by Brianna York
The Duchess managed to look bashful as she smiled at him and batted her lashes. Matthew felt like applauding her performance, but he just thanked her again and set off toward the door with his sister. “Matthew! Matthew!” Alex whispered urgently, tugging at his sleeve.
“What?” he demanded with some annoyance in his tone. He wanted to be home and soon. He still felt overset by the events of the evening, and he was certain that until he had taken the time to sit down and analyze things his thoughts would remain scattered. Alex did not answer directly, just indicated with a nod of her head what she wished him to notice. Following her unspoken directions, he glanced over his shoulder and saw Rosalind standing just far enough behind her parents to be barely noticeable. Bringing Alex with him, he stepped closer to the young girl and smiled at her engagingly. “Happy birthday, Rosy. It was a wonderful party.”
She blushed bright crimson, putting her mother’s artificial attempt to shame. “Thank you both for coming. You do not know how much it meant to me to have you here tonight.”
“I think that we do know,” Matthew answered her. He found himself regretting his ambivalent feelings toward Rosy earlier in the evening. She was just a little girl, for all that. He leaned closer, caught her chin with one finger and turned her face up to his. “See you soon.” She nodded as best as she could while he had a hold of her chin. “All right then.” He ran his finger down the bridge of her pert nose, then straightened and tucked Alex’s arm more tightly through his.
“Goodnight, Rosalind,” Alex said to their young hostess before following her brother out the door into the foggy coolness of the street. Most of the footmen in London knew Matthew’s face instantly upon sight, and the Norwood’s employees were no exception. Alex watched a young man in a bright uniform scurry to fetch the lower-ranked footman holding Matthew’s horses. “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live like the Dartmoors of this world?” she asked him, her eyes on the slightly ragged hired hack that was pulling up to receive Dartmoor and his intriguing sister.
Matthew hoped for a fleeting moment that Tess would look back at him, but she merely climbed into the carriage before her brother. He wrenched his eyes away. All things in good time, he reminded himself. “No, I can’t say that I have,” he answered his sister. He had always lived in the lap of luxury, was used to the scurrying footmen and the whispers in the crowded ballrooms.
Alex grinned at her brother. “That’s what I love the most about you, brother,” she told him, her tone teasing. “No hesitation at all, just a stolid no. I get so very tired of everyone apologizing for their money.”
He rolled his eyes at her sarcasm. The footman was leading Matthew’s horses up to the curb, and Matthew stepped forward with Alex close beside him. “Thank you,” he said to the servant, tipping him for his time. He released Alex’s arm and quickly pulled the quarter sheets off his horses. Their chestnut coats gleamed in the weak light from the street lamps and their breath steamed in the cold air. “Thank you for waiting,” Matthew said to them, stroking each nose in turn.
“Unbelievable,” Tess whispered to her brother as he helped her into the hired carriage that was waiting for them “Can you imagine being that well-known?”
Dartmoor, who thought he detected admiration in his sister’s voice, growled back, “He has always lived in the lap of luxury. You, however, have worked scrubbing floors, teaching the children of the rich families in the country, or at any other job that would make us a bit of money for the better part of your life. And while he has been enjoying his oh-so-perfect, pampered life, he has been growing even fatter and more illustrious yet due to his ownership of what was meant to be ours.”
Tess set her mouth. Her brother was right. She needed to be more careful to separate her emotions from the situation. She would never be able to bring the plan that her brother had formulated to fruition if she became one of the many female fools who fell in love with Dunsenay’s lifestyle. But, she thought with sudden sadness, it was not just Matthew’s money or his standing that made him so hard to resist. It would be so much simpler if she did not feel that his was a soul that matched her own faultlessly. She closed her eyes and thought of the joy of dancing with the Duke as the carriage jostled away from the Norwood’s front door.
