Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [482]
It was a bright day, but very cold. Muffled in thick cloaks, they turned into the kitchen garden, where the high walls gave them some shelter from the wind. They exchanged small, breathless comments on the brightness of the day, assured each other that they were not cold at all, and came through a small archway into the brick-walled herbary. Brianna glanced around them; they were quite alone, and she would be able to see anyone coming along the walk. Best not waste time, then.
“I have a proposal to make to you,” she said.
“I am sure any notion of yours must necessarily be delightful, my dear,” he said, smiling slightly.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” she said, and took a deep breath. “But here goes. I want you to marry me.”
He kept smiling, evidently waiting for the punch line.
“I mean it,” she said.
The smile didn’t altogether go away, but it altered. She wasn’t sure whether he was dismayed at her gaucherie or just trying not to laugh, but she suspected the latter.
“I don’t want any of your money,” she assured him. “I’ll sign a paper saying so. And you don’t need to live with me, either, though it’s probably a good idea for me to go to Virginia with you, at least for a little while. As for what I could do for you …” She hesitated, knowing that hers was the weaker side of the bargain. “I’m strong, but that doesn’t mean much to you, since you have servants. I’m a good manager, though—I can keep accounts, and I think I know how to run a farm. I do know how to build things. I could manage your property in Virginia while you were in England. And … you have a young son, don’t you? I’ll look after him; I’d be a good mother to him.”
Lord John had stopped dead in the path during this speech. Now he leaned slowly back against the brick wall, casting his eyes up in a silent prayer for understanding.
“Dear God in heaven,” he said. “That I should live to hear an offer like that!” Then he lowered his head and gave her a direct and piercing look.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“No,” she said, with an attempt at keeping her own composure. “It’s a perfectly reasonable suggestion.”
“I have heard,” he said, rather cautiously, with an eye to her belly, “that women in an expectant condition are somewhat … excitable, in consequence of their state. I confess, though, that my experience is distressingly limited with respect to … that is—perhaps I should send for Dr. Fentiman?”
She drew herself up to her full height, put a hand on the wall and leaned toward him, deliberately looking down on him, menacing him with her size.
“No, you should not,” she said, in measured tones. “Listen to me, Lord John. I’m not crazy, I’m not frivolous, and I don’t mean it to be an inconvenience to you in any way—but I’m dead serious.”
The cold had reddened his fair skin, and there was a drop of moisture glistening on the tip of his nose. He wiped it on a fold of his cloak, eyeing her with something between interest and horror. At least he’d stopped laughing.
She felt mildly sick, but she’d have to do it. She’d hoped it could be avoided, but there seemed no other way.
“If you don’t agree to marry me,” she said, “I’ll expose you.”
“You’ll do what?” His usual mask of urbanity had disappeared, leaving puzzlement and the beginnings of wariness in its stead.
She was wearing woolen mittens, but her fingers felt frozen. So did everything else, except the warm lump of her slumbering child.
“I know what you were doing—the other night, at the slave quarters. I’ll tell everyone; my aunt, Mr. Campbell, the sheriff. I’ll write letters,” she said, her lips feeling numb even as she uttered the ridiculous threat. “To the Governor, and the Governor of Virginia. They put p-pederasts in the pillory here; Mr. Campbell told me so.”
A frown drew his brows together; they were so fair that they scarcely showed against his skin when he stood in strong light. They reminded her of Lizzie’s.
“Stop looming over me, if you please.”
He took hold of her wrist and pulled it down with a force that