Matthew had muttered a few complaints in Maida’s sympathetic direction too, and in an egregious breach of library etiquette, fed her the crusts of his final sandwich.
“By the time I arrived on the Capshaw doorstep,” Matthew went on, “Emmanuel already knew with whom I’d attended services and something of her circumstances.”
Nick and Beck were both apparently fascinated with their drinks, or trying to hide matching smirks.
Nick spoke first. “Are you warning us of something, Belmont?”
“I’m warning you to mind your own business,” Matthew said. “Emmanuel blathered to me about my own sons being at impressionable ages, about Matilda’s memory deserving respect, about foolishness being a single man’s lot at my age. I nearly backhanded him for his presumption. He hasn’t even met Theresa, and he’s decided she’s Jezebel’s more wicked sister.”
“What have you decided?” Beckman asked, tearing off a piece of bread and taking a bite.
“A man in love doesn’t decide anything,” Nick said, passing his brother the butter. “Such a pathetic creature has no rational processes to his name. He aches, he yearns, he speaks nonsense, which is nonetheless the most honest discourse of his entire life. He is a creature both pathetic and noble, ecstatic and miserable. His honor reaches to celestial heights at the same time he plots endlessly to take liberties with his beloved. We pity him aloud, while we envy him in our hearts.”
The barmaid left off polishing glasses. “Mr. Haddonfield, will you marry me?”
Nick blew her a kiss. “I’m unworthy of your regard, Daisy my love, but bring us another round, and my resolve might weaken. Put the drinks on Belmont’s tab, and it will weaken yet further.”
Beckman dipped another piece of bread. “You got a letter from Papa, I take it?”
“One from Papa, one from Nita.” Nick fished inside his jacket and passed two epistles to his brother. “Our sister sends greetings. Papa is not doing well, but he’s in good spirits.”
“Same as last month and the month before,” Beckman said. “While the squire’s situation appears to be changing.”
Yes, by God, Matthew’s situation was changing. He’d lectured his sons about change being inevitable and desirable, and then he’d gone right back to reading pamphlets on the proper use of horse lineament and the wonders of manuring vegetables with chicken shit.
“I miss my boys,” Matthew said. “I will always miss them, but at some point in the last eighteen years, I also lost track of myself. I don’t even like pears.”
“That’s the honest discourse part,” Beck said.
“Or the nonsense,” Nick said. “Hard to tell the difference when a man is truly smitten.”
Matthew sipped his ale and let them have their fun—they were envying him in their hearts, after all, or they soon would be.
Chapter Nine
Agatha was growing plump, a testament to what three rounds of tea cakes per day—mid-morning, late afternoon, and late evening—could do to the figure of a woman whose “elegant” table servings bordered on stingy. She was coloring her hair too, according to the maid of all work, and kept a lurid novel in her lap desk.
Emmanuel would never begrudge his wife her vanities or pleasures, even if she spent money on them that was better invested in stocking the larders.
“I do believe Matthew was in a hurry to leave us,” Emmanuel remarked, as he pushed coals to the back of the fireplace. They were in the family parlor, the one Agatha called comfortable, the one Emmanuel called dowdy, and small enough to heat easily.
“Perhaps Matthew was anxious to avoid the rain,” Agatha said. “I’m certain we’ll have a proper downpour by morning. Are you retiring already, Emmanuel?”
He’d go up to bed. He would not retire. “Soon, my dear. Matthew’s situation worries me.”
Agatha’s needle paused between one stitch and the next. She embroidered beautifully, though how she could tolerate sitting hour after hour baffled him.
“Matthew has been without female companionship for years,” Agatha said, “but he’s stood up with this lady, driven that one to church, turned pages for another, and none of it has ever amounted to anything. The Jennings woman’s circumstances are pathetic, if gossip is to be believed. A gentleman would pity such a creature.”
Though Agatha heard gossip in quantity—witness, her immediate knowledge of Matthew’s outing earlier that day—she repeated none of it outside her own home.
