Page 19 of Enticing Odds (The Sedleys #5)

He’d last left Henry with a promise to accompany him to the museum. The lad had brightened at that, then thoroughly routed him at piquet. Matthew was incredibly proud. But what would happen when the school term began and their lessons ended? Would he still see Lady Caplin? Would she seek him out?

Would he still be permitted to use her spectacular library?

Matthew sighed and looked up from the small book in his hand. He studied the late-afternoon light filtering in through the high windows, watching motes of dust float about.

Henry was a fine lad, and Matthew couldn’t help but worry for him as well. How would he get on at Eton? He’d promised to write, but that wasn’t the same thing as companionship. Matthew had been lonely at school. Hell, he’d been alone his whole damn life.

The thought recalled Aunt Albertine, and he felt a pang of guilt. He hadn’t visited her since Harriet’s wedding that spring. And as for Harriet, well, it seemed weeks since he’d even considered her.

No, all his thoughts of late had been about one lady. Thoughts of her in his arms, her hands stroking his chest, her legs curling about him…

Blushing, Matthew removed his spectacles and rubbed at his face.

Almost immediately he hastened to replace them, as the sound of the library doors opening interrupted his silent study. The gentle swish of silks set his heart skipping.

“Matthew.”

So few people called him that. Spoken in that low, velvety voice, he wished to hear it all the time. Calm yourself, man , he warned himself as he turned about. It hasn’t been that long .

Her familiarity suggested they had privacy. Still, he glanced about the room, surveying the empty couches and tables, scanning the shelves for any lurking servants or young lads. They were, blessedly, alone.

He welcomed her into his arms, gathering her close and placing a kiss upon the top of her head. His heart seized at the familiar floral scent of her shining chestnut locks.

“I’d been looking for—” she started, attempting to break away, but he pulled her closer, hushing her.

“Please,” he breathed, placing another kiss atop her hair. “For just a moment.”

To think, married people could have this whenever the fancy struck them. The embrace of someone who cared for them. He felt a fool, having deprived himself of such warmth, such happiness for so long…

“A strange man came by yesterday evening,” she said flatly, pushing back from him ever so slightly, her hands upon his chest.

Matthew froze.

Everything about her demeanor had changed. Her voice had become cold and remote, her face inscrutable.

Matthew knew that face, the one she wore for others. Not the charming grin with her dimples showing, her hair long over bare shoulders. Not the Lady Caplin he’d the privilege of knowing, the woman who found him so alluring. This was the aloof empress of the drawing room, one whose every move was a calculation. They were quite alike, he realized in a sudden moment of clarity.

Except he was most himself when finding solutions to problems, dreaming up ways to turn circumstances to his favor. For her, it was just another role she played.

He allowed her to walk away, her hands folded serenely before her.

“He came around the kitchens, so I’ve been told. Thankfully no one admitted him, but Wardle says he was a rough sort.”

Panic coursed through his veins.

“He claimed,” she began hesitantly, as if carefully considering her next words, “to know you.”

Just then he realized she appeared weary; perhaps she’d slept poorly the night prior. For some reason, a frantic thought entered his mind: Since they had begun their affair, she had yet to ask him to call her by her Christian name. How long would it be before she did? It was occurring to him that she might never.

Matthew swallowed, the initial spike of panic subsiding only to leave a dull, anxious ache lodged in his chest.

“What did he want?”

One elegant dark brow raised.

Immediately he realized his folly. He ought to have rejected the notion outright, and claimed he knew no such sort.

But that would be a damned lie.

“He begged an introduction,” she said sharply, as if throwing the gauntlet down, daring him to refute it.

How he wished she was still in his arms.

Matthew suddenly felt his heart take off at a gallop again. He stepped back and turned away from her. He didn’t deserve to be here with her, in this sacred space of hers.

“As Wardle recounts, at that point the man was sent away and instructed to never return.” She paused; he heard her skirts rustle as she followed behind him. “You don’t imagine… that, well, perhaps we have not been cautious enough?”

Of course . She’d have no reason to believe Matthew would actually know the man, who was practically certain to be Charles Sharples.

Perhaps he could still salvage this, and retain her affection, her touch.

“I cannot understand,” she said, “for I’ve always gone to great lengths to take such precautions. It stands to reason, then, that perhaps my counterpart has not.”

Matthew turned to find Lady Caplin staring him down, inasmuch she could from her lesser height.

“Recall that youth before the Euston Hotel, the first night we…” She paused, pursing her lips, barely concealing some angry sentiment. “He marked me, suggested he knew who I was.”

“Hush,” Matthew said, his voice rough. He couldn’t bear to see her like this.

Suspicious. Of him.

He pulled her close once more. This time she melted into him, her hands clutching at his waistcoat as tightly as one clutching a strap while standing in a tram.

“Do you think he means to blackmail us?”

