Free A Second Spring by Carola Dunn Page A

hands and hearts. However, he was not going to lower himself to offer Spanish coin. Hearts had nothing to do with the matter.
    “I have spoken to your brother,” he said. “He has given me permission to address you and reason to hope that you will not look unkindly upon my suit. Lady Eleanor, you will do me the greatest honour if you will grant me your hand in marriage.”
    She turned. With the bright rectangle of the window behind her, he was unable to read her face, but he thought her regard was searching. Surely she wasn’t trying to find a courteous way to tell him his hopes were unfounded!
    After a moment, she said with quiet dignity, “Thank you, sir, I am happy to accept your flattering offer, and I shall do my best to be a good wife to you.”
    And now, Benedict found, came the truly awkward part. He could not take this cool, self-possessed woman in his arms and kiss her as instinct bade him. He would not lie and tell her she had made him the happiest of men. In any normal social situation, precisely the correct words were always on the tip of his tongue, but now he found himself at a loss.
    “You are very kind,” he said. “I shall do my best to be a good husband. You do not care for a long engagement, I trust? I believe a June wedding is traditional, if you can be ready in time.”
    “June will do very well.”
    She held out her hand to him and he bowed over it, venturing to touch his lips to her knuckles. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say, so he left her.
    She had accepted him. Why, then, this chilly, hollow feeling of disappointment?
    As he politely closed the music-room door behind him, he realised he didn’t know the colour of her hair or eyes.
    * * * *
    “I can’t do it, Agnes, indeed I cannot!” Staring into the looking-glass, Nell saw the panic in her voice reflected in her grey-green eyes. Her face was pale above the white nightgown.
    Her misgivings had grown during the four weeks since Lord Clifford’s proposal, and had come to a head during evensong that very evening. She hadn’t seen her prospective husband since the day after his offer, when he had bowed to her wish for a quiet wedding in the village church. Sitting in the church today, she had tried to imagine herself standing with him before the altar, promising to love, honour and obey a stranger. Impossible!
    Her abigail paused with the hairbrush in one plump hand poised above the flowing copper tresses. “Then you shan’t, my lady,” she said soothingly. “Though when all’s said and done, he’s a handsome, well-set-up gentleman, with a good handle to his name and no need of your fortune, from what I hear.”
    “Handsome? He might be handsome if there were only a little animation in his face. His features are well enough, but so impassive I never saw him smile, or even frown. When we discussed the arrangements for our wedding—even when he proposed to me—we could have been planning the dullest of dinner parties.”
    “There’s some men don’t care to show their deepest feelings, dearie.”
    “Even to the women they’re going to marry? I don’t believe he has any feelings. How can I spend the rest of my life with a block of wood? A block of ice!”
    “His valet says he’s a good master, a good landlord, and a good brother.”
    “But I should not be his servant, his tenant, nor his sister.”
    “Ah well, ‘tis not the end of the world,” said Agnes philosophically, resuming the brushing of Nell’s hair with long, rhythmic strokes. “You’ve turned down others afore.”
    “But never after first accepting them. And then I had a happy, peaceful home… Oh, Agnes, I miss Papa so! If he were still alive, I’d not have considered accepting Lord Clifford.”
    Their eyes met in the mirror. Nell never directly criticised her sister-in-law to any servant, but her abigail knew well enough what was driving her from Brantwood.
    When Bertie married, Nell had welcomed the new Lady Derrington and willingly turned