chapter 4
James let out a sigh and leaned his head back against the seat. He’d managed to escape Laura’s home without completely humiliating himself. It had been a harsh blow to discover that even the ephemeral hope of Graeme’s medical marvel, Dr. Hinsdale, was gone. For a moment, he’d felt weak, and he had feared he was about to ignominiously crumple to the ground under Miss Hinsdale’s disapproving gaze.
“Do you think the lovely Miss Hinsdale was telling the truth about that oaf?” he asked Dem. The dog cast a glance up at him and went back to his bone. “No, neither do I. He’ll be back to bother her. No doubt her father left her in debt. That’s generally the way with saints.”
He would have to take care of it. Graeme and his mother would want it. Truth was, James himself had disliked the sight of those meaty fingers wrapped around Laura’s arm. He was, after all, a man who appreciated beauty. And however prickly Miss Hinsdale was, there was no denying her loveliness—the porcelain skin, the crown of golden hair, the deep blue eyes. He might be sick, but he wasn’t blind.
The prospect of browbeating the large man cheered James a little. But he could not manage it tonight. His head was throbbing . . . and now that blasted hand was starting to shake. He gazed down in a detached way at his fingers jerking and twitching on the seat beside him, as if operated by some unseen puppeteer.
Muttering a curse, James rapped his gold-knobbed cane against the ceiling, and when the carriage rolled to a halt, he told the coachman, “Turn around. We’ll spend the night here. I saw an inn at the edge of the village.”
It was doubtless shabby and furnished with lumpy mattresses, but it scarcely mattered. He could lie awake staring at the ceiling there as easily as anywhere else. At least he wouldn’t be jouncing about in the coach. Lately his joints had begun to ache like an old man’s.
Bloody hell. He would not dwell on his condition. He turned his thoughts instead to Laura Hinsdale. He wondered why she had never married. It would have been disastrous for Graeme to wed her, of course, but surely there must have been a number of wealthy men who would want her for her face and form even with her lack of fortune.
She probably wouldn’t have landed an earl, but Miss Hinsdale didn’t seem to covet a title. Perhaps she was just too choosy about her offers. Or still in love with his cousin. That idea struck James as absurd, but then, most things about love did. Attraction he could understand; even he had been swept by passion. Fondness. Affection. A preference for a certain person’s company. But he had never really grasped the desire to tie oneself to someone, to give over one’s heart.
His mouth twitched up at one corner. Of course, there were those who said James de Vere did not possess a heart. He would have been inclined to agree if only that organ did not thunder and clench inside his chest as if about to cease altogether.
The innkeeper looked somewhat askance at the enormous dog at James’s side, but graciously admitted him when James offered an extra coin. James climbed the stairs to his room, using his cane for aid rather than fashion since there was no one here to see it.
The room was small, but Demosthenes managed to turn around in it enough times to satisfy himself before he curled up on the floor. To James’s surprise, the place was clean if somewhat shabby, and it had a window. James gazed out at the dusk settling over the town.
It was well and truly over now. He had to face it. Who would have thought that thirty-four would be the sum of his years?
He had always assumed he had years and years to live out his life, that there would be plenty of time before he had to buckle himself to a wife and produce children. He’d meant to leave Grace Hill to a son. But now it looked as though he’d have to leave it all to his brother Claude.
James turned away and began to undress. He’d never had a valet. It seemed idiotic to pay for the irritation of someone fussing over him. A time would come when he would have to hire one, of course, to do all the things he would no longer be able to. But not yet. He could still avoid that humiliation.
He climbed into bed, knowing he was unlikely to fall asleep, and if he did manage it, he would doubtless awaken after an hour or two. But one clung to the structures of one’s life. As he lay there, drifting in that netherworld between wakefulness and sleep, a new thought came to him. And he smiled into the darkness.
Laura marched into her father’s study the next morning, determined to make up for the pitiful effort she had put into clearing it out yesterday. She worked in her usual organized fashion. Journals went into a trunk—no one would want to purchase those and she couldn’t bear to throw them away. Loose papers she scanned and usually tossed into the ashcan. Only now and then, when she happened across her father’s pipe or found his favorite woolen scarf beneath a pile of books, did tears blind her vision.
She had to keep on. It was the one constructive thing she could do. She would not think about the piano that would have to be sold. She ought to sell her violin, too, but, oh, how could she bear to? It was small, and surely she could keep one thing she loved.
