The Proposal: Number 1 in series (Survivors’ Club)

Gwen completely forgot about her ankle for a while. She sat with her knees drawn up, her arms wrapped about them, her feet flat on the blanket.

Her heart felt like a separate being inside her bosom, thumping to get out. She could not seem to calm it down or steady her breathing. And despite the short sleeves of her dress, it still felt more like July than March.

She had never seen a man naked, or even naked with the exception of his drawers. It was an odd fact, perhaps, when she had been married for a number of years. But Vernon had been very particular about respectability. During the day he had not liked her to see him even in as little as his shirtsleeves. At night he had come to her in a nightshirt and dressing gown.

Oh, she had seen Neville and her cousins in their drawers when they swam during childhood summers, she supposed, just as they had seen her in her shift. But they had all been just children at the time.

She was undeniably shocked that Lord Trentham would unclothe himself right in front of her. It was … well, it was barbaric. No gentleman would have removed so much as his coat without asking her permission first—and most would not even have asked simply because it would not be seemly.

But her shock owed less to prudish outrage, she had to admit as she watched him swim, than it did to reaction at the sight of his almost naked body. It was perfection itself. It was nothing short of magnificent, in fact. She had nothing with which to compare it, it was true, no one with whom to compare him. But she did not think any man could compare. His shoulders were wide, his chest broad. His hips were slim, his legs long and powerful. When he stood still, he looked like a finely sculpted god—not that she had ever seen such a sculpture. When he moved, he fairly rippled with muscle and looked like a warrior god sprung to vibrant life.

Could she be blamed for finding him knee-weakeningly, heart-poundingly attractive? For finding it difficult to breathe normally? For forgetting something as mundane as a sore ankle?

Could she be blamed for wanting a repetition of his kisses? For wanting, in fact, far more than just kisses? For feeling something as raw and unladylike as … lust?

It was a good thing, perhaps, that he had gone for a swim, that he was using up energy she knew he had wanted to use on her, that his absence gave her time to get both her body and her emotions under control. In fact, there was no perhaps about it. It was undoubtedly a good thing.

But how could she bring herself under control when he swam with such ease and grace and power, when even at this distance she could see the powerful muscles of his arms and shoulders and legs, the water and the sunlight causing his flesh to gleam as if it were oiled? She could look away, of course. But how could she do that when within a few days she would be gone from Penderris and would never see him again?

She gripped her legs more tightly and felt the raw ache of unshed tears in her throat and up behind her nose. And she also felt the dull ache of an abused ankle. She gave it her full attention and stretched her leg out again. She repositioned the cushions carefully beneath her knee and foot. She did not look toward the sea or, more specifically, to the almost naked man swimming in it.

It would serve him right if his extremities froze and fell off.

He was deliberately flaunting himself before her. A peacock used the gorgeous colors and extravagant size of its plumage to attract the female. He used his almost naked body.

Had he stripped and dashed for the water to cool off? Or had he done it to send her temperature soaring in the opposite direction?

Gwen leaned her head back against the rock behind her, felt the obstruction of her bonnet, and pulled impatiently at the ribbons so that she could toss it aside. She set her head back again and closed her eyes. The sunlight was bright. The insides of her eyelids were orange.

It did not matter why he was swimming. He did not matter. Not really. Or at least her feelings for him did not matter. They were here to relax, to take advantage of an unusually lovely day in beautiful surroundings.

But you are not courting me, are you? she had said to him. It had not really been a question, but he had answered it anyway. No, I am not courting you, Lady Muir. And somehow it was the question and the answer that had sparked everything that had followed. And she had started it. It was her fault, then.

She was thirty-two years old. She had had beaux when she first made her come-out and then a husband. She had had a lengthy widowhood interspersed with more beaux. She was not without experience. She was no innocent, naïve girl. But suddenly she felt like one, for there had been nothing in her experience to help her understand the sheer lust that she and Lord Trentham felt for each other. How could she understand it when he was not at all the sort of man who could be expected to attract her, either as a flirt or as a possible husband? This, she supposed, this new, unexpected feeling, was what led people to have affairs.

She ought to hurry back to the safety of the house before he came out of the water, she thought—until she opened her eyes and remembered that she was a few miles from the house and that she still could not put weight on her right foot. She had not even brought her crutches. Besides, it was too late. He was swimming toward the beach, and then he was standing up and wading toward the shallow water and out onto the beach.

Water streamed down his body and droplets glistened in the sunlight as he approached. His short hair was plastered to his head. His drawers clung to him like a second skin. Gwen did not even try to avert her eyes.

