THIRTEEN
Cecily waited for Lord Matthias to respond—cheeks burning, heart a battering ram.
Finally, he sighed, “Very well.”
He stood nonchalantly, as if the prospect bothered him not at all. But the tremor in his hand as he tugged on his sleeve betrayed his nerves.
“Would you like my help with the pins?” She rose to her feet.
“I can generally manage.” He shot her a glance. “But I also won’t refuse assistance.”
He shrugged out of his coat, carefully draping the garment over the back of his chair. The faint sunlight caught the chestnut strands in his dark hair and skimmed along the sharp cut of his jawline.
He faced her in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat, his right arm pinned up at the elbow. Wordlessly, he extended the limb toward her.
You may challenge me, but I will also challenge you, that extended stump said.
A dare of sorts.
Little did he know, the Cecily of her youth had never backed down from a dare. To feel it now . . . that wee taste of the girl she had been . . .
All she needed to do was harness that bravery and reach for him.
It was merely . . .
Lord Matthias loomed over her, both in breadth and height.
She knew herself to be uncommonly tall for a woman. Usually, she gazed down at men, not upwards. A beanpole, George had called her, too tall by far. Nothing like the curved Pocket Venus of his favorite mistress.
But beside Lord Matthias, she felt small. Her eyes were level with his shoulder, for heaven’s sake.
He continued to regard her with that same patient expression.
You can do this, she ordered herself. He is facing his fears. You must do the same.
She sucked in a deep breath and ordered her feet forward, hand reaching for the fabric of his shirt.
Two small pins held the shirt sleeve up, their sharp points cleverly tucked into the folded fabric. Grasping the tucked edge, she carefully extracted one of the pins, setting it on the mantle for keeping. The motion felt domestic, something his future wife would do while undressing him for bed.
Heat scorched her cheeks.
When she suggested this, she hadn’t considered how intimate it would be. How scandalous.
And yet, she refused to back down now.
She could feel his eyes skimming her profile and studying her hair. His breathing quickened. Not a sharp inhale, per se, but a rapid expansion of his lungs.
Awareness assaulted her senses. The loud ticking of the case clock. The rustle of shirt linen. The clean masculine scent of him—saddle leather and soap.
“Gray is forever pleading with me to have my tailor simply close my shirts and coats at the elbow,” he said in the hush.
She extracted the other pin. “It seems a practical suggestion.”
“Perhaps.”
“You are not keen on the idea?”
A shrug.
She made the mistake of lifting her head then. He was so close. Given the pounding of her pulse, perhaps too close. She could see the lighter caramel flecks in his brown irises and the faint lines sunbursting from the outer corners of his eyes.
A tendril of yearning slipped through her fear and unspooled in her veins. Another vestige of her former self. Once, she had reveled in the form of a finely-built man. The twinge of desire proved that she wasn’t entirely dead to attraction.
The knowledge was both reassuring and terrifying.
He held very still, as if understanding she was seconds from bolting.
She set the second pin on the mantle and slowly unfolded the shirt sleeve. It was perfectly tailored with an orderly cuff and neat top-stitches.
“’Twould be a shame to lose such a pretty bit of needlework.” She ran a finger over the tidy edge.
“You understand my hesitation then.”
Carefully, she opened and rolled up the sleeve, inch by inch, until the pale skin of his arm appeared, truncated just above where his elbow should be.
Cecily didn’t know what she had expected.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true.
Years ago, she had traveled by stagecoach. A fellow passenger—a former soldier wounded at the Battle of Leipzig, he had said—had removed his false leg to massage the amputated stump of his knee. She had stared at the mangled edge of the wound there, mottled and scarred and red with irritation.
Lord Matthias’s arm was none of those things. The skin around the end of his arm was smooth and unmarred, created precisely as God intended.
“Appalled?” he asked in that same soft voice.
