Page 18 of The Case at Castle Rock Cove (Beau Monde Secrets #4)

W illa’s mother was deep into a long harangue when the maid tapped at the bedroom door to announce that someone had called for Willa. The housemaid neglected to say who had called, leaving Willa to speculate wildly.

Lady Inglewhite sighed. “I suppose you had better go see to your guest. But I hope that in the future you behave more circumspectly. You know better than to ramble across the countryside with a young man!”

“Yes, Mama. I will make certain it never happens again.” Willa resisted the temptation to cross her fingers behind her back. Privately, she resolved to do a better job of hiding any future indiscretions—assuming there were any.

Her mother frowned. Maybe she’d heard Willa’s unspoken reservations. “Remember, I expect you to set a good example for your sister. Phoebe looks to you for guidance on how to behave like a well-bred young lady, you know.”

“Yes, Mama, I know.” Willa had heard this line before. Many times before. Strange how important her example supposedly was to Phoebe. Willa had never had an older sister to emulate, yet she turned out just fine, hadn’t she? Apart from the rambling-cross-country-without-a-chaperone problem, that was.

In any case, it was a relief to leave her mother’s scolding behind to greet her caller. She should have been surprised when she opened the door to the parlor and found Mr. Radcliffe. But somehow, she was not surprised. Who else could it have been? She had become acquainted with some of Cousin Sarah’s friends and neighbors, but none of them would have specifically asked for her when they called.

Mr. Radcliffe stood beside the empty fireplace, his hands clasped behind his back. He had replaced his dark-blue tailcoat with a hunter-green one, and his plain waistcoat had given way to one with golden embroidery.

He inclined his head to her. “Lady Wilhelmina, I am glad to see that you made it home safely.”

She struggled to suppress the grin that tugged at the corners of her mouth. It was not likely that anything would threaten her safety on the short carriage ride back from Marlowe Tower.

A line formed between his brows. “Did I say something funny?”

She heard a hint of real anxiety in his voice, so she hastened to reassure him. “No, Mr. Radcliffe. I amused myself by wondering if you had come all this way to just to make certain I arrived home in one piece.”

“Ah, I see.” He stared down at the floor as if he had never before seen a carpet from Turkey. “No, I did not call merely to make certain you arrived safely.”

“I thought not.” Willa used her softest, gentlest voice, because she had not seen Mr. Radcliffe this nervous for ages. Over the last few weeks, he had grown more comfortable in her company. So it seemed, at least. But now all of that ease was gone. “What does bring you here today, Mr. Radcliffe?”

He lifted his eyes back to her face. “I wish you would call me Ben! It sounds very strange to hear Mister on your lips.”

She drew in a sharp breath. How on earth was she supposed to respond to that? If he had been a girl—the B.R. she had once imagined—they might have been on first-name terms by now. Calling a gentleman by his first name, though, was an entirely different matter.

“Not that I was thinking about your lips!” he hastily clarified. A flush slowly rose up his whole face, all the way to the tips of his ears. “I only meant that you could call me by my given name. If you wanted. But perhaps you don’t want to.”

He closed his eyes and scrubbed his face with one hand. “I am getting this all wrong. What if we pretended the last five minutes never happened?”

“Very well.” Uncle Rowland had once told Willa, “When in doubt, tell a joke.” She doubted that tip was useful in all situations, but it might work well here. If she could get Mr. Radcliffe to smile, maybe he would not feel so anxious.

Willa walked backwards to the door, then stepped into the room and dropped a curtsey, as if she had only just arrived. “Good afternoon, Mr. Radcliffe. What a pleasure to see you again so soon!”

A grin slowly spread across his face. For a moment he looked like he was going to argue, but then he began to play along. “I am glad to see that you arrived home safely, Lady Wilhelmina. I beg the favor of a few minutes of conversation with you. I have come to speak to you on a most important subject.”

A jolt of foreboding, as potent and exhilarating as electricity, made Willa’s heart turn a somersault. She could only think of one subject important enough to demand such formal language. It would explain Mr. Radcliffe’s nervousness, too.

He was no longer the only one troubled by nerves. Willa licked her lips. “Yes, Mr. Radcliffe? What did you wish to say to me?”

“It is a simple question, really.” He stood soldier-straight, still clasping his hands behind his back. “I wondered if you would do me the very great honor of becoming my wife.” He sounded as if he were reading the words off a script.

“You have taken me by surprise, sir. I had not realized that, um...” Willa pulled herself up short. What on earth was she saying ? His proposal was not entirely a surprise. After their last few encounters, she had suspected that Mr. Radcliffe’s interest in her might be of a romantic nature.

She tried again. “I had not expected you to speak to me on this subject yet. I am not certain how to answer you.” That was more honest.

