“He let you bring Angelica Kauffman,” Bea said.
“I simply did not permit him to object.”
Bea laughed. “And dinner—we did not dine that way before you came.”
Matilda waited until her face had cooled a bit before turning over to face Bea. “What do you mean? How did the two of you dine before?”
Bea was looking out the small window, the long line of her neck tilted away. “Formally. Six or eight courses. We dressed—well, I was supposed to dress for dinner. Mrs. Perkins tried her best with me.”
Matilda pushed herself upright. “You did not dineen famillebefore I came?”
Bea turned back. “No. Mrs. Perkins said he sent a note ahead requesting the change.”
Matilda thought about all the dinners they’d had together since she and Christian had arrived together—everything served at once, rather than the formal removes more common at the tables of the aristocracy. Almond and cream soup and vegetable galettes. The bowls of fruit, the platters ofcrudités. She’d managed to count twelve different varieties of cheese before she’d lost track.
No courses for her to push around on her plate or uncomfortably decline—only platters and bowls and tureens from which she might serve herself.
No questions about what she was eating and why. No game pies served in thick wedges or beef gravy poured atop her potatoes.
Christian had done that. For her. And he had not said a word.
“Bea,” she said, her voice a trifle unsteady, “do you like this bedroom?”
Bea turned back from the window and blinked. “Do I like the bedroom?”
“The draperies. The wall-coverings.” She looked down at the counterpane, which was embroidered with a pattern of pea-green feathers that could best be described as phallic. “The way it is, er, gotten-up.”
A flush worked its way up Bea’s pale throat. “I would not say that I like it, precisely.”
Matilda swung her legs down off the bed, walked over to the window, and gave the green velvet curtains a decided yank.
Nothing happened. They were attached rather powerfully to the window frame. She thought perhaps they were nailed down.
“Matilda,” squeaked Bea, “what are you doing?”
“I am helping.”
“I—I—” Bea blinked rapidly at her. “You can’t simply take down the draperies.”
“Can’t I?” She gave the curtains another tug, and when they remained indifferent to her efforts, groaned under her breath and pushed a heavy chair in the direction of the window. She could climb up and unfasten them from the top.
“You cannot! Christian will—”
Matilda turned the full force of her gaze on Bea, who paused mid-sentence.
“Christian,” she said deliberately, “would want you to be happy.”
And they did not know it, these great fools. They did not know how to show their love, and they did not know how to be cared for. She pulled at the curtain in the window frame, digging her fingernails into the wood.
She could let the light in. She could open a window between them.
Yes,she thought as the drapery came away in her hands. She could offer them that.
Christian pushed open the door to the library, then paused, blinked, and turned back behind him.
Yes, that was the right door. He was not lost in his own home.
But nothing in front of him made sense.
