by Balogh, Mary
“So do I,” he told her. “But while we are both asleep, shall we share the dream?”
She tightened her arms about him. “Very well,” she said so primly that he almost laughed.
He smiled instead and kissed her again, drawing her against him, moving his hand lower down her back to draw her closer yet. He probed the seam of her lips with his tongue, and when they trembled apart he explored the inside of her mouth, stroking and circling her tongue. She moaned low in her throat, and he could feel one of her hands tangling in his hair.
And though she was different from the way she had been at the age of twenty, there was something about her that was unmistakably Matilda, and he knew he had never really stopped loving her. It was why he had never fallen in love with anyone else. For always, somewhere in the recesses of his being, there had been Matilda. And now—yes, it was like a dream—he held her in his arms again.
They were gazing into each other’s eyes then in the dim, pink glow of the lantern, her head tipped back.
“I never did ask you to marry me,” he said. “Your father said no, and then you sent me away, and the question remained unasked.”
“Yes,” she said. “I am so sorry, Charles. I know now that you suffered just as I did.”
“Can we put the omission right at last?” he asked her. “Will you marry me, Matilda?”
Her eyes widened and she took a step back, dropping her arms to her sides. “Oh,” she said. “But it is impossible.”
“Why?” he asked.
“There is your family,” she said. “And mine. There is … our age.”
He turned his head to eye the bench inside the wooden shelter and led her to sit there. He took one of her hands in his and held it on his thigh. “Shall we dispense with the last objection first?” he said. “Is there an age limit upon love and marriage? If we wish to spend the rest of our lives together, does it matter whether we are twenty or fifty-six—or eighty?”
“People would laugh,” she said.
“Would they?” He stroked his thumb over her palm. “How strange of them. Which people, exactly?”
“They would laugh at me,” she said.
“I cannot think of anyone who might,” he said. “But in the unlikely event that someone did, would you care?”
She frowned in thought, her eyes upon his. “I think I might,” she said. “If I became the subject of a sneering on-dit with the ton I believe I might mind.”
And the thing was that such a thing was possible. Lady Matilda Westcott was known to the ton as a staid, fussy, aging spinster who hovered constantly over her mother. Would she be seen as a figure of fun if she suddenly announced her betrothal and went about looking as she looked now? Like a woman in love? All April and May?
“Then I suppose you will have to decide which course of action you would prefer,” he said. “Would you rather keep your familiar image and thus be largely invisible to the ton? Or would you prefer to announce your engagement to me and become the sensation of the hour and very much not invisible?”
“Oh,” she said, still frowning. “Oh dear.”
“Thirty-six years ago,” he said, “you were given no choice at all. You were told what to do and you did it. You have lived with the consequences ever since. Now, after all these years, you do have a choice. You can continue as you are. Or you can marry me. You have the choice, Matilda.”
“But it is still impossible,” she said. “For we are not the only ones concerned. There is your family. And mine.”
“My children like you,” he told her. “I know Adrian does. He has told me so. And I sense that Barbara and Jane do too. They do not often like the women I escort. For they always look upon them as potential wives, and they all come up wanting in one way or another.”
“Surely I would quite as much as anyone else,” she said. “They cannot help but compare other women to their mother. They surely cannot want you to marry again.”
“I believe you are wrong in that,” he said. “Much as I do not deserve such good fortune, I have children who love me and wish to see me happy. They loved their mother, but they accept the fact that she is gone while I am still here. And what of the Westcotts, Matilda? They seem a decent lot on the whole. Why would you expect them to object to your finding happiness at last?”
“Oh,” she said, “it is not that they do not wish for my happiness. But to them I am just Matilda. Or Aunt Matilda. I am the sister who stayed home to look after my mother while the other two married. They would all …”
“Laugh?” he suggested when she did not immediately complete the thought.
“No.” She was frowning again. “Not that. They would not be so unkind. But they would be … incredulous.”
