Chapter 9
By the time they reached Darley Dale, a coaching town in northern Derbyshire, Matilda found herself going slightly mad.
She could not tell if Christian was watching her when she was not looking.
She thought she might feel his gaze upon her, but when she looked up from her sketchbook or the novel she’d brought with her, he was always looking down at his boots or out the window.
The fact that she could not tell the difference between her fantasies and reality was a trifle troubling.
She decided it was the fault of being too long in close confines and wheedled Christian into taking a walk with her.
“Come,” she said as they broke their fast, “I’ve asked the tavern keeper, and she says there is a waterfall nearby. Let us put off our departure for a little while—a few hours perhaps.”
“No,” he said and glowered at her.
She ignored him. “If we do not stretch our legs, our muscles will atrophy.”
“No.”
She tapped her finger on the table. “Well, now you are ruining it, but I have something for you. Only you must come with me on a walk if you would like me to give it to you.”
His frown deepened. “That is terrifying.”
But somehow, sixty minutes later—Mrs. Turner did not mention we were so far from this waterfall, Matilda had gasped as they stumbled down a rocky path—they were there.
The landscape was rocky and harsh, and she loved it.
She wished she had charcoal or oils, something bold to capture the harsh lines of the Dark Peak.
The waterfall tumbled down in four separate streams, and when they stepped closer to it, the spray clustered in little pearls at the tips of Christian’s overlong black hair.
She wanted to brush her fingers over the flecks of damp.
But she did not do it. She looked away from him, down to the flat shale of the embankment, and produced what she had brought with her: a blanket, a bottle of wine, and a grease-paper packet filled to the brim with caraway buns.
“I remembered your fondness for sweets.” She angled a sidelong glance at Christian’s face.
Was he charmed?
Curse her for a fool, why did she want him to be?
“I asked for Chelsea buns—with icing sugar, you know—but they did not have any. You have been denied your chocolate for days. I thought you would…” She trailed off.
What was she doing? She had not thought this through, not really. She had only thought to make him smile. But it felt suddenly too intimate, too real.
She had learned, in her seven years of being a Halifax Hellion, that it was better not to try. If you did not try to please someone, you could not be crushed by their disappointment in you.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I—we can just go back. I don’t—”
Christian closed his hand over her own. Her eyes flew to his. “Sit down,” he said. “I would like to eat the damned buns.”
They ate in front of the waterfall. They did not speak overmuch, but she felt Christian’s gaze upon her. Or at least, she thought she did.
She had forgotten glasses for the wine, so they passed the bottle between them. Matilda pressed her lips to the rim of the bottle where Christian’s had been a moment before. She fancied she could still feel the warmth of his mouth.
She looked over at him to find he was looking at her as well. She drank deeply from the bottle, the lush velvety wine sliding down her throat, warming her limbs.
As she watched, he swallowed. She could see the bob of his throat.
She put down the bottle.
He reached across the space between them. His hand came up to cup her cheek and his thumb brushed across her mouth.
“You have wine,” he murmured, “there.”
His thumb caressed the corner of her mouth. Matilda’s thoughts felt slow and thick, like honey dripping down the side of a crock.
There was wine on her lips. She put out her tongue to lick it away, and instead she caught the edge of Christian’s thumb.
He made a low sound. His gaze trailed across her—her face, her mouth, her body. Everywhere his eyes touched her, she felt a liquid warmth, as if she could feel that pale gray gaze all along her skin. Something trembled low in her belly.
She wanted him to touch her everywhere. She wanted him to press her down to the ground, and she did not want him to go easy.
His hand fell away from her face, and he threw himself to his feet. “I should like to walk,” he said.
Matilda blinked dizzily up at him. Her brain was misfiring. Had she just—licked his thumb?
Had he not wanted her to?
“You should not stay here alone.” His voice was slightly hoarse. “But I—I would prefer to walk. Shall we…” He trailed off. He did not seem to know what to do with his hands. He kept putting them in his pockets and then taking them out again.
“Shall we … walk?” she offered.
He nodded gratefully, as though it had been her suggestion. “Yes. Let’s do that.”
And so they went. Christian did not talk. He did not even look at her, and when she drew close enough to feel the warmth of his body in the October chill, he walked faster, his long legs outpacing her shorter ones.
