by Holly Bush
“You said yourself that Altry has never asked you to dance. What do you imagine prompted him now?”
“Heavens, I don’t know. Why would I care? It was just a dance,” Matilda replied.
“Just a dance? That young pup was nearly drooling.”
“Drooling? Whatever are you talking about?” Matilda asked.
“Miss Sheldon! You are no fool. Don’t presume to tell me you don’t understand. Altry asked you to dance because of this damned outfit you’re wearing.” Thornsby shouted.
“You’re only angry you can’t compare me to a maid or a washwoman.”
Matilda supposed the Duke was right though. Altry would have never paid her court if she hadn’t been wearing this dress. It all supported her notion that the glasses, brown dresses, and scruffy boots separated the chaff from the wheat. Those that deemed her worthy enough to speak to when dressed that way, and those that chose this evening to address her. The Duke had apparently noticed her gown.
Thornsby stared at her as if in a trance. She wondered what was going through his mind. “Don’t make Altry to be any more the cad than you, Thornsby. You’ve never noticed me either. Unless to insult me.”
His eye twitched. “That is untrue.”
“Far from it,” Matilda said.
“Don’t presume to know what is in my mind,” Thornsby said and grabbed Matilda’s bare shoulders.
The moment was charged with sparks, shooting through the air, connecting him to her. Matilda felt, well, she didn’t know what she felt. Fluttery and female. Angry. Aware. The touch of his fingertips drifted down her arms leaving her hands numb. Her voice came out barely above a whisper.
“What is on your mind then?” she asked.
“I’m thinking of kissing you, Miss Sheldon.”
Matilda batted her lashes. “Is it the dress?”
Thornsby touched his lips to hers. A feather’s touch. He inched back to gaze over her face. “I don’t know. But I don’t think so.”
His breath was warm on her cheeks. She’d never been this close to a man before. She could see the lines around his mouth and the bristle of his beard. He touched his lips to hers again.
“What do you imagine it is?” Matilda whispered into his mouth.
Thornsby slipped his hand around her waist and pulled her close. He tilted her head up with his finger. “I haven’t a clue,” he said. Then he kissed her. Really kissed her.
* * *
Matilda’s lips were open and guileless. Her skin was smooth and warm where he held her chin, and she draped her arms over his shoulders. Thornsby turned his head and sunk his tongue into her mouth. She sighed and went soft in his arms. He ran his knuckles down her neck and lower still to the curve of her breast. He knew from experience this was no casual kiss. This was a lover’s kiss, a prelude to a bedding.
Thornsby released Matilda’s lips and opened his eyes. Her eyes were still closed and her cheeks rosy and her mouth in a lover’s pout. He was still breathing hard, but his blood was beginning to return to his brain.
What had he done? Why had he ignored Millicent and hurried to keep the wren from backing off a step? Couldn’t fathom why he’d asked her to dance or been so damn angry when Altry stared at her like a tasty, innocent morsel. And what on earth had possessed him to drag her into a dark room without a chaperone. Thornsby’s head flew up when the door banged open.
“Matilda!”
“Thornsby!”
They broke apart in an instant and Matilda drew her hands down the front of her dress as if checking to see if it were still there. Her parents were wide-eyed. So were the Hollingberrys. And as many other faces that could cram in the doorway. Thornsby was mentally still kissing her but in the background he heard ‘altar’ and ‘ruined’ being whispered and stole a glimpse at Matilda. She was red-faced with embarrassment, he supposed.
“Marry Thornsby? You must be mad, Mother,” Matilda shouted. “I won’t.”
Thornsby’s jaw dropped. She wasn’t embarrassed. She was angry. “You don’t have to bellow it out as if I had the plague.”
Frances Sheldon hurried forward and gathered her daughter in her arms. “Now, now dear. Your reputation’s been compromised. You must marry the Duke.”
“I don’t care a fig if my reputation’s been compromised. I won’t marry him,” Matilda said.
The Hollingberrys hustled the gawking guests out and closed the door. Harold Hollingberry spoke up. “Your parents would be ashamed, Thornsby.”
