Page 48 of Miss Dauntless
“The older retainers are native Welsh speakers, and I can manage in that language, while my French has grown rusty. You will love my mother. Everybody loves Mama, and since Lydia’s marriage to Sir Dylan, Mama has resumed management of the family seat.”
“I have never managed anything more impressive than a rural vicarage.”
Marcus kissed her fingers. “You will manageme, and the rest can sort itself out. Are you hungry yet?”
“Yes, though I still don’t want to leave this bed.”
He fished beneath the covers and passed her the chemise. “Pretend we reviewed the ledgers, Matilda. Nobody need know otherwise, and if they suspect anything, I will clothe myself in such stately consequence that they give up those untoward speculations after one glance at me. Do you object to a special license?”
Matilda sat up and shook out a wrinkled wad of linen. “I do not. My legal name is Matilda Susannah Samuels Merridew. St. Mildred’s is my home parish now, and the ledgers can go to blazes. We reviewed them last week.”
Marcus took the chemise from her, sorted top from bottom, and assisted her into it. “We might have to review them again later this week. I’m very conscientious about such duties.”
She smacked him, and they fell to kissing and wrestling and kissing some more, and only by exercising self-discipline nearly equal to Marcus’s did Matilda eventually leave the bed and finish dressing. Marcus assisted with her hair—more kissing—and she helped him into his clothes.
Which involved yet more kissing and a few protracted embraces.
By the time Marcus was escorting Matilda along a chilly walkway, afternoon shadows were lengthening into evening gloom, and yet, she was reluctant to return to the bustle and noise of the soldiers’ home.
“May I show you my house?” she said as Marcus flipped a coin to the crossing sweeper.
“I was hoping you would. The men have been keeping an eye on the place at my request, but I will admit to some curiosity.”
“The basement is humble—servants’ quarters and a kitchen—but the upper floors are commodious enough. My last tenants were rather disrespectful of the premises. I will not rent to bachelors again if I can help it.”
“We can help it.” Marcus offered that comment mildly, but Matilda experienced a vast sense of relief. No more dealing with the sly courtesy of the rental agent who foisted freeloading bores on her. No more lectures from the solicitors about the need for economies and the rental contract being “all in order.” No more gratuitous lectures from the Mrs. Oldbachs of the congregation about curbing the high spirits of a fatherless boy.
Lord Tremont’s countess would be spared all of that.
She and Marcus turned the corner onto the humbler, narrower lane where she’d dwelled since coming to London with Harry. In the waning winter light, the house looked tired rather than cozy, the dark windows bleak.
“I’d like to have a look around,” Marcus said. “One can’t see much at this hour, but one wants an idea of the place.”
“I can start a fire easily enough, or get a light from next door. Bright sunlight won’t flatter the furnishings in any case.”
Marcus led the way down the area steps.
“The key is beneath the boot scrape,” Matilda said, “though there’s nothing inside worth stealing.”
Marcus knelt. “Are you sure of the whereabouts of the key?” He flipped up the doormat and shook it. “Nothing here either.”
A shivery, sick feeling out of proportion to the moment washed over Matilda. “Try the door. Maybe I’m housing vagrants. I never put the key anywhere but beneath the boot scrape.” Harry had always said that people looked beneath the mat for the key and never thought to look in the next obvious place—beneath the boot scrape.
But then, Harry had been spectacularly wrong on many occasions.
“The door is locked, so the key must be here…” Marcus felt along the lintel. “Here it is. One of the men might have moved it for safety, though as to that, the lintel is hardly a clever hiding place.”
He fitted the key to the lock, and Matilda accompanied him into the chilly, shadowed confines of a dwelling that, despite the absence of tallow candles or coal fires, still managed to stink of both. The unease Matilda had felt outside followed her into the house, and she was abruptly sorry she’d come.
“Matilda, is something amiss?”
“Bad memories,” she said. “Hard memories.” Sad, frightened, exhausted, hungry memories. “Harry would put the key over the lintel when he wanted to lock me out.”
“Lock you out? Why would he do such a thing?”
“As a warning. If the key was above the door, I was not to come inside. I was to wait until Harry passed a light before a first-floor window, like a smuggler signaling a ship at sea.”
Marcus, thankfully, did not press her for details. They made a swift inspection of the premises, which struck Matilda as neglected rather than humble, and were soon back out in the frigid air.
