Page 67 of Miss Dauntless
Matilda had learned how it felt to be respected and cared for. Powerful lessons. “Harry, what in God’s name happened to you?”
“I doubt God had anything to do with it.”
“You prevaricate to give yourself time to concoct a taradiddle because you did not think I’d demand a private audience. Please tell me the truth.”
He linked his hands on the table before him, as if preparing to recite grace before a meal. “I wish I knew, Tilly. One moment, I was playing a friendly hand of cards at ye old posting inn, the next I was in the ditch, my head throbbing, not a coin to my name.”
“Which inn?” The door behind Harry had eased open two inches. Matilda willed herself to gaze fixedly at Harry’s handsome, lying face.
“I don’t know. That’s the hell of it. When I roused from my injuries, I not only had no purse, I had no memory. I knew I was Harry, but I couldn’t even settle on a last name. The past came back in bits and dribbles, and that took months. The whole business was humbling, and I still have gaps in my recollection.”
A part of Matilda wanted to believe this outlandish tale—Harry had regularly invited life to hand him a sound thrashing—and wanted to believe the bewildered tone, the bent head. Five years ago, she might have.
“Why, then, when you recalled you had a wife waiting for you back in London, didn’t you return to me?”
“I was in Ireland by then, barely scraping by, and I knew very well I hadn’t been much of a husband to you. I also know I’m not Tommie’s father and the rest of what brought us together. When I had the means to come home, I lacked the confidence. You deserved better, Tilly, and for all I knew, you’d remarried and had other children. When I decided that no, you’d be better off knowing the truth and might not be faring so well on your own, I lacked the means to book passage. I could not make up my mind what the right thing to do was.”
Having had so little experience with that exercise.“What do you want from me, Harry?”
“The house would be a nice gesture in the direction of putting me back on my feet, Tilly. I’ve had a hard time, and I still get the most miserable headaches. You seem to be doing well. You don’t need that house, and I do. ‘For better or for worse’ means you can’t just turn your back on me. I don’t want to make trouble, but I’ve run out of options, and I’m still your husband.”
An ambiguous declaration, part threat, part confession. “I have not missed you,” Matilda said as the door eased open another inch. “But I worried for you, Harry. Every time you vanished—and you vanished frequently—I prayed myself to sleep, hoping you had not come to a bad end.”
“I nearly did, but I’d like to make a fresh start. Settling matters with you is part of that.”
“Bilking me of my only security, you mean?”
“Don’t be like that, Tilly.” He spoke chidingly rather than angrily. “You are pretty, you can run a household without trying,you’re a devoted mother, and men like that in a woman. You have a lot of good years left, while I…” He spread his hands in what was probably supposed to be a gesture of surrender. “I’m ready for a change, and I can’t make that change unless you’ll part with the house.”
“And how can I remarry, Harry, how can I meet any man I esteem at the altar, knowing myself to be your wife? Please recall that my gifts as a swindler are paltry compared to those of present company. Recall that bigamy is a hanging felony, and the children of a bigamous union are bastards. You would steal my only security—Tommie’s only security—and go on yourmerryway, until the next time you decide to come around looking for any savings I’ve managed to build up.”
“I didn’t much miss you either, Tilly.” This was said mildly, almost affectionately.
“So what threat are you about to aim at me to inspire me to give you an entire house in a decent neighborhood?”
The door opened another inch.
“I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, dearest wife.”
“And I knew it would.”
Harry sighed. He gazed about with an air of heroic long-suffering. He pursed his lips and frowned at the table. Matilda would have applauded this grand performance of a man deliberating over a difficult choice were she not so bored by it.
“Tommie’s father came from a good family,” he said. “Tommie is their only grandchild, the son of their fallen firstborn.”
“And they rebuffed your efforts to extort money from them on that basis.”
“They are older now. They’ve lost a daughter, and they don’t know that you and Tommie are biding with a house full of drunks and ne’er-do-wells. They don’t know that Tommie is tagging around for much of the day after streetwalkers wearingmaids’ caps. They don’t know that the boy has no father even in name, but I can make them aware of all those details, Tilly, and there’s not a judge in this country who’d leave Tommie with you if the squire decides to petition for custody.”
Matilda felt a familiar fissuring in response to Harry’s threat. While she was tempted by the very reaction Harry had intended—you cannot take my son!—she had also learned to doubt every word out of Harry’s mouth.
“Harry,” she said, conjuring a semblance of amusement from some latent well of thespian talent. “Give it up. The squire and his goodwife have known of my widowhood for years. They’ve made no overture, sent not so much as a groat to their grandson, nor asked after his wellbeing. They weren’t about to fall in with your schemes years ago, and they don’t give a holey sock for Tommie now. You are bobbing about in the River Tick, and I’m your last option. Why don’t you simply find another bride, this time with more of a dowry?”
Harry merely shook his head, and Matilda had the sense that was the first honest response he’d given her. Bigamy was apparently not a crime he was willing to commit—one of his quaint little rules—though he’d gladly see Matilda take that step.
“Then we are atpoint non plus, Harry. You cannot threaten me into giving up that house, but fortunately, for you, there is something I want even more than that dower property. My lord, you can come in now.”
By the most fleeting consternation in his eyes, Harry betrayed surprise as he shot to his feet.
