Page 52 of Miss Dauntless
“And I cannot wait to be your wife. I love you. I want you to know that. I think, ‘Now, I will tell him. Now when I am overcome with his tenderness or his consideration for others,’ and then you say something brisk and self-possessed, and the moment passes. But I love you, Marcus. You value my son, you value these men. You know your mother enjoys running the family seat, and you give her the latitude to do that even if you’re homesick. I wanted you to know. I say the words to Tommie, but I haven’t given them to anybody else.”
Tremont could not have surrendered his hold on Matilda’s hands for all the rhetorical devices in antiquity, and thus when Mrs. Winklebleck and her maids trundled past along with Cook—the maids bearing tea trays—he remained right where he was.
Which occasioned more smirking.
“The men will want their tea,” Tremont said to the housekeeper. “We’ll be along in a moment. I take it Charles is entertaining Tommie?”
“Teaching him card tricks,” Cook said. “And doubtless pinching biscuits from the jar.”
The corridor was again deserted, though the library door remained open. Tremont led Matilda a few steps away, though for all he cared, the whole world could overhear what he had to say.
“What provoked you to share your sentiments now, Matilda?” He wanted to understand this, because inspiring similar declarations had become his second-fondest aspiration after frequent shared reviews of the ledgers.
“You could sit upon your lordly fundament in Shropshire,” Matilda said, “the ranking title, the ranking bachelor, literally lord of all you surveyed. You could spend your days as your father apparently did, socializing, terrifying the game, and riding his acres. That’s a blameless existence.”
Papa had also loved his family and his homeland.
“If you’d rather…?”
Matilda plastered herself to his chest. “You have more regard for your fellow beings, more decency, more generosity of soul in your smallest finger than my ordained father had in his whole life. Get that special license, Marcus, please. I don’t care where we live, or how we live, as long as Tommie is with us and well cared for. You are my home, and I love you.”
Tremont held his intended—hisbeloved—and despite the gloom in the corridor and the chilly wind soughing through the eaves, warmth and light suffused him. He knew what to say—a veritable commonplace for some—but it was the truth, and the truth was sufficient for any moment.
“I love you too, Matilda Merridew, and you are my heart.”
They held each other, and thoughts of luscious kisses, skipping rocks in the park, and a carefully drafted letter to Mama all drifted through Tremont’s mind. His body hummed with pleasure—Matilda was a delight to hold—and hisimagination began to embroider on all manner of happily ever afters.
“Tea’s served!” somebody called out.
Tremont bussed Matilda’s cheek. “For courage and joy.”
They joined the smiling, winking, nudging crowd in the library, and while people found places to sit and Matilda poured herself a cup of tea, Tremont mentally shook himself. This was a briefing, not a round of family charades.
“Mrs. Merridew,” Tremont said when Matilda was seated at the head of the reading table, “you have the floor.”
The smiles subsided, and the library grew quiet.
“Thank you, my lord.” She let a moment of silence stretch—rhetorical devices were not the exclusive province of parliamentarians, apparently. When she took up her narrative, she spoke quietly.
“I have reason to believe that somebody has intruded into my house.” She explained about her late husband’s peculiar habits where door keys were concerned and went on to allude to his dodgy circle of acquaintances.
“I am worried that some ne’er-do-well acquaintance of Mr. Merridew’s has decided to make free with the premises. He might not have taken anything yet, but by dark of night, he could load up a whole wagonload of parlor furniture in the alley, and nobody would be the wiser. Harry was not very discerning in his choice of friends.”
“Harry Merridew?” Mrs. Winklebleck asked. “That was yer man’s name?”
“Yes,” Matilda replied. “He’s been gone for several years, but he traveled around a fair bit and had connections in odd places,both in London and elsewhere. After all this time, I suspect one of those connections has decided to see if Harry’s widow has anything worth stealing. For myself, I don’t much mind, but that house is Tommie’s birthright and the only part of my trousseau that Harry couldn’t take to the pawnshop.”
From the looks on the faces of the men, Harry Merridew was fortunate to be dead.
“Women set store by their bridal finery,” Biggs said. “My sisters was sewing tablecloths and whatnot for years.”
“My mother’s china,” Bentley said, “come to her from her great-grandmother. This Merridew fella pawned your china, missus?
“He did, and what silver I had, but then, Tommie had to eat. I could hardly object.”
“If the weans need to eat, then the papa ought to find work,” Cook observed. “This husband of yours had no trade?”
Tremont resisted the urge to leap in and steer the conversation back to the business of securing the house itself. That topic needed airing, but Matilda also needed to know that nobody judged her for the sins of her late spouse—or for marrying him in the first place.
