Excitement rushed in, flushing away the confused fog that had been plaguing her. “We are venturing to London?”
“I took the liberty of sending some servants ahead to open the townhouse,” he replied. “We’ll be leaving tomorrow as it’s quite the journey, and it might be nice for you to have a couple of days in the Capital before the ball. I’ll be attending meetings with associates, but I’ll be more present.”
Good, because I have missed your company… just a little bit,she wanted to say, but a week of being left alone held the words back. Until he explained what on earth had happened at the beach, he did not deserve to know that he had been missed.
Still, the journey to London would surely give them ample time to discuss it. He would not be able to escape her in a box on wheels with hours and hours of privacy ahead of them.
* * *
Matilda had woefully underestimated her husband’s ability to avoid her. On the journey to London, he had ridden alongside the carriage on his horse, and when they had arrived at the beautiful Mayfair townhouse, he had immediately gone out to speak with new associates.
For two days, they were ships passing in the night, and though the desire to confront him had not ebbed, she did not have the heart to interrogate him when hedidreturn, looking so weary that it kept her silent. Instead, she threw herself into her book, the words pouring out of her at an unprecedented pace, and she let her excitement for the ball build with each scratch of her quill.
“Goodness, this is…” Albion did not know where to look, his eyes flitting left and right, widening with each new spectacle he absorbed. “Is she secretly royalty? Whopaysfor this?”
Matilda chuckled, the promise of seeing her friends putting her in a lively mood. “I suppose you have never been to one of the Countess’ balls. They are always the most lavish. As for how she pays for it—no one knows though it is believed that the Crown itself offers most of the coin. My friends and I have our theories.”
“Theories?”
Matilda nodded, humoring him. “Phoebesuspects that she was a spy for the Royal Court, and as such, they are indebted to her. Anna thinks that a prince from the Continent is in love with her and sends her as much coin as her heart desires in an attempt to win her favor. Leah believes that the old Earl was disgustingly rich, and the Countess has taken it upon herself to spend it all in revenge. Olivia thinks that the Countess collects all the gifts and coin that besotted suitors send to her and uses them for these parties.”
“And what do you believe?” He glanced down at her.
“I think she is wickedly intelligent and has amassed a fortune through her own acumen and talent, using a different name—a male one, of course—to engage in business with the gentlemen of this country and, very likely, other countries,” Matilda replied.
The ghost of a smile played upon his lips. “Is that what you would’ve done?”
“Certainly.” She smiled back, but it faded quickly. “Why have you been avoiding me, Albion?”
His eyebrows shot up. “Avoiding you? I haven’t been.”
“Brutal honesty, Albion,” she urged.
He hesitated, drawing her arm through his. “I truly wasn’t avoiding you. Not in the way you might be thinking.” He covered her hand with his. “I was… putting myself back at a polite distance. I suspected that’s what you’d want.”
“Why would you make an assumption like that without asking me first?” The feeling of his hand on hers took her back to the sparkling waters of the cove and his tight embrace.
He frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“I never intimated that I wanted you to stay away,” she told him. “But I could not break your rule not to disturb you while you are working, so I could not say anything. I have been hideously bored this past week, Albion. I wanted your companionship, but you made a decision without consulting me. You should not do that.”
His throat bobbed. “But you should resent me for what happened.”
“Should I?”
His eyes clouded over. “You don’t?”
“It was… unexpected, but it is no reason to ignore and avoid one another,” she said, forcing down any romantic ideals. She was not Anna, after all. “I am choosing to think of it—and I have had a long and solitary week to think because of you—as a peculiar reaction to relief. I was relieved not to have drowned and to be rescued by you. You were relieved that I did not drown and could forgive you for letting go of me.”
He nodded slowly, a half-smile forming on his lips. “I really wouldn’t have forgiven myself if you’d drowned nor would your friends or society—they’d think I did it on purpose.”
“They would hunt you down most viciously,” she confirmed.
As they stood together on the periphery of the grand ball that sprawled across the extensive gardens of Kensington Palace, Matilda stole a sideways glance at his face. His eyes shone with a boyish wonder that disarmed her, his lips fashioned into a genuine smile of admiration, all of his hard edges softened by the torchlight that was the ball’s only illumination.
Does he really believe it was just a reaction to relief, or is he choosing an easier explanation?She could not ignore the pang of disappointment that flinched inside her chest though she did not understand the cause. She did not love her husband, she had not wanted this marriage, and she certainly did not desiremorefrom the union, so what was there to be disappointed about?
She settled on an explanation of pride. That had been her first kiss, and it had been wonderful. As such, it was only natural that she wanted it to mean more than it did, that it meantsomethingat least. But really, it was just the strange, physical act of two people pressing their lips together in a manner that, for reasons unknown, the body and mind relished.