“And perhaps a little bit happy for you?” he suggested.
“I am not sure,” she said. “They certainly might doubt my judgment. When they first learned that you were Gil’s father they immediately recalled your unsavory reputation.”
“It was a well-deserved notoriety,” he said, “and has been hard to shake, even impossible in some circles. I can understand the concern they will feel for you. However, if you decide to marry me, they will learn that I have changed. Perhaps some of them already know it. They all treated me with warm courtesy when I attended Riverdale’s dinner.”
“But you were not my betrothed then,” she said.
“And I am now?” He smiled at her. “Then I will have some work ahead of me. I will have to persuade them that I love you, that you are all the world to me and always will be. And you, if you decide to marry me, will have to show them that you are not just sister Matilda or Aunt Matilda but Matilda without any qualifiers, a person in your own right, free to make your own choices. A person deserving of happiness. If, that is, you love me more than you fear change or the incredulity of your family and society.”
“Oh, Charles.” She sighed.
He released his hold on her hand, set his arm about her shoulders, and drew her head down onto his shoulder.
“Two simple questions,” he said. “First, do you love me?”
“You know I do,” she said. “I always have.”
“Second,” he said, “do you want to marry me?”
There was a long silence before she answered. “Yes,” she said at last.
“One somewhat more complex question, then,” he said. “Will you marry me, Matilda?”
“Oh,” she said.
He waited.
“Yes,” she said then, her voice barely audible. “Oh yes, Charles, I will.”
He released the breath he had not realized he was holding. “Then let us rest upon that for tonight,” he said. “We love each other. We are to marry and spend the rest of our lives together. Sometimes life really is that simple.”
“But—” she began.
He set one finger across her lips. “No buts. Not tonight.”
“And tomorrow we awaken from the dream?” she asked against his finger.
“There is a funny thing about tomorrow,” he said. “It never comes. Have you noticed? For when the day that ought to be tomorrow arrives, it is actually today. And today we are in love and planning to marry.”
She gazed at him and then laughed—with that delightful merry sound that could always make his heart turn over. “How absolutely absurd,” she said. “You have set my head in a spin.”
He grinned at her and kissed her again before sitting quietly with her, gazing out into the pink-hued darkness and listening to birdsong and the distant sounds of music and voices and laughter.
“We are going to be married?” she asked him after a while. “At last?”
“At long last,” he said softly, his cheek against the top of her head. “And it will be good, Matilda. I promise.”
“Yes.” She smiled, and in the glow of the lamp he watched one tear trickle down her cheek and disappear beneath her chin.
He did not show that he had noticed. He closed his eyes instead and rested a little longer upon his happiness.<
br />
Eight
Charles had been very wrong about tomorrow. It did come. It also became today in the process, as Charles had said it would, but it was very different from yesterday’s today.
Oh goodness, she was beginning to think like him, in a head-spinning way. Suffice it to say that today—now, this morning—was very different from yesterday, last evening. Then she had been caught up in the magic of Vauxhall Gardens and all things had seemed possible. It had been the most wonderful evening of her life. It had culminated in fireworks and in a journey home in a darkened vehicle, their hands clasped upon his thigh. It had ended with a warm kiss as the carriage drew to a halt outside her door. And the unspoken promise of happily-ever-after.
This morning she was Matilda Westcott again, a little pale and droopy eyed because she was not accustomed to late nights or to dancing and kissing handsome gentlemen and agreeing to marry them. She was not used to laughing and even giggling a time or two. Oh dear, had she really behaved in such an unseemly manner, as though she were a girl? Whatever must everyone have thought? Today the idea of marrying Charles seemed utterly absurd. He could not have been serious, or, if he had been, today he would be feeling a certain horror at what he had said on the impulse of the moment.
This morning she was feeling elderly and frumpish and mortally depressed and irritable and not at all herself. She wanted to be herself again. Instead she felt like weeping.
