Suzanne Robinson (26 page)

“We should have caught the blackmailer before he drove poor Sir William to his death. What did he have to hide?”

The question penetrated the lemon-scented fog into which he’d descended. “He had a taste for photographs of a particularly scandalous sort.”

“What do you mean?” She turned to look at him, her reserve forgotten.

“He liked to photograph ladies—women.”

“That’s hardly scandalous.”

“It is when they haven’t any clothes on.”

Her eyes widened. “Land sakes.”

“Indeed.”

“Why would he want to do that?”

Cheyne was growing more and more uncomfortable. He wouldn’t have mentioned the photographs at all, but he’d learned how difficult it was to keep Mattie in the dark.

Mattie seemed to be thinking hard. “If he wanted to see women without their clothes, there are plenty who would oblige.”

“Mattie!”

She glanced at him and rolled her eyes. “You’re
scandalized that I know such things. Lots of women do, you know. We’re not all sheltered princesses protected from every bit of unpleasantness.”

“Mattie, I don’t want to talk about photographs or Sir William. I want to talk about what happened between us.”

She gave a great sigh, squared her shoulders, and nodded. Cheyne smiled, thinking she expected him to try to wiggle out of any commitment. He took her hand and kissed it.

“Last night you made the sun shine at midnight.”

She looked down at her shoes as she slipped her hand out of his. “You were powerful amazing yourself.”

“Now, Mattie, it’s a little late to be shy.” He took her hand back. “Look at me, my sweet. God, what startling eyes you have.”

“Cheyne, I—”

“Will you marry me, Mattie?”

“No.”

He didn’t recognize the word at first, so unexpected was the refusal.

“No?” All at once he felt a jolt of fear. Had she discovered the truth of his birth? She was kind and loving, but that didn’t mean she’d want to marry a bastard. He swallowed hard. “Why not?”

Mattie tugged her hand from his grasp and burst into speech. “I can’t marry you just because we got carried away. It wouldn’t be right. I know you’re trying to do the honorable thing, but …” She turned
her back for a moment, then faced him. He could see damp places on her cheeks where she’d wiped tears. “You don’t have to do it,” she said in a shaking voice.

“I don’t have to,” he repeated, stunned. She didn’t know the truth after all.

Mattie picked up the topmost of a stack of wooden bowls and set it on the table. He should tell her about his real father right now. While he was trying to find the words with which to explain, he watched her hands. They were unsteady and she almost knocked the bowls to the floor.

“I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t try to live up to the same standards I apply to other folks,” she said in an unsteady voice. “You didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do. I won’t force you to do something you don’t want to do.”

He couldn’t bear to see her so miserable. “Hell.”

“Don’t you cuss at me, Cheyne Tennant.”

His own fears forgotten, Cheyne grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her close. “Do you really think I’d allow you to force me into anything?”

“Your honor would require an offer. Danged English pride.”

He laughed and kissed the tip of her nose. “Yes, but I also happen to be so in love with you I walk into walls and fall over furniture.”

Her face was close to his, so he saw enlightenment burst over her. The tulip lips formed an O, and her lashes fluttered, but it was his turn to frown and step back.

“Have I made a mistake?” he asked. “I thought you returned my regard, but perhaps I’ve been presumptuous. I never thought—Mattie, I assumed you’d never have allowed me to …” A chasm opened before him, and he couldn’t go on.

As he stood there in fearful misery, Mattie came to him, placed her fingertips on his cheek and whispered, “No mistake.”

He closed his eyes in relief. He kissed the palm of the hand that touched him. Then he strode to the door, pulled it closed and slipped a bar across it. He did the same to another door and came back to Mattie.

“This time I’m not taking any chances on being interrupted.”

They took greater care this time, each wanting to savor the experience. Cheyne had intended to go slowly, but Mattie would have none of it, and her wishes ruled. They ended up on the plank table and sent the wooden bowls clattering to the floor.

Later when they began to dress, it was dark. Cheyne hunted around until he found a lantern and lit it. He watched Mattie button her blouse and stuff it in the waistband of her skirt. He knew he was smiling like a fool, but he didn’t care. She picked up her belt and buckled it in place. Her fingers fidgeted with it.

“Cheyne, we can’t get married. I’m supposed to be hunting for a titled husband and in love with Michel.”

“We’ll wait to announce our engagement until after we’ve caught the blackmailer.”

She looked up, her face alight with pleasure. “You mean you still want to marry me?”

“Damn it, Mattie, your distrust of my intentions is becoming insulting.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that there was this fella who asked me to marry him once and then took it back.” She scowled at the bowls scattered on the floor. “His name was Samuel.”

Cheyne lifted Mattie, sat her on the table and kissed her. “Samuel was a pillock, as Mutton would say. I’m going to find this hell-cursed blackmailer and then I’m going to marry you.”

“Oh, I meant to talk to you about that.”

“What?”

“Now that Sir William’s death has called attention to this little gathering, the blackmailer isn’t going to risk revealing himself here. I think we should go back to London for the little Season. He’s lost one of his victims and might be in need of some quick money. I bet I get another demand if I go back to Spencer House.”

This time he wasn’t going to allow her to risk herself. “I don’t think you should go back. It’s too dangerous, especially with your habit of turning up in the wrong places. I’ll go to London and you stay here.”

“That’s silly, and it will look suspicious if I stay here.”

“All right, go to that place your mother rented. As long as you stay away from London.”

Mattie jumped off the table. “I’m coming with you.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Now, you see here. Just because I said I’d marry you doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do.”

“It certainly does.”

They confronted each other. Mattie folded her arms over her chest, glaring at him. Cheyne lifted his chin and stared down at her.

“I’m going to be your husband.”

“Right.”