Emmanuel had had the great misfortune to marry a genuine lady. Agatha was not warm, and God knew she wasn’t affectionate, but she took her station to heart, maintaining a virtuous dignity in all situations.
She did not, however, take her husband to bed, thank the heavenly powers.
“I’m not judging the Jennings creature,” Emmanuel said. “Our own dear Tilly, may she rest in peace, nearly found herself in pathetic circumstances.”
“We would have taken her in,” Agatha said, jabbing at the fabric. “I told her, we would have provided a home for her. Compassion for those who’ve erred is preferable to casting stones.”
Emmanuel set the poker on the hearth stand. The fire was an extravagance, but now was not the time to harangue Agatha again on the need for economies.
“You are without doubt the most loving older sister ever to grace this shire, madam. I’m sure Tilly had her reasons for choosing Belmont’s charms over our humble household.”
Emmanuel was, in fact, quite sure that marriage to Belmont had been a less disagreeable existence for Matilda than years of enduring Agatha’s charity would have been. He’d shared his conviction in this regard with Agatha’s sister too, and she—canny young lady—had heeded his guidance.
“Would you be very vexed if I pleaded a head cold next month, Emmanuel?” Agatha asked. “One doesn’t like to dissemble, but I get the sense Matthew regards our monthly meals as a duty, rather than a pleasure. Matilda has been gone for years, after all.”
Eight years and three months, in fact, but Emmanuel was not about to cut the thread that reliably bound them to Matthew Belmont. If Agatha could see beyond her embroidery hoop, she’d realize she didn’t to cut those ties either.
“We have a duty to Matthew, my dear. He’s family, and the boys need to know we’re not neglecting him. They’re good boys, and they worry about their old papa. I was once a university scholar, and I know how their minds work. The more diversions they have, the more guilty they feel about leaving their father back in the shires, there to grow old and content.”
For a moment, Agatha looked unconvinced—she was not stupid, but she was the product of a strict upbringing. Tilly had rebelled against that upbringing, while Agatha, as the older sister, had upheld her parents’ expectations at every turn.
“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “Matthew has ever been his own man. He occasionally begs off, after all. Our table is hardly impressive though, and his appetite remains appallingly robust.”
Ah, so Agatha was ashamed rather than miserly. She excelled at being ashamed, which would have surprised most who knew her. She was ashamed of her younger sister’s memory, ashamed of her own inability to produce children, and probably ashamed of her inability to make her pin money stretch as far as it needed to.
Emmanuel brushed aside the possibility that she might be ashamed of her husband.
Or that he should be ashamed of himself. A man, God’s least perfect creature, did what he could with the resources available to him.
Emmanuel patted Agatha’s shoulder. “Matthew can afford to feed himself exceedingly well, my dear. The point of our Sunday meals is to gather as a family, not to impress a wealthy relation with pointless extravagance. My concern is that a woman of loose morals will stop at nothing to get her hands on Matthew’s wealth. The more often we can remind him of that, the better for the boys. She’d squander their inheritance without a thought.”
Agatha yawned, covering her mouth with the back of one plump hand. “You’re good to be concerned for the b
oys, Manny. They still have a quite a bit of growing up to do.”
Emmanuel did not love his wife, but her management of the household made his life easier. By virtue of Agatha’s sheer, unrelenting respectability, Emmanuel’s reputation remained spotless by association. His meals were hot, his linens clean, his house tidy. He esteemed Agatha, which she probably preferred to the messier emotions sometimes associated with marriage.
He kissed her brow and wished her pleasant dreams, as he had for years.
“Sleep well, Emmanuel.”
She went back to her embroidery, though Emmanuel knew from long experience that within ten minutes, she’d go up to her bedroom. He’d listen for her step in the corridor, and ten minutes after that, let himself out the kitchen door. While Agatha said her prayers, and dreamed of embroidery, Emmanuel would have a few brandies at the local posting inn, and then offer to escort one of the friendlier barmaids back to her lodgings.
