“Eggs would be lovely, but not too much. I need to save room for my buttered toast.”
Mr. Wentworth served her a modest portion, then did the same for himself. He set the butter dish beside her teacup. “Where does this morning find you regarding my travelogues?”
Matilda buttered her toast, thoroughly but not gluttonously, and nattered on about Pompeii and Napoleon’s plundering of ancient treasures, even though she knew every detail she shared, every comment she made, revealed a glimpse of her past.
A glimpse of her.
She’d come down to breakfast prepared to answer in some fashion the questions Mr. Wentworth had posed last night: Who are you? What or whom are you fleeing? He’d never voiced those specific queries, but he had invited her to answer them.
And he’d half answered them himself: You are either the victim of a crime or you have witnessed wrongdoing, and your safety is jeopardized as a result.
Matilda had chattered her way to an empty plate plus a second serving of eggs before she realized that Mr. Wentworth would not renew last night’s interrogation. He’d said they’d speak again at the time of her choosing, and he’d meant what he’d said.
Exactly what he’d said.
He’d finished his tea and patted his lips with his table napkin before Matilda found the courage to attempt the topic.
“How did you know?”
He’d half risen, and settled slowly back into his seat. “How did I know that you were the victim of wrongdoing or the witness to it, rather than the perpetrator?”
She nodded, grateful for the closed door, even as the sound of the snowmelt trickling from the eaves plucked at her nerves. Cold alone was dangerous, but cold and wet was a deadly combination.
“Logic,” Mr. Wentworth said. “In a sense, the witness to a crime has no good options. Confessing the knowledge turns the witness into the criminal’s sworn foe. Ignoring the knowledge burdens the witness’s conscience and makes the witness an accomplice. Nobody benefits from an involuntary relationship with a criminal. Shall I ring for another pot of tea?”
His tone was detached, and the morning sunshine revealed the man he’d become in middle age. A handsome face would shade toward distinguished, gray would dust his temples. He’d still be attractive, at least to a woman who valued gravitas, decency, and learning.
“No more tea, thank you,” Matilda said. “I want you to know something.”
He waited. Just that, while Matilda peered into the dregs of her cup and prayed she wasn’t making a serious mistake—another serious mistake.
“I agreed to accept a certain man’s matrimonial addresses. The man who sought my hand in marriage turned out to be less appealing than I’d thought him to be. I was preparing to cry off, but he’s well connected, while I am…My position was delicate.”
The colonel was a decorated war hero, a marquess’s spare. He was a good catch, possibly even a good man, but Matilda could not marry him.
Mr. Wentworth gently pried Maddie’s empty teacup from her grasp. “Did you sign any settlement papers?”
“No, I did not. The discussions hadn’t progressed that far. Perhaps my father signed papers, but I was never presented with any agreements.” She was a widow and should have signed any agreements on her own behalf. “Why?”
“Then, madam, you are truly no longer engaged if you don’t wish to be. No suit for alienation of affections can arise from my offer of employment, and your former follower has no legal authority over you. No date was set, and you have simply cried off, as is a lady’s right.”
Matilda hadn’t been sure what the legal ramifications were for a failed engagement in England, but she trusted Mr. Wentworth’s assessment. Atticus had never quite proposed. He’d assumed that permission to pay Matilda his addresses had been consent to marry.
“You relieve my mind,” she said. “Though I still dare not return to my family.”
“Then you must remain here at Brightwell as long as you please. I haven’t time to see to my journals, while you have both time and the ability to make them more presentable. If you’ll excuse me, my gamekeeper has decreed that I must be harangued about our management of pheasants. If I fail to appear for supper, you may conclude that I have died of stupefaction, for Mr. Hefner is a loquacious soul.”
He bowed over her hand—such a warm grasp he had—and, once again, left Matilda alone.
She helped herself to a crispy slice of bacon, holding it to her nose before taking a bite. Something about her exchange with Mr. Wentworth didn’t sit well. She’d not lied, but she’d not nearly explained the whole situation to him.