“Your evening out,” her mother said, setting down the letter she had been reading and regarding her daughter across the breakfast table, “must not have been a great success.”
“I would have been happier if I had stayed at home,” Matilda said. “I worried about you being alone.” With a rush of guilt she realized she had spared her mother scarcely a thought all evening. And now she had lied and made herself feel worse.
“I was alone with a houseful of servants and a library full of books,” her mother said. “Matilda, I do not need you.”
Well, there. She had been justly punished for her lie.
“I only love you,” her mother added.
Her mother never talked like this. Matilda frowned and looked down at her plate. She was rather surprised to see half a slice of toast spread with marmalade there. She could not remember eating the other half, or anything else for that matter.
“It was a pleasant enough evening,” she said. “Vauxhall is always worth a visit. Mrs. Dewhurst appeared to enjoy her birthday. Everyone was very amiable and kind.”
I waltzed. I laughed. He kissed me—and I kissed him back. I accepted his marriage proposal.
“And Viscount Dirkson?” her mother asked.
“He was amiable and kind too,” Matilda said, getting to her feet. “Mama, let me get you a fresh cup of coffee. That one has grown cold while you have been reading your letter.”
“I do not need a fresh cup,” her mother said with a flash of her old irritability. “Don’t fuss, Matilda. I am sorry if the evening was not everything you hoped it might be. I am … sorry.”
“I had no expectations,” Matilda said. “And it really was very pleasant.”
But her mother was on her feet and making her way toward the door. It was time for one of her meetings with the housekeeper to discuss the meals for the coming days and other household matters. She had never allowed Matilda to take over those responsibilities from her. Neither had she ever offered to share them.
Matilda went to the morning room to write letters to her nieces, Camille in Bath and Abigail somewhere in Gloucestershire in her country cottage, which she shared with Gil and Katy. Charles’s son and granddaughter. There was no getting away from him, was there?
But did she want to? Had she not accepted a marriage offer from him last evening? Had he not held her hand all the way home in the carriage and kissed her before his coachman opened the door and set down the steps? He had not said anything about seeing her again, though. But surely he meant to. It would be most peculiar if he did not, even if he had changed his mind.
As he surely must.
Oh, he had been wrong about tomorrow. Tomorrow definitely came, and it was not the same as yesterday. But what happened to today while one made the contrast between yesterday and tomorrow? Strange thoughts.
He could not possibly love her.
There was no way on earth he could really want to marry her.
Just look at her.
The first visitors arrived early in the afternoon. It was not unusual for Matilda’s sisters to call, as they were attentive to their mother and knew she enjoyed hearing the latest on-dits that had not yet found their way into the morning papers. It was unusual for them to come together, however, as they did today, and for Louise to bring her daughter, Jessica, and Anna, Duchess of Netherby, her stepdaughter-in-law, with her. And no sooner had the four of them arrived and exchanged greetings and weather reports and seated themselves than Viola, Marchioness of Dorchester, Matilda’s former sister-in-law, was ushered into the room too.
“It seems we all had the same idea this afternoon,” she said, and kissed cheeks, asked after the dowager’s health, and commented upon the fact that it would be a lovely day if the wind were not so cutting. “I knew you at least were here, Louise. Your carriage is outside the door.”
“Thomas came home from White’s Club this morning,” Mildred said, “with word that you were seen at Vauxhall last evening, Matilda, in company with Viscount Dirkson. You were strolling along the main avenue with him, apparently without even your maid for company. I thought whoever told Thomas that must have been mistaken, but when I called upon Louise, she informed me that Jessica danced with young Bertrand Lamarr last evening, and he told her when she asked about Estelle that she had gone with Mr. Sawyer and one of his sisters for a birthday party at Vauxhall Gardens. And Mr. Sawyer told Bertrand while they were waiting for Estelle to finish getting ready that his father had invited you to accompany him, Matilda.”
