Chapter 1 #2
Chatham inhaled. “I have said I will not remarry for exactly the same reason. I do not trust women. You do not trust men.”
She scoffed. “What a pair we make, then.”
“That was my thought when I saw you out here digging away at your brother’s garden at dawn. We could be perfect for one another.”
She squinted at him. “Did you stare into the rising sun for a long time this morning, too, my lord?”
His lips quirked but then his expression instantly became serious.
“I will not love a second wife,” he admitted.
“I will not allow myself to be foolish or betrayed. Yet, a wife remains a necessity for a man in my position. I have friends to entertain, a household to be managed, a neglected garden to be tended, and two small children of an age that requires constant supervision.”
“Servants can be trusted with all of those tasks, my lord,” she reminded him with a careless shrug.
Yet, for all the absurdity, it was the most interesting and honest conversation she’d ever had with a gentleman.
She was almost flattered that he thought they might be compatible.
Or desperate enough to accept his offer.
“Servants come and go. A wife is forever, usually,” he said, shrugging away the death of his first wife, Serena, as if it were of no great consequence to him now.
However, Amelia knew that Chatham’s profound grief continued to this day, years later. It was unsurprising that he had little faith in women or a desire to love another when he had been so thoroughly cuckolded.
“I understand your hesitation, but I know men, too, and they are fickle in their affections as well.”
“Some are, yes,” Chatham murmured. “Miss Reynolds, I adore my children, but they require a steady female presence guiding them to adulthood and to receive affection from. It is my hope that a second wife could love them. That is all I want from a second marriage.”
She glanced away, pained for the children and their likely loneliness at that moment. She’d missed her mother’s guidance since the scandal, and longed for gentle arms to wrap around her and tell her she was still worthy of love. “I’m sure anything is possible.”
“Countess when we marry, and one day a duchess,” he declared, throwing out a lure meant to entice her to agree.
“No.” Amelia shook her head at how ill-suited she was for those esteemed honors.
Society would be horrified. No one would ever call her a diamond.
No one in society would clamor for her favor if she were titled.
His suggestion was preposterous. “I never aspired to make so grand a match, but many debutantes fresh to the marriage mart in London do. I wish you good hunting.”
“A debutant would imagine I could love her.” He frowned. “Priceless jewels to wear even while you garden, generous pin money each month, an army of servants and such to do your bidding. Would that sway you to accept?”
She gave him full marks for offering the greatest of his wealth, as he saw it so bluntly. “No, my lord.”
“Then there is but one thing left I can offer you.” He rubbed his jaw. “A babe of your own, then?”
She gasped in shock and her eyes flew to his, expecting disdain or worse. Yet he seemed as serious as he ever was. Even so, she must refuse. “No.”
He nodded. “You are still of childbearing age, judging by your brothers hints to explain your absence from the dinner table these past few nights.”
Amelia gasped again, and could not contain a blush of embarrassment that he knew that much about her bodily functions—and would speak of them out loud. It was hardly spoken of between women in the same family and was an unseemly topic between near strangers of the opposite sex.
Amelia was closer to thirty years than twenty, and in her determination to never let herself be hurt by the fickle affections of any man ever again she had given up on the dream of having any children.
But she longed for them still.
Chatham was proposing. Proposing never to love her, as well…but offering her one last chance for motherhood. He suggested a marriage of convenience that made an odd sort of sense from his point of view. And from hers, too.
This could be her last and only opportunity to choose her own path.
She gnawed on her bottom lip, thinking of why she should refuse. A marriage of convenience would be challenging, difficult, and awkward for certain. Yet it might be mutually beneficial, given the right assurances that she would have autonomy and credit for her efforts.
She met his gaze.
“We will marry then,” he said evenly, smiling as if she had agreed to his proposal. “I’ll speak to your brother when he returns and leave for London immediately to obtain a special license and come back to marry you.”
“I did not accept.” She took two steps back from him. “And I have heard that promise before and suffered the embarrassment of a runaway groom. Humiliation once was more than enough. No thank you, my lord.”
He studied her for a long time. “A special license will be required for the swift marriage I want. I cannot linger about here a whole month waiting for the banns to be called. So, we will say nothing of our plan to marry before I leave for London this morning. Your brother will not expect my return. I have discussed my plans to wed with you, and only with you.”