Fran Sheldon faced him nose to nose. “The Sheldon’s are not a family to be trifled with, Thornsby. Name your weapons.”
“Father! A duel?” Matilda said aghast.
Her mother was weeping. “My darling Matilda. Ravished.” She looked up at Thornsby, furious. “You cad!”
“I never said I wouldn’t marry her,” Thornsby said. The room stilled. Now what had prompted that, he wondered? He pointed at Matilda. “She’s the one looking at me as if I had three heads.”
The mother graced him with a sweet wobbly smile. “You love her then? How marvelous.”
The father grabbed his hand to shake. “Welcome to the family, Your Grace. Quite a catch for our Matilda, a Duke and all,” he said with a nod to the Hollingberrys. Sheldon shook Pemberley’s hand and Frances embraced the wife. They headed to the door.
Suddenly the room was empty except for Matilda and him. She collapsed into a chair.
“You should have never said you wouldn’t not marry me,” she whispered.
“Hell’s fire and damnation! What was I supposed to do?” Thornsby railed. “That family of yours can twist a man’s words in a thousand ways. How was I to know I would go from miscreant to hero in a half-moment? And what is so deuced horrible about marrying me?”
“I have no intentions of marrying a man such as you.”
“Whatever is the matter with me? Most women don’t look like they’ve just bitten into a sour apple,” Thornsby asked.
“We are not suited.”
“Why ever not?”
“I won’t have a man telling me what to do and what to wear and expecting me to melt away when it suits him. I have my own plans, Thornsby. And they don’t include you,” Matilda said.
“The orphanage? Keep the orphanage. I don’t care,” Thornsby said. “But I was on your mind just moments ago, Matilda. Don’t try to deny it.” Why was he attempting to convince Matilda Sheldon to marry him? Wasn’t he certain she was nothing like what he wanted or needed in a Duchess?
“This is a perfect example of why I won’t marry you.” Matilda heaved a long breath and stamped her foot. “I don’t need your bloody permission to keep my orphanage!”
Her breasts jiggled as she shouted. Thornsby’s mouth grew dry. He wanted Matilda Sheldon in this gold dress or without it.
“There are no pastries down there, Your Grace. Just stay away from me,” Matilda said. She swept out in a hurry and closed her skirts in the door.
Thornsby watched as the slammed door crept open and gold fabric disappeared.
Chapter Nine
"Mother, if you announce our engagement in the newspaper, you will be sorely embarrassed when the event fails to take place,” Matilda said to her mother as she dressed the following morning. So good to be back in her gray dress.
“But Matilda,” Frances said. “The gossip.”
“I don’t care what the gossips say, Mother. As you well know.”
“Will you send the Duke a letter telling him you’ve broken the engagement?” Juliet asked.
“There was no engagement,” Matilda said.
“I think this is the sort of thing one should do face-to-face,” Alexandra said.
“He is so ever handsome,” Juliet said softly.
“And dangerous and dashing,” Alexandra added.
Matilda tightened her bonnet under her chin. “Then why don’t one of you marry him?”
“Matilda!” Juliet said. “I could never do such a thing. Marry a man who’s affianced to my sister.�
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There was no suitable response to that. Matilda swept out the door of her bedroom. “Father said I may take the carriage to the orphanage, Mother. I’ll be back before supper.”
* * *
Thornsby stewed over Matilda Sheldon’s rejection for most of the next week. He read no forthcoming announcements in the sheet, was not invited to take tea, nor anything he would have normally expected had he been caught stealing a kiss with any other marriage-hungry miss. Apparently Miss Sheldon had been truthful when she said she wasn’t marrying him. Thornsby drummed his fingers on the desk. He still had no bride.
Matilda’s face, flushed from her first kiss, flashed in his head. She would be as robust in bed as she was in life, he suspected. How silly that he couldn’t stop thinking of her. How strange the lump in his throat when he remembered her rejection. Thornsby put his daydreams aside as he had done ever since becoming Duke. He knew his duty. Love or not, he must marry. Thornsby penned a letter, sealed it with wax and summoned Withrow.
