Page 75 of Miss Dauntless
“Harry Merridew, alive and well, precipitates my decision. He is not dead, Portia. He concocted a scheme to make me, and probably his creditors and enemies, think he was dead. He’s short of funds and has come around, expecting me to sign my dower house over to him. He will assert custody of Tommie if I balk. Harry is unwilling to divorce me because the press would become involved, but he doubtless knows enough crooked judges and magistrates to quietly take my son from me.”
The cat climbed onto Portia’s lap and stropped himself against her such that his tail waved before her face. She scratched the base of his neck, and he settled on his haunches and began a stentorian purr.
“Harry Merridew,” Portia muttered. “Well, of course. I am ashamed to say I rejoiced when he supposedly died, Matilda. He was a desperate measure indeed, and you paid dearly forthrowing in with him. When your father told me he’d approved the match, I nearly did him an injury.”
What on earth could motivate Portia to violence? “Papa was likely paid—by Harry—to bless the match.”
The cat settled to all fours, a miniature smoky sphinx, doubtless getting hair all over Portia’s gray skirts. Did she dress to accommodate her presuming cat?
“Your father was not paid to allow Merridew to wed you,” Portia said, setting her drink aside without disturbing the cat. “Whilst kicking his heels in the village and courting you, Harry got to nosing about the parish registers. He happened across the record that showed when your father, while still a curate, had taken a bride. Less than seven months later, you showed up in the birth registries, and whatever else was true about your Harry, he could count.”
“I came a bit early, then?” Even as Matilda spoke, another explanation was beating on the door of one of her mental linen closets.
The cat sent Matilda a sagacious squint, his expression oddly mirroring Portia’s.
“From what your mother intimated, Matilda, you came precisely when you were due to arrive.”
Matilda felt an odd prickling down her arms. “Mama and Papaanticipated their vows?” She could barely recall her mother, a quiet, pretty woman with an air of patient good humor.
“Courting couples do,” Portia replied, “though I wasn’t about to take that risk with your uncle. As fond as he was of his port, he might have left me widowed before I’d wed, as the saying goes. Harry would have bruited about your parents’ indiscretion had your father thwarted the courtship. The good vicar was vain and hypocritical enough to be manipulated that easily.”
The fire crackled softly, the cat purred, and Matilda downed half her remaining drink. “Is every adult woman forced to constantly manage and accommodate the self-indulgence and arrogance of the men around her?”
Portia nudged the brandy bottle closer to Matilda’s elbow. “Tremont isn’t self-indulgent or arrogant, and he’s marvelously well-read. He didn’t simply memorize his lines for the day and then spit them out for the headmaster. He is a learned man, Matilda. Smart enough for you, and a good man.”
How smart was a woman who’d not known the circumstances of her own birth?
Matilda rose to pace, her progress around the parlor tracked visually by the cat. “My father… My father berated me constantly for laughing, for curtseying too quickly, for smiling at the butcher’s boy, or not making a long enough production of grace on the few occasions he allowed me to say it. He assured me over and over again that I would come to a bad end, that I was a burden sent by the devil to try his patience.”
“Your father was impatient, and he certainly tried your mother’s nerves. He also lied if he claimed you were sent by the imp, Matilda. You were an ominously well-behaved girl, and your father’s own precipitate wooing occasioned your conception. If you didn’t realize that Harry was a born deceiver, maybe that’s because your father lied to you from your birth. He told you that you weren’t quiet enough, pious enough, submissive enough to God’s will… The lack of virtue never lay with you. I’m sorry we didn’t have this discussion years ago, but I thought Harry would have told you.”
Matilda paused before a very good sketch of the cat posed beside a vase of irises. “Papa would doubtless take the oldest dodge in the Bible and blame Mama for tempting him, though she married straight out of the schoolroom. What does ‘ominously well-behaved’ mean?”
Portia stroked the cat and gazed at the fire. “When a girl is held to an impossible standard for too long, she eventually stumbles, and that stumbling can feel… good. Like freedom and honesty and power.”
What experience did Portia speak from? “Portia, why do I feel as if it’s only now, as I’m on the brink of leaving England, that I begin to know you?”
Portia set the cat in Matilda’s vacated chair and rose. “Stumbling comes at a price, and we have both learned caution in a hard school. You are leaving London because you don’t want your earl to stumble, aren’t you? Has he offered to set you up?”
“No.” A relief, because Matilda would be tempted to stumble yet again. “I thought that was his interest in me initially, but I was mistaken. Tremont is unlikely to risk illegitimacy for his offspring, and he and I cannot marry with Harry so hale and whole. Tremont is a peer, he votes his seat. He cannot abandon his homeland.”
“So you will abandon him. This feels right to you?” The question was merely curious rather than judgmental.
“I took up with Joseph Yoe because he purported to offer me a way to leave the vicarage. I took up with Harry because he promised me a scintilla of safety and propriety. My motivations in both cases were selfish and desperate, and I hoped a man would solve my difficulties. My motivation in this case… Yes, the decision to leave England feels right. Miserable, but right, and my choice.”
“Because you love him,” Portia said, passing Matilda her unfinished drink and picking up her own glass. “To love, then, though your earl might well show up in Philadelphia, Matilda. What will you do then?”
She finished her drink. “I won’t be in Philadelphia.”
“I see. You will write from wherever you end up and let me know how you’re getting on?”
Marcus would doubtless turn to Portia once he learned Matilda was not in America. “I will write eventually, after Tommie and I are settled.”
Portia crossed the room and opened the central drawer of a delicate inlaid escritoire. “Take this,” she said, passing over a velvet bag. “Consider it a loan, or an early bequest to your darling Tommie. He’s such a dear boy, and you should know he will inherit this house when I die.”
Matilda did not want to take the money, but Portia had brought up Tommie. Shrewd of her.
“Tommie is no blood relation to you, Portia. You need not leave him anything, but I am most grateful for the assistance.”
