‘I have your father’s consent to ask if you will do me the honour of giving me your hand in marriage.’ It appeared that all men used the same textbook for the words as well. Falling to one knee and kissing her hand appeared to be optional, however.
‘Thank you, Major. While I am most appreciative of your flattering offer, I regret I must decline. We would not suit, I fear.’ And that was the answer she always gave.
The textbook response to her refusal would be a manly statement of regret and the hope that further consideration might change her mind. This she would counter by a kind, but firm, negative. The gentleman would bow and leave with further well-bred statements along the lines of his desire to always be a friend and of service to her.
It appeared that Adam had tossed the textbook aside after the first two pages. ‘I fear that is not an acceptable reply, Miss Tatton. Your father and I are in full agreement that you must marry me.’
‘And I, Major Flint, being of age, cannot be bound by whatever cosy agreements you and my father have come to about the disposition of my person.’
At which point the textbook was not so much tossed aside as hurled through the window. ‘So that is what this is about?’ Adam demanded. ‘You have taken against being told what to do? You’ll ignore what is right, what is honourable, simply because you’ve some damned romantic notion in your head about true love.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I apologise for my language.’
‘You sneer at my damned romantic notions, but you do want my damned person?’ Rose enquired and tasted blood as her teeth closed over her lower lip.
Chapter Fourteen
‘Oh, yes, I want your body and you have shown every indication of wanting mine,’ Adam said drily. His gaze caressed her mouth, then hardened. ‘What have you done? There is blood on your lip.’
The square of white linen he offered her was pristine. Maggie’s laundry, Rose thought with a stab of homesickness for the simple uncomplicated warmth of that house. She took it from his outstretched hand, expecting him to move in closely and dab at the sore lip himself. But he was angry, she guessed. Angry and keeping his distance from her, the cause of the thoroughly unpleasant day he must be experiencing.
They stared at each other while she pressed the handkerchief to her mouth, smelling the clean tang of starch and soap. ‘One of us is going to have to say something,’ Adam remarked after the silence had hung heavy between them for a while.
‘I have said it. No.’
‘It is not an acceptable response. Not for your parents, not for my honour. Certainly not for your welfare or for that of the child you may be carrying.’ His accent was indistinguishable from the well-born gentlemen he had learned to imitate, without a trace of the faint country burr she had grown to love. That was the voice he used to speak to his men, his horse, his dog and, when he had believed her to be his social equal, the voice he had used to her.
Whatever the choices Adam would willingly have made about his future, now it seemed he had accepted there was only one. He was going to mould himself into an English gentleman for her whether she wanted that or not.
‘Your father tells me you have always held out for a love match. I am sorry for that, sorry for sneering at the notion just now. But if you do not marry me, I doubt you will be able to hide from another man that you are no longer a
virgin.’
Rose sat down blindly on the nearest chair, jarring her spine when it proved to be an upright one and not the armchair she was expecting.
A love match? I could love you, Adam Flint. Perhaps I already do. But I have entrapped you when your only fault was to save a woman from an awful fate and then to fail to recognise that she was not what all the evidence proclaimed her to be. And now, even if I ever do find the right man for me, I have to hope he will be uncommonly forgiving.
‘Rose, don’t cry. It is not going to help.’
‘I am not.’ Then she realised she had pressed the handkerchief to her eyes to shut the world out, not to absorb any tears from her dry eyes. He must think she was trying to gain his sympathy, to soften him, as if that was possible. ‘Yes, I want a love match.’ She clasped her hands around the handkerchief in her lap. She did not want Adam to believe she would try to manipulate him by weeping.
He sat down on the matching chair facing hers, his forearms on his knees, head bent as if in thought. Or perhaps just to avoid looking at her and letting her see exasperation with her stubbornness on his face. ‘You had held out through several Seasons against proposals of marriage. Why, then, did you elope with Haslam only to decide within hours that you did not love him?’
‘Why indeed? You think I haven’t asked myself that, over and over again? There are still things I cannot recall, things that do not make sense, but I know I have always felt like that about marriage and I have always felt repelled by the Marriage Mart.’
Rose swallowed, wondering how much she could safely admit. What if he told her parents that there were still gaps in her memory and they sent for a doctor, someone as cold and unfeeling as Lieutenant Foster? But she could tell Adam. ‘When I try to think about Gerald, really force myself to think about what happened, I hear that scream in my head again.’
‘Then you must not force it.’ He sounded as clinical as Lieutenant Foster. She could feel his eyes on her, almost hear him thinking. ‘You do not want to tell your parents that things are not right with your memory yet, do you?’
‘No. And how can I make a decision about this?’ She swept her hand out in a gesture that encompassed him, the room, her every fear and frustration. ‘How do I know who I am, what I believe, while I still cannot remember everything?’
‘I believe you will recover all your memories,’ Adam said slowly. ‘Just that not all of them are accessible at the moment.’
‘Is that all it is?’ She wanted so much to believe him. ‘But I have changed, haven’t I? I am not the woman you rescued, Adam.’
‘She was there the whole time. I have seen what battle can do to the strongest, bravest man. I have seen soldiers stunned by the noise, the horror, the exhaustion until there was nothing but an empty shell. Not all of them came back, but you did. It would be a miracle if you were whole again in days, even weeks. Wounds take time to heal, Rose, whether they are of the body or the mind.’
‘Thank you.’ He might have spoken as he would to any traumatised fellow officer, but at least he was showing he understood. She wanted to climb into his embrace, be held by those strong arms, be looked after and comforted. She wanted, weakly, to let him carry all the burden of what she had done. She was stronger than that, surely? ‘You are very kind to me, you always have been. But I cannot marry you, trap you that way.’ She bit her lip. ‘Unless there is a child.’
‘When will you know whether or not you are with child?’