The doubtful crease returned to his forehead. “Would you prefer I wait and ask again later? There is no real rush. I only thought that being betrothed might make some things easier for us.”

Confused, Willa asked, “What do you mean, ‘easier’?” She suspected planning a wedding and preparing for a life together took a great deal of work.

“I mean that it would be easier to find ways of meeting,” he explained. “Engaged couples are usually given more freedom to interact, aren’t they? I doubt anyone would complain about us taking a walk by the beach without a chaperone if we were formally betrothed.”

“Oh.” He had a point. A good one, in fact.

To be sure, he assumed that Willa wanted to take walks alone with him, but his assumption was correct. She would like to be able to spend time alone with Mr. Radcliffe. How could a young lady get to know a gentleman if she only met him in the company of others?

“Why don’t you take a seat?” Willa suggested. “I would like a moment to think this over, if you don’t mind.” A spot of tea would not go amiss, either.

While Mr. Radcliffe—Benjamin?—settled in a stiff wooden armchair, Willa rang for the maid and instructed her to bring tea and biscuits. “Lavender biscuits, if we have them,” she qualified.

A smile flitted across her face as she remembered Ben’s attempt to “train” her using those biscuits. Then her heart sank. Was that what this sudden proposal was all about?

She settled on the sofa, keeping some distance between her and her suitor. “You may be right that becoming engaged would give us more freedom. But what do we need that freedom for? Are you proposing to me only so we can continue your experiment?”

“Experiment?” He looked startled.

“I mean the attempt to, ah, help me overcome my fear of the ocean by associating it with something I like.” They never had gotten to try his plan of reading G.W. Kirkland on the beach. Willa had doubts about whether it would work, but it was at least an interesting idea.

The look of confusion left his face. “Oh! Well, it did occur to me that we might have more success with that project if we were allowed to spend more time together. But that isn’t the only reason.” He rubbed his hands over the knees of his trousers. “I thought we suited each other well. That is, I thought we might understand each other... at least, better than might be the case with other people.”

Willa nodded. “That is probably true.” But was that enough ? He had said nothing about affection. She cleared her throat before bringing up that weighty issue. “Our grandparents’ generation may have believed respect to be an adequate foundation for a marriage, but I have always ascribed to the view that one should never marry without love.”

“Oh.” He looked disappointed. “Do you mean that you do not love me enough to marry me?”

The question took Willa by surprise, though she ought to have anticipated it. “I am not sure how to answer that,” she admitted. “I am not sure what being in love feels like.”

He simply nodded. “Precisely. If one has never been in love, how is one supposed to recognize it?” He drew a deep breath. “But I like you, Lady Wilhelmina. And I-I think you are very beautiful.” A faint blush rose along his cheekbones. “I do not know whether I love you, but I think I could.”

Willa had always assumed that when her future husband proposed to her, something special would happen. She had expected to feel fireworks or champagne bubbles—metaphorically, of course. Or perhaps she would go weak in her knees.

But, though she was sitting down, her knees felt no different than usual. No rockets burst into fireworks in her heart, nor did she feel the least bit tipsy.

On the other hand, her heart pounded as if she had been running, and a pleasant warmth flushed her body. She felt as if she stood on the edge of a precipice nearly as deep as the ocean itself.

But the decision before her did not threaten her with an endless fall into darkness. If she took a step forward into the unknown, someone or something would keep her from falling. For some reason, she felt certain of that.

She squeezed her hands together. “I do not know if I love you yet, either. But I think I could. And I would like to try.”

He rose from his chair and approached her slowly, as if he feared she might startle and bolt, like a frightened horse. Willa rose to her feet. When Mr. Radcliffe reached her, he took her hands in his. Neither of them of them wore gloves, so his bare skin brushed against hers, sparking another unexpected flutter of her heart.

“Will you marry me, then?” His cool green eyes held her gaze. She could not have looked away if she wanted to.

Fortunately, she did not want to look away.

She swallowed before answering. She did have one stipulation, and she was not at all certain how he would respond to it. Though she paused only a moment, her hesitation put a frown back on Mr. Radcliffe’s face. “I will accept your offer, with one condition.”

His frown deepened. “Yes? What condition?” His voice fairly crackled with apprehension.

“If either of us comes to regret the betrothal, or have serious doubts, then we will break the engagement. We should both be free to change our minds.”

Mr. Radcliffe opened his mouth to protest, but she hushed him with a raised finger. She would like to have silenced him with a fingertip pressed against his lips, but she had no idea whether he would welcome such a touch.

“I know that a gentleman is never supposed to break an engagement,” she said. “That privilege belongs to the lady. But in this case, since neither of us are certain of the depth of our affections, I think we ought to leave room in case... in case either of us finds that we have mistaken our feelings.”

