A Shocking Proposition Read Online Free PDF Page B

again?”
    She laughed. “No. But they’ve always been there.”
    Tradition, then. He could respect that. “Will you show me around?” he asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever been past this hall.”
    She frowned. “Why?”
    He shrugged. “If you expect me to invest, I need to see what you’re offering.” Apart from yourself. He left that unsaid, and wished he’d left it unthought.
    She seemed to relax. “Very well. What would you like to see?”
    He smiled. “Well, everything, I suppose.”
    “Everything? Even the root cellar?”
    “Definitely the root cellar.”
    She scowled and he had to fight to repress a grin. “For goodness sake! You can’t possibly think the root cellar’s important!”
    He lost the battle with his grin. “It is if you like buttered parsnips.”
    * * *
    Despair grew in Maddy as she showed him around, Ketch at their heels. He’d said from top to bottom, and she did just that. Everything. Kitchens, storage rooms, root cellar, the cool, tiled dairy, the old north solar that was now a library-cum-drawing room, the one-time garde tower converted to extra bedchambers; she showed him all over the house, and with every step her heart sank lower.
    They went back through the hall, collected his coat and her cloak and went out through the main doors, into the wind that snapped and whistled about them, down the steps to the courtyard and out to the stables. There the great shire horses that worked the fields snorted softly in greeting, and her cob, little Bunty, whiffled for the carrot she’d brought. Ash checked on his elegant mare, who seemed comfortable enough with a pile of hay. He asked where she kept her carriage and she showed him. Not that there was a carriage, only the gig, along with the farm carts. There was, she assured him nervously, room if he wanted a proper closed carriage, and more horses. He nodded, frowning slightly.
    She showed him into the walled garden with its wintry, bare vegetable beds and skeletal fruit trees, rimed with snow. He said very little, but she could tell he was taking everything in and her heart wept for this last, lost chance.
    Only a fool could have thought for a minute that he would be interested in Haydon at all. She had visited his home, Ravensburn Castle, with her mother once as a child. All of Haydon would fit into its outer bailey. And Ravensburn was grand, luxurious, with state apartments where Good Queen Bess had stayed on one of her progressions around the country. This, Haydon, was not what he was used to. If Good Queen Bess had even known it was here, it was as much as she’d done. Perhaps he’d just come so that he could let her down gently. Or perhaps he had not really remembered Haydon at all after so many years.
    The sun flickered out as she was leading him along the narrow path around the outside of the walls, high above the river. The pale light splashed briefly on the soft, grayish-brown stone, and was gone again. Ketch spotted a rabbit and took off after it in a silent rush. Maddy’s eyes pricked and she dashed at them, shoving back a loose curl whipping in her face. Beyond the wind’s cry the river sang, and a sheep bleated. They had stopped and were looking down over the valley, bare and bleak in its white veil. Across the valley, and beyond the fells, clouds loomed in heavy-laden masses. More snow. She looked at Ash. He would need to leave soon or be caught in it.
    She dragged in a deep breath. Better a swift blow than a lingering agony. “This isn’t at all the sort of thing you are used to, is it?” she said, trying to keep the bitterness of despair out of her voice. She loved Haydon so much, it was hard to accept that to others, like Edward, or her brother Stephen, it was just an inconvenient, isolated pile of dressed stone.
    He shook his head. “No. Not at all.”
    She nodded. “I’m sorry. It was a stupid idea. I should have known better.”
    He frowned. “Maddy. I lived in an officer’s tent on campaign in Spain and