Page 39 of Miss Dauntless
“Help yourself. I’ll sit in a moment.”
Whyever…oh. He needed to compose himself. What a jolly thought. Matilda retrieved her plate of sustenance from the low table and fell to, while Tremont stood before the fire and looked thoughtful.
Matilda made a graceful picture on the sofa, all tidy and self-possessed, while Tremont’s world—and his body—were in riot.
Kissing Matilda had been a shocking, delightful revelation.
One could not spend time in the army without gaining a thorough education in the mechanics of copulation. Even the officers had been prone to discussing such matters with a frankness that ricocheted between clinical and coarse. The occasional brave soul had waxed sentimental about his amours, and the even rarer, usually semi-drunken fellow had wistfully yearned for his dearest lady.
None of it had made any sense to Tremont. He’d indulged in a few careful encounters, and then a few more, and finally decided that he was not temperamentally suited to frolicking.
“What on earth are you musing on now?” Matilda asked, munching on a tea cake.
“I thought I lacked some fundamental masculine quality.”
She demolished the cake and dusted her hands. “I beg your pardon?”
Tremont longed to take her in his arms again, and he longed to close his eyes and let his thoughts wander where they would, down one splendid path after another.
“I have had liaisons,” he said, watching how the flames danced on the silver epergne. “Encounters, trysts. Whatever you want to call the passing interludes men alternately obsess over and belittle. I did not see the point. A tremendous lot of bother for a few minutes of pleasure that any schoolboy can bring himself. I assumed that my flaws included both an excessive capacity for cogitation and a deficiency in my manly humors.”
Matilda rose and prowled toward him. “Your manly humors are abundantly sufficient, Tremont.” She took his hand and led him to the sofa. “You had me thinking of locking the door.”
“You too?”
Her smile was dazzling. “Naughty of me, but there you have it.”
That smile, and the bashful tipping down of Matilda’s chin, explained to Tremont why otherwise sensible fellows turned into strutting peacocks and wrote bad poetry. He longed to open the window and shout to the world,She wanted to lock herself in with me!
“We are not naughty, we are courting. Will you and Tommie join me for a walk in the park on the next fine day?”
She passed him his untouched plate. In Tremont’s mind, that food had been assembled in a different era, in a different land. Everything had changed in the past few minutes, and changed for the better. He bit into a sandwich, and even the mundane combination of bread, ham, cheese, and mustard was a more ambrosial offering than it would have beenbefore.
“You don’t have to do that,” Matilda said. “Tommie is my son, and I appreciate that you are kind to him, but you need not do more than that.”
“I realized he is not Merridew’s offspring, because you never referred to him as such. You also said you never wanted to have children with Merridew, which raised the question regarding Tommie’s paternity. The boy has been twice-orphaned of a father, Matilda. Losing my father just the once nearly did me in. You cannot think my regard for Tommie is merely kindness.”
This rather unromantic recitation had Matilda blinking at her empty plate. “You suspected he wasn’t Harry’s?”
“You said as much, but one doesn’t pry into painful personal matters.”
She sniffed and set her plate aside. “And yet, knowing I was indiscreet, you still contemplated courting me?”
What was she going on about? “Knowing I am capable of murder, you still consider marrying me?”
“Not murder, Marcus. Defense of loved ones. Those men could not stand up against their senior officer, and he was commanding them to their deaths—not for the defense of the realm, but for his own glory, in defiance of more sensible orders. You did what was needful and risked your own death and disgrace in the process.”
Matilda’s words had a strange effect. Tremont’s heart—so recently thumping with glee—began a measured tattoo in his chest. A slow, hard rhythm that gradually faded, like hoofbeats disappearing into the night. He felt light-headed for a moment, then a curious warmth.
“You are very fierce, Matilda Merridew. I noticed that as soon as I laid eyes on you.”
“I am also very hungry. If you don’t finish what’s on your plate, I will be happy to assist.”
She was shy of compliments and more tenderhearted than she wanted the world to know. The warmth Tremont experienced spread from his body to his mind, to his memories, and to his hopes for the future.
He would court this magnificent, dear lady, and he would marry her, and they would all the joys and pleasures and dreams prove. For the first time in his life, Marcus, Earl of Tremont, felt he did not lack a mysterious collection of attributes so many others took for granted, but was instead a man blessed beyond imaginings and lacking for nothing whatsoever.
CHAPTER NINE
