His pinkie finger twitched, bringing it in contact with Matilda’s palm. She snatched her hand away, breathless. Even through their gloves, she’d felt a jolt of electricity. Or maybe the electrifying contact was nothing more than the carriage wheels bouncing over yet another rut in the road.
The earl’s eyes opened, his piercing focus squarely on Matilda. “What.”
“W-what?” she echoed, stuttering. “Nothing. I… Nothing. Go back to sleep.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
“Then resume thinking.”
“I never cease thinking.”
She smiled tightly and sucked on her candied lemon peel.
Of course she ought not to have run off to the modiste. Even if Matilda could have afforded the cost, the modiste was busy with dozens or hundreds of other clients and would not have been able to make a single stitch for Matilda until long after the festival was over. She understood that now.
In the moment, she’d simply yearned so hard to be accepted that she didn’t let a little thing like logic stand in the way of potential friendship and happiness.
That her actions had worsened her already-strained relationship with her reluctant guardian was less than ideal. Of all the people Matilda wished might like her, Gilbourne was at the top of the list.
But her recent realization that sometimes there was nothing one could do to force someone else to want her presence in their life held true for the earl as well. Matilda could no more compel Gilbourne to accept her with open arms than she could win over Bernice Charlton and her entourage. Friendship was given voluntarily, or not at all.
No matter how much one longed for it.
Gilbourne was still scowling at her. “Who did it?”
She blinked. “Who did what?”
“Who made you run away?”
“I didn’t run away. I was coming back. It was my idea. And a bad one. I apologize.”
“What did they say to you that Buttons did not overhear?”
She shook her head, her cheeks flushing with shame at the memory. “No good can come of repeating it.”
“Who insulted you? I want a list of names.”
She crossed her own arms and glared back at him. Living through that indignity had been difficult enough. She would not relive it again. “One shouldn’t speak ill of another.”
“No,” he ground out. “That’s the dead. We don’t speak ill of the dead. Rule number three: You speak as ill as possible about any living person who wrongs you.”
“Why should I do so?”
“So that I can destroy them.”
They glared at each other in silence, arms crossed, hips inches apart.
“You’re making these rules up as we go along,” she accused him.
He shrugged. “You must still comply. That’s rule number two: What I say, you do.”
She lifted her chin. “I’ll fight my own battles.”
He leaned forward, his voice low and full of portent. “Rule number four: Fight to win.”
“I’ll do that,” she whispered, though it was a bluff.
The fight she most wanted to win was here in this carriage. The earl was close enough to hug. Close enough to kiss. If she leaned forward like he was doing…