An icy sensation rippled through him. That she would fret, that she would be humbled by someone as vile and greedy as Charles Sharples, and by Matthew’s own folly. He should have dealt with the man at the first. If only there hadn’t been that bleeding raid, if only he hadn’t stopped to help Fliss with his wound, tying it off with that blasted handkerchief. The one Harriet had embroidered for him, back when their sweet, innocent mutual regard had sustained him for so many years.

He’d been a coward.

Anger and disdain rushed through him, lacing through his veins.

So many paths he could’ve taken, but never mind all that now. He would not allow himself to wallow in guilt. He would make it right.

“I’ll sort it out,” he said, his voice gruff and angry. It startled him to hear himself, but he shut his eyes and leaned into the cold determination, the overwhelming desire to protect her.

How he wished to stroke her hair, to kiss her forehead in reassurance.

“Don’t fret. I’ll take care of it all.”

“Take care of it?” She raised that eyebrow again. “So you acknowledge that this… man… speaks the truth?”

“Hush,” he admonished. “Leave it to me.”

He knew she was fearless, formidable. He knew the power she had, knew that she would fix it all herself, given the chance and the appropriate information. But Matthew wouldn’t allow it.

She breathed deeply, sighing as she turned away.

“And to think I’d meant to suggest next Tuesday, if you were willing.”

Matthew shut his eyes. Never before had he something so dear, someone so precious to protect. He’d never cared much for his own hide, wishing for himself only small, petty things like membership in the Athenaeum. It all seemed ridiculous now. He thought of the mop and bucket in the strangers’ dining room, and how it had fallen over when he’d first lunched with Sir Frederick Catton.

And suddenly Matthew knew he’d never be admitted, would never be a member.

“I am willing,” he answered, heart in his throat.

Never had he felt so exposed, as if his unlucky hand full of low cards was fanned out upon the table for all to see.

“We shall see, then, shan’t we?” she answered, her head turning only slightly.

It was then that he also realized for certain that she would never be content as a London doctor’s wife, raising two middle-class children in Marylebone, managing two or three servants and stitching by the fire with him in the evenings.

But he loved her all the same.

He prayed that he might always remain in her company, in whatever capacity. Even like this.

Begging.

“You may send for me,” he choked out, “at my club.”

“Perhaps,” she said mildly.

And then she departed.

Working in her garden nearly always raised Cressida’s spirits, but today was different.

She despised feeling like this, awash in paranoia and suspicion. Everywhere she went she felt all eyes upon her, and not in the usual, necessary way. It was hateful.

And yet…

Yet she did not wish to annul her involvement with Dr. Collier. Even as she’d come to the obvious decision to do so that night as she stared into the fire’s dying embers, after he’d all but confirmed his involvement with this unsavory man who’d come to her door. But he’d not exploded into a fit of rage, as Bartholomew might have, as he once did when Cressida had made a thinly veiled comment referring to his mistress. Her husband had railed at her for the better part of an hour, breaking vases and tiny porcelain figurines, shattering a crystal decanter against the mantelpiece as he spewed hatred and spittle.

But Dr. Collier had told her not to worry. To allow him to sort out whatever was afoot. And then he’d looked at her with those sad, pleading eyes, desperate for any grace she deigned to offer him.

Instead of ending it all, she wished to give him far more. Everything that was unsaid, everything that was at stake had raised the tension, made even the thought of another clandestine meeting send a thrill through to her core.

Strange, that.

She had dropped her first paramour after Bartholomew’s death at the first whiff of suspicion. Bartholomew had been gone a year, and some foolish young lady had seen fit to make a pointed comment about Cressida’s apparent interest in her new lover. Cressida hadn’t even bothered to end things with him in person; she’d merely sent a bland, oblique missive instead.

And now she could barely recall the gentleman’s face, or his voice.

The lady, though, she’d very nearly thrown in the path of Frederick.

But not even Cressida was so cruel as to do that. Or was she? It seemed she was no longer an accurate judge of her own behavior, nor her own character.

She’d always considered herself canny and, yes, a bit heartless—necessary traits if one were to survive a marriage to an even more heartless man who delighted in calling her “Cresto” and forced himself upon her whether she wished him to or not. She’d always been indifferent to her Machiavellian streak, an essential requirement if she were to have her cake and eat it as well. For she meant to enjoy life. She’d sworn it on Bartholomew’s grave.

But now that cavalier attitude could very well destroy Arthur’s reputation. And Henry’s. The only two things she cared about more than her vast list of social engagements.

And if she were being honest…

Matthew’s face was ever-present in her mind; the gentle, soothing tones of his voice echoed in her memory throughout each day. She allowed that it was quite a nice situation; they were deliciously compatible between the sheets, and she never found him boring and off-putting in the way that most men were. He had a middle-class sort of humility and curiosity that she’d at first found darling, but now appreciated fully.

She stabbed her trowel into the open sack of soil, thrusting it as one might a dagger. The small act of aggression did little to quell her anxiety.

“When are we to Cumbria?” Henry asked from his perch upon a low, sturdy arm of a nearby oak tree. He had a small book in his hands, but Cressida could not see the title.