“Ready?” Matthew asked, holding out his hand for his sister. She nodded and he helped her up onto the narrow seat, then made his way around the horses again to join her. He freed his reins and settled them in his gloved hands. “Walk,” he told the horses, clucking to them and guiding them onto the street. They rode together for a few moments in silence broken only by Matthew’s cues to his horses. Finally Matthew cleared his throat. “So, are you going to tell me what you think of Miss Dartmoor?”
Alex sighed and cocked her head to one side as she thought a moment. “I think that she has quite won you over,” she said bluntly.
Matthew sighed and stared at the shiny backs of his horses. “I suppose that she has,” he said finally.
She nodded. “I knew it!” she exclaimed, clapping her slender hands enthusiastically. Zeus flicked an ear back at the sudden sound and Matthew muttered something soothing to him. “You do not have to look like someone sentenced to the gallows, Matthew,” Alex chided him fondly. She placed a hand on his forearm and smiled reassuringly at him.
Matthew smiled a bit at her, then returned to staring at the muscular chestnut backs of the steadily trotting horses in front of them. Alex knew that whether Matthew wanted to admit it or not, he liked to live his life outside of the boundaries imposed upon him by society. He did not feel that he had lived unless he had flown in the face of every societal stricture that others would impose upon him. He abided only by his own rules, and he was stonily sure that he always would. Alex had always found that particular facet of her brother’s nature very comforting. However, in this instance, his proclivity for the unconventional might well stand in the way of his impulse to properly court Miss Dartmoor.
He halted the horses and jumped to the ground, wincing as his feet protested the sharp impact. The thought that he was far too old for this kind of all-night entertaining occurred to him as he helped his sister alight from the carriage.
Alex had seen the look on her brother’s face as he helped her from the carriage and had correctly interpreted it to mean that he was tired and a bit distracted. “Matthew?”
“Yes?” He halted and turned a bit to look at her.
“Everything will work out the right way, you know.”
Matthew smiled a bit at that and nodded. “For better or for worse,” he agreed. He placed a fond hand on his sister’s shoulder as they made their way into the house. After divesting themselves of coats and wraps, they meandered toward the stairs, Alex yawning widely behind one narrow hand.
“Goodness!” She shook her head ruefully. “I do believe that I am becoming too elderly for social hours.”
Matthew laughed good-naturedly. “That makes two of us, then.”
Alex glanced at him mischievously and tapped him on the shoulder. “You are only tired because you danced so many dances tonight.”
“I felt it polite to do so what with the number of young women standing against the walls,” he replied in an off-hand tone of voice.
She nodded slowly in reply. “Indeed that was so. Although I do believe that it was your efforts on behalf of Miss Dartmoor that may have caused such exertion. I have never seen you dance quite so animatedly.”
He chuckled. “You have quite caught me out. She is a lovely girl.”
“And...”Alex prompted gently, drawing to a halt before her room.
Matthew’s eyes twinkled a bit as he stared down at his sister. “And, I am going to pay her a call this week,” he capitulated.
Alex’s smile was wide and sudden. “Oh very good!”
“I am glad that you are so pleased about such a development.”
Alex nodded vigorously. “Indeed I am. I have never seen you look at a woman the way you were looking at her.
I sense a touch of destiny at work.”
Matthew rolled his eyes at her whimsy. “Alex, you are ridiculous.”
She feigned a pout for a moment, then laughed. “Remind me that I am ridiculous when you are walking Miss Dartmoor down the aisle.”
“The silliness increases,” he chided her. “Goodnight, Alex.”
“Goodnight, Matt,” she replied, stretching up on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek before slipping inside her room.
Matthew turned and made his way to his room, his thoughts wandering of their own accord to the mysterious girl from the ball. She was not an exceptional beauty, that was for certain. Lord knew he had met many girls that were lovelier by the conventional standard. He supposed that the uncanny way Miss Dartmoor had of reading him so adeptly and saying the right thing at exactly the right time made her so stunningly alluring to him. Alex understood him as well as anyone ever would he supposed, but he felt a totally different closeness with Miss Dartmoor.