Nor would she dwell on the fact that she would never again have a home of her own. At thirty, she was long past the age of marrying. As a penniless single female, she would be thrown on the mercy of her relatives, part object of pity, part unsalaried employee. Her only other recourse was to become a governess, trying to shove knowledge into the minds of wealthy children, a future that seemed equally unappealing.
There were few other occupations for a woman. She could sell hats in a millinery shop or try to make a living as a seamstress. But her needlework left much to be desired, and one had only to look at her own plain bonnet to realize she had no talent there.
She supposed she could become a nurse; she had helped her father enough, after all. The furor it would cause among her father’s relatives was almost enough to make it appealing. But it would appall and embarrass her aunt, as well, and she wouldn’t do that to her mother’s dear sister. Besides, it hadn’t been dealing with people’s illnesses that she had enjoyed as much as aiding her father’s research—and, admittedly, organizing his life.
Unfortunately, there was no career in managing lives, and her one gift, that of music, was a poor way to earn a living, even for a man. No, she was doomed to spend the rest of her life as a companion or governess.
Laura was startled from her gloomy thoughts by a sharp rapping at the front door. Her heart leapt into her throat. Merton must have come back. She rose to her feet, smoothing down her skirts and giving her nerves a moment to settle before she went to open it.
The knock sounded again, followed this time by an unexpected voice. “Miss Hinsdale? It is I. De Vere.”
“Sir James?” Laura opened the door. It was indeed him, the enormous dog sitting beside him. For a moment all three of them simply stared at each other.
“Miss Hinsdale?” He raised one black eyebrow. “Have I come at an inopportune time?”
“Oh.” She stepped back. “I beg your pardon. I was surprised to see you again. Please, come in.”
Demosthenes slipped past James with surprising agility for an animal so large and headed toward the kitchen. At the door, the dog turned to gaze back at Laura with an expression so humanly expectant that she chuckled.
“I hope you have another soup bone hidden about or Demosthenes will be severely disappointed,” James told her.
“I imagine I can find him something.” She followed Dem into the kitchen and rummaged around, finally coming up with a bone. The mastiff took it neatly from her hand, and flopped down on the stone floor to enjoy his gift. Laura, a smile lingering on her lips, looked back to James. “Did you come just for the bone?”
“No.” A corner of his mouth twitched in what she thought might be amusement. “I have a question to ask of you.”
“Very well.”
He glanced about. “Perhaps we could sit somewhere more, um . . .”
“Formal?”
“I was going to say, more suited to the, ah, moment.”
“What moment?” Laura asked warily.
“Are you always so suspicious?”
“No, but I have had conversations with you before.”
“Oh, the devil.” The hint of amusement on his face turned to irritation. “I’m not here to blight your life. I have come to propose an arrangement of mutual benefit.”
Laura stared, her mind reeling. “Pardon? Are you—are you offering to make me your mistress?”
He was the one who stared now. “Good God!” To her amazement, a flush rose in his cheeks. “No, Miss Hinsdale, I am not here to purchase your nubile body, entrancing as I am sure it is.”
Laura crossed her arms over her chest. “Just what are you here for?”
“I have come to ask for your hand in marriage.”
Laura plopped down onto the nearest chair, his words so far from anything she expected to hear from him that she could hardly grasp it. Finally, weakly, she asked, “Are you joking?”
“I rarely jest about marriage, I assure you.”
She blinked. “I . . . uh . . . why?”
“I would think the advantages are clear. I hope it is not vain of me to point out that you would have a much more agreeable future than the one you are currently facing, which offers penury and the less-than-alluring prospect of throwing yourself on your relatives’ generosity. I can give you a gracious home, a generous allowance, and a respectable, dare I say honored, name.”
He sounded as if he were offering her employment. “No. I mean why would you want to? What possible reason could you have for proposing to me?” Long-buried resentment bubbled in her. Laura popped back up. “If I was not good enough to be Graeme’s wife, as you so kindly told me, how could I possibly be acceptable as yours?”
It was some balm to her feelings that James looked taken aback. “I never said you were unworthy. The only issue was saving the Montclair estate. I can assure you I did not question your character. In fact, it was precisely your good character I counted on. Once you understood how ruinous it would be for Graeme to wed you, you would break it off. I knew I could use your sense of honor against you.”
“What a cold and calculating man you are.” His words were mollifying, at least in regard to his opinion of her, but it amazed her that he would admit it. “It’s hard to believe you’re related to Graeme.”
