Improper Proposals Read Online Free Page A

conversation?
    “What I want to say is that I do want you to write a guide for Peregrine Press. Not a household manual. What I want, instead, is a guide for married women. An entirely unconventional guide, but one that I believe is very badly needed.”
    “This makes no sense,” I said faintly.
    “Instead of instructing young wives on how to roast a chicken or darn a sock or ease colic in an infant, I want you to write a guide that will tell them, plainly and directly, what they might expect from marital relations with their husbands. It will tell them that it could and should be a pleasant experience, and not a shameful necessity to which they are bound to submit.”
    Belatedly I remembered the public nature of the visitors’ lounge. I scanned the space, then the foyer beyond. To my great relief we were entirely alone.
    “Why on earth are you asking me to do such a thing?” I asked, my voice little more than a whisper. “Are there no women amongst your acquaintance who might agree to such an unusual request?”
    “Likely there are. But none of them, I’m sure, can write as well as you. And few have had the benefit of such a happy marriage. Allow me to assure you—I don’t mean for this guide to be prurient in its description of marital relations. I want it to be helpful. Instructive, even. For that’s the best way to banish fear.”
    “Fear?”
    “I have sisters. I have a good idea of how little they were told before their wedding nights. And I can well imagine how bewildered they were. Not that my brothers-in-law are brutes, of course. But wouldn’t it have been better if Charlotte and Louisa and Alice had known what to expect?”
    “I...I’m afraid I don’t know what to say.”
    “Then say nothing, not yet. Think on what I have said, and decide if you agree with me. If you do, write to me at the Press.”
    After such a shocking and outrageous conversation, I knew very well that I ought to bid him good evening and ensure we never met again. Part of me was quite ready to do so. But something, some nameless impulse, stopped my tongue and fashioned my words of dismissal into something quite different.
    “Will you allow me to think on it, Mr. Cathcart-Ross?”
    “Of course. I’m grateful that you were gracious enough to hear me out.”
    “I will let you know as soon as I can.”
    “Take as long as you wish.”
    We both stood, and once he had fetched his hat and gloves from the table, he turned to me and we shook hands. I looked him in the eye as he bid me good evening, and was struck by how familiar he seemed. As if there were more connecting us than the tenuous bonds of a shared acquaintance.
    As if he were someone I was meant to know.

Chapter Four
    I considered Mr. Cathcart-Ross’s proposal for the
remainder of the evening and for the entire endless night that followed. In the
morning I was no nearer to a decision than I’d been when we had said farewell,
and my indecision left me fretful and uneasy as I packed my valise and began the
long journey home.
    There was no possibility of my agreeing, none whatsoever. He
was very nearly a perfect stranger, despite his longstanding friendship with
John, and as such should not have spoken of such private things with me. He
should have known how keenly I suffered, how terribly I missed my husband.
    And yet I could not fault his reasoning, nor his evident
sincerity, for in his words I discerned an echo of my own unvoiced, unaired
convictions. As the miles passed and my discomfort faded, I realized, rather to
my chagrin, that he was right.
    That evening I sat alone in my little kitchen, sipped at my
cooling cup of tea and thought back to my wedding day. I had been all of
eighteen years old. I had been deeply in love with my new husband. And I had
been terrified beyond belief.
    On my wedding night I had known nothing, absolutely nothing, of
what would occur. A week before, my mother had taken me aside and spoken darkly
of “a man’s needs” and my “duty to