When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,45
she gestured to the place beside her, he took it. People seated side by side need not maintain eye contact, which made confession easier on all concerned.
“Lord Stephen offered me passage to anywhere I chose,” Matilda replied, “provided I’m willing to wait until next week for his coin to arrive.”
Thanks be to the Almighty for the sorry state of English roads. “You are tempted to leave. You’ve been here little more than a fortnight, and you are tempted to leave Brightwell.”
Leave me.
“I don’t want to,” she said, “but my situation is complicated.”
Duncan waited, reassured by both her reluctance to depart and her admission.
“If I tell you the whole,” she said, “you are implicated in something that might be criminal, seriously criminal. If I tell you nothing, you will think I have no regard for you and am merely intent on abusing your hospitality until it suits me to abandon my post.”
No frowns, sighs, or scowls gave Duncan any clue to the emotions weighting these words. This was an opening gambit Matilda had mentally rehearsed many times.
“Can you tell me anything?”
She toyed with the fringe of her shawl. “I want to, but my silence protects you.”
“Does your silence protect others?”
“Yes.”
Damn and blast those others for allowing a woman on her own to carry this burden. “You told me the law was not pursuing you.”
“Not the magistrates and runners, not that variety of law.”
“And no husband searches for you?” Duncan needed to be certain of this.
“No husband, but we’ve discussed my erstwhile fiancé. You have no wife, I take it?”
That Matilda would ask gratified him inordinately. “I did, briefly, long ago. She did not live to see her eighteenth birthday. Ours was a cordial union of near-strangers. I do not regret taking those vows, and I hope my late spouse is at peace.” Informing Quinn of that brief marriage had been excruciating, though admitting the tale to Matilda was a relief.
“I was married once,” she said, smoothing her shawl over her skirts. “That union was also brief, and while I don’t regret my choice, my husband was…cordial is a good word. He was cordially distracted much of time, fascinated with clocks, music boxes, and automatons. I have always longed for a home of my own, and my present fiancé—let’s call him Alphonse—took notice of that yearning. He would allude to someday, when he had a proper household, when the children came along, when his life was more settled, and with each casual comment, he was watching for a reaction from me. I did not realize he was courting my dreams until too late.”
“You’ve traveled much.”
“Yes, which to a man of your background must be obvious. Tell me of Lord Stephen’s theory.”
She’d traveled much and longed to settle, while Duncan was forced to bide at Brightwell and longed to wander—a puzzle for another day.
“Stephen says that if we wish to disclose a secret, we find ways to do that, even if we don’t admit our wish to ourselves. I mentioned your name, for example, though I was determined to maintain a respectful silence on that topic.”
Duncan wished to take Matilda’s hand. She had allowed him to take her hand to escort her across the room, and she had bid him to join her on the sofa. She’d kissed him on the cheek, once upon a time.
“I hope I haven’t disclosed any secrets to Lord Stephen.”
Duncan twined his fingers with hers, lest she bolt away. “You permitted him to peruse your Book of Common Prayer, and therein, he saw your name, date of birth, your parents’ names, and the parish where you were christened. He conveyed that information to me and to me alone.”
Matilda pressed her forehead against Duncan’s arm. “I cannot believe I was that foolish. I cannot fathom how…I must leave. I must burn that blasted book, and I must leave. I dare not wait for Lord Stephen’s coin. I should decamp this very night.”
No, she should not. “You carried your prayer book to prove your identity, if the need arose.”
She drew back enough to regard him. “I also carried that prayer book in case somebody had to identify my remains.”
Duncan considered that salvo, which was in itself a significant gesture of trust. “You are in a very great lot of trouble, Matilda Wakefield. You had better tell me the whole of it.”
Her gaze fell on the chess set, and Duncan braced himself for a combination of lies and truth, all couched amid a truly perplexing set of puzzles.