Fans of Eloisa James & Julia Quinn

message 1: by Dls (new)

Mar 20, 2022 07:26PM

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Aside from Jane Austen this may be the best rejection of a hero’s proposal to a heroine that I have read.

“Mrs. Heroine ,” he said, removing his hat and holding it at his side while the sunshine tangled in his dark hair. His voice was haughty and abrupt. “I wonder if you will do me the honor of marrying me.”

Heroine gawked. Thinking back afterward, she was sure she had not just stared in genteel surprise—she had gawked.

“What?” she said.

“I find myself unable to stop thinking about you,” he said. “I have asked myself why I offered to make you my mistress rather than my wife and can find no satisfactory answer. There is no law to state that my position demands I marry a virgin or a lady who has not been previously married. There is no law that states I must marry my social equal. And if your childless state after a marriage of several years denotes an inability to conceive, then that is no prohibitive impediment either. I have three younger brothers to succeed me, and one of them already has a son of his own. I choose to have you as my wife. I beg you to accept me.”

She stared at him, speechless for several moments. She gripped the back of the seat with both hands. Her head always seemed to fill with the most ridiculously absurd thoughts at the most serious of moments. This occasion was no exception.

She could be the Duchess of_____, she thought. She could wear ermine and a tiara. At least she thought she could. She had never really investigated the privileges of being a duchess, having never expected to be offered the role.

And then she found herself being restored to cold sanity as some of his words fell into place in her mind.

. . . a virgin . . . my social equal . . . your childless state . . . an inability to conceive. I choose to have you.
She gripped the back of the seat more tightly as anger welled in her and almost broke free.

“I am honored, your grace,” she said, her nostrils flaring. “But, no. I decline.”

He looked arrested, surprised. His eyebrows arced upward. She expected his infernal quizzing glass to materialize in his hand—and that would have made her temper finally snap—but he appeared not to have it about his person today.

“Ah,” he said. “I daresay I offended you when I offered you something less than matrimony.”

“You did,” she said.

“And when I allowed you to believe after we had coupled that it was the same offer I was about to make,” he said.

Her brows snapped together. It had not been? He had been about to offer her marriage then? She did not believe it. A man did not propose marriage to a woman who had just freely given him everything he wanted of her. But why had he come back now to do just that?

“You offended me,” she said.

He looked at her with what appeared to be cold disdain. “And an apology will not suffice to soothe your wounded pride, ma’am?” he asked. “You are resolved to reject my marriage offer because you cannot forgive me for the other? I do apologize. I did not mean to offend.”

“No,” she said, moving around the seat to sit on it before her legs gave way under her and she sank to the ground in an ignominious heap from which he would have to rescue her again. “No, I suppose you did not. It is a marked distinction to be offered the position of mistress to the Duke of ———.”

His eyes pierced through her own to the back of her skull.

“I have already begged your pardon,” he said.

“I could do another woman a great favor,” she said. “I could be your wife and leave the position of mistress vacant for someone else.”

She was being worse than ill-mannered. She was being vulgar. But she was only just getting launched.

. . . a virgin . . . my social equal . . . your childless state . . . an inability to conceive. I choose to have you.

His eyes hardened, if that were possible.

“I believe in fidelity within marriage, Mrs. Heroine ,” he said. “If I ever take a wife, she will be the only woman to occupy my bed for as long as we both live.”

She was glad she was sitting then. Her knees became boneless.

“Perhaps,” she said. “But she will not be me.”
She had nothing but ancient, faded, and patched clothes to wear, she had scarcely two ha’pennies to rub together, she was almost totally dependent upon her mother, she lived a rather tedious life, she had no dreams left to dream—and yet here she sat refusing the chance to be a duchess. Did she have a whole arsenal of windmills in her head?

He turned as if to leave. But then he paused and looked back at her over his shoulder.

“I did not think you indifferent to me,” he said. “And contrary to popular belief, one coupling does not kill physical attraction. Your prospects of living a fulfilled life here seem slender. Life as my duchess would offer you infinitely more. Do you say no, Mrs. Heroine, only to punish me? Will you perhaps punish yourself too in the process? I can offer you everything you can ever have dreamed of.”

The fact that she was tempted—drat her, she was tempted—fanned the flames of her anger.

“Can you?” she asked sharply. “A husband with a warm personality and human kindness and a sense of humor? Someone who loves people and children and frolicking and absurdity? Someone who is not obsessed with himself and his own consequence? Someone who is not ice to the very core? Someone with a heart? Someone to be a companion and friend and lover? This is everything I have ever dreamed of, your grace. Can you offer it all to me? Or any of it? Any one thing?”

He pierced her with those eyes of his for so long that she had to exert great control over herself to stop from squirming.

“Someone with a heart,” he said very softly then. “No, perhaps you are right, Mrs. Heroine . Perhaps I do not possess one. And, if I do not, then I lack everything of which you dream, do I not? I beg your pardon for taking your time and for offending you yet again.”

And this time when he turned away he kept going.

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message 2: by Stacey (new)

Mar 21, 2022 02:24AM