“No. Ye appear perfectly formed.” She lifted her gaze and let him read the sincerity there. “Has anyone ever shaken your right hand?”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Mrs. Armstrong, but I don’t have a right hand.”
He said the words so soft, so dry, it took a moment for the gallows humor to land. She smiled.
“No,” he continued. “No one has ever shaken my right arm.”
“Well, permit me to be the first, then.” Lifting her right hand, she waited.
After the briefest hesitation, he tucked the stump of his arm into her palm. His skin was warm and smooth in her grasp and sent a tingling shiver of sensation along her skin.
She gave his arm a firm up-down pump.
“Lord Matthias,” she curtsied, still holding his stump.
“Mrs. Armstrong.”
To her surprise, he lifted his arm and brought the back of her hand to his lips, bowing slightly and kissing the air above her knuckles. The picture of a perfect gentleman.
The heat of his breath washed over her hand, flaring gooseflesh to attention.
Memory surged of a different man, standing close, fist raised, his sneering lip filling her vision—
Her pulse hammered, and her lungs hitched. Nervous terror rendered her tongue numb. Courage and fear fought a pitched battle, swords swinging.
For once, Lord Matthias didn’t notice her terror. He met her gaze with a soft smile. “I believe we are friends now, you and I.”
The sureness in his words jolted her.
Men were to be feared. Not befriended.
“We are?”
“Yes.” So decisive that statement. Not a moment’s hesitation.
“I don’t have many friends. Just Forbes and Isla and Tavish—Isla’s husband.
And my nephew, Wee Fletch, I do believe, is rather fond of me.
Perhaps even Gray considers himself my friend .
. . well, if the word exists in his vocabulary .
. .” He shook his head, clearing the babble of words.
“But there is decidedly room for another.”
Cecily scarcely knew where to begin with a reply. Isla . . . who was married to Tavish. And there was a nephew . . . Wee Fletch?
The looming dark memories stole her courage.
“We cannot be friends, my lord.” She released his stump and stepped back. “Ye know that the difference between our stations is too great.”
Some emotion she couldn’t identify flickered across his face. He dropped his right arm, causing the sleeve to plummet, dangling hollow and forlorn.
“I beg to differ. Did you not hear me mention Forbes? He is a particular friend.”
“Ye ken it’s not the same—a friendship with your groom versus a female housekeeper. The purpose of this project is for me to help yourself, not to forge socially-impossible connections.”
That same emotion touched his face again. He swallowed, and his jaw clenched as he dipped his head to refold his empty sleeve.
“We come from different worlds, yourself and I,” she continued, heart thumping madly. “Ye be a high-born gentleman. I’m merely a household servant.”
He snorted. “We both know that to be a lie.”
His hand trembled as he slid the pins home.
“Pardon?”
Lifting his head, he fixed her with his dark eyes, chest rising on a heavy breath.
“We don’t come from different worlds, you and I, and well you know it.”
A buzzing started in her ears. “Whatever do ye mean?”
He paused for a long moment, as if debating within himself. A tingling numbness overtook her limbs.
He bent his head to finish pinning his sleeve.
“About a decade ago, I spent a summer in London. Repeatedly, at balls and soirées, I saw the same young lady. Beautiful. Elegant. Vivacious. Every gentleman in Town noticed her; I was hardly unique. I never rallied the courage to speak with her because . . . well . . .” He shrugged his stump of an arm.
“Miss Cecily Moulton she was called. I later read that she had married Mr. George Miller, heir to Lord Drempton.”
Cecily flinched at her husband’s name on Lord Matthias’s lips. It felt too close to her agitated fears. Her lungs rattled in her chest, and she clenched her hands into fists to stop their shaking.
“Sometimes, in the quiet of an evening”—his dark eyes skewered her in place—“I wonder what became of that vibrant lady.”
She couldn’t read his gaze. After a lifetime of deciphering men’s moods, it frustrated her that she could never quite decode his.
Briefly, she considered denying his calm allegation, but her wide-eyed shock and labored breaths surely revealed her guilt.
