Charming the Duke (11 page)

“At Winterbourne.”

“I hear that your sister has married the Mr. Smithly that accompanied you to Maplewood. I did not realize they were affianced,” Matilda said.

“They were not. It appears Athena fell prey to a whirl-wind romance,” Thornsby replied.

“You do not approve of Mr. Smithly? I had thought you were friends.”

“We are.”

“Good evening, Matilda.”

Matilda turned. William Berfine, Viscount Altry was smiling at her. He was a friend of Franklin’s and long considered an admirable catch. Thornsby and he bowed curtly to each other.

“Good evening, William. And you two know each other, I see,” Matilda said.

“You look absolutely beautiful, Matilda. A diamond amongst lesser jewels. May I have his dance?” Berfine asked.

While always polite, Berfine had rarely bothered with her on his many visits to Maplewood. “My sisters are right over there, William.”

Berfine smiled and stepped closer to Matilda, taking her hand in his. “While your sisters are lovely, I’d prefer to dance with the prettiest woman in the room.”

“Miss Sheldon and I are busy, and her dance card is filled, Altry,” Thornsby said.

Matilda snorted. “I am not so busy to be unable to make my own decisions. Odd though, William, you’ve never asked me to dance before.”

Altry sobered. “Obviously a great misdeed on my part. I hope to make amends.”

“Very well, William.” The Berfines were as wealthy as her family if not more. Perhaps she could wheedle out a donation for the orphanage, Matilda thought.

Berfine swung her through a hearty country dance and Matilda was determined to enjoy herself. He had been at Maplewood on many occasions as a friend and classmate of Fitz’s, and she knew that Alexandra had long hid her partiality to the Viscount. Matilda had been unable to broach the subject of a donation during the dance and was hoping to do so as the music ended but was stopped short of her goal. Thornsby grabbed Matilda’s hand off of William’s arm as he escorted her from the dance floor, and half dragged, half carried her to a set of double doors.

“Thornsby!” Matilda hissed. People from one end of the room to the other were staring. Oddly, the glimpse Matilda caught of her mother revealed a smile.

“What is wrong with you, Thornsby?” Matilda asked when he finally released her after pulling her into the first deserted room they came to.

“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

"M
other, 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.”

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.