“Good night,” Matthew murmured as she left the room.
He turned to find Ewan observing him closely. Reading him, as his cousin had always been able to do. Normally he didn’t resent the almost brotherly ability, but tonight he felt raw and he didn’t want Ewan to see that.
He was glad when Ewan broke his stare and pulled out the little notebook from his pocket. He scribbled a message and handed it over.
“Do you feel anything for her at all?”
Matthew tensed. That was the question, wasn’t it? The one he was trying to avoid answering because he didn’t fully know it. But here, with Ewan, he could be honest in that.
“Desire,” he said softly. “In spades. It wasn’t her who started what happened in that parlor tonight. It was me. When I’m near her it is…fire. I’ve never felt anything like it.”
Ewan nodded, as if he understood. Matthew assumed he did. He’d certainly caught glimpses of plenty of passionate kisses and hidden moments between his cousin and Charlotte since their marriage.
But there was still trouble lining Ewan’s expression. “Desire is a start,” he wrote. “But I’m asking how you feel.”
“Conflicted,” Matthew choked out. “How the hell am I supposed to marry Angelica’s cousin? How the hell am I supposed to figure out the truth from all the lies that started out between us? Is she the swan I seduced in a hell? Is she the manipulator Hugh is certain she is? Is she the girl in the bookshop who blushes over gothic novels? Who is she?”
Ewan considered that a moment, then wrote, “She may be all of those things. You are more than your grief, are you not? Or your desire? Or your friendship with our group?”
“This is why I don’t talk to you,” Matthew said with a little smile. “You are so rational.”
“Talk to Robert for irrational,” Ewan wrote. Then he frowned. “Or Hugh, as of late.”
Matthew let out a long breath and bent his head. “This was not the plan, Ewan. This explosion that just went off in my life was not the plan.”
“The best things start that way. Now, is there anything I can do?”
Matthew read the note with a smile and reached out to squeeze his cousin’s shoulder. “Just…be you. Supportive and watching. Kind and so damned logical.” Ewan didn’t smile in return, and Matthew sighed. “He’s got me trapped now. Until we see why, that’sallyou can do.”
Chapter Fifteen
Matthew straightened his jacket as he stared at his reflection in the mirror. He looked…tired. Wasn’t that what everyone had said to him over and over again during the two days since his surprise engagement? The one that would be completed tomorrow thanks to a special license, hastily received after the exchange of copious amounts of money.
There were benefits to having power. Only he felt powerless.
Powerless to this marriage that was hanging over him. Powerless against the tide of desire he felt for the woman who would be his bride. Powerless against whatever plans Fenton Winter had in store for him.
He shook his head and glanced over his shoulder as his chamber door opened.
“Mama,” he said, turning to face her with the best smile he could muster. It felt as false as it likely looked.
Her smile was just as untrue. “You do look handsome, my love,” she said as she came up to squeeze his hand.
They stood together for a long moment, and then he sighed. “I know you are…troubled. Just as everyone is troubled.”
“I won’t deny that. I think any mother would be, given the circumstances. Winter has hated you for years—no amount of reason could change his mind about what he believes you did. I have never understood it.”
Matthew looked at his reflection again as he considered that statement. “I do.”
She drew back. “You do?”
“When Father died,” he began, feeling her stiffen. Her fingers tightened in his. “You don’t know how I wished I could blame it on someone, something. The pain was so sharp, so strong, I would have loved to place it somewhere else. Focused it into anger or hate. To lose a child…I imagine that would be a thousand times worse.”
She nodded slowly. “Yes, I suppose that is true. Anger feels like it is more controlled than grief. More purposeful. But still. To go so far…”
He shrugged. “Well, he did go so far. There is no escaping it now. And in the end, it was my own actions that placed me into a moment he could capitalize on, isn’t it? Had I not been so imprudent…”
He waved his hand rather than complete the sentence. Whenever he did, he was yanked back to that moment in the parlor when Isabel had been flush against him and all reason had failed him, replaced by something hot and hungry that took control.
