Leave a Widow Wanting More by Charlie Lane

Chapter 6

How did one respond to something that wasn’t quite a proposal of marriage from someone they’d only just met? It was a conundrum even the stoutest of etiquette masters would hesitate to answer. Surely even the Lady’s Guide to Moral Rectitude remained silent on the matter. Sarah would check tomorrow, and if Lady Hemsworth offered any solid advice, she’d try to sell the damned book instead of letting it fester on the shelves. She’d owe the lady that much at least.

But now, only good sense guided Sarah, and it told her to say … well, nothing intelligible, really. Perhaps her sense wasn’t as good as she thought. And Lord Eaden, relaxed against the squabs, legs spread wide—taking up every inch of room in the narrow coach, blast him—obviously felt no need to further illuminate his cryptic remarks, his not-really-a-proposal proposal.

“Lord Eaden, could you, perhaps, explain your meaning?”

His lips lifted into the closest thing resembling a smile she’d seen on his face in the entire … ten? … hours she’d known him. “I was wondering how long it would take you to recover. Slower than I expected, but it gave me time to marshal my arguments.”

“Your arguments for what, exactly?”

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. It was darker in the carriage than it had been in the street, and even though Sarah could barely make out Lord Eaden’s large form leaning into the space between them, she felt his heat. She’d felt his heat all night. Perhaps because, except for the three-quarters of an hour she’d been dressing and apologizing to the harassed doctor, he’d been right by her side.

The coach rattled forward, and Sarah’s eyes found Lord Eaden’s in the darkness.

He lifted one finger between them. “First, you will shortly require a new position. You can’t sell Gulliver’s to Hopkins, and if he finds out you have it, well, your situation in his shop will become even more precarious.”

She hugged the book closer. Even if she were allowed to give it to Hopkins, she didn’t think she could now. “Whatever you’re trying to say, say it and be done with it, Lord Eaden.”

He added a second finger to the first. “Second, your spendthrift son needs you to provide for him.” She tried to object to his classifying James as spendthrift, but a third finger joined the first two. “Third, I have three daughters in desperate need of feminine influence.” He sighed, dropped his head in his hands and ruffled his hair before raising his gaze to hers once more. “Last I heard, Nora is becoming quite the sharpshooter, and I’m afraid Ada is going to traipse out the door and go who the hell knows where if I don’t provide her significant relief soon.” The sigh he heaved seemed to fill every inch of the coach. “She’s six and twenty and hasn’t had a season yet. Never even seen London.”

Dire indeed. “From what does Miss Ada need relief?”

“My youngest daughter and my wards, the twins. When my wife died, Ada dedicated herself to being Pansy’s surrogate mother. Then my brother and his wife died. A carriage accident. His twin sons are my wards, and they moved to Cavendish Manor a year after my wife died. Once they arrived, Ada’s role as a surrogate mother … stuck.”

“Ah.” She shouldn’t encourage him, but his story piqued her curiosity. “And how old are they? The twins, the youngest daughter?”

“Pansy is seven. The twins nine.”

Sarah remembered when James was that age. If the eldest daughter minded the children while her father traipsed the globe, she probably felt overworked and frustrated at an age when her only care in the world should be choosing the right ribbons for her gown. Or the right husband for the rest of her life. Speaking of which, Lord Eaden’s little speech was building up to something. She waited for him to continue.

He held up four fingers. “Cavendish Manor is in beautiful country with good neighbors. Living in London isn’t healthy. And”—he held up five fingers—“while you enjoy the benefits of a large home in the country and a secure financial situation, I’ll be in parts unknown, doing what I do. You won’t have to worry about me getting in the way.”

“Fascinating.” She said it only to respond somehow. He had something of a dramatic monologue going.

“But—and this is my final point, Mrs. Pennington, so listen carefully—I think you’re a sensual woman who’s been too long without a bed partner, and as my wife, you’d have an enthusiastic one. When I’m home.” He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. His smile said he felt quite pleased with his points.