“You know.” Not a question.
“Yes.”
So short, that syllable.
“When? When did you discern that . . .” she trailed off.
Her Scottish accent evaporated like so much morning mist. She hugged her chest, as the shaking now wracked her entire body.
“The first moment I saw you . . . that day on the road.”
So swiftly?
“That is quite the memory . . . to recognize me after a decade.”
He gave a weak smile. “Miss Moulton made quite the impression.”
Oh.
Her brain throbbed, buffeted by a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions. If only she could draw a proper breath.
“I apologize for the abruptness of my declaration.” He pulled his coat back on. “But I can’t continue to play this game. The one where I know a portion of your secrets and pretend otherwise. You are a lady, no matter your protestations. In many ways, we are similar creatures, you and I.”
How often had she voiced the same thought? And yet—
“What will you do with me?” Her voice emerged sharp-edged with panic.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
In her experience, powerful men wielded secrets like weapons. He had protected her, but there would be a cost.
“I’m sure you have excellent reasons for your actions. Perhaps someday you will share them with me . . . as a friend.”
That word again. She nearly flinched.
“I should have asked, what do you want from me?” She tightened her arms. “You have kept my secret. Surely, you now require payment.”
“Again, I want nothing.” His head tilted.
“Well, that’s not quite true. I would still appreciate your help with my list. And perhaps an acknowledgment that you are, in fact, a lady and deserve treatment as one and maybe .
. . a wee bit of happiness. It seems like you could do with more of that, too. ”
Tears turned the world blurry and stung her nose. No man was this good. Every interaction involved a tit for tat. Everything had a cost.
Nausea churned in her belly. Too many what-ifs crowded her thinking. What if Lord Matthias told Grayburn? What if Drempton discovered her location? What if she were forced to flee without letters of reference or a careful plan?
Foolish her for not having foreseen this possibility. She could have already arranged an escape plan. She could tender her resignation right this moment and disappear into the mist.
But she hadn’t. Because George was finally dead, and that wee bit of freedom had tasted like ambrosia.
Panic had its claws in her. Pops of light danced in her peripheral vision.
No.
Six years ago, she had finally broken free of a man’s control. She would not return.
“Forgive me for doubting, but experience has taught me to view altruistic motives with suspicion. Is this the boon for assisting you?” she asked. “A way to back me into a corner and demand compensation for your silence about my past?”
“Again, I do not require payment.” His voice turned gruff.
“I am a gentleman of my word. If I say I will not reveal your past to anyone, you can rest assured I shall not. I shouldn’t have said anything at all, but I’ve grown tired of pretending.
The boon remains outstanding until you decide what you would like it to be. ”
“And if I said I don’t wish to help you with your list?”
“Then I would accept it.”
No man was this good, this earnest. Terror choked her. “I cannot base my safety on your word alone!”
“Safety,” he repeated slowly. “So you do fear for your person. Perhaps if you told me what or who may harm you—what compelled you to abandon the life of a lady for one in service—I could potentially be of help. As a friend, I would—”
“We cannot be friends!” The words emerged like a slap—a crack of consonants. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyeballs. “You must cease this nonsense! It is impossible, and I cannot—I will not!—be harassed into friendship!”
Ringing silence.
The sort that sucked the air out of a room and left one gasping.
“I see.” He took a shuffling step backward. “My apologies.”
“My l-lord . . .” The shaking took hold of her tongue. She could scarcely breathe, much less speak.
“No need to reply. I understand. I shan’t mention a word of it again.” He half turned his head, giving her his profile. “You may return to your duties.”
He stepped to the window, his back to her.
Cecily knew she needed to say more, but terror had sunk its claws deep and shrieked at her to escape. To run just as she had from George and his cruel words and even crueler fists. To flee as far and as fast as she could.
It was all she could do to collect the tea tray with trembling hands and exit the room in a rattle of china.