“I’d like children,” she said haltingly.
“You’ll make a wonderful mother. You‘ll make a wonderful baroness. Please say you’ll marry me.”
Strangely this speech left her looking more troubled than his hectoring. For a long time, she stared down into her lap, then she glanced up, gray eyes somber. “That’s a very nice proposal, Hugh.”
The tension across his shoulders loosened. She called him Hugh. That meant she relented.
“It’s what I should have said when I arrived. I’m sorry I was such a dunderhead. I’m out of the habit of proposing.”
She didn’t smile. “But then, you have proposed before, haven’t you?”
His blood ran cold. Damn and blast, had the gossip about his failed engagement spread as far as this re
mote estate? What an ass he was. Of course it had. Susan would share all the on dits in her letters.
“That was over three years ago,” he said stiffly, even as he warned himself about getting all het up again.
Jane sat up straight on her window seat and lifted her chin. Her tone was uncompromising, and her eyes were watchful. “It doesn’t matter how long ago it happened, if you’re still in love with Morwenna Nash.”
*
Chapter Three
*
All expression fled Hugh’s face, which was sign enough that she’d touched a nerve. Then Jane met his austere gaze and glimpsed the ocean of hurt seething beneath his polished exterior.
Yes, he was in love with Morwenna Nash. He didn’t need to answer her.
With a weariness that struck her as more spiritual than physical, he stood and crossed to look through the next window along from her. “That’s not your concern.”
Impatience tightened her lips. Apparently he could ask her candid questions, but she wasn’t granted the same freedom. Too bad. “It is, if I’m thinking of marrying you.”
He cast her a brief, curious glance. “Are you?”
Was she? Devil if she knew. “The story is she broke your heart, and you’ve been carrying the willow for her ever since.”
He sighed and stared out at the overcast day. “You know,” he said softly, as if he spoke to himself and not to Jane, “I’m damned sick of the world only thinking of me as the man Morwenna threw over.”
Pity pierced Jane, sharp as a knife. She could understand that he was deathly tired of playing the role of discarded lover, after the dramatic events of three years ago. Up until then, he’d been at the top of the tree, generally admired and envied. He must have suffered an agony of humiliation over the last few years, aside from any pain he felt because the woman he loved was reunited with her long-lost husband.
“I’m sorry that this is a painful subject.” She rose and went to stand beside him. This close, she couldn’t mistake his tension. “But if we’re contemplating a life together, we need to talk about this.”
Still he didn’t look at her. “I was a fool to hope you were the only person in England who didn’t know.”
She couldn’t mistake his fierce unhappiness. Could she deal with that if she married him? If she took on the man, she’d have to take on the broken heart, too. A daunting prospect for any bride. “When you were a boy, you were always steadfast in your affections.”
“You know the family motto,” he said tonelessly. “‘Loyalty unto death.’”
A wry smile twisted her lips. “You speak as if that’s a bad thing.”
He turned in time to catch her expression, and temper sparked in his eyes. “Don’t you bloody dare laugh at me.”
She raised a hand to touch his arm, then thought better of it. “I’m not.”
“I’ve had enough of that as well.”
“Everything was so public.”