She licked her lips and noticed his eyes darken, his gaze drop. He’d meant it about being an enthusiastic bed partner. And she wasn’t green enough to need him to spell out his proposition. But did she want him to spell it out? To say the words, Mrs. Pennington, will you marry me? If he didn’t, she could pretend she didn’t know what he suggested and, in a few miles, exit the coach, and his life, and get on with her meager living.

Or, she could accept his offer as he’d extended it, his six points laid bare. They were, she had to admit, good points. She recited them again, adding some of her own for good measure.

First, she was not long for Hopkins Bookshop, and she didn’t want to be a seamstress. Second, she still wanted to support her son, who did happen to enjoy costly items, so she’d have to get work of some kind, or marry—a possibility she’d not considered till now. Third, she’d always wondered what it would be like to have daughters. Fourth, she liked children. Fifth, though she’d never lived in the country, she rather thought she would like it. It was healthier. It had to be. No smog. And then there was his final point. How had he known she was a woman who liked bed sport? She was so little, other men didn’t normally notice her. Her tiny attributes, as they were, hardly posed a temptation. It had served her well, protected her, but Lord Eaden, he … he saw her.

She shivered.

“Are you well?” he asked, his voice gruff.

“Yes, yes. Of course.”

He moved across the coach in one swift movement, settling right next to her. “It’s warmer if we share the seat.”

Scorching, more like. Was this what the Egyptian sun felt like?

“Well?” he asked.

Her body reverberated with the timber of his voice. “I’m thinking.” She had one more option—get him to state his intentions plainly. He asked her to marry him, but he didn’t say it. And, for some reason, she wanted him to say it. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to say yes, but that hardly mattered.

Just thinking the words made her laugh. The famous Lord Eaden proposing to a widowed army wife.

“I’d like to know what you find humorous, Mrs. Pennington.”

“I’m sure you would, Lord Eaden, but as you won’t say what I wish to hear, I won’t say what you wish to hear. We’re even.”

If a voice could sound like a scowl, his did. “You’ve confused me.”

“Now we’re even.”

He lapsed into silence. Fine. She needed to think. His offer tempted her terribly. How could she possibly say no?

She could think of many reasons. First, she had only met him ten or so hours ago, and he thought women physically feeble. Also, he was gruff and domineering.

And bigger, warmer, harder than any man she’d ever met.

As he maneuvered his arm around her shoulders and nestled her against his chest, she realized those, surprisingly, didn’t seem to be marks against him. It had been over a decade since she’d had a man to lean on. He performed that role admirably well.

Ah, but she wouldn’t have him to lean on, not long and not often. She’d be on her own if she married him, the same as before. With greater wealth and social standing, but with more responsibility and a lion-shaped hole in her life.

And, for a reason she didn’t dare investigate, not after such a short acquaintance, she shied from contemplating his constant absence.

Sarah closed her eyes, took a steadying breath, and spoke. “You make excellent points, Lord Eaden. Six of them! My! As a scholar, you do not disappoint. But as a husband, I’m afraid you would. If it’s marriage you’re offering—and mind you, you never asked explicitly—I must respectfully decline.”

She expected him to push her away, throw himself across the carriage, to at least launch into a second monologue. Instead, he patted her hand, squeezed it, and placed a whisper of a kiss on top of her head.

Don’t melt, she warned her body. Too late. “You can’t nice me into submission, Lord Eaden.”

He chuckled. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Maybe. Are you warm now?”

“I was warm before.”

“You shivered.”

She sighed. “If you have reasons for why, after a mere few hours’ acquaintance, we should marry, I have reasons we shouldn’t.”

“Let’s hear them.”

She pushed away, immediately regretting the chill that sliced between them. “As you point out, if I marry you, I will have greater financial stability, a fine home, increased social standing—”

“And an enthusiastic bed partner.”

Images burst into her imagination, full of color, heat, and Henry. Naked bodies, fire-warmed, gold-white hair slipping through her fingers. She swallowed. “Ye-es. And that.” She shook her head to dislodge the thoughts. “That, too, of course. But I would not have help in any out-of-bed endeavors. My son has never met you. I have never met your children and your wards. They may hate me, making my life more of a misery than it is now. Besides, I’m almost entirely certain you only want to marry me to get your hands on Gulliver’s. Everything I own will become yours when we marry, and Gulliver’s is the only valuable possession I’ve ever had. You want it. I have it.” She wagged her finger at him. “I’m sure you’ll do what you have to, even marry a stranger, to get it.”

