Page 23 of The Baron Without Blame
Lolly’s nose twitched. She could feel the dust tickling her nostrils. She took a deep, silent breath, trying to ignore it.
“Insult?” Martin’s joking tone had been replaced by bewilderment. “The last thing I would want to do is insult you, my lord.”
“You hired two…” Papa’s word was caught on the wind, but Lolly could feel it in her gut. She was glad not to hear it. “…without any references, to serve my family. It would be an insult to any gentleman, let alone your own betrothed. Worse, your man refused to listen to me and dismiss them in your stead. It is almost as if you ordered him to be obstinate to me.”
Mrs. Chow began to tremble again. Slowly, Lolly repositioned so that the other woman could lean entirely against Lolly’s back.
“I was not aware my father-in-law would involve himself in household affairs.” There was an edge to Martin’s voice now. “As for the Chows, I offered them positions as the Christian thing to do. They cannot return to their home parish. They are in need of assistance. I cannot see anything insulting about that.”
Papa advanced forward a step. “Then let me help you see. You have not directed your man to enclose the fields. You have not written for the clover seeds from Macarius Abbey. You have not even committed to me your vote in the Hastings impeachment. You are a man of no action, except to hire criminals as servants for my daughter.”
Even Mrs. Chow drew in her breath at this. Papa might as well have challenged Martin to a duel with such inflammatory language. Indeed, Martin’s feet rearranged themselves into a solid, wide-legged stance, as if readying for a fight. “I am a man of actions with which you disagree, my lord, not a man of inaction. I will not apologize for living true to my honor.”
“On the contrary, Lord Preston, you will apologizeandsend those criminals away before luncheon,” Papa spat, “or you will not marry my daughter.” And he stalked back into the house, slamming the door again behind him.
Lolly couldn’t tell what Martin was thinking from the view of just his two feet. But her own heart leapt painfully from her chest. Papa didn’t issue ultimatums like this on a whim. He wouldn’t take it back.
He meant to stop her from marrying Martin. And even though Lolly burned at how Martin had turned her away, she hadn’t decided yet what she wanted to do. There was a part of her that yearned for him to kiss her again. There was pure admiration, too. He didn’t settle for reality. He didn’t accept easy answers.
He was a nobleman in the truest sense of the word. And Lolly wasn’t ready to refuse him, not even after the way he treated her last night.
She couldn’t ask him to choose between herself and the Chows. Shewouldn’t. Lolly would go to Boston, and Mr. and Mrs. Chow could have their baby safely at Northfield Hall.
It only took her one moment to resolve her mind. To be at peace with it.
And then the next moment came. Mrs. Chow shifted suddenly, putting more weight than ever on Lolly. At the same time, the breeze threw grit directly at Lolly’s face. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Lolly sneezed.
?
At first, Martin’s heart was hammering too fast to register the sound. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the door. It looked so peaceful now that it had closed behind Turner. It didn’t look like the sole barrier between himself and disaster.
And then his ears caught up with the rest of his brain. That had been no dainty sneeze. It had torn through its emitter like a hurricane through an armada, wreaking mucus in its wake. There was only one woman to whom it could belong.
He looked over his shoulder, expecting to find Lolly turning the corner of the house from the garden path. But there was no one.
Then came another sneeze, just as forceful as the last, and the azalea bush quaked. Martin spotted a yellow gown, then the brown puff of her hair.
“Are you hiding?” he asked as a strange spasm of emotion seized him. It started as a dizzying mix of delight and desire but dissolved into something else. Shame. Frustration. Sorrow.
With much rustling, Lolly stood. Mrs. Chow rose, too, looking pale.
Guilt slammed Martin’s chest.
“We didn’t want Papa to find us.” Lolly stepped onto the drive, as natural as if she were emerging from a drawing room, then extended a hand to help Mrs. Chow do the same. “I decided Mrs. Chow should train as my lady’s maid. Obviously, that is only what we will say until I leave, but you must find something else for her that does not involve scrubbing floors. She shouldn’t be working hard at all in her condition.”
Lolly did not meet his eyes as she said this. He guessed it was because she so neatly skirted the issue of eavesdropping. But a part of him – an ugly, desperate part of him – wanted it to be because she had changed her mind, that she actually did want to marry him.
He knew it couldn’t be that. Not after last night. He hadn’t gotten any sleep, had only twisted himself in his sheets puzzling out the moral question she had posed. He was willing to concede that on principle, a woman had the right to experience extramarital intercourse just as much as a man. If she was well aware of the potential consequences of the affair, then Martin would allow that she should therefore have the right to do with her body what she would. Lolly, therefore, had done no wrong in propositioning him last night.
That did not give her the right to force him. To shame him for wanting to think it through. To reject him merely because he wanted to protect her honor. Martin could still feel her hands yanking his cock, as if she deserved to do whatever she wanted with it simply because she had the right to proposition him.
At dawn, Martin concluded two things: he had done well to stand his ground, and he had no hope of winning Lolly’s hand after doing so.
Martin would let her go gracefully. He had ridden to Thatcham that morning specifically to post her letter to Frances so that she would be welcomed in Boston when she chose to leave. Now Turner had further removed all hope of matrimony between them. Martin had gone dizzy from having Lolly in his life; from here, he could only cherish the memory of her taste as he wished her well.
It was the right thing to do.
