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With the same assumed timidity, he crept back to his own chair. “I asked you to marry me, didn’t I? Er—which part of my answer do you still not understand?”

Sarah’s hand flew to press against her chest, for incredibly she had the feeling that if she did not physically hold herself together, she would explode.

Her breathing was so rapid and her temper so high.

And she had considered Mr. Langworthy irksome even when mentioned in her husband’s letters?

In person he was a hundred times more so!

What sort of company had Sebastian been keeping?

Lucky for her husband he was dead, or Sarah would set him straight on a matter or two, beginning with his fondness for Horace Langworthy!

“That cannot possibly be the task Sebastian set you,” she said, when she could do so without breathing fire on him like a dragon. “Asking me to marry you.”

“I beg your pardon. It was exactly that.”

“And I say it cannot be!”

His maddeningly cheerful face creased in a grimace of mock helplessness. “I don’t know what to say, then, Mrs. Barstow.”

“He cannot have,” she insisted, hardly hearing him over the roaring in her ears. Her foot twitched, so badly did she want to stamp it. “What would he have been about, assigning me another husband? He was my husband!”

“But he—knew—he was dying.”

“He would better have spent his energies in trying to stay alive, then,” she muttered, “than in making ridiculous, unwanted, unnecessary, un—un—unacceptable, impossible arrangements for my welfare!”

“I daresay he thought it best.”

“‘Best’?” she seethed. “I’m not a—a—a—parcel of goods to be handed off on the first passerby.”

His eyebrows lifted. “I think there’s an insult aimed at me in that last analogy. My good Mrs. Sebastian—”

“I am not your good Mrs. Sebastian.”

“Er—Mrs. Barstow, then, though that will be confusing, with your mother-in-law about. But perhaps she would submit to being called by her husband’s name?

Unless he was also a Sebastian. Then I might have to resort to Mrs. Sebastian Barstow, Senior and Junior.

In any event, try and see it from his—Junior’s, that is—perspective—”

“He is not a ‘junior.’ His father’s name was Gordon Barstow.”

“Hurrah! What a relief, and so much simpler,” he said, beaming.

“Try and see it from Sebastian’s perspective, then.

He is dying; he knows you have no relations left to you, save those he brought to your marriage; he knows you will be reduced to whatever piddling pension the Chatham Chest allots you; and he knows you will have your son to raise, without, so far as he knew, connections or benefactors to look kindly upon him.

For these reasons, I daresay his—er—‘handing the parcel to me’ thus struck him as the best straw at which to grasp.

I was a friend; I was an officer with the possibility of advancement and fortune ahead; and I was still alive.

Barstow could not guess I would be taken prisoner and left to molder for two years, nor that the war would end—at least temporarily—casting me ashore and reduced to half pay myself. ”

“But he did know for a fact that you were already engaged!” protested Sarah, almost desperately, as she conceded to herself the logic of his words.

“Yes, he did.” A note of coolness entered his voice. “Which is why he only asked me to offer for you if I somehow remained single. Had I—married—my obligation would have ended, I suppose, with simply keeping you and Master Bash out of the workhouse.”

“Ah.” She bit her lip.

He regarded her levelly, waiting.

Waiting.

“…Well?” he prompted.

“Well, what?”

“Well, since I stand before you—or sit, rather, if you have no objection to me sitting again—Where was I? Oh, right. Since I sit before you a single man, clearly something became of my engagement to remove that obstacle. And don’t you wonder what it was?”

“I’m sure it’s none of my concern,” she returned primly.

This drew a slow grin, though one which had not a trace of humor.

“Indeed? Mrs. Barstow, I cannot hit upon anything which could concern you more. Had I married Miss Mary Pence, you would have been spared the most arduous part of this morning’s parley.

Unless I am mistaken in guessing you mean to refuse me? ”

“You are not mistaken.” Sarah could have kicked herself for how missish she sounded, especially when his grin widened.

“Just so. You might have a little pity on me, for this makes two rejections of me in as many months.”

If you proposed to Miss Mary Pence in the manner you proposed to me, you should not be at all surprised to be rebuffed, she said inwardly, and again he replied as if he read her thoughts.

“It must be my delivery. Or my appearance. Or my shabby prospects, unless war breaks out again. Or all three together. Do help me, Mrs. Barstow, if you cannot marry me. How might I improve my chances of acceptance in the future?”

