Nearly a Lady (39 page)

After learning from a maid that Gideon was to be found in the study next to the front parlor, Winnefred made her way downstairs. She knocked softly on the study door as the sound of Lilly and Lord Engsly’s mingled laughter floated from the dining room across the front hall.

Rather than wait for a response, she pushed the door open and stepped inside. Gideon was seated behind the desk again, but he didn’t appear to be working on anything. There were no papers before him and no pen in his hand. What she saw instead was the same clothes Gideon had been wearing the night before, the shadows under his eyes, and the fact that he wasn’t smiling when he said, “Good, you’re awake. Have a seat, Winnefred.”

A sliver of unease ran up her spine. She stepped up to one of the chairs in front of the desk but didn’t sit. “Is something the matter?”

There shouldn’t be anything the matter, she thought. Not this morning.

“Nothing the matter,” he assured her. “I merely wish to discuss the arrangements of our marriage.”

Winnefred sank slowly into her chair, caught somewhere between stunned, elated, and wary. Could he really have changed his mind overnight? It didn’t seem possible. It certainly didn’t seem logical.

“You told me you would never marry.”

“Obviously, circumstances have changed. I’ll see to it the banns are posted. My aunt will assist you in selecting an appropriate wedding gown and—”

“Wait.” She held up a hand for silence and took in the set of his jaw and his hard, unsmiling mouth. And she came to the only reasonable, and heartbreaking, conclusion. “You don’t want to do this.”

He leaned forward and placed his elbows on the desk. When he spoke, his tone was gentle. But the words cut like knives. “It is true, I had not planned to take a wife, but this is no longer a matter of what was planned. I am bound by duty and honor to do what is right.”

She felt like a fool. A blind, lovesick fool. Of course Gideon would feel obligated to offer marriage. And of course he would view that marriage, and
her
, as a burden. He had not changed his mind overnight, only his objectives.

She breathed past a suffocating pain in her chest.

“Your offer”—
such as it was—
“is appreciated. But I must decline.”

He straightened again, looking genuinely stunned by her response. “Decline? Why?”

“I should think that fairly obvious,” she returned with as much composure as she could muster. It was hard to remain composed when the whole of her wanted to shake. “You do not wish to marry me, and I do not wish to marry you. We—”

“You don’t?”

“Want to marry you?”
Not like this.
“No. I’ve no interest in sacrificing my freedom on the altar of marriage.”

“I don’t know it would be as bad as all that,” he grumbled.

“Yes, it would.” But it wasn’t the loss of freedom that would make marriage to Gideon a nightmare. She was willing to relinquish some of her independence if it meant spending the rest of her life with the man she loved. But she had no desire to marry a man who did not love her in return—a man who viewed her as a yoke about his neck. And she’d be damned if she spent every day of her life wondering when he would find a way to break free of that yoke and forget her.

Tears pressed against the back of her eyes. She fought them back. “My personal feelings toward wedlock aren’t pertinent at the moment. The simple fact of the matter is—You do not want a wife and I do not need a husband. There is no good reason for us to marry.”

“There is
ample
reason.” He leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “I stole your virtue, Winnefred.”

If he leaned just a little closer, she thought darkly, she could reach out and strangle him.

Stole your virtue
, indeed. As if she’d been some helpless maiden he’d ravished in the night and left a broken piece of rubbish in the morning.

She leaned in a little closer herself. If he wanted to be offensive, she could be offensive. “I have a great many virtues, Gideon. None of which have
ever
resided between my—”

She sat back again and gathered her anger around her like a cloak. It was so much better than the hurt. “How easily you forget who I am. How
quickly
you would turn me into one of your pampered, incompetent, feeble-minded ladies of the ton.”

“I’ve done no such thing.”

“Haven’t you? Why propose, then?” Without love. Without even a token of affection. “Why demand a marriage I’ve not asked for, if it’s not to save me from myself?”

“Because that is the cost,” he bit off.

Oh, yes, she could cheerfully murder him. “I decline payment.”

He swore under his breath. “There are consequences, Winnefred. Things we must consider. You may be with child.”

“I have bred Giddy,” she reminded him coldly. “I know how new life is created. The differences between our species can’t possibly be so dramatic as to allow a pregnancy without the male seed.”

“The likelihood is decreased, but it is not a guarantee.”

Even the armor of fury couldn’t hold out the heartache now. A child with Gideon. It ought to be a beautiful vision of their future—the two of them smiling and laughing and arguing over who got to teach their son to fish. Instead, she saw only misery—a husband who felt trapped into marriage and forced into fatherhood.

It was unthinkable. And the fact she hadn’t known a pregnancy could result even with measures taken to avoid it only served to illuminate how very blind she had been.

If she had managed to avoid the catastrophe of bringing a child unwanted by his father into the world, then she would thank her lucky stars, and make certain, absolutely certain, it never happened again.

“I see no reason to borrow trouble,” she said eventually. “If I find—”

“It is not borrowing trouble to plan ahead.”

“Then I shall plan ahead to revisit the matter if it becomes necessary.” Why was he arguing with her? Why wasn’t he accepting her refusal gratefully and allowing the excruciating scene to come to an end?

“Be reasonable, Winnefred. We—”

“I am being reasonable,” she cut in. It had to end.

