SIX
Once again, Matt stared over the landscape, ears ringing like he had been thrown from a horse.
A heroic soldier who has recovered from a devastating injury.
Hah!
Abruptly, he was cast back to that moment long ago in a London ballroom . . . watching Miss Moulton dance and hearing the ladies’ scathing assessment of his inadequacies. His lack of valor. The accursed symbol of his missing arm. The awkwardness of his manner.
He gawps and studies and rarely blinks.
Every three minutes with Mrs. Armstrong, Matt had to remind himself not to stare.
It was hard going, as she was still so lovely, and his eyes ached to linger.
He wanted to howl his frustration at the unfairness of Fate’s whim, thrusting her into his path now when anything more than a professional relationship was improper.
Moreover, the admiration he heard in Mrs. Armstrong’s voice pricked his discontent. It implied that, were he a heroic soldier, she might esteem him as more than a mere waste of breath.
Alas, he was nothing of the sort.
Her plaintive words clung like brambles—I would find it difficult to locate another post that suits me as well. She had chosen a life in service for a reason. He would be the veriest blackguard if he cast her off.
Granted, Gray’s secretary was a blackguard for having described Matt as an invalid to Colonel Gordon. Or more likely, Gray himself. Embarrassment scorched his veins.
Situations like this are why you wish to escape the long reach of your brother’s shadow. Be your own man, and make your own decisions.
Rallying his courage, he turned around, eyes tangling fully with Mrs. Armstrong’s.
He would watch her expression as he told her the truth.
Witness horror and revulsion flicker across her pretty face as she realized that his deformity was a divine punishment inflicted on the Kinsey line.
He needed to see it. A physic to ward off his yearning.
“I must correct your assumptions, Mrs. Armstrong.” He cleared his throat, heat singeing his skin, and said what needed saying.
“I was born without a right forearm or hand.” He lifted his stump.
Strangling vines banded his breathing, and still he pushed through.
“Though I am flattered you assumed me a soldier or a hero, I must disabuse you of either notion. I am merely a deformed man—demon spawn, some have called me. I am anything but a heroic gentleman of valor like Admiral Lord Nelson.”
Mrs. Armstrong blushed. But her gaze didn’t drop to his missing arm, nor did any hint of dismay or disgust touch her expression. If anything, her head tilted sideways in curiosity.
“I sincerely apologize, my lord. I must confess, ye have the commanding mien and bearing of a soldier, and so I made inferences based upon that. Again, my apologies.”
Matt blinked. Not once in his life had anyone stated that he resembled a soldier. He would think Mrs. Armstrong was perhaps mocking him, but the inquisitive tilt of her head appeared far too genuine. She might keep secrets about her identity and past; however, in this, she seemed honest.
Thank you was the wrong response to her statement, but Matthias didn’t know how else to answer.
Well, that wasn’t quite true.
It was time he made a decision himself.
“I have no intention of terminating your employment, Mrs. Armstrong.”
He easily read the relief that suffused her face, like sunlight bursting through cloud cover.
“Thank ye, my lord. I will strive to be worthy of your regard.” She motioned with her palm. “Shall we continue the tour?”
He cleared his throat. “Please.”
This was why Mrs. Armstrong would prove so dangerous to his heart.
Despite her subterfuge, she was kind and gentle.
Seeing and understanding. The loveliness of her exterior was merely an extension of her internal beauty.
Traits he had intuited over a decade ago.
At least in that, he had not been mistaken.
The longer they spoke, the more Scotland disappeared from her vowels, and lilting aristocratic tones emerged. A hint of the girl she had once been. She seemed not to notice the transformation.
Neither of them, Matt surmised, was living the life they had anticipated a decade ago.
She led him through the house. He tempered his questions to focus solely on the house itself and not Cecily Armstrong’s history.
However, he hungered for every drop of information.
Her childhood. The circumstances that had brought her to Avoch.
The rationale behind her decision to abandon her station and enter into service.
A lady didn’t become a housekeeper on a whim.
Obviously, he could simply ask her—I say, are you the former Miss Cecily Moulton, by any chance?
The question stuck in his craw.
If she said no, he would assume her a liar.
If she said yes, then matters between them would become infinitely more uncomfortable. It was one thing to be a former lady working anonymously as a housekeeper. It was something else entirely to work for a gentleman who knew of her previous life.
The polite thing—the kind thing—would be not to pry.
And so he said nothing.
In the end, the truth of her past mattered not one whit to the reality of their present.
Matt could not treat her as a lady. He certainly could not court her. Such an action would put her in an untenable position—pressed to accept his overtures or risk her employment. A true gentleman did not flirt or dally with members of his staff. The balance of power was too uneven.
It was a boundary he would not cross.
No. Cecily Armstrong had her chosen role, and Matt would stay true to his.
For Matt, the next several days passed in a blur of unease.
Gray remained in residence, making demands of the staff and generally arranging the household to his liking. He was a duke, and therefore, he gave orders.
As ever, Matt was ignored.
For example, Gray claimed the large laird’s bedchamber as his own, relegating Matt to a smaller room, even though Matt paid the rent and was lord of this particular manor.
Gray insisted dinner be served at eight in the evening, as befitted London fashion. Matt preferred to dine and retire earlier, but asserting his will against that of his older brother meant tension and conflict, two things Matt preferred to avoid. After all, he had spent his life deferring to Gray.
Besides . . . Matt told himself . . . what did a few more days signify?
Once Gray left, Matt would speak with Rawkin and Mrs. Armstrong and arrange matters to his own liking.
