three knives. She glanced at the men as she backed away. They were dressed in coarse homespun, boots, slouch hats. There was no chance they were gardeners taking a break from their labours. Laurel had never knowingly encountered a footpad before, but she had a very good idea that she was seeing some now.

  ‘Come back to me, Laurel.’ Giles’s voice behind her was low, confident. He raised it, pitched to reach the three men who were closing in on them, walking slowly, spread out as if they were edging game towards catch-nets. ‘Sorry to disturb you, gentlemen. We are just leaving.’

  ‘Not so fast, cully.’ The voice came from behind them. ‘Not until you’ve turned out your pockets and we’ve had a look in the lady’s purse.’

  Giles caught Laurel’s arm and spun her round behind him, her back to the wall of shrubs. Now they had one man barring the way out and the three in the glade who were stooping to pick up their weapons.

  ‘Laurel.’ Giles’s voice was a mere breath. ‘I’ll take the one on the path. Get by us when I do and run like the devil is after you.’

  And leave you to face four armed men? I think not.

  ‘Yes,’ Laurel whispered back, edging round behind him as Giles took off his hat and flicked it at the man, the sharp brim hitting him in the mouth. He gave a roar of rage, batted away the hat and charged at Giles, past Laurel.

  She ran to get behind him, then pulled the hatpin from her bonnet, took a firm hold on the strings of her reticule which held her guinea purse and slapped him in the back of the neck with it. He stumbled, swore, half-turned and she stabbed him in the shoulder with the hatpin, then hit him again as he tripped over a fallen branch and crashed to the ground.

  ‘Help!’ Laurel shrieked as she pulled the branch from under his legs and began to belabour him with it. ‘Help! Murder!’ It wasn’t a very heavy branch, but it still had a mass of tiny whippy twigs on it and she thrashed it, keeping him down as she kept shouting. The man wrapped his arms around his head and rolled away sharply. There was an unpleasant dull thud as his temple hit a stump half-buried in the leaves and he went still.

  Laurel dropped to her knees, ripped off the narrow ribbon around the waist of her pelisse and tied his hands.

  In the glade Giles was facing two of the footpads. The other one was down, clutching his shoulder and groaning, the hilt of a knife sticking out between his fingers. His companions were edging cautiously closer to Giles, one with a long-bladed knife held out in front of him, the other swinging a club. Giles bent and pulled a flat-bladed knife from his boot.

  To call out would be to distract him and she could see nothing she could do to help. Distantly she could hear shouts. Assistance was coming, but here, now, Giles was facing two large armed men who had very little to lose by maiming him.

  And then he moved straight at the man with the cudgel who lifted it and lunged forward to meet him. Giles spun round, kicked, high and hard, and the knife went spinning from the other man’s hand. He slashed with his own, sending the footpad reeling back clutching his chest an
d Giles closed with his snarling companion, who brought the club down on Giles’s shoulder.

  Laurel slapped her hand over her mouth to cut off the cry as Giles buckled at the knees, then turned the fall into a roll, crashing into the attacker, knocking him off his feet. After that, it was quick. As the thud of running feet grew louder behind her Giles had the man face down, his arms behind him in a lock that was not allowing him to as much as twitch.

  The glade filled with men, it seemed to Laurel, dazedly taking in the fact that Giles was not only unhurt, but had fought with a focused, skilled ferocity. She pulled herself together and pointed out her struggling captive to one of the two gardeners who had arrived, armed with sickle and hoe. He hauled the man to his feet while the other went to help Giles secure the other two, producing enough garden twine to truss half-a-dozen footpads. Two gentlemen were also there, one who looked like a visitor, the other she recognised as the manager. They both ignored Giles, the gardeners and the footpads, hurrying to her side instead.

  ‘No, no, I am perfectly unharmed. Do assist Lord Revesby.’ She batted away the smelling salts held under her nose, declined the offer to be carried to the hotel and caught the manager by the arm. ‘Send for the constables and a magistrate at once!’

  ‘Of course, of course.’ The man ran off, leaving the other gentleman, who seemed more sensible now he was not attempting to revive her, and the gardeners to haul the offenders off.

  ‘Tell the constables I will call and give them my account as soon as I can,’ Giles called after them, then, the moment they were alone, he turned on Laurel. ‘You told them you were unharmed. Is that true? Yes? Thank God. And what the devil were you thinking of? I told you to run and get help, you could have been killed.’ He towered over her, dishevelled, bleeding from a cut on his cheek, exuding anger.