“You’re being obstinate. We cannot, in good conscience—”

“The answer is
no
!” The murmur of voices across the hall ceased abruptly, but she was too furious to notice and too heartbroken to care. She stood from her chair. She couldn’t stand it a minute longer. “Oh, what a hypocrite you are, with your grand speeches of finding the humor, the pleasure in every situation. And yet when you are handed something good and beautiful, you turn it into this . . . this revolting pile of onus and obligation and—”

“I am trying to do what is honorable,” he snapped. “I have a responsibility—”

“I will not be your swiving burden to shoulder!” She bellowed this last and had Lilly and Lord Engsly rushing in the doors.

“Nor yours!” she added, rounding on Engsly. “Nor Lady Gwen’s, nor anyone else’s!”

Gideon rose behind the desk, and though he spoke to Lilly and Lord Engsly, his eyes remained fixed on hers. “You will excuse us a moment, Lucien.”

“Oh, no, let him stay.” Her voice was hard. She’d never known she could sound so hard. “I’m his cross to bear as well, aren’t I? Or perhaps you prefer the image of suffering alone.”

Gideon’s fist came down on the desk. “That is
enough
.”

“It bloody well is.” If she stood there a minute longer, just one minute more, she would crumble.

She spun around, blindly pushed her way past Lilly and Lord Engsly, and dashed across the front hall, intent on reaching her chambers before the tears came. Only they weren’t
her
chambers, were they? It was Lady Gwen’s blue room.

The tears came before she’d made it halfway up the stairs.

She didn’t want the damn blue room.

She wanted her own bed, in Scotland. She wanted Murdoch House, and Claire, and the quiet solitude of her old life.

She wanted home.

G
ideon told himself he shouldn’t be drinking. He should not be sitting in his chambers at three o’clock in the afternoon seriously contemplating the merits of becoming foxed.

Then he decided, yes, he should be drinking, but he should be drinking in celebration, not in . . . Whatever the hell he was drinking for now.

It felt like grief. His head hurt, his chest ached, and there was a sick feeling of helplessness crawling through his veins and twisting his stomach into knots. His mind moved sluggishly, despite the fact he’d had no more than a few sips of his brandy, and his limbs felt so weighted that even the small task of setting down his drink seemed like a chore.

But grief didn’t make any sense. This was what he wanted, wasn’t it? He’d escaped. He was free of obligation, of responsibility . . . of Winnefred.

How had it come to that? How the devil had he ended up drinking in the middle of the afternoon while Winnefred sat upstairs fuming . . . and quite possibly crying.

Bloody hell, he hoped she wasn’t crying.

He’d
proposed
, damn it. There shouldn’t be any fuming and crying at a marriage proposal.

He should have said something different, done something more. He should have made her stay and see reason. But he’d been so focused on what needed to be taken care of, so in dread of his upcoming responsibilities, it simply hadn’t occurred to him she might argue. He’d not considered the possibility she would say no, and mean it.

Why had she said no? True, she’d made it clear from the very start she wasn’t interested in obtaining a husband, but a general sort of dissatisfaction with the
notion
of a husband was different than an actual proposal from
him
. Or it ought to be.

She shouldn’t have said no.

And it occurred to him now that he couldn’t come up with a single reason why she should have said yes. He’d spoken of honor and responsibility, duty and . . . burdens. He’d spoken of burdens.

How the hell could he have been so thoughtless?

For all of her life, Winnefred had been treated like a burden. What was it Lilly had said—raised by a series of indifferent governesses hired by a careless father? And then she’d been pushed onto his father, who’d passed her off to Lady Engsly, who’d handed her to Lilly.

No wonder Winnefred was enamored with Murdoch House and so loyal to Lilly. It was the only place that had welcomed her in, and the only friend who hadn’t abandoned her.

She’d been happy in Scotland, and might have gone right on being happy if Lucien hadn’t discovered her . . . And begun the whole process all over again, Gideon realized with a sinking sensation in his gut. Lucien had passed the responsibility of Winnefred onto him, and he’d handed her to Lady Gwen at the first opportunity. Worse, he’d made it perfectly clear to her this morning he didn’t really want her back.

But what the devil was he supposed to do? The responsibility of a wife and children—bloody hell,
children
—was something he had no business shouldering.

He would fail them, just as he had his men . . . his boys.

It just was
was not an acceptable explanation for what happened aboard the
Perseverance
. It wasn’t an acceptable explanation for anything that happened at war. Every man who fired a shot was responsible for the damage that bit of metal and gunpowder caused. And every officer was accountable for the orders that placed his men in danger. He couldn’t pretend otherwise, nor did he want to.

He reached for his drink again, only to snatch his hand back.

Was he to cling to his guilt and fears to the exclusion of all else—to the exclusion of Winnefred? He wasn’t sure he wanted that. He wasn’t sure he could do it.

He wasn’t sure he could not.

He still wasn’t sure when, half an hour later, the long night, the grief, and the brandy took their toll and he slipped into sleep.

 

T
he sea was rough, tossing the frigate about like a dog playing with a bone.

Gideon tried to get his feet under him. He tried to focus on what he was supposed to be doing, but it was impossible to think with all the noise.

If the fighting would only stop for a minute, if the ship would just be quiet for one buggering minute, he’d be able to think.

In a heartbeat, the sea settled and the world went eerily silent.

His eyes flew to the open door of his cabin. The battle was still raging. He could see his men through the smoke and flame. He could feel the ship tremble under his feet. He watched as the end of a yardarm broke away and toppled to the deck.

But he heard nothing. Not the firing of cannons. Not the screams of his men. Nothing.

“Better. That’s better.”

He could think now. He could find them all a way out of this damnable . . .