Annie Burrows - Captain Fawley's Innocent Bride

She dropped back down on to her chair. The only reason, she now admitted to herself, that she had decided to forswear marriage and seek work was that she could not see herself marrying anyone except Captain Fawley. If she had received a proposal from any other man, she would have been gratified, but she did not think she could really have accepted it. But of course she would marry him. In a heartbeat! As soon as she had got this ridiculous urge to weep tears of relief under control, she would tell him so….

‘Miss Gillies, I know I have little to offer you myself. But consider the property that comes with the marriage.’ He sat down next to her, leaning forward as he put his case. ‘I believe it would make an ideal family home. There will be room for your mother. I am sure you wish to be able to provide for her in her old age. I know her pension to be so meagre you thought it would be better to work than be a burden on her. And would you not rather raise children of your own than be paid to teach other people’s? I would even permit you to hire a fencing master for our daughters, if that is what you wish,’ he added, the touch of humour reminding her of the conversation they had shared at the Marquis of Lensborough’s ball.

Though his reference to children was made in a jocular fashion, she knew he was spelling out to her that he was offering her a real marriage, not just a convenient arrangement. She had a brief vision of a boy and a girl capering about a broad, sunlit lawn, waving wooden swords at each other, while Captain Fawley, lounging beneath the shade of a gnarled oak tree, shouted instructions to them. Another little boy, with a grubby face, grinned down from the branches of the tree, while her mother, seated on a rustic bench nearby, smiled contentedly at her grandchildren. She watched them all from the windows of a rambling stone house, a tiny baby nuzzling at her breast. And then the Captain Fawley on that sun-drenched lawn turned to look at her. And he smiled at her. And his expression was not that of the bitter, careworn cripple who was putting this proposition to her, his eyes full of hopeless entreaty. He had become a contented family man.

She scanned the harsh features, scarce six inches from her own face. The warmth of his breath fanned her cheek. She could smell the faint aroma of bergamot, a scent she had associated with him since the night when he had supported her, half-fainting, from the heat of that crowded ballroom. Her hands remembered the texture of his sleeve, and, through it, the strength of the arm that it clothed.

How she longed to be the one to wipe away those lines of suffering that a lifetime of disappointments had etched so deeply on his face! To make those eyes, that burned with suspicion, glow with contentment or light with laughter.

Oh, she knew he was only asking her to marry him out of disappointment in losing Susannah to a rival. But she could empathise with the streak of practicality in his nature that had him reasoning that if he could not have the woman he had set his heart on, there was no reason that he should forgo the property, as well. Had she not planned her own future along similar lines? Having given up hope of marrying the man she loved, she had decided she would at least stand on her own two feet and not be beholden to anyone.

Though it was depressing that he thought so poorly of her. He saw her as a girl with so little going for her that she would be grateful for the chance to live in comfort, even if it meant allying herself to a man he assumed no woman could look upon with anything but revulsion.

‘If any other man had asked me in such terms,’ she declared, determined to justify her intention to accept him, in spite of his insults, ‘I would have turned him down flat. Don’t you know that the way you just addressed me was hurtful, almost beyond bearing?’

‘If that is what you think,’ he said, rearing back and making as though he was about to stand up, ‘then I will trouble you with my unwelcome attentions no more.’

She regretted her impulse to put him straight, as soon as she saw the pain in his eyes. She had never intended to hurt him. Oh, blow her stupid pride. It was not worth defending if doing so wounded him.

‘Your attentions are not unwelcome,’ she hastily reassured him. ‘And of course I will marry you. It was just the way you put it…’

He got to his feet, looking down at her with an expression so fierce she felt almost afraid of him.

‘You must not expect honeyed words, or any insincere flattery from me, Miss Gillies. I may not have put my proposal with any great eloquence, but at least you know exactly what it is I am offering. I am offering you financial security, a chance at a good, comfortable future. You are about to marry a man who has been a soldier all his adult life. A man who has fought hard and lived rough. I am not going to spout some silly romantic nonsense to try to deceive you into expecting what I cannot give.’

She blinked in astonishment. Hurt tears sprung to her eyes. Had any woman ever received such an insulting proposal or had her acceptance met with such a stinging rebuke? If she had a grain of sense, she would tell him what he could do with his proposal, and walk away.

But then she would never see him again.

She would become a teacher, just as she had planned, but with the knowledge that, had she had more courage, she could have been Captain Fawley’s wife.

She could have endured that lonely life of drudgery, had he never proposed to her. But now, such a future would be unbearable.

A cold hand seemed to reach into her bowels, and twist them into a knot as another horrible thought occurred to her. Seeing the ruthless way he had tried to bludgeon her into a marriage he was convinced she could not want, was he not bound to bully some other hapless female into taking him on, so that he could get at his inheritance? She could not deceive herself into thinking she was anything more to him than the first on a list of prospective wives, drawn from the pool of available females in desperate straits.

‘I do not expect anything from you,’ she said despondently. How could she have forgotten, even for a second, that he was in love with Susannah? She might have fanciful visions of creating a happy family with the man she loved, but as far as he was concerned, she could be any female.

A means to an end.

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