“Good evening, Your Grace,” Dobbs greeted his employer as Matthew entered his rooms.
“Hello, Dobbs,” Matthew answered, rubbing at his eyes in sudden fatigue.
“Will you be riding tomorrow as usual?” Dobbs inquired as he helped Matthew out of his coat.
Matthew nodded as he unwound the cravat from around his neck. “At the usual time, yes.”
“Very good,” Dobbs replied, slipping off Matthew’s boots as he spoke. “Do you require anything else tonight, Your Grace?”
Matthew shook his head. “No, thank you, Dobbs,” he said. He watched Dobbs leave the room, then tossed himself on the bed. He supposed that if he had been asked to describe the woman of his dreams before tonight, he would not have been able to oblige. Now he knew that the feeling of instant recognition she had caused in him was due to the fact that he had always expected women to look as she did. He sighed and rolled over. He was not sure that he would be able to sleep a wink, but he thought that he ought to at least try.
He frowned to himself in the dark at the thought of the cool and egotistical Mr. Dartmoor. Some finely-honed instinct within him said that the man was trouble. He knew that there was not much that Dartmoor could do to him, but he could not dismiss the feeling that the other man posed an imminent threat of great magnitude. Cursing his wayward thoughts, Matthew rolled over onto his back once more, causing Charles to whine softly.
“Sorry, boy,” he murmured to the dog. He shifted his shoulders deeper into the mattress and attempted to still his thoughts. They wandered of their own accord to dancing with Miss Dartmoor. He smiled gently to himself and felt sleep creeping up on him.
The crush of people lining the dance floor was a blur as he swept Tess in tighter and tighter circles. His heart leapt at the sound of her laughter and drew to a halt. He found he couldn’t look away from her gaze and he leaned down to press a kiss to her lush mouth.
Suddenly, she vanished. He glanced around the suddenly empty room, perplexed. ‘Tess?” he called out, hearing his own voice echoing about the cavernous room. Thinking perhaps she was hiding from him, he chuckled and ran from the room. The hallway he emerged into seemed familiar, but he barely noticed it. He heard her laugh again, and hurried toward the sound, eager to be holding her in his arms again.
The laugh sounded once more from behind a door he had just passed and he doubled back. He threw the door open and froze, his heart lodging mid-beat in his chest and cold panic washing over him. Now he knew why the hallway had seemed familiar to him. He stared in horror at the couple embracing before him, wanting very much to run away but finding himself incapable of moving.
He heard the startled gasp that acknowledged his presence and then it was Tess looking at him in horror over the shoulder of her male companion. “Matthew, I can explain,” she said to him, walking toward him, her hands extended pleadingly.
“No!” he shouted, shocking himself awake. Charles barked once sharply in fright and rose to his feet, quivering with tension. Matthew lay for a moment, panting and drenched in sweat, then reached out a hand to stroke the dog’s muzzle comfortingly. “Sorry boy,” he whispered. “It was just a dream.”
He wiped the sweat off his forehead and attempted to steady his breathing. Charles whined once and licked his master’s face briefly before curling up into a ball once more. He continued to stare at Matthew out of worried eyes, his narrow muzzle resting on his folded forelegs. Matthew raised a still trembling hand to stroke the smooth coat of the little animal more to soothe himself than to comfort the frightened animal.
Long after Charles had gone back to sleep, Matthew lay staring up at the ornate ceiling, his thoughts a tangle and his emotions feeling bruised. He shut his eyes and attempted to force himself into sleep by refusing to think about the dream or Tess. When sheer willpower proved ineffectual, desperation overcame him and he began mentally reciting all the Shakespeare that he knew by heart. It took him until the very end of the Queen Mab speech to finally drift into sleep.
Five
“M
atthew? Matthew, wake up.”
“Not yet, Annabelle. Your husband won’t be home for some hours yet,” Matthew muttered.Dobbs rolled his eyes and tried again, shaking his employer’s shoulder this time. “Matthew! You must get up. It is an hour until the Danbrooks arrive to see their horse. William already has one of the smelly four-legged creatures waiting for you out there in the stable yard. Now do get up!”
