Lily nodded, waited, and when he said nothing, she prompted him. “So?”
Roen blew out a breath. “So,” he said heavily. “I have a proposal for you, and I’d like you to hear me out and give it serious consideration.”
“Another proposal? Is this about Clay again? Have you changed your mind about wanting to take him out with you?”
“This is not about Clay. I just went through that again with him. That’s why we were standing out in the cold. He didn’t want you to hear.” Roen held up a hand, palm out. “Please don’t say anything to him about it. He doesn’t ask as often as he used to, and my answer is always the same. In his place, I’d want to press just as hard.”
“All right. I won’t caution him again about pestering you.”
“Good.”
“So, if your proposal is not about Clay, then what is it about?”
“You.”
Lily blinked. “Me?”
“Yes. I am proposing an arrangement in which you agree to marry me but never have to.”
She stared at him. “What?”
“I admit it sounded better when I was only thinking it.”
“You’re mad.”
“Probably.”
“Not probably. Certainly.”
Roen pushed fingers through his thick hair and left furrows in their wake. “Will you hear me out?”
“I’m not sure I should. I fear you’ll make the ridiculous sound reasonable.”
“No, I’m fairly sure it will still sound ridiculous.”
His easy agreement caught her off guard. She didn’t want him to amuse her. She didn’t want him to make her smile. Lilyclenched her teeth and felt a muscle jump in her cheek. That was better. “Very well,” she said after a moment. “Go on.”
“I’m not sure I should,” he said, parroting her. “I’m asking you to hear me out, not do battle.”
Lily chose not to respond to that. “Clay will be back with the tea soon. It would be for the best if you were to begin now.”
Nodding, Roen took a moment to collect his thoughts and then plunged into the explanation that began and ended with Victorine Headley. He was forthright about his involvement with Victorine, sparing himself nothing in the telling. He shared all the ways he was mistaken in his assumptions about her and how she felt that she’d been used and then cast off by him.
“Victorine thought my interest in her was predicated on my interest in her father’s empire. I can honestly say that wasn’t true, although I understand why she doesn’t believe me. She has no experience being the one put aside, except perhaps by her father, and while she appeared to graciously accept our end as inevitable, her rage asserted itself a few weeks later when she heard that I’d gone riding with Mary Ellen Glidden. Victorine did not consider Miss Glidden her social equal, which further enraged her. It was then that she acted on what she perceived as her humiliation. She arranged for me to go to her home under the mistaken belief that the invitation was from her father. I was waiting for him in his study, the same place I met Victorine, when she entered. I was not happy to see her, but I was considerate of her feelings and offered to wait for Victor elsewhere. That’s when she—”
“Shot you,” Lily said.
“Yes.”
“Hmm. I understand why you didn’t provide any details when you were here for dinner. Thank you for not sharing them with Clay when you were out at the Double H.”
“I have some notion of what discretion entails.”
It was true, she thought, at least where her children were concerned. Discretion was no part of his repertoire when he escorted her to the drugstore for fizzy drinks. She’d told him there would be comments, and there were. “There’s more, I presume. I don’t believe you’ve arrived at the end of your story.”
“There’s more,” he said.
Lily merely raised her eyebrows.
