He regretted the dry words as soon as they popped from his lips—truly, Matilda Halifax made him lose all sense—but she stopped in her tracks and fixed her blue stare back on him.
And then the corner of her mouth curved up. “Do not make me laugh,” she said. “I am too busy with outrage.”
God, it was ludicrous how much he liked to make her smile.
“Do you think they followed us here?” she demanded, whirling back away from him to resume her pacing.
“It seems a peculiar coincidence otherwise. Though they did not appear to be searching with a great deal of diligence.”
She slapped a hand over her mouth, but a strangled sound of amusement seemed to emerge anyway. “I don’t know why I feel somewhat offended by that.”
He took heart. She was not too distressed. She could not be. “Did you, er, recognize the fellow?”
She gave her head a little disbelieving shake. “Oh yes. I shall never be able to look at him over the dinner table again either. That’s Spencer’s best friend, Henry. He’s adored Margo for years—forever, really—but she’s never appeared to notice him.”
“I suspect she’s noticed him now. A pity for him if she has not.”
“Stopit,” she said, her voice breaking on a laugh. “Wherever did all of these jokes come from? You are disarming my righteous fury.”
He could not say. He had not ever—even before he had become the most notorious blackguard in England—been regarded as a dab hand with quips.
It was only that she seemed less agitated when he teased her, and he did not like for her to be upset.
She came a little closer and took his hand. “I need to talk with Margo,” she said. “I will need to convince her that all is well between us and send her and Henry back to London. I would like privacy though. Will you wait here for me?”
He looked down at her fingers linked with his. “Of course.”
It had been easy enough to promise when she went away from him. She had been upset, yes, but her distress was threaded through with amusement. He had done that, he thought with some satisfaction. He had made what she carried less heavy.
But when she returned to the stand of trees off the path where he waited for her, the warmth on her face had fled. She did not come up to him or take his hand.
Which—well. He did not want her to, of course. He wanted to keep his distance from her. Except her face had changed while she was gone. Her skin looked marble-cold, her lips pale, and he could not quite recall why he was not supposed to warm her.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“They’re fine. They’re well. They will not follow us.”
Christian wondered if she’d misunderstood his question on purpose. “And you?”
“Oh,” she said, and laughed, a short, uneven sound. “Yes, of course, I—” She broke off. Her gaze was on the ground, and then it was on his face, searching. She bit her lower lip.
He should not move closer to her. He should not put his hands on her shoulders.
Only—why should he not? He meant only to keep her warm.
He touched the outside of her cloak with his knuckles, a whisper of connection.
“It was harder,” she said abruptly, “to lie to her face. Than it was to lie in the note I left.” She looked up. He was closer to her now, and she had to tip her head back to look him in the eye. “I tried to remind myself why I was doing it—for your sister, to right what I had set wrong—but it did not feel right at all. I—” She swallowed, and he thought her voice might have broken if she had continued on.
“Matilda,” he said, “you don’t have to talk about it if you do not wish to.” He turned his hand so that his palm cupped her shoulder, and he felt her lean against it, the barest hint of pressure into his hand. He would have liked to take her weight. He would have liked to ease her.
She shook her head. “I told her all manner of truths mixed with lies—that we were to be married, that I loved you, that I did not want to be a Halifax Hellion any longer. I told her to pay attention to the bloody idiot at her side who has pined for her for years. And I am such a hypocrite!”
He had not expected that. He pressed his palm against the soft, yielding flesh of her shoulder, then slid his hand to the back of her neck. He wanted to bring her into his body, but he could not. “How do you mean?”
“I was angry with her.” Matilda’s voice rasped. “She did not listen to me. I told her not to follow. I told her I knew my own mind. I—I told her she did not trust me. But I have been lying to her for years. I wanted to protect her—Margo—she is so sensitive! She blames herself—she takes things so painfully to heart, I—” Her lashes were wet and dark.
He made a soothing noise, the kind he would have used on Bea when she was a child. “It’s all right. It’s all right to be angry.”