“It’s your plan, my lord, not mine,” she warned. “And a bad one.”
“It’s a good plan,” he assured her, tugging down his waistcoat. “A marriage based on honesty, mutual respect, but not love. A family to grow and responsibilities to share.”
“Lightening your load considerably while you reap the benefits of my lifelong servitude, too, as my brother has,” she replied, with more than a touch of sarcasm in her tone than was wise.
Her brother made good use of her skills in managing the estate and never gave her any real credit.
“Isn’t that what all marriages do for the husband?
” he asked, then drew closer by one step to hold out his hand to her, palm up.
“A home and a garden to do with as you please, abundant funds to spoil yourself and the children, and a husband who will never demand your heart. You will be mistress of all and more deserving of the honor than anyone else I know. Besides, when your brother does marry, his wife might have other ideas on how the garden should look, and you likely won’t be consulted if you stay. ”
She winced, but knew she did not have to stay. She had her cottage to escape to before that happened. “That is true. A wife should take control of her husband’s household and gardens. That is why women of sense marry.”
“And you are the most sensible woman I have ever met,” he promised.
Chatham had made a good argument for marriage, but it surely couldn’t be so simple or easy to wed an earl who was destined to become a duke.
Amelia had one remaining argument up her sleeve to deter him. An impediment that would dissuade any widower who claimed his children were dear to him. “What if your family dislike me? Will you regret the match and blame me?”
“I expect you to do your best, and that is all any man can expect in a marriage. The children might dislike you in the beginning, but only until they get used to the idea of having a mother again.”
“Lucy and Adam,” she murmured, citing the names of children she’d never seen. Chatham left them behind when he visited Upper Folly and barely spoke of them.
How could she be a mother to strangers?
She rubbed her arms briskly, feeling anxious. She’d had no warning, no hint, that Chatham was considering her worth. She was smudged with dirt, her hair likely a mess escaping its pins, and still Chatham wanted to marry her.
She moved out from under the tree to soak up the warmth of the sun. Chatham followed, falling into step with her again and saying nothing as she considered his offer as they walked farther away from the manor.
She would have to share his bed to have those children he had dangled before her nose.
She risked a peek at him again now, considering his appeal as a potential lover.
There was nothing about Chatham that repulsed her, or encouraged her, either.
He was a fine-looking man, healthy and fit, and if her heart had not been broken by another, and she was younger, she might have been offended by his offer of marriage without any real affection between them.
And yet she wasn’t.
Most women expected to be swept off their feet. To hear declarations of undying love and devotion from their beau before marriage. To receive tokens of their affection, flowers and love notes. To be envied by other women and made a fuss over.
But Chatham was no besotted beau.
He proposed a practical arrangement with a spinster who had no trust in men or expectation of marriage in her future.
He was not offering to wed her because she was a beauty.
His late wife had been declared a diamond of the first water by the queen herself, and she had been much sought after before and during her marriage.
Chatham did not ask for her hand to claim a large dowry either, because Amelia’s was adequate but hardly exceptional.
He was choosing her because she was as unromantic as him and matched his immediate need for a spouse. And that was more honest than the man who’d broken Amelia’s heart.
So far, Chatham matched Amelia’s requirements fairly well.
But if he came to his senses on his way to London and never returned to keep his promise to marry her, Amelia would not be surprised or disappointed. She would never tell a soul what he’d failed to do but would likely never speak to him again.
Not that he would care by that point.
And if he didn’t come back, Amelia did have her little cottage to take up, with its neglected garden and two small bedchambers, where no one would ever break promises again. She would claim her inheritance and make all her own decisions and forget the whole wretched business of love and marriage.
It was time to move on, one way or another. One day her brother would find the courage to ask for a lady’s hand in marriage. Leaving might even speed up the process.
Chatham offered an alternative that was more appealing than endless solitude for the rest of her days.
She glanced at Chatham. “When can I meet the children?”
“After we marry.”
“Why not before?”
“They are visiting with my father at Stapleton Manor, and we will collect them on the way to your new home,” he told her, and then held out his hand again. “I am impressed with the garden you created here but cannot wait to see what you create for us in Devon.”
Amelia held firm a moment longer, then put her hand in Chatham’s and shook on their deal, hoping she was not making a grave mistake by trusting him to keep a promise.