He’d scrambled to find some way to draw her back; he’d succeeded, but only by mining his own vulnerability, a desperate act. Just voicing his fears had shaken him, even if he’d disguised them as hers.
Before he’d let her up from the daybed he’d extracted an agreement that they would meet again, that she wouldn’t try to retreat from their now-established intimacy. Well and good; his immediate need was met. Yet now he’d got that much from her…where to from here?
Marry the damn woman as soon as humanly possible was the answer backed by every instinct he possessed.
He imagined proposing….
Eyes closing, he dropped his head back and groaned. “If I tell her I want to marry her now, she’ll think someone has seen us and I’m doing the honorable thing.” He thought, then added, “Or worse, that I’ve simply come to my senses, realized I’ve seduced a gently bred virgin, and feel compelled to offer for her hand.”
He grimaced horrendously. He didn’t need even a second to realize what sort of argument proposing would land him in—one he’d never win. Opening his eyes, he sipped, felt the crisp wine slide down his throat. “This can’t be happening.”
If he proposed now, he’d risk losing all he’d thus far gained. Worse, he’d put her on her guard against him.
Frowning, his wits now fully re-engaged, he reviewed his campaign—as if winning her were a war with her and her hand the prize. While seducing her had seemed an excellent idea at the time, having won that battle and taken that hill, he’d now discovered that the position made his push to take his primary target harder, not easier.
He had to take another approach. A flanking maneuver.
Replaying her reasons for believing he couldn’t possibly be interested in marrying her, while he’d undermined one—that he wasn’t honestly attracted to her—the other three still stood firm, at least in her mind. Her age, society’s expectations of the type of lady who would be his wife, and their compatibility in day-to-day dealings.
Given where they now were—given she’d already tried to step back—if he wanted to convince her he truly wanted to marry her, he would need to attack and weaken, preferably vanquish and quash, those other three reasons before he risked asking her to be his.
In light of the feats he’d routinely accomplished over his years as a spy, that shouldn’t be beyond him. He drained his glass, eyes narrowing as he planned. Persuasion was his strong suit, but sweet words didn’t work well with her—she was too wary, too cynical. Sweet actions, however…
By the time he sat up and set aside the empty glass, his new plan of campaign was clear in his mind.
“Sybil?” The following morning, summoned by Milsom to the drawing room, Madeline discovered that not only Sybil but Belinda, Annabel and Jane had come to call. Touching fingers with Sybil, acknowledging the girls’ curtseys with a smile, she waved them to chairs, then sat beside Sybil on the chaise. “Is anything wrong?”
“Not wrong.” Sybil fixed her with a sober gaze. “But I have to confess, Madeline dear, that this is a social call with a purpose.”
“Oh?” Glancing from Sybil’s unusually serious expression to those of her daughters, equally intent, for one dizzying moment Madeline wondered if someone had seen Gervase and her at the boathouse, on the path…but Sybil wouldn’t have brought the girls if that were the case.
Turning back to Sybil, she raised her brows. “What purpose?”
Sybil leaned nearer. “It’s the festival, you see. With the best will in the world…well, Gervase is a man, my dear, and desperately needs female assistance.”
Madeline studied Sybil’s blue eyes, then glanced at the girls. “I thought you…?”
“Oh, no, dear.” Sybil sat back with a light laugh. “Not that we wouldn’t be glad to help—and indeed we will as far as he’ll allow. But you see, he thinks of us as…well, dependents. As ladies to be cosseted, not taken notice of.”
“He’s been our guardian for years, of course,” Belinda put in, “so he views us as veritable babes—never to be taken seriously.”
“The notion that on some issues we might know more than he, especially as he’s been away for so long, never enters his head.” Annabel looked disgusted.
“Yes, well”—Sybil bent a reproving glance on Annabel—“it’s not that we don’t value his protection and his care of us. No.” She turned to Madeline and laid a hand on her sleeve. “Indeed, it’s because we understand why he’s unlikely to listen to advice from us that we’ve come to appeal to you.”
Madeline suddenly found herself the object of four pleading looks not even her brothers could have bettered.
Sybil patted her hand. “We know how busy you are, dear, but if you could find the time, just to hint him in the right direction. Oversee things, as it were. I know I can rely on you to know just how to word advice so he’ll follow it, and he’ll listen to you.” Sybil smiled. “The truth is, he’s such a strong character that it needs an equally strong character to make any impression on him, and sadly none of us is up to his weight.”
Madeline blinked, but as a good neighbor and friend she couldn’t fail to agree. “I’ll do what I can, of course. The festival is for the entire district, after all—only fair that a few of us share the organizational burden.”
“Exactly!” Sybil beamed. “I knew you would know just how to put it. Now, I hope you’re free to dine with us tonight? Just us”—with a wave she included the girls—“and Gervase. I thought perhaps you could bring your brothers, as well as Muriel, of course. It might be useful to learn if the boys have any suggestions for activities that might keep the younger males amused.”
Madeline found herself agreeing, then Sybil rose, collected her shawl and her daughters, and with her usual sweet smile, departed.
Standing on the front porch waving the carriage away, Madeline considered, then sighed. Turning inside, she headed back to the office and the work still remaining from the previous afternoon.
There was absolutely no point in cultivating moss. Gervase had lived by that maxim for most of his thirty-four years; he saw no reason to eschew it now. So while Sybil and his sisters drove to Treleaver Park to cultivate Madeline, he bobbed on the waves, and cultivated her brothers.