“I beg your pardon.”
“This is our first proper meeting,” Matilda explained, her voice confident. “Yet, it would appear that you have already fashioned an opinion of me. Not a favorable one, either. It was my understanding that you were encouraging of this marriage, but you could not be less encouraging at present—and it is rather too late, if I might add. So, I would like to know what has changed? What is it about me that has kept you from this manor for days? Indeed, while we are speaking of that, I thought you were not returning until tomorrow.”
Constance snorted like a bull about to charge. “I may come and go as I please in my own home, girl. As for what I think of you—I did not know you when it was arranged for you to marry my son. If I had known what sort of lady you were, I would have forbidden the match.”
“That is all well and good, Madam, but you still donotknow me. You have not attempted to. As such, you have not answered my question. What changed your opinion?” Matilda mustered a smile which only seemed to annoy Constance more.
“You embarrassed him,” the older woman hissed. “You embarrassed us. This family.”
“When?”
“At your engagement party,” Constance replied, her cheeks streaked with angry red. “You left him alone on the dance floor. You walked away. Do you know what message that sends to everyone watching? My friends would not even attend your wedding because of it. This family has endured enough without taking on-board a wretch who would sink us and happily.”
Matilda blinked, feeling a slight twinge of guilt in her chest. She had regretted walking away from Albion from the moment it happened, for she had allowed her emotions to get the better of her—something she rarely permitted. It had all been too much, and when he had told her not to become a problem, she had lost her sensibilities for a brief while.
Still, if he had forgiven her, why could his mother not? She said as much to Constance, who took a large gulp of her wine.
“Let us not pretend that this is something either of you wanted,” the older woman said. “I know of you and your vile little Spinsters’ Club. You and your ilk are a threat to common decency. And while I cannot undo what has been done, Icanandwillinsist upon obedience and manners in my house.”
Matilda sniffed. “Then, you had better begin with your own.”
“Excuse me?” Constance roared, eyes blazing.
Matilda met her livid gaze. “I am a stranger and a guest, I suppose, in this house. It is bad manners not to show due courtesy. While I have been here, I have been no trouble; I have given no one any cause for concern, nor have I been disobedient or ill-mannered. Your judgment of me is unjustified and unkind, and I reject it.”
She heard the irony in those last words, but as she still had not fashioned a full opinion of Albion, she ignored it. Besides, she might have been rude to Albion but notthisrude.
“I rejectyou!” Constance leaped to her feet. “If it would not bring us greater shame, I would demand an annulment immediately! He should never have married you. I should not have permitted it, the very moment you walked away from him at that party! Goodness, and to think that youmighthave been wed to my sweet Isaac.Thereis a small mercy. It would have killed me if it had been him in place of my other son.”
Matilda’s heart hardened, her eyes narrowing. “Your ‘other’ son? That is a strange turn of phrase, do you not think? Did you forget his name for a moment?” She paused. “I am starting to understand why your ‘other’ son feels more comfortable in a tent on a battlefield on the Continent than in this manor with you.”
“How dare you,” Constance seethed, balling her hands into fists. “How dare you!”
“How dare I point out some unpleasant truths?” Matilda tossed back, suddenly furious on Albion’s behalf.
Constance huffed and puffed, her face turning purple. “I ought to throw you out into the dirt where you belong. You are not welcome here. You will never be welcome here, and I?—”
“Enough,” a growl rumbled from the doorway to the dining room where a figure had entered without either woman hearing.
The candlelight cast his shadow high onto the wall and up to the ceiling where it stretched and loomed over the dinner that had not yet begun. Matilda gasped in fleeting fright, for he cut a very intimidating figure—more intimidating than she had ever seen him, as if he were made from darkness itself, his eyes coal black jewels, glinting with menace.
In that moment, she could well understand why the British militia were sad to be without him. Any enemy would tremble beforethat.
“What is the meaning of this?” he asked, his voice so icy that it frosted up Matilda’s spine. “This isn’t what I would call civilized.”
Constance jumped in first. “She insulted me. She insulted our family. She came to this table with dirty hands and had the audacity to ask whyIwas present in my own home! She is an unseemly beast and must be turned from this house at once. I will not stay ifthatremains here.”
“Is that true?” Albion turned his darkly glistening gaze upon Matilda.
Matilda, fighting foolish tears at the accusation, raised her chin up and met his otherworldly eyes. “If you believe that, then you are as bad as her. I will not sit here or stand here or stay here and be insulted by those who do not know me.” Her voice caught in her throat, and she hated the sound. “But, of course, you would heed her before me.”
She scraped back her chair as violently as possible and stalked to the door, wishing there was another way out of the room. But she would not allow Albion—or his mother—to see her cry. She would have dunked her head in the watercress soup before she let that happen.
As she was about to pass the brute in the doorway, his hand snapped out, catching her by the wrist. She froze, glowering up at him, but he was concentrating on her fingers, his brow furrowing.
“Ink,” she said tersely. “It is just ink. I could not scrub it away.”
He held onto her hand for a moment longer, covering it with his other hand. The action bewildered her, dampening and adding fuel to the raging fire in her all at once. His fingertips lightly stroked the top of her hand, tingling the bare skin there, for she had not bothered to put her gloves back on after all.