The corners of his mouth turned down. He still looked like he wanted to protest.

Willa drew a deep breath and stated her caveat more plainly. “If you come to realize that you do not love me, or if for any other reason you want out of the engagement, you have only to ask. And you must promise me that you will ask if you have second thoughts. I do not want to trap you into a loveless marriage.”

“I see.” He gently squeezed her hand. “That is a reasonable condition, my lady. I promise to tell you if I should change my mind or my feelings. Naturally, the same applies to you. You must not hesitate to tell me if you wish to end the engagement. I would never want you to enter into an unwanted marriage, either.”

Willa released a tiny sigh. She’d been afraid he might protest her condition. It did, after all, run counter to the usual rules. But Mr. Radcliffe seemed too sensible to mistake etiquette for ethics, the way some people did.

She cleared her throat. “One more thing...”

“Yes?” he asked anxiously.

She lowered her eyes, feeling unexpectedly bashful. “You do not need to call me ‘my lady,’ or ‘Lady Wilhelmina.’ If you are my intended, you should call me by my given name. In fact, I think you ought to call me Willa , as everyone else does.” Everyone whom she loved, that is.

A broad smile banished the worry line from his forehead. “Only if you call me Ben. And—oh, wait! I should give you this.”

He fumbled in his pocket, finally pulling out a small wooden box. Willa accepted it gingerly, privately hoping it was not something expensive. She hated to think he might have spent a fortune on a gift without even knowing if she would accept it.

When she opened the box, though, she broke into a delighted smile. “That bit of sea glass! You did turn it into a pendant! How pretty!”

And how thoughtful. She’d made the comment about turning the sea glass into jewelry weeks ago. He had not only listened but remembered what she said.

She lifted the pendant out of the box. It was already attached to a silver chain, but the clasp proved difficult to work.

Willa glanced up at her new fiancé. “Will you help me put this on?”

He nodded, and she turned her back so that he could fasten the necklace.

Many times in the past, a maid had helped her with a garment, a ribbon, or a piece of jewelry, but this felt far more intimate. Every hair on the back of Willa’s neck stood up when Ben’s fingers brushed against the sensitive skin on her nape. She heard him catch his breath. Did he feel it, too?

When he finished, she turned to face him. “Thank you,” she breathed.

She half expected him to move away, because he stood much closer than was proper. From here, she saw that his pupils had widened, swallowing up most of the green in his eyes. His Adam’s apple moved as he gulped.

“Now I would like to ask a request of my own, if I may?” His voice wavered.

“Of course!” What was he so nervous about?

“I would like to kiss you.” Ben’s hoarse whisper sent a delicious shiver down Willa’s spine. “May I?”

Now her knees really did feel weak, but she did not hesitate to answer, “You may.”

He stepped even closer to her—so close that she felt the warmth of his body through her silk gown—and slipped one arm around her waist, resting his hand on the small of her back. When he cupped her face with his other hand, heat rolled from her blushing face down her whole body, all the way to the tips of her toes.

Willa tipped her face up and waited, heart racing, as her new fiancé slanted his mouth down. At first, he brushed his lips lightly against hers. Then he teased her lips apart, focusing on her bottom lip.

What, exactly, was she supposed to do? She would have asked for instructions, but her mouth was currently occupied.

She shivered when his teeth gently scraped against her lip. She’d had no idea people used their teeth when they kissed, but the sensation wasn’t unpleasant—merely unexpected.

Nor did she expect the soft creak of the door hinge or the startled gasp that followed. She stumbled backwards in her haste to get away from Ben, realizing too late that doing so made her look more guilty. So did the blush filling her face, but she could do nothing to stop that.

“Very sorry, miss.” The housemaid deposited the tea tray on an end table, then backed out of the room.

“Maybe I should go speak to my mother?” Willa suggested. Better for her mother to learn of the engagement from Willa than from the servants’ gossiping.

“I think I should do it,” Ben countered. “I suppose I should also write to your guardian. Er, assuming you have one?”

Willa nodded. “My uncle Richard is my guardian. The current Lord Inglewhite, I mean. If you wish to write a note for him, my mother can enclose it in one of her letters. That way she can introduce you to him properly.”

“Very well. I will speak to her now.” He lifted her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss against it. Then he hurried out of the room.

Willa sank down onto the sofa. Had she really just accepted a proposal of marriage? Goodness! There were few decisions more important for a woman than the choice of a husband. A woman’s future, her quality of life, and even her safety depended on making a good choice.

Given all that, Willa expected to feel anxious or doubtful about her answer. Instead, she felt only a quiet joy, as fragile as a soap bubble. She closed her eyes and treasured the moment.

No, she had no fears for the future. What could go wrong?