She tried not to feel hurt by the way he pulled away. He had, after all, liked the buns—had he not? She thought he had liked them.
They had been walking for perhaps a quarter of an hour in what appeared to be a rather large circle—at least, Matilda hoped it was a circle, as she’d left her pelisse by the waterfall—when they heard a low cry in the woods ahead of them.
Matilda bit her lip and looked up at Christian. “Did you hear that?”
He was frowning. “I did. Stay back.”
She pursed her lips. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Surely you do not—”
He caught her elbow in his hand, not hard, but decisively. Matilda felt a little shiver run through her at the gesture—its restrained possessiveness, its care and dominance at once.
“Stay behind me, at least,” he growled down at her, and, heaven help her, she listened.
Always she preferred to be in charge of her own life—to push back against what was expected of her.
Yet there was pleasure too in the choice to submit to this man.
In letting his will master her and free her at the same time.
In letting go of the control she exercised over herself and her own foolish heart.
He moved forward in the direction of the cry they had heard, Matilda trailing just behind.
And then they heard it again, and a third time, and—
Oh. Matilda felt heat rise in her cheeks. Someone was crying out, to be sure, but not in a way that suggested any sort of danger.
Perhaps they were in danger of getting tupped straight over the edge of the waterfall, but that seemed about the worst of it.
She caught Christian’s arm. “I don’t think they have need of us,” she murmured. Truly, coming upon a couple mid-coitus would not be conducive to the distance he seemed intent upon putting between the two of them after the wine-and-licking situation.
She was not sure if he had heeded her words, but then he came to a stop so abruptly she nearly crashed into his back. She peeked round him.
Ah yes. That was why he had stopped. Though the sight was half-shielded by a grove of trees, one could nonetheless make out a man and woman engaged in a vigorous … bout … of …
Matilda’s mouth fell open, and then she grabbed Christian’s hand and dragged him in the other direction.
“Oh my God,” she gasped. “Oh my God!”
They were two dozen yards away before she let herself slow down and look up into Christian’s startled gray eyes.
“Was that—” he began, and then stopped.
She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “Oh my God. I shall never recover.”
“It was then—”
“Yes,” she groaned. “Oh God. My sister.”
Christian did not know what to do with Matilda.
He could not tell if she was actually upset. She was flinging her hands about in a way that suggested intense perturbation, and he kept hearing half-broken-off mumbles of “scarred for life” and “pluck out my eyes.”
But when he tried to murmur something wordless and soothing, she’d given him the most comprehensive glare he’d ever seen from her sweet blue eyes and stalked away from him.
“I don’t understand,” she said, throwing her hands up for at least the third time. “What are they doing here?”
“I believe I’ve seen what they were doing in a certain pamphlet.”
He regretted the dry words as soon as they popped from his lips—truly, Matilda Halifax made him lose all sense—but she stopped in her tracks and fixed her blue stare back on him.
And then the corner of her mouth curved up. “Do not make me laugh,” she said. “I am too busy with outrage.”
God, it was ludicrous how much he liked to make her smile.
“Do you think they followed us here?” she demanded, whirling back away from him to resume her pacing.
“It seems a peculiar coincidence otherwise. Though they did not appear to be searching with a great deal of diligence.”
She slapped a hand over her mouth, but a strangled sound of amusement seemed to emerge anyway. “I don’t know why I feel somewhat offended by that.”
He took heart. She was not too distressed. She could not be. “Did you, er, recognize the fellow?”
She gave her head a little disbelieving shake. “Oh yes. I shall never be able to look at him over the dinner table again either. That’s Spencer’s best friend, Henry. He’s adored Margo for years—forever, really—but she’s never appeared to notice him.”
“I suspect she’s noticed him now. A pity for him if she has not.”
“Stop it,” she said, her voice breaking on a laugh. “Wherever did all of these jokes come from? You are disarming my righteous fury.”
He could not say. He had not ever—even before he had become the most notorious blackguard in England—been regarded as a dab hand with quips.
It was only that she seemed less agitated when he teased her, and he did not like for her to be upset.
She came a little closer and took his hand. “I need to talk with Margo,” she said. “I will need to convince her that all is well between us and send her and Henry back to London. I would like privacy though. Will you wait here for me?”