TWELVE
The next afternoon, Matt paced before the fire in the library, a nervous anticipation humming in his blood.
Yesterday evening, it had taken a warm bath and a finger of whisky to return feeling to his toes. But the chill and damp appeared to have caused no lasting harm. While helping him dress for bed, Hansen had reported that Mrs. Armstrong was in good spirits, as well.
Matt had sat before the fire in his bedchamber, nursing a second finger of whisky—his head becoming a wee bit fou—contemplating what Cecily might ask in return for assisting him with his list. Money?
Help in reclaiming her former life? Frustratingly, he knew so little of her future aspirations that his speculation could go no further.
Would he receive answers today?
Avoch’s library was Matt’s favorite room in the castle.
Situated above the great hall, it boasted two large windows along the south wall that let in copious amounts of daylight.
Today, the sun occasionally slipped through the clouds, washing the room in mottled light.
A fire in the grate and a candelabra on the mantle illuminated the bookshelves lining the walls and the two armchairs facing the fire.
A large map table dominated the center of the space.
The clink of china sounded a moment before Cecily stepped into the room, tea tray in hand. Matt’s first instinct was to take it from her. A lady should not be laden so.
But she had made it clear she was his paid servant, nothing more. And Matt doubted he could balance the tea tray with his one hand anyway.
They made a sorry pair, the two of them.
So he stood uselessly before the fire as she settled the tray on a table. She then crossed and half-shut the door, leaving it a bit ajar.
“For propriety’s sake,” she said at his lifted eyebrow.
Matt suspected that the sliver of space between the door and its frame reflected more her own need for security. A gentleman speaking privately with his housekeeper would hardly be considered scandalous. However, being trapped in a room alone with a man must be frightening for her.
“Shall I?” She waved a hand over the teapot, taking a seat in one of the two chairs before the fire.
He sat opposite. “Please.”
She poured a steady stream of fragrant tea into one cup, the motion elegant and practiced.
Light from the windows tangled in her chestnut hair and skimmed the lovely planes of her face.
She wore a muslin day dress in faded blue and white chintz.
A gauze fichu nestled primly into her neckline, and a simple cream shawl draped around her shoulders.
Matt forced himself to look away before he crossed the line into staring.
“Most of the servants have their half-day today, including Rawkin.” She handed him the teacup and saucer. He set it on a small table at his elbow. “Our conversation shouldn’t be overheard.”
He nodded, sipping his tea. She had prepared it precisely to his liking—a splash of milk with one lump of sugar.
“After your comment yesterday, I fear the staff will expect me to host a dinner party,” he said as she added a bit of milk to her own tea.
“Most likely.” She shrugged, as if the thought disturbed her not at all.
Matthias, however, could barely swallow past his terror. Surely, she wasn’t serious? But looking at her unperturbed face as she sipped, he rather thought she might be.
The very idea of having to host. Greet guests. Make small talk. Navigate the endless string of social cues and expected etiquette. He would prefer to charge Zephyrus through a burning building. The task would be easier and less terrifying.
“Ye look as if ye swallowed a lemon, my lord,” she said on a soft laugh—that trace of Scotland clinging to her words again.
He sighed and studied the fire. Anything to prevent his eyes from lingering overlong on the way her cheeks plumped into rosy apples when she smiled.
“I cannot imagine anything more harrowing than hosting a dinner party.” He spared her a glance. “Well, I suppose a ball would be worse.”
“Though I do think a dinner party or ball would be an excellent goal, I understand your hesitancy. I will be sure to drop hints with the staff that ye don’t feel quite up to the task. Not yet, at least.”
He lifted his teacup in a brief thank you.
“However, I did spend some time pondering a plan of action.”
“Did you decide what you would like in compensation, in addition to an excellent letter of recommendation?”
“Again, I don’t need—”
“Mrs. Armstrong, I cannot proceed without assuring that this—” He motioned between them. “—does not place undue pressure on your employment.”
