Chapter Twelve The Offer #2
“There would have to be one immediate change,” he said.
Mary Beth’s fingers stopped moving against the seam of her skirt.
“Mr. Tavener.”
The room seemed quieter after the name.
“What about him?”
“His work at Blackthorn is nearly complete.”
“The drainage is not finished.”
“Then he finishes it and leaves.”
Mary Beth did not move.
Benedict picked up one glove and smoothed the leather between his fingers.
“I am not asking whether the rumors concerning him are true.”
“There are rumors already?”
“After last night? Of course there are. You rearranged a dinner table to seat him beside you and rode home with him in your carriage. Yorkshire has survived on less material for a season.”
Heat touched Mary Beth’s face, more anger than embarrassment.
“And if they are true?”
Benedict’s gaze remained steady.
“Then they end before our engagement is announced.”
He said it without outrage, accusation, or wounded masculine honor. The condition sounded almost administrative, as though Ambrose were a lease to be terminated before an engagement announcement could be printed.
Mary Beth heard Ambrose under the bridge: I will not be another arrangement designed to end before breakfast.
“You said you did not require explanations for my past.”
“I don’t.”
“But you require control of my future.”
“I require fidelity from my wife. I cannot imagine you find that unreasonable.”
“Fidelity is not the same as sending a man away because people may think I wanted him.”
Benedict studied her.
“That is an interesting distinction.”
“It is mine to make.”
“Not if you marry me.”
The sentence landed without raised voice or threat.
Mary Beth felt the proposal change shape.
Benedict seemed to realize it too. He set the glove down.
“You are hearing domination where I mean marriage.”
“Perhaps I have experience translating.”
“Your husband is dead. I am not he.”
Mary Beth’s jaw tightened.
“Do not use him to improve your argument.”
“Then do not use him to condemn mine.”
They sat facing each other in the pale room, both too civilized to raise their voices and too angry to pretend the conversation remained courtship.
Benedict recovered first.
“I should have expected this,” he said. “You have lived alone long enough that every compromise sounds like surrender.”
“And you have been obeyed long enough that every refusal sounds unreasonable.”
His eyes cooled.
“Marriage requires compromise.”
“Yes. From two people.”
“It also requires a household capable of supporting the position we would occupy.”
Mary Beth heard the next condition before he spoke it.
“My household.”
“Some changes would be sensible.”
“Which people?”
“I have not made a list.”
“You have considered it.”
Benedict’s silence answered.
Mary Beth rose.
He rose with her.
“The senior servants are loyal to you,” he said. “Perhaps excessively so. Several younger staff were hired after your widowhood without references from houses I would consider adequate. A larger establishment would require firmer management.”
“Blackthorn’s servants are not applying to marry you.”
“They would serve my wife.”
“They serve me now.”
“Mary Beth, this is exactly what I mean. Every practical matter becomes a declaration of independence.”
“Because you keep declaring my independence impractical.”
Benedict crossed to the window, then turned back.
“Very well. Keep every servant if that is important to you.”
It sounded like a concession granted to a child who insisted on keeping a stray dog.
Mary Beth’s temper settled into something colder.
“What else?”
“Nothing that should trouble you.”
“Then say it.”
He hesitated again.
“We would spend much of the year at Sablehurst. London for part of the season. Blackthorn can remain open, naturally, and you may come here whenever you wish.”
“Whenever I wish.”
“Within reason.”
She almost admired the speed with which the phrase arrived.
“My hospital work?”
“Continue it. My mother has chaired charitable committees for years.”
“My accounts?”
“Reviewed jointly.”
“My tenants?”
“Your steward manages tenants.”
“I manage my steward.”
“You should not need to spend mornings in muddy fields arguing over culverts.”
“I like muddy fields.”
“I know.”
Something about the gentleness of that answer hurt more than condescension.
Benedict came closer.
“I am not trying to erase you.”
Mary Beth met his eyes.
“Then what are you trying to do?”
“Give you a life in which you no longer have to fight every room you enter.”
For one dangerous moment, she wanted the ease he was describing, though not Benedict himself and certainly not the terms gathering around him.
A morning when a merchant’s letter was only a merchant’s letter.
A dinner where no one calculated who had slept with whom before deciding where to place a chair.
A charitable committee where money remained money after it left her hand.
A county in which Blackthorn’s tenants did not pay indirectly for their mistress’s reputation.
Benedict saw the hesitation and stepped nearer.
“You need not spend the rest of your life proving that no one can shame you,” he said quietly. “Let them tire themselves trying. My name can make the effort useless.”
Mary Beth thought of Ambrose in the carriage the night before.
I want to walk into a room with you and not calculate which door I should use.
Two men offering relief from the same room.
One wanted the room rearranged around his name.
The other wanted the right to enter beside her.