He bent and picked up the towel he had brought with him and dried his chest and shoulders and arms with it—and then his face. He looked down at her. His swim had done nothing to lighten his mood, it seemed. He was frowning, even perhaps scowling.

“You said you would watch me with envy,” he said.

Had she said that?

“Oh, what are you doing?” she cried suddenly.

He was leaning over her and scooping her up into his arms. His skin was cold and smelled of salt and maleness. It was very … bare. She could feel the wetness of his drawers against her side before he hoisted her higher. She wrapped both arms about his neck.

“No.”

But he was striding down the beach again, and the tide was higher now than it had been when he first went in. It must be almost on the turn.

“Why come to a beach,” he said, “if one is merely going to sit and observe? One might as well stay at home and read.”

“Oh, please,” she begged as he waded into the water and she could feel a few splashes of it, cold against her bare arms. “Please, Lord Trentham, don’t drop me in. I have no change of clothes. And it must be like the arctic.”

“It is,” he said.

She was clinging more tightly then and pressing her face to his neck and laughing helplessly.

“I may sound amused,” she said, “but I am not. Please. Oh, please, Hugo.”

He was holding her higher still in his arms, she realized. And he was holding her tightly. A trick? To lull her into a false sense of security?

“I am not going to drop you,” he said, his voice low against her ear. “I would not be so cruel. But there is nothing like being out here, seeing the light create many colors and shades on the water, and listening to it and smelling it.”

He turned right about with her as she raised her head, and then spun about twice more as she lifted her head and laughed with the sheer exuberance of it. It was cooler out here, though not really cold—though perhaps his body heat had something to do with that. She had never really liked the water. But they seemed to be in a vast and shimmering liquid world, which was sheer beauty and no threat at all. She felt perfectly safe in the warm, strong arms of a man who would not drop her—who would never drop her.

She had called him Hugo, she realized. Oh, dear, had he noticed?

“Gwendoline,” he said as he stopped spinning.

He had noticed.

Her eyes met his, just inches from her own. But she could not bear the intensity she saw there. She dipped her head to rest against his neck again and closed her eyes. Would she remember the poignant wonder of this moment for all the rest of her life? Or was it a foolish fancy to imagine that she would?

She rather thought this might be more than just physical attraction. What she was feeling was not just lust, though it was undoubtedly that too. There was also … Oh, dear. Why were there never words to describe feelings adequately? Perhaps she was falling in love with him, whatever that meant. But she would not think of it now. She would work it out some other time.

He sighed then, deeply and audibly.

“I expected to despise you,” he said. “Or at the very least to be irritated by you.”

She opened her mouth to reply and shut it again. She did not want to begin any conversation. She wanted simply to enjoy. She raised her head and set her temple against his cheek. They gazed across the water together, and she knew that she would remember. Always and ever.

After a few minutes he turned without a word and waded out of the sea with her and up the sand to the blanket, where he set her down. He peeled off his wet drawers, picked up the towel, and dried himself off again without turning his back.

Gwen would not look away. Or perhaps she could not. She was not even shocked.

“You may say no,” he said, looking down at her as he dropped the towel. “It would be best to say it now if you must, though. But you may say it at any time before I enter your body. I will not force myself upon you.”

Ah, always the man of plain speech.

Gwen was holding her breath, she realized. Had it come to this, then?

Foolish question.

She knew many women who were of the opinion that widows were to be envied provided they had the means with which to live independently—as Gwen did. Widows were free to take lovers as long as they were discreet about it. In some circles they were almost expected to do so, in fact.

Gwen had never even been tempted.

Until now.

Who would know?

She would know. And Hugo would know.

Who would be hurt?

She might be. He almost certainly would not. No one else would. She had no husband, no fiancé, no steady beau. He had no wife.

She would be sorry afterward. She would be sorry either way. If she said no, she would forever wonder what it would have been like and would forever regret that she had not found out. If she did not say no, she would forever be plagued with guilt.

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

The thoughts tumbled through her mind in a confused jumble.

“I am not saying no,” she said. “I will not say no. I am not a tease.”

And thus were decisions of great moment made, she thought. Impulsively, without due consideration. From the heart rather than from the head. From impulse rather than from a lifetime of experience and morality.

He came down beside her and moved the cushion at her back so that it lay flat and she could set her head on it. He tossed aside her cloak and the two cushions beneath her right leg. He slid large, blunt fingers into her hair and tilted her face up and kissed her openmouthed. His tongue pressed deep and withdrew again.

He knelt beside her and drew her dress off her shoulders and down over her breasts, which were lifted into prominence by her stays.

