Page 24 of Miss Dauntless
How could the bachelors and widowers of London not see Matilda Merridew’s loveliness? She might hide her physical beauty behind drab colors, dull bonnets, and a quiet manner, but the lady had self-possession, common sense, a kind heart… and those treasures were in plain sight.
“Please do have a seat,” Tremont said, patting the back of a wing chair. “Why don’t you embark on your interrogation of me while we wait for our tea?”
She settled onto the cushions and motioned for him to take the other wing chair. “You want to know about my late husband.”
A question in the form of a statement. Mama and Lydia excelled at that rhetorical device.
“No, actually,” Tremont replied. “I want to know about the state of your affections. Are they available to be claimed by a worthy party, or did your late spouse end once and for all your willingness to look with favor on a fellow?”
“Because,” Matilda replied, gaze on the fire, “if my answer is no, and my affections are not claimable, then you will make no further inquiries. Are you always this logical?”
“’Fraid so, or I aspire to be. I’ve landed in a deal of hot water and created misery for those dear to me by yielding to impulse.”
“As have I,” she said, “and yet, I am not as rational as you seem to be. My father frequently castigated me for impulsiveness.”
“Was Mr. Merridew one of those impulses?”
She smiled at her hands, and Tremont had never seen more sadness in a woman’s eyes.
“Harry was one of my regrettable impulses, not the first, alas. By the time he came along, my father was washing his hands of me, and my aunt was still married to a Puritanical old article. Uncle might have taken me in, but my life would have been difficult.”
The first footman chose then to appear with a lavish tray heaped with comestibles.
“Thank you, Putnam,” Tremont said. “That will be all. Mrs. Merridew, will you pour?”
“Of course.”
Before Putnam blew retreat, he gratuitously poked up the roaring fire, lit two sconces in addition to the two already burning, and tidied decanters on the sideboard that needed no tidying.
“The garrison is on high alert,” Tremont said when Putnam finally quit the parlor. “They spy for my mother and sister, but one cannot resent the family’s concern. Have you no other relatives besides this auntie?”
“None,” Mrs. Merridew replied. “I assume Harry had some family somewhere, but I’d have no idea how to find them, and I am entirely sure I don’t care to. I want to gobble every item on this tray, not only because the food looks delicious, but also because Tommie isn’t on hand to monitor my behavior.”
The tray was the same as a thousand others—sandwiches, cakes, tarts, tea. Tremont put two sandwiches on a plate and passed it over. “Gobble away, and I shall do likewise. Your husband disappointed you.”
Mrs. Merridew poured the tea, added honey and cream to both cups, passed Tremont his serving, and stirred her own.
Delaying tactics by any other name.
“Every spouse is probably a disappointment to their partner before the honeymoon ends,” she said. “We build up our intended to impossible heights, or I did, and then reality intrudes. I disappointed Harry too.”
More delaying, and had the boundertoldher she was a disappointment?
“When I mustered out,” Tremont said, “I could not bring myself to return to Shropshire. My mother and sister neededme, as did my tenants and my staff, but I was too muddled to face them. My sister had to eventually fetch me home, and she managed that only because Captain Powell abetted her efforts. My mother and sister have forgiven me my foolishness. I fear Merridew did something beyond forgiveness.”
She sipped her tea, took a bite of sandwich, and took another sip of tea. “Why did you not return home, my lord?”
He deserved that, for bringing up his past. “I told myself that I wasn’t fit company for my family, that I needed time to adjust to civilian life, but, in fact, I was hiding. I had made decisions—those impulsive decisions you allude to—and they haunted me. You might have noticed that I have a talent for rumination. I ruminated myself into a morass of misery from which I could not extricate myself.”
Mrs. Merridew studied him as if he were one of those medieval paintings of fantastical beasts and strange flowers. Whatcouldone say about such a piece?
“Did you impulsively choose to marry a complete bounder thinking he was the answer to all your prayers?”
How fortunate for Harry Merridew that he was dead. “I shot my superior officer at point-blank range in front of dozens of witnesses.”
Tremont did not speak of his gross breach of military protocol, civil law, and God’s commandments, and neither did the men who’d seen him fire his pistol.
Mrs. Merridew set down her cup and saucer carefully, and Tremont braced himself to be told that she’d see herself out. That must be some kind of record to put a lady off before she’d finished even a single cup of tea.