“I see.” A pause. “I still cannot say what I wish in compensation. Must ye know now?”
“No. Of course not. Merely let me know when you decide.”
A teasing glint flashed. “What if my request is outrageous?”
Impossible. He would refuse her nothing.
Again, his eyes longed to catalog her. Every twitch of her lips. Each emotion behind her eyes. That pale strip of bare skin peeking out between the folds of her fichu.
He forcibly looked away, inhaling slowly. “I fear we’re getting ahead of ourselves. You might quickly conclude that I’m a helpless cause.”
“Unlikely, I assure ye. But I did realize that I don’t have enough information to draft a detailed plan of attack, as it were.”
“Information?”
“Aye. I need to better understand your future wishes and goals. For example, your list stated that ye wish to eventually marry. What attributes do ye desire in a bride?”
Her question brought him up short. What did he desire in a bride, aside from someone like herself?
“Unfortunately, I need to be capable of carrying on a conversation with a woman before knowing what attributes might suit me.”
“Ye converse easily with myself.”
She made a valid point.
“Yes, well, you already know the sad reality of my faults and foibles. There is no horror to hide.” That was only a partial truth.
Her fear of men roused his protective instincts and, in the process, quieted his own self-doubt.
“When in company, my conversational skills consist entirely of a banal observation about the weather yesterday or a spurious hope for the weather tomorrow.”
“Those are treasured English staples.”
He smiled, gaze firmly on the fire. “True.”
In his periphery, she cocked her head. He avoided staring, and she appeared to do nothing but stare.
“May I ask you a question?” she said.
“Of course. There is no need to request permission.”
“Very well. Why do ye avoid looking directly at people? Ye go to great lengths to evade eye contact, and I find it curious as to why. Does meeting another’s gaze cause discomfort?”
Heat scalded Matt’s cheeks.
Yes, Cecily knew much of him, and yet, there remained a veritable mountain of mortifying behaviors to uncover.
Forget conversation. He needed to learn how to even be in the presence of a lady. Perhaps once he mastered that skill, he could add speaking to the mix.
Now he couldn’t meet her gaze out of shame and embarrassment.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I . . .” He drifted off on a hard swallow.
Damnation, but this was humiliating.
However, the memory rose of Cecily pressed against his spine from nape to waist, hands clutching his sides. Matt would suffer a great many indignities to experience more of the same. If he ever wished to woo a lady—any lady—he needed to confront his defects. The only way out was through.
He clenched his fist on his thigh, feeling every inch of his deformed, misfit self.
“I avoid eye contact because I have been told that others find the weight of my stare uncomfortable.” A breath. “But my lack of normal eye contact appears to be a problem, as well. I fear I shall never learn how to comport myself in a customary manner.”
He was so bloody tired of being an oddity.
Forcing himself to meet her gaze, he told the spare truth. “As I warned earlier, you might deem my case to be hopeless.”
Anger stirred in Cecily’s breast.
How many times had Lord Matthias been told—directly or otherwise—that he was an aberration? That he discomfited others simply through a look? She had witnessed such occurrences firsthand with Reverend Liston and Mr. Carter; she had overheard them with Miss Carter.
The more Cecily came to know Lord Matthias Kinsey, the more she considered him one of the finest gentlemen she had ever encountered.
His heart held a genuine goodness. His demeanor calmed her nerves so thoroughly that she could sit across from him without terror for the male gender oversetting her.
His presence was an anchoring balm—his missing arm a mark of suffering and suggestion of the man’s humility.
“Who told ye that the press of your eyes was off-putting?” She couldn’t help the snip in her voice.
Guaranteed it had been someone who felt uncomfortable in their own skin and, therefore, criticized his lordship’s differences instead of learning to accept their own discomfort.
His blush deepened at her question.
Yet, he visibly girded his loins and answered. As if responding were a form of penance. Or perhaps an attempt to scare her off.