He looked at her while she resisted the foolish urge to cover herself with her hands. But he did it for her when he spread a hand over one of her breasts and lowered his head to the other. She spread her fingers wide over the blanket on either side of her as he took her nipple into his mouth and suckled her, rubbing his tongue over the tip as he did so. With his thumb and forefinger he rolled the nipple of the other breast, squeezing almost but not quite to the point of pain.

An almost unbearably raw ache spread upward to her throat and downward through her womb to settle between her thighs. She lifted her hands and set one over his wrist, the other against the back of his head. His hair was damp and warm.

He kissed her again then, his tongue simulating the nuptial act with long, deep strokes into her mouth.

He was, she realized over the next several minutes, ten times, perhaps a hundred times, more experienced than she. She knew only kisses of the lips and the act itself.

He did not unclothe her fully, but his hands found their way unerringly beneath her clothes to unlace her stays and find places that gave him pleasure and were sweet agony to her. They were large, blunt-fingered hands whose gentleness she had discovered before. But they were more than just gentle. There was erotic seductiveness in them. They could and did play her like a musical instrument—and not just with competence, she thought with wry humor, but with sheer talent too.

And finally, when her body hummed with desire and need almost to the point of pain, he used one of those hands on the heart of her. It found her beneath the muslin of her dress and the silk of her shift, and his fingers made skilled love to her, parting, stroking, teasing, even scratching. One finger slid long and rigid inside her and she clenched muscles about it and both heard and felt her own wetness. The finger was removed and replaced with two, and then they were removed and replaced with three. They played inside her as she tried to capture them with her muscles, driving her to near madness. She clutched his shoulders and kneaded them with her fingers. At the same time the pad of his thumb was doing something that she did not consciously feel but to which she reacted by shattering about his fingers and hand, crying out as she did so.

He was right over her then, blocking the sunlight, his knees pushing her legs wide, his weight on his forearms, his eyes gazing intently down into hers.

“We can be satisfied with that if you wish,” he said, his voice harsh. “It is still not too late to say no.”

Some semblance of her virtue would remain intact.

“I will not say no,” she told him.

And she felt him against the sensitive area he had just been caressing, finding her, positioning himself, and then pressing hard and firm into her until he was deeply imbedded.

She had inhaled slowly, she realized, and was holding her breath. He was indeed large. But he was not hurting her. Quite the contrary. He had made very sure that she was wet enough to receive him without discomfort. She exhaled, relaxed, and then clenched her inner muscles about him.

She was glad. Oh, she was glad. She would never be sorry.

He had waited for her, she realized. He was still gazing down into her eyes, though his had lost some of their usual intensity and were heavy lidded and naked with desire. But he would wait no longer. He had given her exquisite pleasure even before entering. Now it was his turn. And he took it. He lowered his head until his forehead touched her shoulder, and worked her with deep, swift, powerful strokes, half his weight on her, the other half still supported on his forearms. She could hear the raggedness of his breathing.

She lifted her legs from the blanket and twined them about his thighs. She felt a momentary twinge in her right ankle but ignored it. She tilted her pelvis so that he could come deeper still. And she listened to the wet sucking of his withdrawals and felt the deep, satisfying penetration of his thrusts. Although she knew this was not primarily for her—he was deep in the throes of his own physical need—she felt again the heightened sensation of renewed passion and pressed against him, matching his rhythm with the clenching and unclenching of her muscles, moving her hips in a rhythmic circular motion.

She had no real experience. Ah, incredibly she had almost none. She mated with him out of pure instinct.

But she certainly had not done anything to dampen his ardor. He worked her with undiminished power until he stilled in her suddenly, rigid in every muscle, straining for greater depth, hot and slick with sweat, and she felt the hot gush of his release at the same moment as he spoke low against her ear.

“Gwendoline,” he said and relaxed his full, not inconsiderable weight down upon her.

There was no mattress beneath her back, only the sand beneath the blanket. Who would have guessed sand was so hard and unyielding? But she did not care.

She did not care.

She probably would. Perhaps soon.

But not now. Not yet.

He mumbled something after a minute or two and rolled off her to lie beside her, one arm flung over his eyes, one leg bent at the knee.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I must have been crushing you.”

She tipped her head to one side to rest against his shoulder. Was it possible that sweat could smell this good? She thought about lifting her dress up over her breasts and pushing down her skirt over her legs, but she made neither concession to modesty.

She slid into a relaxed state halfway between sleeping and waking. The sun shone warmly down on them. The gulls were calling again. Eternally calling. Sounding harsh and mournful. The sound of the sea was there too, as steady and as inescapable as a heartbeat.

She did not believe she would ever be sorry.

But of course she would.

The eternal cycle of life. The balance of opposites.