“Is it?”

What an unexpected question. What did it relate to? This man’s mind moved like quicksilver. “Excuse me? ‘Is it’ what?”

“Your life. Right now. A misery?”

Oh. Well. She looked out the window to hide from his dark, prying gaze and recognized the street. They were back near the bookshop, a few streets away from her tiny, cold apartment. Thank God. “Stop the carriage, please. I can walk from here.”

“In the rain? Hmph. No. All the way to the door with you. And I’ll escort you inside.”

“There’s no need for that.”

His glare could fell an entire army.

She wasn’t an entire army. “Fine.”

He nodded. “I don’t just want Gulliver’s, Mrs. Pennington.”

There he went again, derailing the conversation, moving it about at lightning speed. “Could you stay on one subject, please? Your conversation is dizzying.”

“I won’t lie and say I don’t want Gulliver’s. I do. But it’s not my motivation for asking you to marry me.”

“You haven’t asked.”

He waved her statement away. “If we were to marry, I’d sign a contract saying Gulliver’s is solely yours. I don’t want it by underhanded means. If I wanted it that way, I could have stolen it from Hellwater’s house while he was busy with one of his damned plays. I don’t play dirty, though.”

She believed him. God help her.

He leaned closer. “Now tell me, is your life miserable?”

She looked at her hands, her feet, the seat opposite, anywhere but at him, out the window. “Oh! We’re here. At the door. As you promised. Stop!” She banged on the roof three times and the carriage rolled to a halt.

Lord Eaden peeked out and turned to her, his face a grim plane of shadows. “This is it? This is where you live?”

She pulled herself up as tall as she could.

“Yes. It is close to Hopkins and has reasonable rent. The landlady is … quite nice.” By which she meant the landlady was often quite drunk and so often forgot rent needed collecting.

“I’ll walk you in.”

“No need. I walk myself in every evening.”

“It’s raining.”

“I’ve done it before in the rain, Lord Eaden, I’m a woman of six and thirty, a mother. I’ve been alone for over a decade.” For almost a decade and a half, actually. My, how time slipped away without one noticing. “I can fend for myself.”

He settled back into the seat, and though she couldn’t see the details of his face, she knew he watched her. “If you sicken, will you send a message to me? Will you let me know?”

Well. He was oddly endearing, wasn’t he? Her annoyance melted into … what? Amusement? Not quite. “I’ll be fine, Lord Eaden. No need for melodramatics.”

She stepped down from the carriage but turned before leaving. “Thank you, for your proposal, as incomplete as it was. For a man such as you to offer marriage to a woman such as me …” She shook her head, unable to find the right words. “Thank you. I never guessed when I woke up this morning I’d meet a famous man, let alone consider marriage to him.”

He leaned forward. “Did you consider it? Seriously? For even a moment?” His voice shook the coach like the rumble of a bear in a cave.

“I did. Briefly.” She chuckled. “It was the promise of a good bedding that did it.”

He huffed. “I know you, I think.”

Her stomach flipped. He very well could know her, her wants, her desires, her goals, her soul. She wouldn’t be surprised at all if it were true. She smiled, knowing he wouldn’t be able to see it. “Good night, Lord Eaden.”

“Good night, Mrs. Pennington.”

She shut the carriage door and rushed out of the rain. As she climbed the three flights of stairs to her room, she thought of the man rolling away from her. He was a lion, no a sun, contained by layers of wool and wood. In her imagination, he stretched further and further away from her, and with him slipped the warmth from her body. She shivered as she lit a candle, illuminating the gray walls and tiny metal bed, the chipped teacups and few beloved books.

She placed Gulliver’s Travels gently on a table and tried to shake Lord Eaden from her brain. But the scent of leather and oranges remained. Odd. Only when she went to undress did she realize his coat, huge and well-worn, still hung about her shoulders.