Miss Grantham's One True Sin (The Regency Matchmaker Series Book 2) (26 page)

She nodded. "I did not expect—"

"I have been waiting for you to come downstairs," he interrupted her and nodded toward her portmanteau. "Are you leaving now?"

She nodded.

"May I have a word with you first. In private?"

"Certainty."

Lindenshire turned to close the parlor doors, and mild shock coursed through Marianna. What could he have to say to her that required such an impropriety? She willed her heart to stop beating so fast.

It was easy to see why she had mistaken him for Truesdale. Lindenshire was well-nigh the same size as True Sin, and he was dressed much as Truesdale had been the previous morning, in buff-colored trousers and a dark brown coat. But Lindenshire was wearing a perfectly tied cravat, a smart, striped and embroidered black satin waistcoat buttoned all the way, and black Hessians that were polished to a shine, while a pair of spectacles sat atop the bridge of his nose and curled over his ears.

"I did not know you wore spectacles."

"I do not, if I can get away with it. I detest the blasted things, and I wear them as little as possible. But a quizzing glass, while quite fashionable," he said, lifting the single lens that hung from a cord fastened to his coat, "is not the best at helping one see clearly, and I cannot afford to indulge my vanity this morning. Did you not wonder at my seeming fascination with the library spyglass? Pray, sit," he said, not waiting for an answer to his question, and Marianna took a place on the sofa.

Lindenshire sat in the adjacent wing chair. "Miss Grantham, Lord Trowbridge sought me out last evening. He told me what had transpired between you and your parents. He told me everything, in fact."

She looked down at her hands. "I do not know what to say.”

“Have you guessed what he told your father?"

Marianna shook her head. “I have no idea. Did Trowbridge tell you?”

“Indeed.” Lindenshire nodded. "He told your father that I wished to marry you."

"
Bells in Heaven!
" Marianna could feel her face heat as she blushed crimson.

"He told your father that if he and your mother did not leave Trowbridge Manor immediately, he would stand in the way of our betrothal, but that if they left without further argument, he would do everything in his power to see that we were married as soon as possible."

The cold bite of mortification stung Marianna most savagely. "Pray accept my apologies, my lord. I ... I should never have unburdened myself to you. If I had not, Trowbridge would not have drawn you into this horrible coil." Looking down at her lap, she fiddled with the handle of her portmanteau, unwilling to meet his eyes. "I am sorry."

"Oh, Miss Grantham,” —Lindenshire knelt in front of her—"Do not be sorry, for I am not sorry at all." He tipped her chin up. He was peering at her earnestly through the thick lenses of his spectacles. "Miss Grantham ... Marianna ... I ... I love you, and I” —Marianna gasped and he plunged on—I have been trying to find words fine enough to ask you to marry me since Trowbridge told me last night that he would not stand in my way. He knows my feelings run deep."

"Lord Lindenshire, I—"

"My name is Orion. I give you leave to use it, but please ... for now, just hear me out," he said. "Marianna, I do not care that you are no longer an heiress. You are a lovely young woman. Intelligent, sensible, well-mannered. Certainly, you have had one or two ... misadventures, here at Trowbridge, but the
ton
will soon forgive you, especially if you are married to me. As you know, I am more interested in insects than I am in the latest
on-dits
. I am too busy with my studies to get into the sorts of scrapes True Sin gets into. I am known for my steadiness." He matched her fingers with his own. "Marry me, Marianna. My coach awaits. It will take us to London. We shall marry, settle down into a life of scholarship, and the
ton
will forget your indiscretions. Please ... I love you ... will you marry me, dear heart?"

Marianna looked into his liquid brown eyes. His sincerity gripped her heart. He loved her! She felt tears prick her eyes, and a warmth like a summer's day suffused her consciousness.

Orion Chase, the Earl of Lindenshire, was everything Marianna had ever wished for in a husband. He was steady. Polite. Intelligent. Wealthy. Titled. A catch. He had been a good friend to her these last days, and she felt certain that she could grow to love him. True love, she thought, grew from seeds of friendship. And a part of her loved him already. Life with him would be filled with pleasant companionship and intellectual fulfillment. He did not need her fortune. He did not give a pin about her reputation or lack of a title.
Bells in Heaven
, he even thought her beautiful!

A lock of his brown hair had fallen across his eyes, and Marianna lifted her hand to brush it aside. He kissed her palm, closing his eyes as he did so, and then he opened them once more to wait patiently for her answer, his soulful brown eyes vulnerable with hope and longing.

Chapter Nineteen

T
RUE

kicked at a stone, sending it skipping into the brook. It landed on a wide, flat, dry rock out in the middle of the water, skittered to the edge, and gave a little wobble before finally falling with a splashing
thunk
into the water and sinking to the bottom.

How ironic
. This whole miserable portion of his life had begun with one sinking, and it was ending with another.

He knew Lindenshire was proposing to Marianna at that very moment. He'd sprinted from the library, where Lindenshire had been waiting for her, just as Marianna had come down the stairs. He hadn't wanted to get in the man's way.

Lindenshire's carriage was waiting on the curved drive, waiting to carry the two of them away to London, should Marianna say yes.

Truesdale hoped she would.

Lindenshire was a good man. Although a member of the
ton
, and at the pinnacle of fashion, he was too studious, too serious to run in the fastest circles. In point of fact he was considered rather dull, but True knew that was far from the truth. Lindenshire simply cared too much for his fungi and his salamanders to be concerned with who was and was not admitted to Almack's. He was well-heeled and well-respected. And he had fallen arse over instep for Marianna Grantham. Any fool could see that.