She came back to full consciousness when he got to his feet and, without a word to her, strode the short distance to the water. He waded in a little way and bent to wash himself.

Washing off the sweat?

Washing off her?

She sat up and set her dress to rights after reaching beneath it and somehow doing up her laces. She drew her cloak about her shoulders and clasped it at the neck. Suddenly she felt a little chilly.

They drove back to the house in near silence.

The sex had been good. Very good indeed, in fact. And all the more so because he had been starved of it for too long.

But it had been a mistake anyway.

A colossal understatement.

What was one supposed to do when one had bedded a lady? And when it was quite possible that one had impregnated her?

Say thank you and leave her?

Say nothing?

Apologize?

Offer her marriage?

He did not want to marry her. Marriage was not about beddings. Not exclusively about them, anyway. And the parts of marriage that were not the beddings were every bit as important as those that were. A marriage with Gwendoline was impossible. And, to be fair, that applied to both of them.

He wondered if she expected an offer.

And if she would accept were he to make one.

His guess was that the answer to both was a resounding no. Which made it safe to offer, he supposed, and somehow set himself in the right and appease his conscience.

Daft thought.

He took the option of saying nothing.

“How is your ankle?” he asked.

Idiot. Brilliant conversationalist.

“It is coming along slowly but surely,” she said. “I shall be careful not to do anything as reckless again.”

If she had been more careful a few days ago, she would have climbed safely past his hiding place, unaware that he was there, and he would not have spared her a thought since. Her life would be different. His would be.

And if his father had not died, he thought in some exasperation, he would still be alive.

“Your brother will send a carriage for you soon?” he asked.

It struck him suddenly that he could have offered to take her to Newbury Abbey himself and save her a few days at Penderris.

No. Bad idea.

“If he does not delay in sending it,” she said, “and I am sure he will not, then it may arrive the day after tomorrow. Or certainly the day after that.”

“You will be happy to be able to recuperate at home with your family about you,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, “I will.”

They were talking like a pair of polite strangers who did not have a whole brain between the two of them.

“You will go to London after Easter?” he asked. “For the Season?”

“I expect so,” she said. “My ankle will be healed by then. And you? Will you go to London too?”

“I will,” he said. “It is where I grew up, you know. My father’s house is there. My house now. My sister is there.”

“And you will want to look for a wife there,” she said.

“Yes.”

Good Lord! Had they really been intimate with each other on the beach in the cove less than an hour ago?

He cleared his throat.

“Gwendoline—” he began.

“Please,” she said, cutting him off. “Don’t say anything. Let us just accept it for what it was. It was … pleasant. Oh, what a ridiculous word to choose. It was far more than pleasant. But it is not anything to be commented upon or apologized for or justified or anything else. It just was. I am not sorry, and I hope you are not. Let us leave it at that.”

“What if you are with child?” he asked her.

She turned her head sharply and looked at him, clearly startled. He kept his eyes on the lane before them, looking steadily between the ears of the horse that trotted along ahead of the gig. Surely she had thought of that? She had the most to lose, after all.

“I am not,” she said. “I cannot have children.”

“According to a quack,” he said.

“I am not with child,” she said, sounding stubborn and a little upset.

He looked at her briefly.

“If you are,” he said, “you must write to me immediately.”

He told her where he lived in London.

She did not answer but merely continued to stare.

George and Ralph and Flavian must have been for a long ride. They were only just stepping out of the stable block as the gig approached. They all turned to watch it come.

“We have been to the cove,” Hugo said as he drew the horse to a stop. “It is always at its most picturesque at high tide.”

“The fresh air has been lovely,” Lady Muir said. “It is sheltered and really quite warm down on that little beach.”

Good Lord, even to his own ears they sounded like a pair of coconspirators being so overhearty in their enthusiastic simulation of innocence that they proclaimed themselves as guilty as hell.

“I imagine,” Ralph said, “that drawing room conversations today are loud with predictions of the dire suffering we are surely facing as punishment for today’s glorious weather.”

“No doubt,” Flavian said, “it will snow tomorrow. With a strong north wind. And we will never again be so foolish as to think of enjoying such an unusually lovely day.”

They all laughed.

“You do not have your crutches with you, Lady Muir?” George asked.

“Crutches are not much use on cliff paths and pebbles and sand,” Hugo said. “I’ll drive her up to the doors and carry her inside.”

“Off you go, then,” George said, giving Hugo a penetrating look. He had not been fooled, at least, and it would be nothing short of a miracle if Flavian had. Or Ralph, for that matter. “I daresay Imogen has seen us all arrive and has ordered the tea tray brought up.”

Hugo proceeded on his way to the house, a silent Lady Muir beside him.