Chapter Eleven #2
Most of the guests from Parkhorne rode to church in the carriages dispatched to do just that. But Malcolm needed a private audience with Scarlett, and the easiest, most respectable way to get that was to walk back to Parkhorne together.
Luckily, when Malcolm exited the church, George hailed him. “We have a party that wants to return on foot—will you join us?”
Miss Scarlett, thank God, stood amongst the ladies to whom George gestured.
But Malcolm saw that, without direct action, such a stroke of fortune would be for naught.
No, he needed to request a private audience, and there was only one way to achieve it.
He just needed to wait for a moment when it seemed the others were distracted.
Once more, fortune favored him.
Because it appeared that Miss Gertrude Wallington had made a bid for George’s arm that could not be rebuked, even though he had already been supporting Tilly.
Severn stepped in to take Tilly’s arm, while George, looking displeased, was now grasped by Gertrude.
Given the very purpose of this house party, this exchange drew every eye.
And so Malcolm took his chance.
He stepped toward Miss Scarlett and said, all in a rush, “May I offer my arm, Miss Perkins?”
Scarlett’s brown eyes rounded at his quick approach and even more hurried address. Her stepmother, whose eyes had been riveted on her younger daughter’s displacement, whipped around toward him.
On the one hand, it appeared his luck had run out. Most eyes of the little set had fallen on him.
On the other, Malcolm reasoned, it made it very difficult for Scarlett to refuse.
“Thank you,” she said coldly. “But I need no support. My mother would welcome it, however.”
Malcolm swore internally. She was rejecting him—but for a sensible, irrefutable reason.
She couldn’t very well take his arm when her mother stood there unattended.
Mrs. Perkins had no gentleman to guide her and, unlike the young ladies, the older woman, who he understood was often infirm, very well might actually need the support over the rocky terrain.
He wondered, in fact, why the woman walked at all.
He cast about him for an alternative, but Philip had already claimed Miss Jones. The only man free was Mr. Marburry, and Malcolm couldn’t well incite him to offer his arm to Mrs. Perkins when he knew him so little.
He was about to submit himself with resignation, when, to his surprise, George spoke.
“Please, Mrs. Perkins, let me,” he said. “It would be my honor. Surely, Mr. Marburry, you could accompany Miss Wallington?”
Malcolm felt gratitude toward George, so keen and deep that it was a touch humiliating.
“Oh, Mr. Salisbury,” Mrs. Perkins said, nearly blushing. “You needn’t.”
“It is my pleasure,” George said. “Please, Malcolm, accompany Miss Perkins.”
Scarlett could not refuse him now, and he held out his arm. She took it.
He tried not to breathe in her citrus scent and failed. It made a terrible warmth spread through his chest.
Then they were off. First, they walked pretty much in line with the others, especially George and Mrs. Perkins, but after only two hundred yards, the group spread out at different paces.
Mrs. Perkins and George dropped behind, for the older woman moved slowly, and George, with his foot, was little faster.
Up ahead, the young people bounded along in the fine summer weather.
Malcolm kept their pace steady, not wanting to catch up with the others. He knew there was no risk of being overtaken by Mrs. Perkins and George.
Scarlett, however, tried to speed forward. It took some effort to keep his pace slower than hers. Finally, when they were good and well alone, he had resolved to speak—but she drew her hand out of his with a sigh.
“Why are you walking so slowly! Surely you cannot want to prolong this infernal interlude!”
His ire rose at her tone. Here he was, attempting to do the right thing by this woman, and she would hardly let him.
“Why you would ask to escort me, I have no notion,” she continued. “As if last night weren’t bad enough.”
“I need to speak with you about last night, Miss Perkins. That is why I asked to escort you.”
“What more could there be to say on such a subject?”
She kept her face averted from him. But he could see that her cheeks were slightly flushed from the exertion of the walk and the warm air around them. Or perhaps their topic of conversation. Regardless he couldn’t help but think she looked lovely in the mild summer weather.
God, he was a fool. “It has occurred to me,” he hissed, using a tone that, he was aware, was not far off from Maven Larchman’s to Philip earlier, “that in our shock over last night’s … mishap that we neglected to think of … the consequences.”
“Dear God, we should be thankful, Mr. Brown, that there won’t be any consequences. No one knows, and no one will ever know.”
“On that we can agree. But I fear a different kind of consequence.”
He realized, with horror, that he had not considered how to raise such a topic with her.
He didn’t want to get into specifics, that was for sure.
She was an unmarried woman, however, and might not understand such mechanics.
She may be confused. He couldn’t imagine speaking to her about the details of seed and quim.
“Whatever you have to say, Mr. Brown, I implore you to say it. I am not enjoying being kept in suspense.”
“Whatifyougetwithchild?” he blurted out.
“Excuse me?”
His face heated and he felt that he must be the greatest fool who had ever lived. “With child,” he managed. “What if you get with child?”
She stopped walking and turned to look up at him. “With child?”
“Yes, with child.”
“Mr. Brown,” she said slowly, as if he had recently suffered a head injury. “What occurred between us does not a child make.”
“We cannot be sure.”
“Don’t you work on a farm, Mr. Brown?”
He sighed in true exasperation. “Obviously.”
“Then surely you understand the natural course of reproduction.”
“Nature has many unexpected quirks.”
“Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
He hadn’t, not precisely. But he also wasn’t sure it couldn’t happen.
“I am not sure,” he said, urging her along, irrationally anxious, now that he had broached this sensitive subject, that somehow George and Mrs. Perkins might amble within earshot.
He could see Parkhorne looming up ahead, and they needed to complete this conversation as soon as possible. “But if any of my—”
“Please, do not say it,” she hissed.
“If any of that got inside of—”
“I comprehend your meaning, Mr. Brown!” she squeaked.
Malcolm had been miserable before in his life. And he certainly spent many of his days feeling melancholy or, at the very least, glum. But he had never sincerely wanted to die to avoid going on living. Until now. Now, he wanted to sink into the earth and be swallowed up by it forever.
He was a beast. He was a beast who had defiled a princess. And he deserved to be damned for it.
“If that happened,” he forced himself to continue, turning toward her, “then it would be possible.”
A strange flicker passed over her face. A spasm of pain or consternation, he couldn’t tell which.
“As a lady in my situation, my knowledge on such matters is little.”
“I agree that it seems unlikely. Which, of course, is much better than the alternative. Still, I want you to know that I would do the honorable thing. If you were with child.” He was not looking at her face when he made this pronouncement, which made it easier to say.
“Are you proposing to me, Mr. Brown?”
“Only if the event of which we speak comes to pass.”
“Dear lord.” She moaned.
He tried not to think of all the other ways he would like to hear her moan…
No, he told himself. There he went again—being a beast.
And it was not, admittedly, how a man wanted his marriage proposal, even a conditional one, treated.
“I know you have no interest in such a fate. You have made that clear. But still I must live up to my own principles.”
The hall was close now. The others hung by the doors that led back into it. They could not speak for much longer.
“Very well,” she bit off in frustration. “I should know in two weeks whether any such trouble has arisen or not.”
“Your-your courses?” he said, trying to find the train of her logic.
It was not usual for him to think of such matters, naturally.
“God, yes.” She groaned. “Isn’t it obvious? Must you say it?”
“I am merely trying to understand,” he grumbled.
“I will inform you if there is a problem,” she said, releasing his arm and nearly running toward her sister, who waited for her. “But, in the meantime, Mr. Brown, please do all you can to trouble me no further.”