If so, then bully for them, but Matilda did not intend to allow anything or anyone to hold her back. Not an interminable list of rules, whether the Earl of Gilbourne’s or those of Polite Society. And definitely not the repressive walls erected by her new guardian.
To begin with, they were going to be friends.
“You needn’t call me Miss Dodd,” she informed him in her friendliest, gentlest, most earnest tones. “I am Matilda.”
“You are Miss Dodd,” he snapped.
“And you?” she continued breezily, as if he hadn’t spoken. “What do I call you?”
“You may say, ‘my lord’.”
She clasped her hands to her chest and grinned at him beneath fluttering lashes. “You’re saying… you’re mine?”
He grimaced as if in pain. “Or Gilbourne. You may call me Gilbourne.”
“May I call you Gil?”
His eyes flashed. “No.”
“Gilly?” she tried again.
“No.”
“Titus?”
He glared at her.
“Should’ve been ‘tight arse’,” she murmured. “More apt.”
“Miss Dodd,” he said icily. “Please understand that I have agreed to provide nothing more than the bare minimum. I shall give you food and shelter and keep you alive until you turn twenty-one or attract a suitor, whichever comes first.”
“And after that?”
A muscle twitched at his temple. “After that, we never see each other again. Or even cross each other’s minds.”
“Understood,” she said sweetly.
It was the Earl of Gilbourne who didn’t yet understand. Once Matilda came into her inheritance, she would no longer need him.
But he was going to wish he still had her.
Chapter 6
When the coach-and-four rolled to a stop in front of Marrywell’s storied Blushing Maid Inn, Matilda gathered up her reticule stuffed with diced, candied peels. She’d been popping them into her mouth one by one, trying to put all her focus on their singular texture and flavor, to distract herself from the scowling, hulking, abominably attractive earl at her side.
When he handed her out of the carriage, her fingers nearly melted into his palm. The brief contact was over in the blink of an eye. He clearly had not exaggerated his disinclination for physical contact with her, which only made the brief touch of his gloved hand against hers seem all the more potent and heady.
Lord Gilbourne tipped his chin toward a second large black carriage drawing to a halt right behind the earl’s elegant coach-and-four. “Your trunk has arrived. I’ll have it and your lady’s maid brought to your room.”
Matilda blinked. “My trunk and my what?”
The driver opened the door, and a robust red-haired girl a few years younger than Matilda bounded out of the carriage. She glanced at the busy street in obvious confusion. Her eyes widened when she caught sight of Matilda and Lord Gilbourne.
“That’s Buttons,” said the earl. “Your lady’s maid.”
Matilda gave her a cautious smile and a little wave of her hand.
Buttons bounded over like a bunny rabbit. “My goodness, your hair! I do love a challenge. Please say I can braid it tonight! I have the perfect tincture to give you the most cunning curls in the morning.”
