“It seems we found the way out,” Matilda said, just to fill the silence.
The earl was clearly back to not speaking again. No doubt too busy grinding his teeth into dust to bother with unnecessary small talk.
His guard was up—and so was hers, if for a different reason.
She was not used to rubbing shoulders with the beau monde. Yes, yes, the Earl of Gilbourne was by definition a lord, but he was also her guardian, and legally saddled with her, like it or not. He could not reject her.
All these other people… Matilda couldn’t even tell which ones were haut ton, and which ones were simply wealthy enough to dress the part. She wasn’t the only country-bred miss present, but all the others seemed to have arrived at the follies in big families or large groups of friends.
Picnic blankets encircled the large pond in the center, the blankets themselves barely visible beneath all the colorful skirts of fine gowns and the chattering, smiling faces of so many people.
Matilda wanted to be one of them so badly, she could taste it. She longed for a big family. Make that any family. She missed her parents so much, her insides were hollow with the loss. She had never gone a single day without their love and conversation and good-night kisses on her forehead. Not until the fever came and turned her country paradise into hell.
She wished she had a huge group of friends. The sort who would spy her standing awkwardly at the exit of the labyrinth and yell out, “Matilda’s here!” in undisguised delight. The sort of friends that would scramble up from their blankets and run to her in their eagerness, arms spread wide for a hug.
She wanted to be seen. To be wanted. To be accepted. To be enough.
But no one even looked in her direction.
Chapter 9
“Ready to go back to the hotel?” Lord Gilbourne asked.
“No.” Matilda rolled back her shoulders. “I’m about to make friends.”
He stepped away from the mouth of the labyrinth. “I doubt it’s as simple as you think.”
Matilda didn’t think it was simple at all. She’d implied so to him earlier because she was easy to be friends with. Just say good morning or how do you do and Matilda would happily return the favor. She’d grown up in the sort of house where the postman or the milkmaid might stay for a biscuit or a cup of tea before continuing on their way. Matilda could make friends with a bumblebee.
And she could make friends here in Marrywell, too.
“Stay here and scowl at everyone if you like,” she told the earl. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”
He crossed his arms, leaned against a tree, and closed his eyes as if taking a nap. “I’m enthralled.”
Matilda glanced over her shoulder.
Buttons was still hanging back in the shadows of the labyrinth, careful not to intrude. Blast.
Matilda was not above begging for intrusion. She made large please-come-here gestures until Buttons stepped close enough for Matilda to flash out her arm and link elbows, as if they were bosom friends out for a morning promenade.
“Stop it, miss,” Buttons hissed, appalled. “It isn’t seemly.”
Matilda hesitated. She was holding onto Buttons for dear life, but she was also on a mission to make friends with everyone else in the gardens. A task that apparently could not be accomplished unless one was seemly, whatever that meant.
“His lordship will give me the sack if my actions cause gossip,” Buttons added. “We’re not to embarrass him.”
Matilda gritted her teeth and dropped her lady’s maid’s arm. She didn’t want to be the subject of ridicule or the cause of Buttons losing her post. She must do this alone.
“Stay close,” she whispered, and inched forward into the crowd of people.
So many people. Hundreds of them. Milling about the pond, picnicking around the border, crossing the bridge, climbing the follies, smelling the flowers.
None of them gave Matilda a second glance.
She beamed at them all anyway. Said “Good day!” and “How do you do!” so brightly and so often that her throat grew hoarse and her cheeks ached from smiling so hard.
No one said anything in reply.
