‘Well, I hope that after all the adventures I have gone through he will not want to marry me any more,’ said Pen optimistically. ‘He is very easily shocked, you know.’
‘Such a man would not be at all the husband for you,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You must undoubtedly choose someone who is not at all easily shocked.’
‘Perhaps I had better mend my ways,’ said Pen, with a swift unhappy smile.
‘That would be a pity, for your ways are delightful. I have a better plan than yours, Pen.’
She got up quickly from the table. ‘No, no! Please no, sir!’ she said in a choking voice.
He too rose, and held out his hand. ‘Why do you say that? I want you to marry me, Pen.’
‘Oh Richard, I wish you would not!’ she begged, retreating tothe window. ‘Indeed, I don’t want you to offer for me. It is extremely obliging of you, but I could not!’
‘Obliging of me! What nonsense is this?’
‘Yes, yes, I know why you have said it!’ she said distressfully. ‘You feel that you have compromised me, but indeed you haven’t, for no one will ever know the truth!’
‘I detect the fell hand of Mr Luttrell,’ said Sir Richard rather grimly. ‘What pernicious rubbish has he been putting into your head, my little one?’
This term of endearment made Pen wink away a sudden tear. ‘Oh no! Only I was stupid not to think of it before. Really, I have no more sense than Lydia! But you are so much older than I am that it truly did not occur to me – until Piers came, and that you told him, to save my face, that we were betrothed!ThenI saw what a little fool I had been! But it does not signify, sir, for Piers will never breathe a word, even to Lydia, and Aunt Almeria need not know that I have been with you all the time.’
‘Pen, will you stop talking nonsense? I am not in the least chivalrous, my dear: you may ask my sister, and she will tell you that I am the most selfish creature alive. I never do anything to please anyone but myself.’
‘That I know to be untrue!’ Pen said. ‘If your sister thinks it, she doesn’t know you. And I am not talking nonsense. Piers was shocked to find me with you, and youdidthink he had reason, or you would not have said what you did.’
‘Oh yes!’ he responded. ‘I am well aware of what the world would think of this escapade, but, believe me, my little love, I don’t offer marriage from motives of chivalry. To be plain with you, I started on this adventure because I was drunk, and because I was bored, and because I thought I had to do something which was distasteful to me. I stayed in it because I found myself enjoying it as I have not enjoyed anything for years.’
‘You did not enjoy the stagecoach,’ she reminded him.
‘No, but we need not make a practice of travelling by the stagecoach, need we?’ he said, smiling down at her. ‘Briefly, Pen, when I met you I was about to contract a marriage ofconvenience. Within twelve hours of making your acquaintance, I knew that no matter what might happen, I would not contractthatmarriage. Within twenty-four hours, my dear, I knew that I had found what I had come to believe did not exist.’
‘What was that?’ she asked shyly.
His smile was a little twisted. ‘A woman – no, a chit of a girl! An impertinent, atrocious, audacious brat – whom I am very sure I cannot live without.’
‘Oh!’ said Pen, blushing furiously. ‘Howkindof you to say that to me! I know just why you do, and indeed I am very grateful to you for putting it so prettily!’
‘And you don’t believe a word of it!’
‘No, for I am very sure you would not have thought of marrying me if Piers had not been in love with Lydia Daubenay,’ she said simply. ‘You are sorry for me, because of that, and so –’
‘Not in the least.’
‘I think you are a little, Richard. And I quite see that to a person like you – for it is no use to pretend to me that you are selfish, because I know that you are nothing of the sort – to a person like you, it must seem that you are bound in honour to marry me. Now, confess! That is true, is it not? Don’t –pleasedon’t tell me polite lies!’
‘Very well,’ he replied. ‘It is true that having embroiled you in this situation I ought in honour to offer you the protection of my name. But I am offering you my heart, Pen.’
She searched feverishly for her handkerchief, and mopped her brimming eyes with it. ‘Oh, Idothank you!’ she said in a muffled voice. ‘You have such beautiful manners, sir!’
‘Pen, you impossible child!’ he exclaimed. ‘I am trying to tell you that I love you, and all you will say is that I have beautiful manners!’
‘You cannot fall in love with a person in three days!’ she objected.
He had taken a step towards her, but he checked himself at that. ‘I see.’
She gave her eyes a final wipe, and said apologetically: ‘I begyour pardon! I didn’t mean to cry, only I think I am a little tired, besides having had a shock, on account of Piers, you know.’
Sir Richard, who had been intimately acquainted with many women, thought that he did know. ‘I was afraid of that,’ he said. ‘Did you care so much, Pen?’
