“There’s no one...”
“In your life for whom you feel like writing verse?”
He flushed brick red.
“Come, Mr Shorncliffe, you can be honest with me.”
His mouth flattened and his hands tightened around hers. “If it’s honesty you want, then hear this. I need to mother for my children. Could you see your way clear to marrying me? I would make no demands on you...in the physical sense, I mean. I have more than enough children to raise. Unless, of course, you wanted your own.” His look was intent and hopeful.
Violet opened her mouth to answer and closed it. Her head reeled. This evening was beyond belief. Never before had her dance card been so full and absolutely never before had she received an offer of marriage, let alone three.
“I would allow a goodly amount of pin money so you could pursue your interests and you would be living within walking distance of your father at the parsonage. Will you consider my proposal?”
How could she let him down gently? She tried again. “Thank you for your kind offer, but I’m afraid my heart is otherwise engaged...as I believe yours is still. I enjoy your company and if my heart did not belong to another...” She could not bring herself to say she would seriously consider his offer of a companionable marriage without love.
His shoulders sagged and his smile collapsed. “Of course, your heart is taken. A woman such as you must have many suitors.
“Not the one I yearn for, however. Therein lies my problem,” she answered, unable to keep sadness from her voice.
“I hope that situation will soon change.” His eyes and words conveyed sincerity.
“As do I.”
“It was more than I could hope, to secure a gentlewoman such as yourself as a mother to my children and a companion to a great bear of a man like me. I thank you for your honesty.”
How very kind of him to think that. “Is there no other woman you know who might fulfil your requirements?”
He shook his head. “It’s hopeless.”
“Nevertheless, I will think hard about suitable women of my acquaintance.”
“Thank you for your interest in my concerns. I would be grateful if you could suggest a suitable wife.”
Shorncliffe returned her to her position before the window wall. This time she sank into the chair partly obscured by her father, happy now to be hidden from view.
At last, Barnaby Swithin had finished conversing with her father and moved off, allowing Shorncliffe to engage the Reverend in conversation.
Violet half listened to their discussion of the rising river level that threatened the homes of some farm laborers and what could be done to ease the flooding. Shorncliffe hailed Thomas Jenson, a local yeoman farmer’s son, to ask him about the river’s effect on his father’s lands.
Jenson senior soon joined the group. “Don’t you have something to say to Miss Hambleton, lad?” He dismissed his son with a nod Violet’s way and took over the conversation with the men.
Poor Thomas was a youth of twenty and his father clearly had aspirations for him to marry up in the world and raise their family’s status. Never mind that Violet was a decade older than Thomas. He could not possibly be her secret admirer, could he?
“M...Miss Hambleton, w...will ye dance with me?”
A wave of pity flowed through Violet. She knew what it was like to be out of one’s depth at a society ball, let alone being goaded by a parent to woo someone in whom he probably had no interest. “You may. Please sign my card for the next dance.”
He did so, his tongue caught between his front teeth in concentration. He dropped the pencil with a sigh.
Writing did not seem to be his forte, so it was hard to believe he was the secret writer of verse. A glance at his wobbly letters on her dance card revealed it was definitely not him, unless he enlisted someone to write for him. Such terrible doggerel from him was certainly believable though.
The music commenced and a stain of pink flushed his face as he offered his arm.
“So, Mr Jenson, are you a lover of poetry?” she asked as they embarked on the first steps of the country dance.
He made a choking sound. “Poetry, Miss? Nay. Not usually.”
“But you do like some poems?”