He knew that.
She was reaching for a second piece of bacon when insight struck. Mr. Wentworth also knew what it was to be the victim of or the witness to a crime. Logic might eventually have revealed to him why Matilda was in flight, but experience had allowed him to leap to that conclusion.
And then Matilda knew something else: His tale of studying for the church and finding a vocation in the classroom also wasn’t a lie.
Neither was it the whole explanation of his situation, not nearly.
* * *
For two days, Duncan buried himself in physical labor when he couldn’t escape the carping of his gamekeeper, his tenants, or his conscience. The staff left him more or less alone, but then, they had Miss Maddie to occupy them.
Duncan groomed his horse to a high shine, knowing the contrary beast would roll in the first available patch of mud—and the second.
He shoveled snow from the garden walkways, creating a circular path in case nobody in particular needed an idle outing in the frigid sunshine.
He shoved trunks around in the attic to better organize the enormous framed portraits stacked by the dozen, then assisted the footmen to haul the paintings down to the long gallery from whence they’d been taken. Some of the ancestors bore a resemblance to the present crop of Wentworths—height, brown hair, blue eyes—but none of them wore a priest’s collar.
Neither did Duncan, though he sometimes woke in the night struggling to breathe, as if the noose of holy orders remained about his neck. That was Miss Maddie’s fault, of course. A woman without protection, one victimized by circumstances, was salt in old wounds.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Stephen Wentworth stood in the doorway to the gallery, leaning on the jamb, a stout cane in his left hand. He made an elegant picture in his aristocratic attire, though Duncan knew the casual posture cost him.
“The expeditionary force has arrived. What took you so long?”
Stephen moved into the room at the slow, uneven pace that was the limit of his abilities on foot. “Damned English weather. Quinn and Jane send their love, Ned says hello, and, good lord, what a homely fellow the third duke was. Puts me in mind of you.”
“He was a soldier, away from home for years at a time.”
“A wanderer, like me,” Stephen said, peering more closely at His Grace, “and like you. How are you getting on?”
Trust Stephen to exhibit not a scintilla of tact. “I’m furious.”
His lordship smiled, leaving no doubt as to which Wentworth had inherited the family’s entire complement of charm.
“The stable lads remarked as much to the gardener, who heard the same sentiment from the footmen, and they were in agreement with the gamekeeper. Our Mr. Wentworth is in a right taking o’er summat.”
Duncan spared a moment to solve the puzzle, for Stephen had likely ridden up Brightwell’s drive less than fifteen minutes ago.
“You came in through the kitchen because the front lane hasn’t been shoveled. You overheard the boots—Jinks—or the maids, or both in conversation with an under-footman or scullery maid.”
“The housekeeper is apparently on bedrest recovering from an illness, else I’m sure the staff would have been less inclined to gossip. What has you in a swither?”
For all his charm, Stephen had also inherited a Wentworth’s portion of tenacity.
“This place.” And that woman. “You’re in time for dinner, and the fire in the family parlor is kept lit. Let’s leave Their Graces for the nonce and you can interrogate me in private.” Until Miss Maddie joined them, not that Stephen would exercise much discretion before a lady.
“Have you missed me?” Stephen asked, leading the way into the corridor. “I’ve missed you. Nobody to lecture me about the history of every village I pass through or every vintage I have sent up from the wine cellar. Nobody to cast a pall of gloom over every weather report. Your dour nature is soothingly predictable.”
“While your company is a circle of purgatory not even the denizens of Newgate would choose over incarceration.”
To appearances, Stephen was merry, irreverent, and thick-skinned. Closer acquaintance, which had taken Duncan years to achieve, revealed a brilliant young man plagued by bouts of melancholia and in constant physical pain.
“You have missed me,” Stephen observed, as they processed down the hallway. “You might have sent a fellow a note: Dear Lord Purgatory: In over my head with this estate management nonsense. Plato’s wisdom unavailing. Make haste to my side. My love to your horse, Cousin Dunderpate.”