He relaxed. “I’m glad you understand.”

“And I’m going to London.”

“Matilda Bright, you’re not going anywhere if I have to lock you in this kitchen to make you stay.”

“You will not.”

She knew him too well, but his lip curled as an idea occurred to him. “Promise you’ll keep away, or I’ll tell your mother what you intend, and she’ll stop you.”

“You won’t do that.”

He walked to her and stuck his face close to hers. “I will, with pleasure.”

“Danged ornery skunk. Uppity highfalutin polecat. I have a mind to …”

“What were you going to say?”

“Nothin’.”

Cheyne lifted the bars off the doors. Shoving his way outside, he waited for Mattie to stomp after him. She sailed past him into the passageway. He caught up with her and matched her stride.

“I can see we’re going to have to have a serious discussion about marriage,” he said.

“We certainly are,” she snapped.

“About who’s the master.”

“Yes,” she said.

“And obedience.”

“Anything else?”

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

She rounded on him. “You do that. And while you’re at it, you think about this. Not that long ago we fought a civil war in my country over freeing slaves. I’m not about to become one myself.”

With that she marched down the Fish Court and out of sight.

 
19
 

In the end Mattie won the argument about returning to London because there was no quick way to smoke out the blackmailer without her presence. She hadn’t looked forward to a battle with Cheyne over who would be boss in their marriage, but the journey to London postponed the confrontation. In a few weeks Mattie had reestablished her social routine at Spencer House.

She passed Christmas in a state of agitation and wonder—agitation because no word had come from the blackmailer, and wonder that she could love a man as autocratic and stubborn as Cheyne Tennant. Just when she thought she’d scream from the suspense, another demand arrived that set a date for delivery of a payment for New Year’s Eve day. Once the suspense over the blackmail demand had lifted, Mattie had more time in which to stew over her personal predicament.

She didn’t understand quite how it had happened, falling in love with someone she’d once considered a mangy varmint. But there it was, an unchangeable fact. That encounter in the Tudor kitchens had been a revelation. She’d prepared herself to be noble, to set him free so that he didn’t have to sacrifice himself for a moment’s weakness. How was she to have known he didn’t consider marrying her a sacrifice? He’d made love to many women without marrying them.

It had taken a while for her to believe what he said. After all, Samuel had been eloquent. Then he’d spoken of her letters. It had been after they’d made love, and Cheyne had spent a few minutes staring at her with a rather dazed expression.

“It’s my own fault,” he said at last.

“What’s your fault.”

“My falling in love with you. If I hadn’t asked you to help me catch the blackmailer, I’d have never read those exquisite letters of yours.”

Mattie put her hand on his arm and whispered, “You too?”

They exchanged bemused looks.

“Your letters revealed such beauty of spirit,” Cheyne said, “such a loving soul.”

Blushing, Mattie lowered her gaze. “I fell in love with your letters too.”

He lifted her chin with his fingertips and she met his eyes. “All those beautiful words had to come from a man with a soul to match. But I figured you’d loved someone else and put all those feelings in the letters. For someone else, not me.”

Cheyne took her hand and kissed it. From another man the gesture might have been awkward, but he accomplished it as if grace were woven into his soul, which it was.

“Those feelings were for you, my midnight sun, and no one else.”

Sometimes the dreams you never knew you had came true. Mattie sighed as she remembered their time together in those ancient kitchens. She’d never expected to crave making love to Cheyne so much that not seeing him caused her physical pain. She ached without his presence, yet they had to remain apart in London and carry on as usual.

So now she sat in the Palm Room in Spencer House thinking about the new demand from the blackmailer while her friends and suspects in the blackmail case talked around her. She’d already shown the note to Cheyne. Mattie was instructed to leave another installment of money in Westminster Abbey at three o’clock in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve day. That was tomorrow. She was to prepare a parcel as before and leave it on Chaucer’s tomb in Poet’s Corner in the south transept.

As she was thinking, the butler announced Cheyne, who came in, bowed to her mother and joined Mattie, the Countess of Ixworth, and Lancelot Gordon. Mattie poured tea for him while Lance regaled them with a story about his latest true love.

“She is perfection,” Lance said. “And she sings.”

Cheyne took the cup and saucer from Mattie, gave
her a look that would have melted the china, and spoke to his friend. “She sings? I fear to ask where.”

“She sings in a music hall.”

“Oh, dear,” said the countess with a dismayed glance at Mattie.

“Lance,” Cheyne said with an indulgent look, “you can’t be serious.”

“Of course I can. She does bird imitations, too. You should hear her do a robin. You won’t be able to tell the difference from a real one.”

“Does she do other imitations?” Mattie asked.

“Dogs and cats,” Lance said.

Mattie sighed. “Sir William would have liked that.”

“He was always ready for a good piece of entertainment,” Lance said. “And my sweet Hattie is a jolly sort.”

“I suppose we’ll always wonder why the poor man became so desperate that he killed himself,” said the countess.

“Yes,” Cheyne said with a glance at Mattie.

She forestalled more speculation. “Ah, here’s Dr. Capgrave.”

Elland Capgrave joined them, taking a seat next to Mattie. “Is everyone looking forward to the Rutherfords’ New Year’s ball? I’m going as Richard Lionheart.”

“I’m tired of dressing up,” Lance said. “I shall go as myself.”

“Certainly better than having to wear a stomacher and farthingale,” the countess said.

“I hate panniers,” Mattie said as she poured
herself another cup of tea. “Last year I went to a costume ball as Marie Antoinette and nearly set myself on fire because my gown stuck out so far it touched the flames in the fireplace.”

Capgrave eyed a finger sandwich and said thoughtfully, “I think it would be most amusing to dress as a woman. Queen Anne, perhaps, or a nun.”