Page 62 of Miss Dauntless
“I won’t sign anything. I will invoke a lady’s right to dither and demand time to consider the offer and discuss it with you privately. I wish you’d let me go alone.”
Tremont wrapped her gloved fingers in a light grasp. “You have fought every battle on your own, Matilda. Why take this on as solo combat too? Do you doubt my thespian capabilities? Fear not. I impersonated a peer of the realm for years, when all I really wanted to do was think, putter, and ponder. In the army, my role was regimental whipping boy for my superior officer. In the stews, I took on the part of neighborhood scribe. Harry will never take me for a besotted earl. I am not a swindler, but I can play a part.”
The coach came to a halt at one of London’s inevitable traffic tangles.
“Harry is something beyond a swindler,” Matilda said. “He is like a fox that regards a decimated henhouse as a good night’s work. He doesn’t hate the chickens he kills. It’s just that he’s hungry, and they do taste ever so lovely, and somebody went to all that trouble to pen them up for him. Other people, with few exceptions, are so many chickens to him, and he doesn’t really grasp that his fine night’s work destroys lives. He has his funny little rules—he abhors violence, considers it the tool of fools and drunks—but he lacks what you or I would recognize as morality.”
“And nothing,” Tremont said, scowling out the window, “nothing in your upbringing, your education, or your wildest nightmares prepared you to be under the authority of such a one as he. Let’s walk.”
Before Matilda could reply, Tremont had popped down from the coach and was holding the door for her. She followed and was soon on the walkway, being escorted in the direction of Tremont’s town house.
“Listen to me, Matilda,” he said, after giving the coachman instructions. “You must put from your mind any thought ofsparing my sensibilities. If you want to set me aside, I will accede to your decision. I will hate that you made that choice, but I will understand.”
“Why am I doomed to take to my bed men with either too little honor or too much? The last thing I want to do is set you aside.” They turned the corner, and even Tremont’s house brought the man to Matilda’s mind. Elegant and spruce without putting on airs.
“No, that is not the last thing you want to do. The last thing you want to do is be parted from your son.”
“What?” Matilda came to a halt and disentangled her arm from Tremont. “You aren’t making any sense.” Even as she said the words, she knew that Tremont always, without fail, made sense.
“Harry Merridew ensured that your father was present at the wedding, so even though you were not yet one-and-twenty, the marriage was unassailably valid. Harry was not the paragon you thought he was, but that hardly constitutes grounds for an annulment. He put a roof over your head and bread on the table, despite his many, many failings.”
And of course, now the sky had decided to send down not snow, but an icy drizzle miserably blended of rain, snow, and something in between.
Matilda resumed walking. “What has the wedding to do with Tommie?”
“Merridew is legally the boy’s father.”
“Harry’s name is not on the birth registry. He told me that later, in the midst of an argument, when he thought I’d be cowed by the notion that my son dwelled under a cloud of potential scandal.”
“Merridew is still legally the boy’s father.” Tremont took her arm to accompany her up the steps of his town house. “What did he hope…? Ah, he wanted to blackmail Joseph’s family. Ifthey sought any connection with their fallen soldier’s progeny, Harry’s failure to appear on a birth record would aid that scheme.”
Matilda paused beneath the porch awning to survey the dreary street. The coach lumbered into view around the corner, and Tremont waved it on to the mews.
“That scheme apparently came to nothing,” Matilda said. “Joseph’s family knew a confidence trickster when one showed up on their doorstep. I take your point regarding Tommie. Harry could kidnap him, and I’d have nothing—legally—to say to it. I had not focused on that scenario, having been more concerned with the damage Harry can do to me personally. I doubt he will consider Tommie’s role in the whole business. Tommie was… a pet, to Harry. Amusing, until it was time to hand a squalling, malodorous baby back to me.”
“That baby is how Harry inveigled you into speaking your vows. You are a devoted mother, Matilda, hence my reminder that you must set me aside if that is the best course for you and Tommie.”
She let herself into the house. “That is your honor talking. What does your heart say?”
Tremont followed her into the foyer and closed the door. “My heart is ready to die for you, but not to kill for you. I wish it were otherwise, but I cannot justify a selfish, murderous impulse in this case.”
“I won’t ask that you die or kill for me.” She let him untie the damp ribbons of her bonnet and tucked her gloves into the pocket of her cloak. “Do you recall asking me once upon a time what I wanted?”
Tremont removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “The memory will delight me until the day I am summoned for celestial judgment.”
“I will cheerfully be your mistress, you know.” Matilda undid the frogs of his cloak and hung the garment at hook. “I’d also marry you, assuming Harry is happy to slink away with the deed to my house in his hand.”
Tremont settled his hands on her shoulders, as if he knew she wanted to discuss anything—anything at all—other than the havoc Harry could wreak in their lives.
“Marriage to me will make a bigamist of you, my love, and that would give Harry even more leverage over us both. Our children would be illegitimate, and thus the shadow he casts looms over them as well. I will not put the woman I esteem above all others at risk for a felony arrest. As for becoming my mistress, that would send the respectability you fought so hard to preserve for Tommie straight down the jakes.”
Matilda leaned into him. “Sometimes, I wish your intellect wasn’t so formidable.”
“Not formidable, but one of few tools I can rely on. Shall I order a tray, Matilda? We certainly have time.”
What do youwant, Matilda. What doyouwant?The words echoed in her memory, as did the wondrous notion of for oncehavingwhat she wanted.
“I want you,” she said. “Forever and beyond, if possible. If not forever, then here and now would be lovely.”