“Sir, I would not presume—”

“But you must. Don’t you see you must? In common humanity you must. Nay, I believe it is even common manners to give a reason for refusing an offer of marriage. Even Miss Pence did me that courtesy.”

When Sarah said nothing, merely taking up her needlework again and beginning to whip tiny, furious stitches, he went on.

“Mary—er—that is, you will understand if her Christian name slips from me on occasion—we have known each other from childhood—Mary grew weary of waiting for me while I languished in Ferrol. Indeed, she grew weary of me altogether because she told me she no longer believed we should suit. In short, she gave me my freedom, just as the Spanish did, eventually, after the treaty was signed and word of it reached them. In my place she has chosen a captain who invalided out. A one-legged captain even, to add injury to insult. But one-legged or not, there’s no denying a captain’s half pay beats a lieutenant’s all hollow. ”

“Surely Miss Pence did not give his larger pension as a reason for her defection,” she murmured, fighting a twinge of sympathy for him.

He considered. “Not in so many words, perhaps. But, again, we have known each other from childhood. So there you have Miss Pence’s reasons, Mrs. Barstow. Would you say yours are the same? General weariness with me, along with an irresistible one-legged captain?”

In spite of everything, Sarah could not repress a smile.

“Having known you one mere hour, sir, if I already found you wearisome, that would reflect more upon me than upon you. On the contrary, I do not know you well enough to judge.” As soon as the words left her lips, however, she straightened with sudden awareness.

Without meaning to, she had just lied, she realized.

For had she not made up her mind about Horace Langworthy years ago, on the basis of her husband’s stories?

Stories which, she understood now, had not presented a complete and candid picture of either young man.

(Not that Mr. Langworthy had said or done anything this day to make her think differently of him.)

For fear he would see through her again, however, she added quickly, “Nor is there a captain I prefer, whether one-legged or whole. But you have no need of my pity, Mr. Langworthy. You have discharged your duty to my husband admirably, however I might feel about Sebastian laying such a charge upon you. My son and I are well and well-provided for, and your offer of marriage in this instance being surely above and beyond what he could have demanded in this situation, you may go your way in peace.”

His eyes widened, and he gave a low whistle.

“Well!” he exclaimed. “Well, well, well. That’s sending me to the right about.

I asked for reasons, and you have them at your fingertips: you don’t know me; you don’t care to know me, you’re doing marvelously, thank you very much; and you bid me go in peace.

” He told these off on his own fingers before heaving a sigh and pulling his crumpled gloves from a pocket to don once more.

He took his time, but they did need to be smoothed out first.

It struck her suddenly that he must welcome her refusal, his facetiousness notwithstanding.

After all, he knew her no better than she did him, and given his own circumstances, he probably wanted to be saddled with another man’s bride as little as he would wish to be saddled with another man’s debts.

Had it all been a ruse, then? Had he made his offer in this repellent way, so that he might do his duty, while at the same time ensuring he would escape any consequences?

Indignation surged through her once more, though why she should be indignant Sarah couldn’t explain.

She should be glad—glad all through—that he didn’t want her any more than she wanted him.

But I would rather he came out and admitted as much. It would be the nobler thing to do. Supposing I had accepted him! Then where would we have been?

“I am relieved we understand each other,” she managed.

But there! She had done it again. Lied! No, no—she was truly relieved.

But she was also annoyed. Could she then fault him for not speaking in bare truths, if she herself could not?

When courtesy and propriety dictated they perform this ridiculous minuet of manners?

“And now I think you had better go,” she added.

“Certainly, certainly,” he agreed, looking about for his hat. “Only—what about the elder Mrs. Barstow’s dinner invitation?”

“Her what?”

“She asked me to dinner,” he reminded her patiently. “And I gave her no firm answer. Do you think I had better make my excuses?”

Courtesy had its limits. Or, at least, Sarah Barstow had her limits.

“As a matter of fact, I don’t think it would be at all agreeable to sit across the table from each other pretending nothing has happened,” she said in a burst of candor.

A glint of pure mischief shone in his eye and vanished the next instant. “So…does that mean don’t stay to dinner?”

“No! That is—yes. Yes, don’t stay to dinner!”

He nodded, plopping his hat upon his head and rising to his feet. “You know the consequence of today’s business, then, in all likelihood, Mrs. Barstow?”

She waited, her lips pressed together, and he was forced to continue.

“It means we will never see each other more.” With a precise bow, he turned, pausing a second at the door without looking back.

“Good day to you.”