“Why do you ask?” Cressida brushed her gloved hands off before standing.

“Dunno. Arthur’s gone,” he added, a touch of ambivalence in his voice.

“Only for the day. He’s with that Middlemiss boy, doing heaven knows what,” Cressida said, not wishing to consider what sort of trouble young Oxonians got up to in London as they waited for the start of Michaelmas term in October.

“I thought he’d headed to Birchover Abbey. That’s what he told me,” Henry whined.

“Arthur may come and go as he pleases,” Cressida said, surveying the crocus bulbs lined up on a strip of burlap to her side. “The Abbey is his. He is Viscount Caplin, after all.”

Henry made a derisive snort.

“Oh?” Cressida turned, one brow raised. “Are you not pleased? You’ve never expressed any fondness for the old pile. Quite the contrary, in fact.”

If anyone loathed the Caplin family seat more than herself, it was Henry. He’d claimed the freezing, ancient place was haunted, but she dare not bring that up anymore, for he was at quite the touchy age.

“I’ve not got a title. I’ve not got a house,” he muttered, plucking a green leaf from the canopy above him and twisting it with his fingers.

She strolled closer to the tree, with the hint of a smile. “But both of those are to your advantage, are they not? For while Arthur must suffer the expectations and obligations of his role, and the indignities of medieval ecclesiastical architecture in Cumbria, you may take your living and go wherever, do whatever you please. Go to the devil, if you must.”

Henry sighed, a drawn-out, exasperated sound.

“Why must I wait? Why must I be off to Eton when it’s all Wormleigh’s fault, not mine? I hate school,” he groused. “I’d much rather buy a nice house and stay there and do nothing.”

Cressida chuckled and plucked the book from his hands. She couldn’t recall Henry ever reading for amusement unless the book was of questionable taste.

“ The Rambler ?” she asked, opening it to the title page. “By Dr. Johnson, no less.” She snapped it shut and handed it back without attempting to disguise the surprised smile upon her face.

“It’s fine,” Henry shrugged. “I like the way each section is brief. You don’t get tired because nothing’s overlong and there’s always a new topic.”

“What a discerning and mature evaluation, Master Caplin,” she said with a skeptical eyebrow.

“It was Dr. Collier who suggested it, anyway,” Henry said dismissively.

Cressida paused.

A strange ache took hold in her chest. Rather than consider it, she pressed on, forcing a smile and a subject change.

“So when you buy yourself a nice house, do you think you would spend your idle time reading?”

Henry turned about on the branch, sitting up straight, thinking.

“Perhaps,” he admitted. “I think I should prefer to live on the coast. Then I might scour the cliffs for curiosities. Fossils and such.” He paused to look at her with all the earnestness of the child he still was, even if he desperately wished to be a young man. “You’ll come visit me, won’t you, Mama?”

“Of course, darling,” she laughed. “I shall forever be begging an invite; you shall not easily be rid of me.”

He smiled half-heartedly. Cressida could sense his unease.

“What is it, darling?”

“Only, well, it’s just you hate Birchover Abbey so much.”

“Dearest, everyone would hate Birchover Abbey, if only they had the misfortune to acquaint themselves with it.”

“You always wish to be here, in London,” Henry muttered.

“Do I?” she said, but even as she spoke the words she knew it to be true.

Parties, balls, meetings, plays, operas… the season was an endless parade of empty, performative engagements. Cressida thought of the horrid speaker at the Ladies Union for the Cessation of Social Ills meeting that she and Mrs. Rickard had both endured. There were the dinner parties, very much like the one she’d hosted only a few evenings prior, in which she had taken it upon herself to so publicly eviscerate Mrs. Brenchley that even Arthur had taken issue with her handling of the woman.

“Mama,” Henry said, rolling his eyes. He opened his book once more. “It’s only that… well.” His brow furrowed as he turned back to the page he was on. “I think you might like it.”

“Like what, darling?”

“Living in the country. You like plants, you know.”

“I do,” she admitted.

“It’s just a thought, Mama.”

And then she turned away, leaving him to his reading even as her heart felt rent in two.

What would Matthew have thought, were he in attendance at her last party? The man rarely had a cross word for anyone. Would he still admire her if he saw her in her natural environment—the ballroom—cutting down rivals and forming petty alliances? Needlessly tormenting her brother, outmaneuvering his every attempt at procuring a wife?

Her throat felt thick.

Blast this man. When had she cared a whit for what a man thought of her? Not since she’d been in the first blush of her youth, hopeful and na?ve, praying for her betrothed husband every night before bed.

Before he exposed himself as the weak, pathetic cretin that he was.

But Matthew was not Bartholomew. Not in the slightest. Gentle as a lamb, and stronger than any man she could name. For gentleness like that only came from a deep strength. Being cruel was far too easy. Cressida, of all people, knew that well.

She picked up her trowel, her mind as uncertain as her future.