“When I walk beside you, I am forced by the decorous pace you set to notice my surroundings,” Duncan said. “That deal table, for example, is probably three hundred years old. Some wealthy merchant lusting for acceptance among the squires will pay good money for it.”
Stephen thumped past the table in question. “We can make an inventory in order of ugliness. You should be glad Quinn and Jane didn’t come with me. I had a devil of a time convincing them not to break out the traveling coach.”
Duncan waited at the top of the steps while Stephen got his cane organized into his right hand so he could grasp the bannister with his left. If Stephen’s physical progress through life was slower than that of other men, his mental progress outpaced a swift on the wing.
“Quinn and Jane would never travel this time of year with the baby,” Duncan said. “I trust Artemis is in good health?” The question was carefully timed for when Stephen had to watch every step, the better to spare Duncan’s dignity.
“Little bugger is fat and jolly. Jane has to instruct Quinn on the need to maintain some dignity in the nursery, or our duke would spend all his time singing lullabies and reading fairy tales. Could this house be any colder, Duncan?”
“This is balmy compared to three days ago. How’s the leg?” Another question timed to preserve the dignity of all concerned.
“It reaches the floor,” Stephen said. “No better, no worse. I’ll not be leaving you until the weather has cleared up. Snow and ice are the very devil, and mud is no improvement.”
Even rain made Stephen’s life more difficult. “You are welcome for as long as you care to remain. I honestly have no idea how to go on with the estate business, which Quinn ought to have realized before he devised my penance.”
“I’ll teach you what you need to know,” Stephen said, rounding the landing. “Money comes in, money goes out. The object of the game is to bring more in than you send out.”
“Thank you for that penetrating insight. Though how do you determine whether the sums reported by your stewards, tenants, farmers, and factors are accurate, and not the result of some creative accounting which they’ve had ten years to put in place?”
“You suspect fraud?”
“For God’s sake, Stephen. Brightwell was a lamb to slaughter when the old duke’s faculties failed. The house staff is trustworthy, but I can smell the speculation from my land steward. Everybody from the dairyman to the gamekeeper to the swineherd is waiting to see whether I’m wise to their schemes.”
Stephen started down the next flight. “You apparently are. What will you do about it?”
“Shovel snow, groom my horse, wrestle portraits.” Fret about Miss Maddie.
“And your efforts to date have solved nothing.”
“If I sack the swindlers working for me now, a new lot of swindlers will take their places. I need only make this place profitable for one year, and I’m free to go about my business.”
The stairwell became colder as they descended, and because the sun was setting, the way also became darker.
“Quinn knew exactly what a fouled-up situation he was dumping into my lap,” Duncan went on. “Why would he do this, Stephen? I’m nobody’s fiscal conscience, nor do I want to be.”
“Jane put him up to it,” Stephen said. “She’s his conscience. Next year, when you’re too decrepit to spend the winter in Vienna, you’ll be glad you set your household to rights. The place has good bones.”
Miss Maddie had said as much. Miss Maddie, whom Duncan had been avoiding, and who was not from Dorset.
“I have hired an amanuensis,” Duncan said as they approached the family parlor. “Somebody to edit my journals and see to my correspondence.” Miss Maddie could assist with his correspondence, if he asked her to.
“Your handwriting defeats even my powers of divination,” Stephen said. “Though a good secretary can learn almost anybody’s penmanship. Where did you find such a paragon? Is he another disillusioned parson with a permanent squint?”
The door to the family parlor opened, and Miss Maddie stood before them in her two shawls.
“No,” Duncan said. “You are as usual in error. Miss Maddie, may I make known to you my cousin, Lord Stephen Wentworth. I comfort myself with the knowledge that our connection is at some remove. Lord Stephen, Miss Maddie. Behave in her presence or I’ll break your sound leg.”
Stephen bowed with the support of his cane and came up flashing the smile that was still the subject of swoons in Paris.
“Miss Maddie, pleased to make your acquaintance. What did you ever, ever do to deserve a sentence of hard labor with Cousin Duncan?”
