quiet.
She broke the silence tentatively. ‘But I still do not see why marrying me would help.’
He shrugged. ‘It probably won’t. But there is something about you—’ He paused before stating in a firmer tone, ‘You speak French.’
‘Yes. My mother taught me, but why would it matter?’
‘Elizabeth has been away from England for two years and I presume whoever cared for her spoke French.’
‘And you thought she might be more conversant in that language.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She has always been oddly silent.’
He paused, before continuing.
‘As well, my great-aunt Clara demands that I marry.’
‘What?’
‘My elderly aunt, who is also extremely wealthy, wants me to marry,’ he said flatly.
‘Why on earth would she want you to marry me?’
‘I doubt she would choose you, but she insists that I marry someone.’
‘But why?’
‘She feels it would be better for Elizabeth and that it would help me to rally, to focus on my surviving child and give up on my son.’
‘She would have you stop searching for her own nephew?’
‘She feels the case is hopeless,’ he said, his voice raw with pain. ‘And wants me to look towards the future and rebuild my life.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said inadequately. The silence fell again.
She broke it with an effort. ‘But if you are so opposed to marriage, why even agree to your aunt’s request?’
‘The crass matter of finances. Between the ransom and the ongoing search for Edwin, my financial resources are not as I would like and I will not cripple my tenants for my own purpose.’
‘So you chose me to comply, but in a way bound to anger your aunt?’
‘No...’ He paused, drumming his fingers against the mantel. ‘I am not so petty. Nor am I cruel. And it would be cruel to tie a young girl with prospects to one such as myself.’
The clock struck the hour.
‘But you would tie me?’ she asked into the silence.
‘It would seem that your life is difficult at present.’
‘And I have nothing to lose.’ It stung despite its truth. ‘You did not consider that I, too, might have no interest in marriage?’
‘Every woman has an interest in marriage.’
‘I—’ She frowned, thinking of Mr and Mrs Crawford’s union and Lord and Lady Eavensham’s for that matter. ‘In my experience, marriage hardly seems conducive to happiness.’
‘I would concur but, in your case, it might be preferable to living in a cold, bare house with an elderly and perhaps unbalanced recluse.’
‘I...’ She paused, angered by the blunt words. ‘I would not marry anyone merely to improve my circumstance.’
‘How unusual.’
She hated the switch to cold sarcasm more than his earlier bluntness.
‘However, the offer remains if you wish to consider it,’ he said.
It was crazy. One could not marry a man one had only met forty-eight hours earlier, a man one didn’t even like never mind love. Indeed, a man who seemed bitter and angry from his own admission. But—
‘Where would we live?’
‘London for some of the time and—’
But Sarah was no longer listening.
She could think of only two things.
London.
And Charlotte.
Langford left. Sarah heard his brisk stride along the passage, followed by the whine of the front door and the solid clunk as it closed.
She exhaled. Pressing her face against the window’s cool pane, she watched as he mounted his horse; his hair so dark it looked black, his movements fluid and his figure innately masculine with broad shoulders and narrow hips.
She should have seen him out, she supposed. Or called Mrs Tuttle.
But the importance of social convention had been dwarfed beside the stark reality that this man, this peer, this Earl, had asked her, Miss Sarah Martin, to be his bride. It seemed unbelievable. It was unbelievable.
Could Kit have engineered the whole thing as a hoax? No, Kit was high-spirited, but never cruel. Besides, Lord Langford was not the sort to play the fool in someone else’s joke.
No, the Earl had proposed and Sarah had no alternative but to believe the offer was real, however prosaic his motivation.
She glanced towards the mantel where her father, the late Mr Crawford, looked down at her. He’d been dead five years now. They’d never had a close relationship. He had been many years her mother’s senior and had seemed more like an austere visitor than relation whenever he had come to the small London house where they’d lived.
But he had provided for her following her mother’s death, when the occupants of the tiny house were disbanded. Charlotte had not been so lucky. She didn’t even know her father’s name and had had nowhere—
‘Sarah? Is it luncheon soon?’
Sarah jumped as Mrs Crawford pushed open the door, her voice querulous.
‘No. Yes. I’m sorry.’
‘You appear to be daydreaming. I hope that socialising the other night did not put frivolous ideas into your head. Daydreaming interferes with serious thought.’
Sarah smiled wanly. ‘I will keep my thoughts serious.’
‘Sometimes I worry that I have failed in my rearing of you and that your natural disposition might yet win out.’
‘Mrs Crawford, you have done everything possible to instruct me in goodness and quell any leaning towards frivolity,’ Sarah said. ‘Now, sit and I will fetch something to eat and some tea.’
‘A little tea, although we must be frugal,’ Mrs Crawford said as she suffered herself to be led to the chair.
‘Of course.’
‘Did we have a visitor? I heard voices.’
