Chapter 15
At some point during the subsequent day, Angelica Kauffman produced five fat orange kittens directly in the center of Matilda’s coverlet.
“I thought you said she would want a nest,” Matilda murmured accusingly to Mrs. Perkins from their watchful position behind the Judith and Holofernes painting.
“Cats always make a nest before they give birth,” said Mrs. Perkins dryly. “That is not a cat. I believe it is a demon.”
Bea made an outraged sound. “I think Angelica Kauffman has chosen perfectly well. She knows she and the kitten are safe here in Matilda’s room.”
“Until they start to crawl about and fall off the bed,” Matilda muttered.
“She should move the kittens before then,” said Mrs. Perkins. “I hope. Perhaps I should try again with the boxes. Or—hmm—perhaps she would prefer a different surface. I wonder if she would consider a tureen…”
Mumbling more alarming suggestions of crockery, Mrs. Perkins left Bea and Matilda to watch the cat nuzzle at the orange kittens, each of whom appeared to possess a mashed nose and an astonishingly loud cry.
Bea pressed her fingers to her mouth. “I cannot wait to hold them. Is it wrong that I wish Angelica Kauffman had chosen my bed to deliver?”
Matilda snorted. “Have at it. You can sleep in here. If you wake up covered in cat fur, try to bathe before you embrace your brother.”
She briefly cursed herself. Do not think about embracing her brother!
She had avoided thinking about the previous afternoon for at least, oh, seven or eight minutes at a stretch.
Dinner had been an enormously awkward affair.
As she’d served herself—this time a thick creamy stew bursting with rice, mushrooms, and parsnips—she’d looked everywhere but at Christian, even as her head had been full of his elegant fingers, the sight of his dark head between her legs as she clutched the wooden shelf at her sides.
It had not been a mistake, he’d said.
Did that mean he wanted her still? Again?
She did not know. She did not know, and she could not think about it right now, here in her bedchamber next to his sister, for heaven’s sake.
“Do you mean to keep them all?” Matilda asked. Her voice sounded slightly choked, and she hoped Bea would not notice.
“I would rather like to,” Bea said. “Only—six cats! It seems a bit extravagant.”
“And if they are anything like their mother, rather hard on the local population of fish.”
Bea laughed, and Matilda felt a little rush of delight at how comfortable the girl was with her now.
These cursed de Bords! She could make them so happy—if only they would let her.
She knew she was in danger. She knew she wanted too much—for them to care for her, to want her to stay here and bring light and laughter to their small family—and she feared her heart would not survive the damage when they sent her home.
But she couldn’t stop herself from trying anyway.
That was how she loved, she supposed—recklessly, with abandon. It was why she was so cautious about giving her heart away: because she could not do it by half-measures.
“Perhaps,” she said carefully, “you might take one or two to the townhouse in London. By spring, they’ll be plenty old enough to be separated from their mother.”
Bea bit down hard on her lower lip and looked determinedly at the kittens on the bed, who lay sprawled together, their bellies round with milk. “I can send one with you, if you like. When you go back to London.”
“I’m sure my sister would like one,” Matilda allowed. “But—if you go, in the spring—a kitten—”
“I cannot go,” Bea said. “Please—please don’t bring it up again.”
Matilda stalked a few paces away, in the direction of the bed, then turned back to Bea before Angelica Kauffman could notice her approach.
“I don’t mean to upset you or to intrude.
” She paused. “Well, all right, perhaps I do mean to intrude. Bea, did something happen? Is there something you are afraid to encounter in London? Someone?”
“It is not—” Bea broke off and wrapped her fingers in her skirts, folding a fan of little pleats. “It is not about me.”
“I don’t understand.”
Bea made her way to the bed and sank slowly onto the counterpane, which was definitely not going to survive the day’s events. Angelica Kauffman looked up briefly, recognized Bea, and resumed her aggressive licking of the damp orange kittens.
“I was eight,” Bea said, “when we moved here from Devon.”
Matilda had known that. It had been shortly after Christian’s wife had died.
“He—I suppose you know why we left Devon?” Bea looked down at her lap.
Matilda thought of how the girl opened up while they painted side by side, and suspected it would be easier for Bea to tell the story if they were not face-to-face. She settled herself down on the ground, drawing her knees up to her chest. “I don’t know anything about it.”
She had assumed they left the Devonshire estate because the memories were too painful for them both. Only—Beatrice had never mentioned the marchioness.