True wanted desperately for her to be happy, and if she could not love him, then perhaps she could love Lindenshire. She had seemed to enjoy the Earl's company.

And then there was that fact that Lindenshire had not lied to her, attempted to seduce her, or deliberately and methodically disgraced her.

True swore.

He sat on a wide, flat, familiar rock that jutted out into the brook, unwilling to go back to the manor until Lindenshire's carriage was gone. He would not see it roll past from where he was. He had come down the embankment to the edge of the brook purposely to avoid catching a glimpse of her as the coach rolled past. The minutes seemed to crawl by, and he tried to concentrate on his surroundings. This had been a favorite spot of his when he was a boy, a place of refuge where no one thought to look for him. As it had on many other cool mornings, the music of the brook mixed with the buzzing wings of the bees and the occasional bird singing in the trees at the edge of the clearing above him.

"There you are."

True froze. It was the voice he dreaded hearing, the voice he longed to hear. He turned. Mary was working her way down the slope toward him. She was wearing a proper little blue flowered dress and a pair of proper white gloves. Her brilliant blue eyes shone against their backdrop of pale cheeks kissed with a light, rosy blush and her white-blond hair, which she had pulled back into its tight little bun.

"I have come to say thank-you for everything and to give you this." She stopped when she got within a few feet of him and held out her hand. "I am leaving for London without delay."

Shock coursed through him.
She has accepted Lindenshire's proposal
. He stood, unsure whether his legs would hold him.

She held his mother's ring out to him, the ruby winking in the sun. "I was going to leave it for you in the parlor, but, under the circumstances, I thought it the honorable thing to hand it back to you personally."

He reached out to take the ring. She dropped it into his palm from her gloved hand, and his fingers closed around it. It still held her warmth. He felt a sudden urge to drop it into the water of the brook, to let it reside there with his memories, for all time, but he did not. He did not wish to upset her.

"Lord Lindenshire proposed to me, as you knew he would," she said. "I wanted to thank you before I left, for everything you have done."

"Surely not for
everything
," he said with a deliberately wry grin.

Her eyes crinkled at the corners. "Yes," she said with an emphatic nod. "Everything."

"Having you here was a pleasure."

"Was it?"

He looked into her eyes. "Marianna, if you had not accepted Lindenshire's proposal, I would have offered for you myself, though I knew you would not have accepted me after what I had done."

Her eyes grew big and round. "You would?"

He nodded. "Yes," he said, and smiled at her tenderly. "I would."

"I refused Lindenshire."

True's heart thudded to a stop. "
You did what?
" Didn't the silly chit know she was unlikely to receive a better offer? Didn't she realize what a good man Lindenshire was?

"I told him I could not wed him," she said. She took off one glove. "You were right, Truesdale. Lindenshire is not at all the sort of man I need or want. He is too controlled, too disciplined, too conservative. I need a man who will not be shocked, who will not balk at my spontaneous, willful, and wild impulses." She crooked one blonde brow at him and pointedly pulled off her other glove.

What the devil was she up to? "Which impulses do you mean, precisely?"

She showed him, surging into his arms and pushing him off balance. They splashed into the brook, and the water flowed over them. She didn't let go but kissed him—soundly, playfully, passionately—the scent of her mixing with the sweet water and the wildflowers to produce a perfume to rival any that came from a bottle.

True kissed her back with all the joy his broken heart had longed could be his, and then, finally, he pushed her away and held her at arm's length, allowing a tone of mock concern to color his voice as he exclaimed, "Miss
Grantham!
Such behavior will ruin my upstanding reputation!"

"What upstanding reputation?" she said, droplets of water shining on her cheeks and dripping from her lips and ears and pale eyelashes.

He answered her with a sudden seriousness. "The one I am attempting to acquire. I confess that I am selling my ships so that I can settle down here at Trowbridge and rear the ABC's properly."

"That is not very roguish," she remarked with equal seriousness, but then she grinned impishly. "In fact, it is quite sickeningly respectable."

He nodded. "You are right. I say, Miss Grantham, if we wed, do you think you could find it in your heart to forgive me an occasional lapse into respectability?" And with that, he slowly held out his mother's ring to Mary once more.

She regarded the ring thoughtfully for a moment. True's heart formed a hard, hot lump in his throat. And then, finally, Mary slipped her finger into it.

"I might manage to forgive you," she said, "if you can find it in your heart to forgive me my own occasional madcap behavior."

“Kiss me, Marianna,”

“With pleasure,” she answered.

And so it was.

Sometime later, True drew back, looked at his kiss-addled betrothed, and chuckled. "That must be the most unorthodox proposal of marriage a man has ever offered."

"And the most unorthodox acceptance.”

They stared into each other's eyes and laughed deeply. True could feel the currents of relief and love flowing between them. He pulled from his coat pocket a sodden, folded paper.

"What is that?" she asked, curiosity filling her beautiful eyes.

"It is a special license to marry. I obtained it when I went away that day."

"You mean when you disappeared without telling me where you were going or when you would be back."

"Were you worried?" he asked.

"You know I was. Pray say you will never do that again."

"Hmm ... “ He tapped his chin with his index finger. I think I shall have to add 'termagant' or 'nag' or 'shrew' to my list."

"If you add any of them, then you should probably also add 'dangerous' and 'unpredictable.'" she replied.

He smiled and kissed a droplet from the tip of her nose. "We could marry today. We could marry right now. It is a lovely walk to the church. Or we could wait if you wish. I have not the fortune to give you a grand cathedral wedding, but we could arrange a lovely wedding right here in Trowbridge."

"That sounds lovely, but . . ."

"Hmm?" He hugged her to him.

"But I think a Gretna wedding would be so much more romantic."