She lifted her lashes, and her expression was fierce and uncompromising. “Have I told you why we got sent down from finishing school?”
He shook his head.
Her jaw went hard as she clenched her teeth, her lips tightening for a heartbeat before she spoke. “After our parents died, Spencer didn’t know what to do with us. He was only nineteen. He asked if we wanted to go to school, and we did. We loved it: the books, the teachers, the other girls. But that first year we—we had a dancing master. He—”
Christian’s heart clenched as he looked at her, vibrating with indignation before him. He felt a swoop of fear for what she was about to say.
“God,” she went on, “it’s been so long and I am still so angry. He desired Margo. He kept saying she needed private instruction. She was—” She looked up at him, her expression pleading. “We were sixteen. Margo was so open-hearted, so generous—that was why he picked her out, I think. I was afraid she would not know what to do. I was afraid she would get hurt.
“So I pretended to be her. It was easy. He could not tell us apart. I told him I was there for his first ‘private lesson,’ and when he made his advances, I nearly twisted his bollocks off. I told him he mustn’t touch me or my sister ever again, or else my brother, the Earl of Warren, would have him transported.”
He started to say her name. He was not sure what would follow—it was all tangled inside him, outrage at what had happened, and guilt, and a fierce pride in her that made his chest hurt. But she stopped him.
“That’s why we were sent down. He went to the headmistress and told her that I had tried to seduce him. Spencer kept it quiet, and Margo—Margo does not know the truth of it. She thought we were expelled for our general hoydenishness, which I suppose was partially true. But I knew why.”
Her voice was brittle, and it did him in, that absurd bravery. He wanted to tell her she had no need of it—not any longer. Not with him. He dropped his hand to her lower back and slowly, so slowly, pulled her into his body. She held herself firm for a heartbeat, and then half-tumbled against him.
She was a little thing. He wrapped both arms around her and rested his chin on the top of her head.
“It was not your fault,” he said.
She gave a little sob into his shirt. “I know it was not. It washisfault, the scheming, lecherous bastard. I only wish I’d had Spencer prosecute him for something.”
He did not let her go.
“I lied,” she said. “I lied to Margo then. I did it to protect her. I thought—well, I thought it was the right thing to do. And Ikeptlying, somehow, pretending I was happy, pretending I wanted to be a hellion and a walking scandal, and I do not know if any of it was the right thing to do after all. I was so angry with her for what she did—with you in London and then following us here… Only I wonder how very different her actions were from my own.”
Christian did not have an answer for her.
He had wondered so many times these last weeks whether it bothered her to be the center of so much scandal. He should have known that she had gone into it clear-eyed, ready to put her feet to the coals so that her sister would not have to walk alone.
“I think you’re doing fine,” he said. And then—and then he could not help himself. He turned his head so that his mouth was on her hair.
He did not kiss the top of her head. But he breathed her in, the warmth, the scent of her hair—soft and delicate and floral andright.
Everything about her felt right.
Later he would regret it. Later he would lie awake and think about how wrong it was for him to hold her, how dangerous it was, how little he had left to lose, and how closely and ferociously he guarded what was left.
Later. Later he could think that he’d made a mistake, his arms around Matilda, the waterfall a distant gallop in his ears and the taste of the wine they’d shared still in his mouth.
But for now, he only knew that she needed to be held. She needed to be comforted and warmed, and he was there—yes, he was there, and he could do this one thing, in this one right moment.
She needed to be held and he wanted to hold her.
Chapter 10
When they returned to the post-chaise at the coaching inn, the vehicle had a cat in it.
It crept out from beneath Matilda’s bench after they’d settled themselves, and then leaped up to sit beside her.
Their trunks had been reloaded, and a new pair of horses shifted eagerly at the front of the carriage. If all went as planned, Christian thought—though with Matilda Halifax involved, that seemed rather optimistic—they would arrive at Bamburgh the following evening.
Two more days in the carriage across from her. One more night with an adjoining door between them.
He was glad of it. He told himself he was glad. He needed to put as much space as he could between his body and hers, between himself and the memory of his arms around her.
He carried it with him, of course. That memory. His body still felt the impression of hers. He could still smell the floral scent of her hair. When he closed his eyes, he could see her: rounded cheeks pink, her lips parted, the tip of her tongue darting out to lick his thumb.