The lady curtsied. “I consider myself fortunate to have my post, my lord. Mr. Wentworth, shall I leave you and your guest privacy at dinner?”
She clearly wanted to. She wanted to bolt from the room and probably from the house. “Lord Stephen’s feelings would be hurt if you declined to join us, and I would be subjected to a meal in tedious company. You must not think of leaving.”
Maddie stepped back, admitting them into the warmth of the parlor. She made polite conversation about the weather and she laughed at Stephen’s flirtations, but Duncan caught her glancing at the darkness gathering beyond the window.
She was thinking of leaving. She was always thinking of leaving, and he must not forget that, ever.
Which also made him furious.
Chapter Six
“Your cousin is friendly,” Matilda said, shoving the treatise on Italian farming back between the wonders of Sicily and the challenges of a Venetian winter.
Mr. Wentworth tapped the blunt end of his pencil against the desk blotter. “A life largely confined to a wheeled chair has developed in Stephen the need to charm people to his side. You favor the verb ‘to hare’ as in to hare about.”
The next essay Matilda came to was on Pompeii, which had struck Mr. Wentworth as sad, a graveyard desecrated by morbid curiosity rather than sanctified by respect for the tragedy that had formed it. Matilda agreed, but hadn’t been able to name her emotions about the place until she’d read his treatise.
“You will edit out my excesses, I’m sure,” she said. “To racket about, travel, career, journey, sojourn, make haste…the synonyms abound.”
“You are down to one shawl today.”
She pulled the shawl closer, as if that might prevent Mr. Wentworth from inspecting her.
In the week since Lord Stephen’s arrival, Matilda had enjoyed relative peace. His lordship bantered with Mr. Wentworth at the dinner table, rather like a puppy teasing an old hound. The old hound tolerated the fussing and could occasionally be jollied into a tail thump or two, but the game was mostly played by the youthful contender.
Lord Stephen and Mr. Wentworth had ridden out to call on tenants when the snow had partly melted, and closeted
themselves in Mr. Wentworth’s sitting room with ledgers and an abacus on the drearier days. When Matilda happened to pass that doorway, which she did several times a day, the steady click of beads and soft murmur of voices assured her that work was in progress.
“This office is cozy,” Matilda said. “My other shawl is draped over the back of your chair.”
She was coming to think of this room as her domain, which was most unwise. She worked here, nothing more. Daily, she resolved to leave once the household was abed. Each night she found a reason to put off her departure. Clouds obscuring the moon, a cutting wind, a sky that threatened more snow…But the most tempting reason to stay was seated at the desk.
Mr. Wentworth leaned forward to free the shawl hanging on the chair, took a sniff of the bunched-up wool, and then wrapped it about himself.
“Damned window gives off a chill.”
“You could sit closer to the fire.” Matilda loved to sit by the fire, candles gathered near, while reading Mr. Wentworth’s discourse on some exotic city. He had a knack for noticing details—how the ducks in Austria quacked versus the ducks in Hyde Park—that charmed her more than Lord Stephen’s smiles and wordplay ever would.
“If I sat closer to the fire, I would be in your way, and if there’s one aspect of domestic life that I cannot abide, it’s a fussing female.”
Matilda paged through the treatise that covered the scenic and tedious journey from Venice to Vienna. Mr. Wentworth had a tendency to leave correspondence between the pages of his treatises, as well as receipts, scrawled notes, and other mementos of his travels.
“I quite agree,” she said. “A fussing female is far more irksome than a fussing male. The fussing male usually only fusses—noise, grumbling, harrumphing, and the like. The fussing female is often engaged in a task while she fusses. The compounded annoyance, of fussing and activity, can drive one to Bedlam.”
Matilda had yet to find a love letter stashed between the leaves of Mr. Wentworth’s journals. His would be short and to the point: Please be advised that the author of this epistle holds the receiver thereof in high regard. W.
When a Duchess Says I Do Page 8