“I don’t care if you’re hungry. You can get to the kitchen without my company,” Matthew protested weakly, moving out of Dobb’s reach.
Sighing, Dobbs left Matthew’s room and made his way down the hall. He halted two doors down from Matthew’s. “Lady Alex?” he called.
“Yes Dobbs?” the voice was composed and serene.
Dobbs gulped, then forged ahead. “I cannot wake His Grace. I was wondering if you could help me?”
There was a pause as Alex made her way to the door. She wrenched the knob impatiently and swung the door open harder than was necessary. “There is no need to refer to Matthew as ‘His Grace,” she informed her brother’s valet as she swept past him and started down the hallway, “on mornings when he would be more aptly called ‘His Laziness’.” She marched through the door that Dobbs had left open into Matthew’s room. “Matthew,” she said loudly, snatching up the pitcher of cold water on the bedside table. “Time to get up.”
“Go ‘way,” Matthew muttered.
Dobbs entered the room in time to see Alex shrug and empty the entire contents of the pitcher over her brother’s head. Matthew started awake, spluttering and coughing. Charles, who had been sleeping beside his master on the bed, yipped in fright and leapt down to hide under the bed. “What the devil!” He croaked out, staring at his sister in wide-eyed shock.
Alex smiled sweetly at him. “Time to get up, Matthew dear. There are horses to work and the Danbrooks are coming at eleven of the clock.” As if on cue, the grandfather clock downstairs chimed the half hour. “You had better hurry up,” Alex told him, before sweeping from the room.
Matthew wiped water from his eyes and coughed again. “Dobbs?”
“Yes Matthew?” Dobbs said apprehensively.
“Don’t ever let Lady Alex in here in the morning again.”
A half an hour later Matthew opened the back door and hopped down the steps. He shivered in the cool air and raised a hand to his wet hair. If he didn’t die of cold, he was positive that the thunderous headache caused by exhaustion would finish him for sure. He stilled the chattering of his teeth and stepped into the barn. “William?” he called out, pulling on his gloves as he made his way down the clean-swept aisle.
“He’s not here,” Alex’s voice replied just before she stepped into the aisle leading her chestnut mare. “He had to take Bailey to the farrier to have a shoe put back on.”
Matthew groaned. The Danbrooks’s stallion was always causing damage either to the stables or to himself. “Curse that horse for being such a destructive idiot. The Danbrooks
are going to be here in less than an hour!”
“Whoa Duchess,” Alex said to the mare, patting the horse on the shoulder. “You know that the Danbrooks are always half an hour late, so he should be back in plenty of time. I just have to work Duchess and then I’m done for the morning.”
Matthew glanced again at his pocket watch. “You had better hurry, Alex. It would never do for them to see you like that.” Alex always wore boots and breeches while she rode horses with Matthew and it was a secret that they kept rather closely between them. Matthew did not want to know what Squire Danbrook and his wife would think of Alex in breeches, riding astride, nor did he want to.
“You don’t think the Squire is progressive enough to think women should be allowed to dress in men’s clothing?” she retorted in response, tightening the cinch on her saddle.
Matthew rolled his eyes and went to get Apollo. Although he and Alex constantly bent the rules that society considered so very sacred, there were some things that just were not done. Wearing breeches if you were a lady was most definitely one of those things. However, Alex was her own mistress, and so Matthew decided to let her manage her own affairs for the time being. Matthew led his own stallion, Apollo into the aisle and started to work brushing the straw and dust out of his coat.
“How are you old man?” he asked his horse. Apollo glanced at him and snorted softly. Matthew smiled and slapped the horse’s muscular shoulder before going to fetch his saddle from the tack room. Alex was just bridling her horse as he passed her with his own tack. “I’m hurrying,” she assured him, her expression annoyed.
