Chapter 16
When he entered his bedchamber shortly after dinner, Christian was engaged in a pitched mental battle over whether or not to seek out Matilda.
Do not go look for her, you lecherous bastard, argued his ethics, his honor, and the craven part of him that flickered to life whenever he thought about how deep his feelings toward her ran.
But every other part of him said, Go. His brain and his cock and his goddamned heart said, Find her. Figure out how to make her stay.
But as it turned out, he did not have to find her. When he entered his chamber, Matilda was already there, sitting cross-legged on his bed, a folded sheet of paper in her lap. He took her in: red hair and white chemise and golden freckles in the firelight.
And his foolish heart and his idiotic cock leapt at the sight of her.
But it seemed the cowardly parts of him were in charge of his mouth, because all he said was, “What are you doing in here?”
She had looked up at his entrance, and she had a peculiar expression on her face. Not happiness or amusement or the sweet warm pleasure that had suffused her yesterday in the library.
But he could not think about that, not if he wanted her to make it out of his bedchamber in one piece.
She lifted the paper between her thumb and forefinger. “I did not intend to poke about amongst your things. Only—well, I suppose I did. A little.”
It was not a good idea to approach her there, in the center of his bed. He did it anyway.
“Mrs. Perkins let me in. She said I should redecorate your bedchamber next,” Matilda informed him, her voice prim, her fingers still tight on the folded sheet.
“She said what?”
“I was surprised as well.” Matilda unfolded the paper and spread it out in her lap, and Christian angled his head to see what she held.
He felt heat crawl into his cheeks and wished he hadn’t looked.
“I saw this on your desk. It was not hidden. I did not have to search.”
“I can explain,” he began lamely.
He absolutely could not.
Matilda flung the paper down beside her and launched herself toward the side of the bed where Christian stood. Like a great cowering block, he took a step backward and bumped directly into his desk chair.
“I don’t understand you,” she said, crowding forward, pushing him back.
Her chemise tied at the front with a blue satin ribbon, worked through a handful of ruffled pleats.
He could make out the shape of her body beneath.
Her arms were bare and dotted with haphazard freckles.
“You arranged all those dinners for my comfort. You told me that sleeping together was not a mistake, that I am bringing you back to life—”
He opened his mouth to speak, to negate her words, somehow to stop this impending disaster, but she charged fearlessly onward.
“You kept the drawings that I sent you months ago—this drawing of sorrel and buttercups, this ludicrous sketch of a pigheaded man—and my letters, all my letters—”
“Matilda—”
Her cheeks had gone pink, her eyes a darker blue in the firelight. “I don’t know what you want.” She shook her head, frustration evident in the way her mouth pinched at the corners. “I cannot make you out. Do you want me? Do you want—something more with me?”
He found her with his hands, the soft valley of her waist, the flare of her hips.
“I can’t do this. I can’t be what you want.” But his hands, his reckless hands, said the opposite. He gripped her waist and held her still. She held him still: her small bright form his anchor in a world suddenly at sea.
“I don’t want anything but you,” she said. Blood rushed into her cheeks as the words seemed to register—in her ears, in his. But she did not back down. “I want you, Christian. The person you already are.”
“You don’t,” he said, surprised by the harshness in his voice. “You want us to go back to London. You want to change things—to change this house, to change Bea—”
She reared back, yanking against his grip. “I don’t want to change her. I would never—”
But he had the bit in his teeth now. It was fear and love, tangling inside him, pouring out of his mouth in a discordant rush of words. “You want something I cannot give you. You want someone who can flit about in society with you, someone careless and reckless and young.”
“I don’t want that.” Her eyes were bright and furious. “I am not your damned marchioness. Do not paint me with the same brush.”
“How can you deny it?” he demanded. “You have been here less than a month and everything is changed.”
“I took down some curtains, for heaven’s sake! I am bringing some light for you to see by, that’s all.”
“We were fine before you came.” He scarcely knew what he was saying. She was so lush beneath his hands, soft and yielding. Her mouth was a curve made of temptation, and he wanted to give in.
“You were fine,” she repeated. Her hands went to his jacket sleeves. “But were you happy?”