“The situation with Miss Carter a few weeks past was hardly novel. Years ago, I overheard a group of young ladies similarly criticizing my manner. They stated that my unappetizing appearance and deportment would ‘curdle their tea.’ My overlong staring was specifically called out.”
Cecily’s breath caught. Those wretched girls. So confident in their cruelty.
“Mind you, their words were hardly surprising,” he continued. “From earliest memory, I was raised with such criticisms. My mother and nurse took care to remind me repeatedly of my defects of body and manner. The whispers I overhear in public merely confirm their schooling.”
Cecily felt her anger morph into a towering fury. His words explained so much. No wonder the incident with Reverend Liston and Mr. Carter had struck such a nerve.
Her heart ached—both for the man before her and the quiet boy he had been. Abruptly, it felt imperative that she correct this wrong. By all that was holy, she would ensure Lord Matthias achieved every last item on his list and then some.
He had returned to looking at the fire. She traced his profile—the straight line of his nose, the gentle swell of his lips, the firm cut of his jaw.
Any objective observer—which perhaps Cecily was not at this moment—would conclude that he was a beautifully formed man. Add in his wealth and station . . .
“Cataloging my defects, are you?” he asked on a grimace, reaching for his teacup.
“No,” she answered honestly. “I was contemplating the stupidity of my gender.”
He paused, the cup halfway to his mouth. “Pardon?” Sipping, he darted a glance at her.
Cecily knew she should stop there, but as ever, his very presence resurrected the vestiges of the idealistic girl who thought that good and love would triumph over all.
“A woman who would consider your lordship anything but a fine figure of a gentleman should have her head examined.”
He choked on his tea, spluttering and coughing, reaching for a napkin to cover his mouth.
Cecily grinned. “At the risk of sounding impudent—”
“Impossible,” he said on a cough.
“Ye haven’t let me finish.”
“I’m debating the wisdom of it.”
Now, she laughed. When unguarded, he was empirically charming.
“I haven’t known yourself long, Lord Matthias, but I can unequivocally say that you are a generous, kind gentleman. Any lady would be honored to have your regard.”
He flushed again, this time she hoped with pleasure. His chest rose and fell on a deep breath.
“I merely need the lady in question to be willing to overlook this and the questions it raises.” He raised his stump of an arm. “Will my children be born as I was, or worse? How should the moral implications be managed?”
“Moral implications?”
“The sign of divine disfavor my missing forearm represents.”
“That’s superstitious nonsense. The correct lady—a true match to yourself—won’t see it in that light.”
“And yet the belief is terribly persistent. My nurse used to cross herself before touching me as a child.” His mouth twisted as if telling a joke.
Nothing about that statement was humorous. His childhood nurse should be whipped for her cruelty.
An idea occurred to Cecily—terrifying for herself, but a gesture of goodwill. Her heart thumped like a mad thing . . . in warning or agreement, she couldn’t tell.
Unfortunately, fear and courage often felt like one and the same.
“I’m going to ask another impertinent question,” she said through a mouth gone dry.
“Ah. A warning of incoming bombardment. Duly noted.”
There was that dry humor again.
She paused for courage before opening her mouth. “Would ye show me your bare arm?”
Cecily pointed at his right limb, scarcely believing her own audacity.
Lord Matthias must have felt similarly because he froze. He did not, however, look away from her.
“Why?” The single word held an uncharacteristic bite. “Morbid curiosity?”
Ah. She had put him on the defensive.
“No.” She hesitated and then gave him her full honesty.
“Well, perhaps a little curiosity, but it’s not morbid.
More like . . . I want ye to see my reaction.
Others recoil from ye in ignorance, and ye understandably assume that their response has to do with yourself.
However, I feel your arm is merely something that defines your unique self. It isn’t repellent.”
He snorted. “You can’t know that.”
Her pulse had taken on a life of its own, whooshing in her ears—courage and fear swirling together.
“Perhaps not, but neither of us will know unless ye show me.”