Marrying The Rebellious Miss. Bronwyn Scott
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was in Scotland, there was little chance of that happening. Alton liked his luxuries. There were few luxuries here.
Preston lowered his voice and leaned his head close to hers in confidence, his gaze earnest. She could smell the scent of horse and sweat mingled with wind and sandalwood on him. ‘There are currently no plans to marry you off to anyone.’ Evening shadows were starting to fall, long and sure across the fields. They’d talked away the afternoon. Resistance, refusal and refutation were all exhausted and still there was no resolution.
‘Come to Little Westbury, go home to Maidenstone. I won’t pretend it will be easy, but you should try. For your son’s sake. He should be raised among friends and we’ll all be there, waiting for you,’ Preston urged one last time. It was the third time he’d asked since this conversation had begun. Intuitively, she knew he would not ask again.
‘I choose to stay,’ Beatrice said firmly. Here, she was safe, not just from Alton, but from all danger, all men.
Preston bowed his head in a curt nod. ‘Then you leave me no choice.’ It was an ultimatum.
‘That makes us even. You’ve left me with none either.’ It was bravado at best. If she ran, where would she run to? To whom?
‘I will come in the morning with the carriage in the hopes you will have reconsidered the nature of your exit.’ The words left her cold. The idea that she had no choices left wasn’t not the same as his. He was merely forced now to take action. But she was forced to the opposite—to take no action, to acquiesce. To surrender. For now. Perhaps it was not so much a surrender as a retreat. She was Beatrice Penrose. She would survive this.
It could have been worse, Preston mused an hour down the road, the little village on the Firth firmly behind them. He could have actually had to bodily carry Beatrice out of the farmhouse. He’d more than half-expected to after their conversation the day before. He was glad he didn’t have to. His shoulders were up to it, but his mind wasn’t.
If it was up to him, he would have left her in Scotland. He knew all too well how it felt to be forced into an unwelcome destiny. Wasn’t the very same fate waiting for him upon his return? Hadn’t it already begun years ago when he’d been denied the chance to go to war for his country all because of his birth? He keenly felt the hypocrisy of being sent to retrieve Beatrice to resume a life she no longer wanted and force her to it if he must, when he, too, railed against such strictures. Would her rebellion be as futile as his had been thus far?
Preston studied her, her dark head bent slightly as she read, the baby quietly asleep in his basket on the floor. She was still the Beatrice he knew. There was still in her the girl he’d grown up with who romped the hills and valleys of Little Westbury with long strides, carrying a basket to collect herbs and plants during their hikes. But there was a difference to her now.
Motherhood had changed her, Scotland had changed her. Freedom had changed her. There was an air of serenity about her, moments of softness, and yet there was a fierceness to her that hadn’t been there before. Beatrice had always been a strong personality, always the first to speak up against injustice, sometimes too rashly. He remembered the butcher in the village and the time Beatrice had caught the man cheating a poor woman out of fresh meat. That strength had permutated into something even fiercer than it had once been. Of course, she had something, someone, to protect now.
He’d seen that fierceness on display yesterday. She’d been formidable in her defence and he’d seen her point. Life in Little Westbury would be financially secure, but it would be difficult. She’d deduced correctly that her parents were eager to put the past year behind them, not necessarily by embracing it, but by erasing it.
Beatrice looked up from her reading and smiled tightly, acknowledging his gaze but nothing more as her eyes returned to her pages. She hadn’t spoken to him since she’d set foot in the carriage. She was still mad. At him. He understood. She blamed him for this disruption in her life. But there was something else he more rightly deserved the blame for.
Preston felt the guilt return. It had plagued him since he’d ridden away yesterday. It wasn’t his fault she had to come home. That decision lay firmly at the feet of her parents. However, it might possibly be his fault she was in the carriage under somewhat false pretences. He’d told the truth. He and May had advocated the baby be raised at Maidenstone and there were no plans to marry Beatrice off to anyone specifically. He knew the conclusion Beatrice had drawn from that last piece of information: she’d be allowed to stay in Little Westbury, in seclusion. She wouldn’t be forced to go to London and endure a Season. That was where he had not bothered to correct her assumptions.
There was always the chance she wouldn’t mind. That was the balm his conscience had fallen asleep to last night. Once she got home, she might want to go to London. Evie and Dimitri would be there. May and Liam would be there. There was Liam’s knighthood ceremony to look forward to. Surely, London’s allures would be too appealing to resist. The baby stirred and he watched Beatrice’s gaze go directly to the little bundle, her expression soft as she looked at her sleeping son.
No. Preston knew instinctively his hopes were futile. London had no allure that could compete with the contents of that basket. There was no question of the baby going to London. It was hard to catch husbands with babies clinging to one’s skirts. The baby would have to stay behind and Beatrice would never forgive him for that.
The thought of earning Beatrice’s enmity sat poorly with him. He’d argued against being sent on this mission from the start. He’d not wanted to do the Penroses’ dirty work, but neither had he wanted someone less sensitive to Beatrice’s preferences to come in his place. In the end, it was that which had persuaded him to accept, although he’d feared this duty would risk Beatrice’s friendship. That, and the idea this trip was one last reprieve from the new responsibilities that waited for him. If it hadn’t been for this journey, he’d already be at his grandmother’s estate in Shoreham-by-the-Sea, picking up the reins of his inheritance, reins that tugged him in the direction of a landowning gentleman far sooner than he was ready to accept them. Becoming a landowning gentleman was much more bucolic than his current position as the head of coastal patrol. Having an estate that needed him would put an end to his patrol work and to any ambitions he held beyond that. He wasn’t ready for bucolic and all it entailed. He pushed the thoughts away and focused on Beatrice.
‘Are you truly not going to speak to me for an entire week?’ Preston crossed his long legs, attempting to stretch a bit in the cramped space without kicking the baby’s basket.
Beatrice gave him a cool glance. ‘A week? That’s quite optimistic. I intend to not speak to you far longer than that.’
Preston nudged the toe of her shoe, unable to resist the boyish response. ‘You just did. Guess you’ll have to start over.’
Beatrice put down her book in exasperation. ‘You’re acting like a thirteen-year-old.’
Preston grinned. ‘It takes one to know one. I figured giving someone the silent treatment deserved an equal and appropriate response.’ He managed to tease a smile from her with the remark. ‘We both know you aren’t going to hate me for ever.’ At least he hoped not. ‘Why don’t you forgive me now and get it over with? This trip will be a lot more interesting with someone to talk to, especially if that someone is you.’
He gave her a boyish smile before he turned serious. ‘If it’s any consolation, I didn’t want to do it, Bea. May told me how happy you were here. But if it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else.’ Preston shook his head, letting the gesture say what he could not put into words. ‘I just couldn’t let someone else come. That’s not what a friend does, even when there’s bad news to deliver.’ Would she understand it was one of the hardest things he’d ever done? He who had faced gun runners and arms dealers in dark alleys, taken knives to the gut rather like she was taking the proverbial blade now.
Beatrice relented. He saw it in her eyes first, the dark depths