After they had been sent down from finishing school, they had considered, for a time, trying to go along with what was expected of them. But Margo could never manage it. She was forever blurting out something shocking or hurling herself into some new, delicious scrape. And while Matilda could have done it—could have played the demure debutante—it would have felt like a lie. They had half-chosen, half-fallen into their scandalous reputations, and Matilda could not say now what she could have done differently.
She would never have let her twin go it alone.
“Do you enjoy this?” asked Ashford. His face was still forbidding.
“Enjoy what?”
“Doing just as you please. Tossing expectation to the ground and running over it in your phaeton.”
“Sometimes.” She glanced down at her gloved fingers. “When I feel it is worthwhile.” She made herself look back up at him and tilted up her chin. “I like our phaeton. I have a particular fondness for fast driving.”
He made a sound somewhere between a groan and a sigh. “Of course you do.”
It was decided that they would act the part of a married couple.
She had suggested it, of course. She had not really expected him to go along with the idea—despite how very reasonable it was!—but to her surprise, he’d merely looked around the post-chaise as though for some escape route. Finding none, he had agreed with only a half-hearted protest.
That had surprised her.
It had surprised her even more when he had tucked her cloak around her shoulders when they stopped for the night, bundled her into the inn, and placed one hand on her back, warm and solid, as he addressed the innkeeper.
“Adjoining rooms,” he’d said in that growly voice that she liked so much. “If you have them. If nothing adjoining, I shall share with my wife.”
Matilda’s mind echoed back the words in a kind of half-aroused, half-alarmed daze.
I shall share with my wife.
Good Lord. Surely he did not mean that the way it sounded.
Did he?
No, he could not.Shewas the one who found all of his scowls and brooding erotic. He was no doubt experiencing a dozen variations on annoyance and headache.
But then he said it again. A few minutes later—after adjoining rooms were made available, to Matilda’s mingled relief and disappointment—he directed the porter to carryhis wife’sbaggage up to their rooms.
Then again over dinner: “A glass of wine for my wife.”
Matilda felt something go loose inside her as she looked at him, his elegant mouth pronouncing the words.
She was sick! Demented! Why did she like it so much? He did not even mean it. It was not real. He hadkissedhersister.
Despite these protestations, she found herself picking at the crust of her game pie and wondering if she should call him husband.
Would he enjoy that?
No. No. She did not care what he enjoyed. She flatly refused to think about it.
“Do you not like it?” Ashford demanded.
She looked up from her pastry. “I’m sorry?” Briefly, hysterically, she wondered if he could read her mind.
Obviously not. Because she had liked it much too much.
“The food.” He gestured sharply at her plate. “You have not taken a single bite. You are going to be drunk as a lord if you do not eat.”
“Oh.” She turned over the pastry crust and speared it with her fork. “No, I’m sure it’s delicious.” She made herself take a bite, adding a little appreciative moan for his benefit.
He scowled. “You cannot survive on crumbs.”