* * *
“Are you hiding, or trying not to be obvious about avoiding Mr. Belmont?” Alice tossed that question into the library’s quiet, then came limping in after it.
“Did the damp weather earlier in the week grieve your hip?” Theresa had appropriated the estate desk, the place from which Thomas ran his many properties and investments.
And yet, it was also just a comfortable chair at a big, old desk. A good place to hide.
“I haven’t decided if the change in the weather bothers my hip, or if the problem is simply that I sit for too long. Rainy days are the best for reading or catching up on correspondence.”
Halfway through Alice’s second winter on the Sussex coast, Theresa had asked to whom Alice wrote so faithfully. Alice had a sister in the north, a full brother, and a half brother. She never mentioned them by name, but Theresa had seen the addresses on the letters.
Alice’s letters had been regularly answered, unlike Theresa’s to Thomas, and some of the letters were franked.
Boots thumped in the corridor, the confident stride of a sizeable man.
For an instant, Theresa was certain Thomas had cut his wedding journey short and returned home to castigate her for attending services the previous Sunday with Matthew. While part of her accepted that Thomas had a right to be upset—she was his disgraced sister, and this was his home parish—another part of her had begun preparing for a long overdue row.
“Ladies, may I join you?” Matthew Belmont asked, marching into the library. “Miss Priscilla has once again acquitted herself magnificently with her gallant steed. She’s cantering up to the nursery to change and will then render a full report, I’m sure. Her braids are somewhat the worse for her outing, though her spirits are excellent.”
“She’ll want to write a story,” Theresa said, rising. “Tut must be immortalized as the first flying unicorn ever to grace Linden’s pastures, and—”
“I’ll tend to the child,” Alice said. “She and I are due to take tea in German today, and that slows Priscilla’s chatter considerably. Squire, good day.”
And thus Theresa was cast unchaperoned into the company of the man she’d avoided for the past three days—except in her dreams. Years from now, she might still encounter Matthew Belmont in her dreams, if she were lucky.
“Priscilla does well with old Tut,” Matthew said, closing the library door. The wet weather had been followed by cooler days, so a fire blazed in the library’s fireplace.
Fire blazed in Theresa’s memory too. The fire of Matthew’s kisses, the fire in his eyes when he’d raged against Thomas’s stubbornness.
“I loved to ride when I was a girl,” Theresa said, resuming her seat at Thomas’s desk. “I had two older cousins, twin boys, and Thomas was a demon in the saddle from a young age. Keeping up with the cousins while trying to look after Thomas meant I learned to love horses early and well.”
Matthew was in riding attire, tall boots, sober colors, the fingers of worn riding gloves poking out of one jacket pocket. His hair was windblown, and a faint odor of leather and horse clung to his person.
To see him, to catch that scent, to feel the sense of energy he brought to the library’s quiet pleased Theresa.
Pleased her terribly, and that would not do.
“My brother Axel and I practically lived on our ponies,” Matthew said. “Do you mind if I have a nip?”
“Of course not.”
He poured himself a tot of brandy, but didn’t taste it. Instead, he cradled his glass in his palm, the perfect accessory to a country gentleman at his most delectable.
He gestured with the drink. “Care for a sip?”
“No, thank you.” Theresa was sufficiently inebriated on Matthew’s mere presence, which was very bad of her. Men had lost the ability to make her silly more than a decade ago.
“Are you abstemious as a form of self-punishment, madam, or out of caution?”
He wandered to the family Bible, which Theresa had brought with her from Sutcliffe Keep. That book should dwell where the head of the family dwelled, and the sea air wasn’t kind to books, particularly not to old, precious books.
“I simply lost the habit of consuming spirits,” Theresa said, though that answer didn’t satisfy even her. “Before I grasped that I was with child, the taste of spirits had begun disagreeing with me. I never recovered it.”
Matthew opened the Bible. “Matilda was much the same. Her tastes grew eccentric when she was expecting, which is how I knew Remington and Richard were on the way. She loved the juice of Spanish oranges, unless she was enceinte. I do believe this Bible goes back to when Bibles were first printed.”
