When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,78
behalf your father had possession of it.”
Matilda scooted around so she faced Duncan rather than the fire. “I suspect Atticus courted me to gain access to the house, to have an excuse to watch Papa. I had the sense Papa would rather I’d refused the colonel’s suit, but who refuses a war hero from a titled family?”
Matilda had not only refused Parker, she’d run from him. “Parker would have given evidence against your father?”
“He’s a war hero. He of all men would not abet a traitor. For all I know, he bid me good night, made straightaway for the authorities, and obtained permission to question me or even arrest me. If I had been taken into custody, Papa’s arrest would have undoubtedly followed. I dared not waste hours waiting for Papa to come home from his late-night entertainments.”
“You fled before you could incriminate your father.” Her reasoning was damnably sound. Better that Wakefield be suspected of treason than condemned to die for it. “Parker came upon you in the study?”
Even as Duncan reconstructed the chain of events with Matilda, he was plagued by questions.
What suitor could have bothered with treason and secret plans when faced with Matilda by firelight? She was no longer as underweight, no longer pale and exhausted. Duncan yearned to sketch her, to lose himself in a game of chess with her, to carry her to his bed and indulge in wild pleasures until spring.
Those longings twined around each other, forming a tangle of desire, yearning, and frustration—which Duncan ignored. Treason was the worst of the hanging felonies, and Matilda’s decision to flee the scene, while it protected her father in the short term, all but put a noose around her own neck.
“Lord Atticus came upon me in the study,” she said. “How long he’d stood in the doorway watching me, I do not know. The clock said I’d been working for less than a quarter hour. That dreadful translation held my attention. I looked up and he was there before the desk, framed by the shadows in the corridor. I folded the paper from Papa’s satchel and my notes and slid them into a drawer I could lock, then rose and greeted my guest.”
Her father’s nemesis. Duncan added Thomas Wakefield to the list of those deserving undying enmity.
“Atticus was his usual cordial self,” Matilda went on. “He turned the conversation to what sort of house I’d like, and which of London’s better neighborhoods appealed to me. I doubt I made sense, but he didn’t seem to notice my discomfiture.”
“Was the translation gone after he left?”
“The papers were right where I’d put them, but Atticus had excused himself after I’d served the tea. I was alone in the family parlor for a good ten minutes while he heeded the call of nature. He had time to pick the lock on the drawer and study what I’d written. I took the papers with me when I left.”
No seasoned soldier took ten minutes to piss. “You never had an opportunity to discuss this with your father?”
She swiped at her cheek with the edge of the quilt. “I quit the house as quickly as I could lest Atticus come back and arrest me. I also did not want Papa to admit his crimes to me. He cannot be convicted on even a war hero’s mere hearsay.”
“You have considered both turning him in and ignoring what you’ve learned.” The moral conundrum was impossible: to betray a beloved parent or one’s country?
Matilda spread her hands before her, bringing to Duncan’s mind quotes about all of great Neptune’s ocean being inadequate to wash away guilt.
“Tell me, Duncan, did you consider remaining silent about your vicar’s behavior?”
He took her hand in his and kissed her fingers. “Yes, and I have often wondered if Rachel and her daughter would be alive if I’d held my peace. Tagging along after an underpaid teacher through a bitter Yorkshire winter ruined her health.”
“I suspect despair ruined her health.”
Despair was threatening to spoil Duncan’s current plans as well. He kept hold of Matilda’s chilly hand, cradling it in both of his. “You are in a truly difficult position, and I have made it more complicated.”
Matilda sat straighter and freed her hand from his grasp. “Not if I leave, you haven’t.”
“Please don’t leave,” Duncan said. “I’m asking you not to leave, Matilda. I want a chance, at least, to consider your situation. You are arguably no longer an Englishwoman, for example, if you were married to a German fellow. Can