“That was where Christian’s wife died. Grace. Lady Ashford.” Bea’s breath was harsh, not quite a laugh, and Matilda felt a pulse of sadness for the child Bea had been. “Christian thought I did not know what they said about him, but I knew. How could I not?”
From her position on the floor, Matilda could see flecks of charcoal and pigment on the bedraggled hem of Bea’s gown.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That must have been so difficult for you to hear the awful rumors about your brother.”
“They called him a murderer.” Bea’s voice was choked with tears. “He—he—he would have happily traded his life for hers, and they called him a murderer.”
“I’m so sorry—”
“We moved here because everyone quit,” Bea said sharply. “The gossip was so poisonous and the rumors so cruel that the staff all left, one by one. Mrs. Perkins tried—she tried so hard—but no one would live at the house with a mad killer.”
People don’t usually stay, Bea had said.
Matilda felt the painful wrench of grief.
“My nurse,” Bea said, “was the last to go. They tried to keep the house running, but it was too big. The gardens all went to seed. We moved here, far enough that the gossip did not quite follow us. And we’ve stayed here ever since.”
“Oh, Bea,” Matilda said. “I hate that you went through that.”
She had not realized, she supposed, just how privileged she and Margo had been.
Attitudes were more relaxed in London; their antics had been a source of gossip, yes, but they had never been completely shunned.
But then, no one had called them murderers behind their backs.
They were only the Halifax Hellions, absurd and outrageous and impossible to control.
“It’s not about me,” Bea whispered. “I can’t make Christian move back to London. I think he is happy here, far from all the rumor and scandal. How could I ask him to return to London and be miserable just because I want to go see a few paintings?”
Matilda felt tears sting her eyes. Very slowly, so that she would not startle the girl, she leaned her head against Bea’s legs.
“He’s stronger than you think,” she said quietly. “You do not have to fight his battles too. Only your own.”
And though she meant it for Beatrice, her mind spun round to her twin. How often, these last years, had they tried to fight one another’s battles? How many times had she tried to protect Margo—earnest, generous, wild Margo—from the judgment of others?
And Margo had tried to protect her in return, in her own impulsive fashion.
The last tangled knots of resentment and betrayal inside her suddenly came loose. It seemed to Matilda that she had been carrying something heavy and painful in her chest, a hot brick from the hearth, and she had just this instant realized she could set it down.
Margo had not asked to be protected. Margo was tough and brave, and all that open-hearted affection made her vulnerable—but it also made her resilient.
And perhaps Matilda too was more resilient than she’d known.
Perhaps if she tried with Bea and Christian—and failed—she would not fall apart. It would be worth it, in the end, because she had loved them. Even if it was not reciprocated. Perhaps loving them was enough.
“I will consider it,” Bea said softly. “Maybe in the spring—when the kittens are old enough to go—” There was a long, long pause. “I will consider it.”
And Matilda thought there were all kinds of bravery.
After dinner, Mrs. Perkins led Matilda to a different bedchamber, one where no cat had despoiled the bedding.
“I suppose the bedchambers will be next on your agenda,” Mrs. Perkins said, her face impassive. “To decorate, I mean. The sitting rooms belowstairs are looking better already.”
Thus far, the sitting rooms looked much as they’d looked before, only with less medieval weaponry decorating the walls, but Matilda appreciated the sentiment.
“Yes,” she said, looking about the ominously shadowed, slightly moth-eaten chamber, “on to bedrooms.”
“I ought to show you his lordship’s bedchamber, then.” Mrs. Perkins’s voice was utterly bland, her hands linked behind her back.
Matilda blinked. “I, er—”
She was not quite sure what to say. Did she really want the temptation of knowing precisely where Christian slept? Could she resist such a temptation?
Yes, she did, and no, she could not.
But before she could finish her sentence, Mrs. Perkins added, “I suppose I don’t need to show you. It’s just across the hall. You might peek in now, while he’s in his study, and see what changes you might make in there.”
“Oh,” Matilda said blankly.
“I can’t spare the time to join you just now,” Mrs. Perkins said. “But the door won’t be locked.”
Matilda tried not to gape. Had Mrs. Perkins invited her to make herself at home in Christian’s bedroom?
The housekeeper’s long face was as stoic as ever as she made her way to the door of Matilda’s new chamber. But as she moved into the hallway, she tipped her head toward the heavy oak door directly across from Matilda’s. And then, quite before Matilda realized what had happened, Mrs. Perkins winked.