“The Sutcliffe barony is ancient.” While Theresa felt like a girl again, reckless, uncertain, and stupid with longing for Matthew’s attention. Maybe this was normal, or more normal than the indifference or revulsion she’d felt toward most men from a young age.
“I am not ancient, and neither are you.” Matthew gently closed the Bible. “How are you, Theresa?”
He remained halfway across the carpet, but Theresa felt the impact of his focus. The small talk was over, and now she’d learn why he’d sought her out in her brother’s library.
“I am well. You?”
He passed his brandy glass under his nose. “I am lonely. I had suspected as much when I surrendered my sons into my brother’s keeping, and then spent the next month staring at ledgers any junior clerk could have brought up to date. When I study on the matter, which I’ve recently had occasion to do, I conclude I have been lonely for most of my adult life.”
This loneliness had not made him weak and foolish, though, it had made him honest.
“Loneliness is not mortal illness, Mr. Belmont.”
He set the drink down, though he’d yet to taste it. “Do you know how many years I bludgeoned myself with that very platitude? The corollary makes an equally stout cudgel: Hard work never killed a man.”
Nor a woman. Theresa had assured herself of this while staying up late to balance Thomas’s books, then waking early to start the bread, because the Sutcliffe kitchens could not be relied upon to keep the supply fresh.
“We endure what we must,” she said, scrabbling mentally for a change of subject. Instinct warned her Matthew was about to deliver some mortal blow to her carefully constructed peace, and this time, it wouldn’t be with a kiss.
He gave the globe a spin. “We endure what we must, assuredly. Do you endure my kisses?”
“Matthew, what are you about?”
“I’m focused on the motive here, Theresa. The crime is not difficult to identify. Two grown people, free of other encumbrances, are attracted to each other, and yet, I sense nothing will be done to explore this precious, happy development. I’m attracted to women occasionally, but my transgression in your case is apparently that I like you. I admire your devotion to your daughter. I respect the effort you’ve made to reclaim a life free of vice. My high regard for you somehow renders my attentions undesirable. Why?”
He was hurt, though he would not have put that word on hi
s feelings. Men claimed to be unclear, confused, or possibly bewildered, and their heartaches thus were never directly acknowledged.
Matthew Belmont was not most men. He flung his pain at Theresa’s feet, a verbal gauntlet. Theresa was hurting too, but she could locate just enough determination to repel Matthew’s charge.
“You and your brother nearly lived on your ponies,” Theresa said, abandoning the Linden mercantile throne. “He was your great friend and playfellow, and you’ve entrusted your very children to his good offices now. Growing up, you had parents, a home, a place in life. You have friends now, you are respected. I had nobody and nothing but a succession of tipsy governesses expected to discreetly entertain my grandfather late at night.”
“How could you—?”
“I’m not stupid, Matthew. I could not afford to be stupid, not once I understood that my grandfather wished I’d never been born. He told me when I was eight years old that girls are nothing but a drain on a family’s finances, and the pretty ones the worst of the lot.
“The only person whose regard ever mattered to me,” she went on, “is Thomas. I tolerated my cousins’ snide company and their equally unpleasant charity solely because I owed that to my brother if I was to preserve the Sutcliffe legacy for him. Thomas was the last hope the family had of ever coming right, and I cannot afford to sacrifice his regard again.”
The old recklessness threatened, the despair that ripped good sense and civility from Theresa’s grasp. The young woman who had surrendered to despair had owned a handy set of verbal bludgeons too: Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. In for a penny, in for a pound. Needs must when the devil drives. You’re already ruined, might as well make a thorough job of it.
Matthew took two steps closer, close enough that Theresa could see the dust creased into the folds of his cravat.
“Your objection is not to my person, then?” he asked.
“I am out of the habit of allowing objectionable men to kiss me.”
He almost asked the question Theresa would never answer. Why would you ever have allowed objectionable men to kiss you?
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