“See that Miss Marsh receives this letter, Withrow.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Thornsby sat back in his high leather back chair. He would have no love match like Athena or his parents. He would have what he needed though. He supposed he’d best brush up on the latest gossip and scandals. Millicent lived for gossip, and if he wished to have any conversation at all, he’d best know the subject. Such subjects had been interesting enough when he’d first started out in society, a young man. Now, he thought resignedly, he could care less. Much like Matilda Sheldon had said when she told him she cared little for parties or their attendees. Marriage to Millicent Marsh would ensure his presence at every tea and ball they were invited to.
“Millicent. You look lovely this evening,” Thornsby said as he greeted her in the grand entranceway of her home.
“I confess I was shocked when I received your note, Thornsby,” Millicent said. “Pleased, but shocked.”
There was something patently false about Millicent Marsh, although she was certainly alluring. Her skin was clear, her eyes brilliantly blue and her silver dress indecently low-cut. The fact that she’d bedded half the ton didn’t seem to bother him even as he considered her for his Duchess.
“I have never hid my feelings about you. I find you charming and your company pleasant, Millicent. Is it so far afield to think I would simply enjoy an evening of your company?” Thornsby asked.
“I find you charming as well. And handsome,” Millicent purred. She reached to his jacket and picked a piece of lint from his shoulder. “I see that you still retain that dreadful valet. Why don’t you fire him? He never ties your cravat in one of the more current fashions.”
Thornsby laughed. “Because I told him I would fire him if he did.”
Millicent tittered. “How provincial you are, Thornsby. A throw back, I swear to simpler ways. A good woman could change all of that.”
Thornsby took her arm and led her to his carriage. This was typical of Millicent. She would never be happy till he was well ensconced in wigs, powder and jeweled waistcoats. Sadly, he thought, he would never make Millicent Marsh happy. Sadder yet, he didn’t care. Ever since sending the note to Millicent he’d been out of sorts. Snapping at Withrow and Crumbsby and Jonah and Alice. At anyone in shouting distance. It was as if his slow walk to the gallows began when he handed Withrow that damnable note.
The ball proved for him to be more of the same. Millicent gossiped with every dandy that came her way. She had few female friends but Thornsby was hardly surprised. The last time Millicent had found a friend among the women of the ton, she’d bedded the woman’s husband in the room next to where his wife slept. Thornsby would insist she stay faithful until she produced his sons and then, well, he didn’t really care what she did. If nothing else he could forgo all the courting nonsense he’d been dreading. Millicent and he both were far beyond such games.
“And you’re sure you don’t care to come in, Thornsby?” Millicent said in the hallway of her home, near four in the morning.
“Not this evening. But I would be pleased if you would join me at Winterbourne for luncheon tomorrow. I have something of the utmost importance to speak to you about,” Thornsby said as his stomach rolled.
Millicent smiled up at him. “Of course,” she said breathlessly.
Her lips were inches from his. Her breasts flattened on his chest. She was gorgeous. Thornsby leaned down to kiss her. Her lips were soft and she mewed. He felt nothing. Millicent reached around his neck and pulled his head closer. Thornsby had a feeling he was an actor in a play. That this was all rehearsed. Thornsby pulled Millicent’s arms from around his neck.
“Tomorrow, then my dear,” he said softly.
Millicent’s eyes flared for an instant in surprise or anger, he was not sure. She schooled her features quickly.
“I can hardly wait,” she said.
* * *
Matilda had been thinking far too much about the kiss she and Thornsby shared. It was interfering with everything. Even now, in the kitchen of the orphanage, she hadn’t a clue what Mrs. Brewer was saying.
“. . . then we’ll have to get the beds changed and, well, you know, how many things there are left to do,” Mrs. Brewer was saying.
“Pardon,” Matilda said.
“Miss Sheldon! You were the one come in here a moment ago all atwitter that the minister wants us to take these children today.”
“Oh, yes,” Matilda said just remembering the mess she’d gotten herself into. “I can’t believe it. He just left them. We’re not ready.”
