When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,39
made to his person without him being cognizant.”
He spoke of brutal surgery in the same tones Papa had used when assessing Dutch Renaissance paintings.
“If you drink to the point of inebriation, or take opium or the nitrous gas, then you think you will be brave enough to part with your leg?”
“Not brave enough, asleep enough, though then there’s infection to worry about. Let’s have done with such cheery discourse and turn our talk to your adventures.”
No, let’s not. Matilda reopened the journal and pretended to read of the shipboard fare served to passengers on their way to Rome.
“You needn’t fear that I’ll pry,” Lord Stephen said. “I’ve been forbidden to pry, and if there’s one individual on the face of the earth whose admonitions I will at least consider, it’s Duncan Wentworth. He never asks anything for himself. Have you noticed that?”
Mr. Wentworth had asked Matilda to stay. She’d begun to hope a little of that request had been for himself, not out of blasted chivalry.
Though the chivalry was precious too. “I have noticed that Mr. Wentworth, unlike some, is every inch a gentleman.”
Lord Stephen patted her hand, the gesture less than reassuring. “He’ll fillet me if I attempt to flirt with you in earnest, and that’s fascinating. A crack has appeared in the unchanging façade my ever-stalwart cousin shows the world, and thus I must be concerned.”
Matilda ran her finger down the page, mostly to touch Mr. Wentworth’s crooked, slashing penmanship.
“One suspected your unannounced visit, rude though such behavior might appear, was in fact a gesture of concern, my lord.”
“Wentworth concern is a fierce variety of the polite interest you might be acquainted with, so fierce that I must warn you, Miss Maddie: You trifle with Duncan at your peril. He has suffered much, and I won’t allow you to heap more difficulties upon him.”
Trifle with Duncan Wentworth? Matilda wanted to do more than trifle with the man, and that was cause for alarm. Under the warmth of her covers, in the darkest hours of the night, she had considered the complications resulting from an affair with Mr. Wentworth and lectured herself endlessly on the folly thereof.
“I am a temporary employee in Mr. Wentworth’s home, Lord Stephen. Even if he would entertain familiarities from a woman on his staff, I doubt a lady in my circumstances would appeal to him.”
Lord Stephen rested his walking stick across his knees. The cane wasn’t a delicately carved ornament but in fact functional. Close examination revealed a mechanism near the handle that doubtless released a bayonet from the base. The handle was gold, meaning it would make a heavy cudgel for fighting in close quarters.
“A lady in your circumstances,” he said, “which remain undisclosed, and yet those circumstances trouble me.”
“Then I’d advise you to school yourself to patience. Mr. Wentworth gave you that cane, didn’t he?”
Lord Stephen ran a long, pale finger down the dark shaft, the way some people would pet a favored hound.
“For my eighteenth birthday. He had it made in Berlin and it was waiting for us when we arrived. I like guns, but this cane is the only weapon I own personally. I am not by nature violent, and owe you an explanation for my protectiveness where Duncan is concerned. He doesn’t take an interest in women.”
Ah, well. There were men like that. They either preferred the company of other males or they simply weren’t ruled by lust. Matilda had met many such men and generally liked them. Her late husband had been more interested in his automatons and music boxes than in chasing the maids, and thank heavens for that.
Until meeting Mr. Wentworth, Matilda’s interest in men hadn’t been much in evidence.
“Mr. Wentworth’s business is his own, Lord Stephen. I wish you’d keep any gossip you’re determined to share to yourself.” A lie, of course. Matilda had a terrible curiosity about Duncan Wentworth. From his journals she’d learned that he was not a happy man, and yet he was a good man. Most unhappy men took the other road and found fault with others all along the way.
“Not gossip,” Lord Stephen said. “One shudders at the insult. I offer an explanation, if you please.” He used the tip of his walking stick to nudge at a bouquet of purple chrysanthemums on the table. “In five years of living with Duncan in close quarters, I lost count of the fair young ladies whom I either attempted to charm or had pleasant encounters with.”