“It’s a wonder, is it not? But I have never tried to appear anything except what I am.”
“I don’t know that that makes it any better.” She studied him. “I must say, however, that I fail to see any cold calculation in proposing to me.”
He gave her a wry look. “I would guess that most women would regard marriage to me a cold thing indeed.”
“No doubt. But that’s not an explanation. It isn’t as if you like me. You barely know me. And I am relatively certain I am not the sort of woman whom you would choose.”
“You’re right,” he shot back, annoyed. “You are not at all the sort of woman I planned to marry. However, at the moment my choices are rather limited.”
“I can understand why if this is your manner of wooing.”
“I have not tried to ‘woo’ anyone else.”
Laura stared. “I am your first attempt at a proposal?”
“Yes.”
“But why? Why would you choose me?”
“I am beginning to wonder that myself.” When Laura said nothing, merely crossed her arms and waited, James continued, “I chose you because I thought you were in such exigent circumstances you would agree.”
“Well, at least you are candid.”
“I usually am.”
“Then let me be equally straightforward. I may be in exigent circumstances, but I would rather remain in my penniless state, here in my ungracious home, with my unrespectable name, than share your bed.”
He let out a dry laugh, surprising her. “Trust me, Miss Hinsdale, the way I feel now, lust is the furthest thing from my mind.”
“What about in the future?”
He looked at her flatly. “There won’t be any future.”
Nonplussed, Laura simply stared at him. James released a long sigh and sank onto one of the chairs at the table, gesturing wearily at the other. “Please, sit down. Let me begin again.”
“Very well.” She sat down on the edge of the seat, as if any action might break the fragile truce.
James looked straight into her eyes. “I am dying.”
Laura sucked in her breath. “You are sure? That’s why you came to see Papa?”
“Yes, on both counts. I have spent the past several weeks going from one doctor to another. I have been diagnosed with everything from a bad heart to brain fever to tumors. But all are agreed on one thing: I am not long for this world.” He delivered his news with a flat calm, almost as if he were discussing someone else.
“Oh.” Laura’s face softened.
“I don’t want your pity.” His voice was sharp and cold. “I am telling you this so you understand I have no intention of robbing you of your virtue. I won’t demand my husbandly rights. And you will not have to be my wife long before you are my widow. At that time you will inherit nearly everything except the title and the estate attached to it, which must go to my brother Claude. In short, I am offering you a golden opportunity.”
“But why?” she asked softly. “Why would you wish to leave all that to me?”
“What I wish is to not leave all that to them.”
“Who?”
“My family.”
“You intend to disinherit your family?” She gaped at him. “You feel nothing for them?”
“Little that is good.”
“Well.” Laura sat back. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, given your reputation for caring for no one.”
“That’s not entirely true. I care for my dog. And I am entrusting him to you.”
He really meant it, Laura realized. He was dying. And however bizarre it was, however impersonal, he was offering to marry her. “This is absurd.”
“I had some difficulty believing it myself.”
Laura blushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“No need to apologize. As I’ve said, I prefer straight speech.”
“It’s just—this is so odd, so—I cannot help but think you are making sport of me.”
James leaned forward, resting one arm on the table. His eyes were silver in their intensity, and the piercing gaze he directed at her caused an odd, uneasy feeling in her very center.
“I don’t play games, Miss Hinsdale. However low you may think me, I do not lie. Did I deceive you when I told you Graeme’s circumstances? Did I try to soften it in any way when I said you must give him up?”
“No, you certainly did not.” She felt on more solid ground here. “But neither do you do anything without good reason.”
“Perhaps I’m hoping to atone for my past sins,” he told her lightly. He turned to look out the window, his face momentarily bleak. “Or maybe I just don’t want to face the end alone.”
He stood up abruptly, his chair scraping across the stone. “Much as I relish sitting here exchanging barbs with you, Miss Hinsdale, as you might guess, I haven’t the time to spare. What is your answer?” He went on in a needling tone, “Will you throw yourself off the wall, like a perfect heroine of Scott’s, rather than marry this black-hearted villain?”
Laura glared. The moment one began to feel a bit of sympathy for the man, he immediately trampled all over it with his sarcastic goading. She would have liked to throw his offer back in his face, just to thwart him. But she was all too aware of the hard, lonely future that awaited her and, admittedly, too pragmatic to let annoyance rule her.
“No. I mean, yes. Oh, bother. What I’m trying to say is I am no romantic heroine. And however mad you may be, I accept your offer of marriage.”