“Just what I was saying, Miss,” Mrs. Brewer said as she stirred in a pot on the stove.
Matilda walked back into the room where she’d left the children. Bill and Davey were certainly the dirtiest things she’d ever seen in her life. And not just today’s dirt. Their clothes and bodies were caked with last month’s grime. Greasy, stringy hair as well. The taller of the two, Bill, had said he was nine-years-old. He thought. Davey wasn’t sure, but thought he might be seven. Both were thin to the point of emaciation.
“Gentlemen, it’s time to clean up,” Matilda said. They both straightened swiftly, stuffing their pockets and mouths with the cold sandwiches she’d put out for the minister.
Reverend Bywell had told her he found them sleeping in the alley after he’d been preaching on a street corner. He had no real home of his own to offer the boys, but someone had told him a new orphanage was opening in this section of town. Matilda could hardly refuse when she opened the door and saw the three of them standing there.
Matilda marched the boys to a bathing room recently installed in the house. She handed Mr. Small some towels and clean clothes.
“Never said I was going to be bathing boys of this ilk, Miss,” Jem Small said.
“You would deny those two boys clean clothes and a hot meal?” Matilda asked.
Mr. Small glared at her and opened the door to the bathing room. He slammed it shut.
Matilda smiled. Jem Small, for all his gruff ways, was softhearted. He didn’t allow her or Mrs. Brewer to lift a thing weighing more than three pounds. He was a retired groomsman from a great estate and had come to London to live with his daughter. His grandchildren’s rambunctious nature prompted him to look for work to fill in the days.
Matilda set off to the bedroom that Bill and Davy would sleep in. She added quilts to the bed and straightened the rug. Matilda ran a hand over the pillow. What would it be like to fuss and care for children of her own? On her present course she would never know. She’d heard her mother fretting to her father about just that subject. With the opening of the orphanage and Thornsby’s stolen kiss, gossip about Matilda was raging. She didn’t care . . . really, but Matilda understood that when she thumbed her nose at conventional wisdom she’d cut it off as well. She was lonely. There. She’d admitted it.
Matilda Sheldon was lonely. Was the result of peering down her nose at most of those around her. She had her sisters and brothers, her mothe
r and father, but well, sensible talk with anyone in her family, save Ethel, was difficult. Matilda had never even tried to make friends with other young woman her age. She just never felt like she had anything to say to them. In truth, her sixty-eight-year-old grandmother was her closest companion. How woefully sad.
Matilda hadn’t minded talking or rather arguing with Thornsby. At least she felt compelled to respond or question him. And she was curious about him. He didn’t appear to her to be as dangerous as the gossip surrounding him. Quite the opposite in fact. When he affected his dark looks meant to frighten, it was sometimes all Matilda could do not to laugh. Unless of course he was goading or insulting her, and then she got so angry she saw stars. His kiss was heavenly, of course. And for that brief flash in time, she hadn’t felt alone at all.
* * *
Jonah had succeeded in smearing his shirt with every breakfast item on the buffet. Mrs. Plumsbly had him by the arm and was dragging him upstairs to change. Alice was tallying up a line of numbers while seated at his desk. Thornsby watched over her shoulder. She was really very good at mathematics even with her limited or rather non- existent education. He heard Withrow admit Millicent Marsh.
Thornsby had told Jonah and Alice that morning as they ate their breakfast with him that his bride-to-be would be arriving for lunch. As usual, Mrs. Plumsbly railed at him allowing the children to dine at the table every morning and evening. She had rattled on about setting them up for disappointment since they’d certainly be going into service in the future. Thornsby knew she was right. But he also hated the thought of eating alone. In any case, Jonah had listened starry-eyed to Thornsby’s description of Millicent Marsh. Alice, however, seemed content to reserve judgment.
“Millicent, so glad you could come,” Thornsby said as he bowed low over her hand. She was dressed fashionably, of course, in a navy velvet morning dress complete with a wide brimmed tilted hat.
“Thornsby. How could I refuse such an invitation? I’ve been half mad trying to decipher what it would be that you would want to talk about.” Millicent tilted her cheek for a kiss.