He looked down at her, at the familiar stubborn lift of her chin. What was he meant to say? How could he answer her?
He had been content. He had not known this woman existed in the world, and so he had not known how much more he could crave.
“No,” he said. “I wasn’t happy.”
Her blue gaze was long and searching, and it was a moment before she spoke. “You need not be alone, you know. I would stay with you. If you asked.”
They were here again, Matilda holding out her hand, and he powerless to take it.
He swallowed against the sudden tightness of his throat. “I couldn’t bear it,” he said. “Not with you.”
“What do you—”
“Grace. My wife. I—” He swore and pulled Matilda against his chest, burying his face in her hair.
He could not look at her and say this, but he had to say it. He had to make her understand why he could not give her what she wanted, what she asked for without words.
“Grace wasn’t happy,” he tried again. “Not from the first. She was too young, too vivacious. I wanted to put her in a box, and the box did not fit her. She—”
He did not want to speak ill of her. It had been a very long time ago, and she had been only twenty years old. He set his teeth. “After the first few months, she realized what a mistake she had made. We did not suit. She decided—she decided she wanted a divorce. Surely you must know this part.”
Matilda turned her face so that her cheek lay against his chest. “I do not.”
He rubbed his chin on her head, pressed a kiss into her hair. He was a great fool, he knew—telling her this story that must drive her away, and wanting to hold her while he did so.
“She could not have a divorce of her own accord. I had to be the one to sue for it, and I told her I would not.” He had been so damned selfish, so certain Grace would come round to the marriage in time.
He had been determined to think he had not chosen so wrongly.
“To convince me, she made a great show of it—her indifference, her love affair. She’d found someone else, that first Season in London, and she was dead-set on having him. ”
His fingers traced the nape of Matilda’s neck, the map of freckles beneath the pinned-up red-gold hair.
“I was so pleased when she came to the estate in Devon that day. I thought perhaps—well. It does not signify. She didn’t.
She wanted to tell me that they were leaving for the Continent.
I was furious. I told her I couldn’t stand the sight of her. ”
He dropped his hands and stepped back from Matilda’s floral-scented warmth.
“I did not know she hadn’t made it back to the village until the next day, when her lady’s maid turned up at the house.
If I had known—if I had searched for her sooner—she might have lived.
But I didn’t know, and so we did not find her until nearly two days after.
She’d taken a blow to the head while riding along the river. I nearly did the same.”
He put a hand to his cheek, where the low branch, half-hidden in the shadows, had cut his face.
He’d tasted blood in his mouth as he’d carried Grace home.
The sight of him, his face bleeding and his wife’s body in his arms, had been too much for the country folk who’d grown up with Grace, lively and elegant, in their midst.
It should not have been a shock, what they’d thought of him. It should not have hurt so much.
“I didn’t kill her,” he said, “but I was not blameless in her death. I could have done better. I could have done so much better by her, and I—”
Matilda stepped back up to him and put her fingers over his mouth. Her hand was soft and cool.
“You’re wrong,” she said.
He wrapped his fingers around hers and took her hand away. “You have to understand—”
“No,” she said, and he realized that her face wasn’t fearful or alarmed.
She was angry. “I am so sorry for what you went through, Christian, but I am also starting to grow quite—quite furious, if you must know. I am not Grace. We are not the same. At what point in our acquaintance have I struck you as a woman who does not know her own mind?”
“Never. But—”
“Enough.” She linked her fingers with his and then drew his hand up to her face, bringing his palm to her cheek.
“I know you, Christian de Bord. I want you as you are, with all your scowls and your looming. I like your dreadful old house and your absurd reaction to cats. I see all the kindness and carefulness and love that you try so hard to hide.” She gave him a clear-eyed steady look.
“It did not work, you know. You didn’t hide any of it from me. ”
He stroked a thumb over her cheekbone, then slid his hand down to touch the freckles beneath her ear. “You are too damned naive. You ought to be afraid of me.”
Her lips curled up, a real smile, and it was so sweet he could taste it. “I’ve never been afraid of you. You’ve never given me any reason to be.”
“The rest of the world would tell you otherwise.”
“Let it burn.” She turned her face to kiss his palm. “The only world I care about is here.”