“I was charmed, Aunt Matilda,” Jessica said.
“Yes, I was there,” Matilda said. “It was a pleasant evening.”
“Only pleasant?” Viola smiled warmly at her. “Estelle was bubbling over this morning about all her experiences there. And she was very happy that you were there too. She told us about how you appeared very different from how she had always thought of you. About how, both at Kew Gardens last week and at Vauxhall last evening, you were full of sparkle and laughter and fun—her words, I do assure you. Did you enjoy yourself?”
“Well, I did.” Matilda felt horribly uncomfortable. She was not accustomed to being the focus of anyone’s attention, even her family’s. “It was a birthday party, and they are a close family and were greatly enjoying the occasion and one another’s company. How could I not show pleasure too? It would have been uncivil to look bored or even just solemn.”
“Aunt Matilda.” There was sheer mischief in Anna’s smile. “Do you have a beau? I do hope so.”
“Anna,” Louise said reproachfully.
“Oh, do say it is true, Aunt Matilda,” Jessica said, a spark of mischief in her eyes. “I thought when we were at Kew that Viscount Dirkson was particular in his attentions toward you.”
“And we heard, Matilda,” Viola said, “that you waltzed last evening. More than once. With Viscount Dirkson more than with anyone else.”
“I believe you are in love,” Jessica said, laughing and clapping her hands.
“Jessica.” Her mother’s outraged voice put an instant end to her merriment. “Your aunt Matilda is not a figure of fun. She is a lady of mature years and must be treated with the respect that is her due. The very idea of her being in love, as though she were a giddy girl. And with Viscount Dirkson of all people.”
“I must agree with Louise,” Mildred said. “I cannot stand by and listen to my sister being teased upon such a matter. She is far too mature to be in love or to have a beau. And she is far too sensible to lose her head over a man like Viscount Dirkson. He may have reformed his ways in recent years, but he once
had a very unsavory reputation indeed and even now ought not to be welcomed into society with wide-open arms. It was probably unwise of Alexander and Wren to invite him to dine with us. Just consider what followed. He had the effrontery to suggest that Matilda share the duties of chaperon with him for the young people’s excursion to Kew. And when I heard this morning that he had taken her to his daughter’s birthday celebration, I was very angry. You ought not to be subjected to such disrespect, Matilda, and I am sorry it has happened. I shall ask Thomas to have a word with Viscount Dirkson. It would not hurt, Louise and Anna, if you persuaded Avery to do likewise.”
Matilda sat quietly in her chair, fighting the urge to jump to her feet to fuss over her mother for some imaginary need.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for coming and showing your concern. You speak of me as a mature woman, Louise. And you too, Mildred. Yet you speak to me as though I were a child, someone lacking in the knowledge and experience needed to command her own life and make her own decisions. You speak of me as though I were someone who needs a man, a family member, to protect me from all the wicked harm that awaits me beyond my doors.”
“Well, you must admit, Matilda,” Louise said, “that your experience of life is severely limited. You have lived all your days with Mama, and Papa while he was alive, sheltered within the safety of home. We care. We do not want to see you the subject of gossip.”
“We could not bear to see you humiliated,” Mildred added. “Or hurt. We love you, Matilda. You are our sister.”
Matilda drew breath to answer, but her mother spoke first.
“And Matilda is my daughter,” she said. “My firstborn. The eldest of you all. Quite old enough to decide for herself what she wants to do with her life, even if it is only to go to Kew Gardens with a party of young people and the father of one of them, a man whose reputation once set him beyond the pale of polite society. Or even if it is to go to Vauxhall under the escort of the same man and in company with his son and daughters and their spouses. She is old enough to decide for herself whether she will sparkle and laugh and have fun, as Estelle put it. Such careless language, Viola! And Matilda is old enough to decide whether she will waltz under the stars. She is old enough. Perhaps it is disrespectful, Louise and Mildred, to question the judgment of your elder sister.”