And if Matt’s behavior smacked of cowardice, then so be it.
Sometimes, it was easier to drift in Gray’s wake than fight the current of his ducal temper.
To that end, Matt avoided the topic of dismissing Mrs. Armstrong and said nothing about the rest of Gray’s demands.
Avoidance explained why Matt still hadn’t told Gray about the letter.
Avoch represented a new beginning—a turning away from his past and the turmoil the letter dredged up.
He didn’t want to relive it now that Hope finally glimmered on the horizon.
Matt acknowledged that, in all honesty, he probably wouldn’t be informing his brother about the letter.
Whether the decision originated in cowardice or a healthy sense of self-preservation, it was hard to say.
The line between the two often ran thin.
Unfortunately, Avoch’s household wasn’t the only matter Gray wished to control. He inserted himself into Matt’s social diary as well.
“Reverend Liston, Mrs. Liston, and Miss Liston are at the door, Your Grace,” Rawkin announced one afternoon just after Gray and Matt had finished their luncheon.
Gray glanced at Matt, speculation in his gaze.
“Show them up, Rawkin,” Gray said before Matt could dismiss their visitors.
Rawkin bowed and left.
Several emotions warred for dominance in Matt’s body.
Frustration that Rawkin had looked to Gray instead of Matt for permission.
Irritation that Gray, not content with household matters, had waded into the social aspect of Matt’s life as well.
And terror that he had been given mere seconds to prepare before interacting with strangers.
The terror rendered his solitary palm clammy, while the irritation loosened his tongue.
“You needn’t make decisions about my acquaintance with the local populace, Gray.” Matt flicked a speck of lint off his trousers.
“If I don’t, you’ll never speak to a one of them,” Gray snorted. “You will develop a reputation as a recluse and return to Dunmore with your tail between your legs.”
Matt clenched his jaw. At least Gray was consistent in his belief that Matt would fail.
“We know nothing of these people.”
“Well, they wouldn’t presume to introduce themselves if they didn’t feel socially equal to it.”
Matt wasn’t sure that was how matters worked, but as he hadn’t Gray’s experience, he bit back his frustrated words. Instead, he clenched his trembling fingers into a fist and rose to his feet.
Moments later, Rawkin ushered in a graying gentleman, his straight-backed wife, and their daughter, a younger lady who stared bashfully at the floor as introductions were made.
“Your Grace, thank you for receiving us.” The reverend gave an alarmingly friendly smile. “I’m the minister of the parish church here. We were driving by Avoch, and I says to myself, ‘We should pop in and see how the new tenants are settling in.’”
“Indeed.” Gray’s tone indicated that he already regretted permitting the acquaintance. Matt figured it served his meddling brother right.
Gray motioned, and they all sat.
As his words presaged, Reverend Liston was a gregarious fellow, the sort who likely never thought a sentence that he didn’t speak aloud.
Over the course of ten minutes, Matt learned that the man’s grandfather was Lord Liston—“the family seat is just outside Sterling”—and his tenure as reverend was a mere temporary assignment before taking up a more venerated position in Edinburgh.
As he spoke, his wife beamed and nodded.
However, their daughter stared miserably at the floor—shy, and given her occasional wince, painfully aware of her father’s ofttimes gauche manner.
As a connoisseur of anxious dispositions himself, Matt felt sympathy for the woman. Perhaps that was what loosened his normally reticent tongue.
“And yourself, Miss Liston?” he asked after Reverend Liston had waxed poetic on the topic of hunting dogs. “Are hounds to your liking?”
The poor young woman nearly flinched at his direct question. A dreadful flush scorched her cheeks.
“I c-cannot say, my l-lord,” she stammered. “Or r-rather, I do like d-dogs, but have never h-had one of my own.”
Mrs. Liston smiled far too broadly. Matt could practically see matchmaking cogs spinning behind her eyes.
Sigh.
The last thing Matt wished to do was raise expectations.
“Our Sarah adores dogs,” Mrs. Liston said. “I suffer from a sensitivity to animals, so we have never been able to have a cat or dog inside the house.”
Poor Miss Liston blushed deeper.
The Listons took their leave a few minutes later, Reverend Liston promising a “rollicking tale of the time I nearly shot Lord Farquhar’s prize filly” the next time they met.
Gray gave Matt a speculative look as the door shut behind them. “Miss Liston might do you good, Matt.”
“Pardon?”
“She is perhaps a bit bashful, but not without charm. Most significantly, you didn’t lapse into your bizarre staring around her,” Gray continued, “so that is rather heartening, I suppose.”
Matt had been caught up in sympathetic embarrassment for the lady, and consequently, had forgotten to monitor his gaping. But . . . he had to concede that Gray might have a point. Matt had been more himself around the lady—his innate shyness recognizing her own and wishing to alleviate it.
“Perhaps you should pursue the acquaintance further,” Gray continued on a thoughtful nod. “Miss Liston would be an acceptable match for you.”
“Well, her great-grandfather is Lord Liston,” Matt added with a touch of asperity. “I heard it mentioned one or three times.”
“Indeed, he is. You could do worse.”
Like never marrying at all, Gray didn’t say.
There was no good answer to that comment, so Matt gave none. Particularly as the instant he contemplated marriage, Mrs. Armstrong’s face appeared.
Thank goodness, despite all his meddling, Gray hadn’t noticed anything untoward in Matt’s behavior toward the housekeeper.
When Gray mounted his horse and waved goodbye three days later, Matt wasn’t sure if he breathed a sigh of relief or shuddered at the weight of his entire life settling onto his own shoulders.
Perhaps a bit of both.