Completely oblivious to the fact that Lord Deben was undergoing something of an epiphany, Henrietta had turned away and flung herself on to a convenient sofa.
‘For Hubert and Horatio, to be precise. When they come home on leave I don’t want them to hear the kind of gossip that Miss Waverley says will go round if I just sit back and do nothing. Oh, how I wish I’d never come to town. In doing so I’ve already let Humphrey and Horace down. I should have been at home when they had their school holidays. Mrs Cook is a very capable housekeeper, and very kind in her own way, but one cannot expect her to play cricket with them.’
She slumped forwards and buried her face in her hands. ‘I’ve made such a mull of it all.’
Her despair over not being present during her brothers’ school holidays only proved that he’d just made the right decision. Miss Gibson would make an exemplary mother. He could just see her playing cricket with his own sons on the East Lawn, not caring about ruining the turf. And more than that, he could see her protecting all the children he would get upon her with the ferocity of a tigress guarding her cubs. Unlike his own mother who, once she’d whelped, had scarcely looked over her shoulder as she returned to her relentless pursuit of selfish pleasures.
A lesser man might have blurted it all out, there and then, perhaps claiming to have been struck by a coup de foudre. His upper lip curled in contempt as he considered the outcome of speaking such fustian to Miss Gibson while she was so upset and angry. Particularly since some of her anger was directed at him. She resented having to apply to him for aid. Especially since, now he came to consider it, he had not been all that gracious about it.
And then, something about the term coup de foudre niggled at the back of his mind. Hadn’t he, on that drive round the park, warned her that he was not the kind of man who would suffer from that complaint? He had.
In fact, he had been less than tactful with Miss Gibson on several occasions. And brutally honest about his views on love and romance.
He would have the devil of a job getting her to believe he was now receptive to the whole idea of love, within marriage, especially as he only expected her to be the one ‘falling in love’. He could just picture how it would go, should he commence a courtship after the accepted mode. If he presented her with posies, started making pretty speeches, or gave her respectful yet meaningful glances across the set as they danced with each other, she would simply laugh at him. Frustrate him at every turn. In short, make him look like a fool.
There followed what he found a slightly awkward pause as it occurred to him that he could not have made a worse start with his intended bride.
To cover the awkwardness, and to give her something to think about while he grappled with a solution to the dilemma he’d caused himself, he said, ‘Your parents gave you all names beginning with the letter H?’
If he appeared to be interested in the family she held so dear, that might at least start to smooth her ruffled feathers.
She looked up at him sharply. ‘That has nothing to do with anything.’
‘On the contrary,’ he said, making a swift recovery and making damned sure he would not let her glimpse his true state of mind, ‘I utterly refuse to do anything at all until you have divulged the reason behind such an eccentric example of parenting.’
‘It was a bit of a joke between my father and mother, if you must know,’ she said mulishly. ‘Since their names both started with the letter G, they decided the next generation must all take the next letter of the alphabet.’
They had agreed on the names of their children between themselves. A pang of yearning shot through him. What would it be like to hang over a cradle, and discuss with his wife the naming of each and every one of the children she bore him? His own father had decreed that his name should be Jonathon Henry and had not cared what his mother chose to name any of the successive siblings that she periodically deposited in the family nursery.
He squeezed his eyes shut. He was letting his imagination run away with him. He could not start filling his nursery until he got Miss Gibson to accept a proposal of marriage from him and, judging by her present demeanour and what he already knew of her, she was not going to seize upon it with the delight he might expect from any other female present in town this Season.