“It’s all right. I should have worn warmer gloves.” She pulled her hands inside her mantle. “I wasn’t expecting it to be so cold tonight.”
“Me, neither,” he commented. He took a breath. “Thank you for coming with me this evening,” he added.
“Thank you for treating me to an ice,” she replied.
“It was my pleasure.” He angled his body in her direction, which had his knee bumping against hers. “Pardon.”
“Oh, you’re excused.”
“I just realized I’ve spent this entire evening talking to you under the assumption we are to be married,” he said, “when I haven’t even proposed.”
Catherine dipped her head. “Ididwonder about that.”
“I should like to do it properly,” he said. “With a betrothal ring. May I ask if you have a favorite gemstone?”
He heard her slight inhalation of breath. “Mrs. Dove-Lyon left me with the impression you were… without funds,” she stammered. “How—?
“In the general sense, I am,” he admitted. “However, I benefit from having had a mother who hid money from my father whilst she was still alive.”
“She hid money?” Catherine made a slight scoffing sound. “For what purpose?”
“Well, I’d like to believe she did it for me, but I do think she was well aware there might come a time when funds would be tight, and she would require money to give to the cook and to the butler for the household expenses,” he explained. “She was well aware of my father’s tendency to gamble to excess.” He couldn’t help but emit a sigh of frustration.
“Where did she hide it?”
Matthew chuckled. “Everywhere,” he replied. “The bottom of vases, the back of drawers, the inside of books.” He allowed a scoff. “Which is how I had enough blunt to pay my servants this month and for this evening’s outing, bless her heart. I expect if I open a few more books in my library, I will find what I need to acquire a bauble for you.”
Catherine tittered softly. “It sounds as if she was saving for her future,” she remarked.
“In a manner of speaking, she was,” he agreed. “She died before my father did, though, but only by a few weeks.”
“Oh, dear. He must have been bereft without her.”
Matthew considered the comment a moment before he agreed. “I did not see him for a fortnight, and then, when I did, I hardly recognized him. He looked as if he had aged an entire decade in two weeks.” He glanced in her direction. “Needless to say, I was not surprised he died when he did.”
“Was theirs a marriage of convenience?”
Blinking, Matthew shook his head. “I’ve no idea,” he said. “If it was, they obviously grew to care for one another before I went off to school.”
“Off to school?” she repeated.
He nodded. “Eton,” he stated, hiding his wince when he remembered only affluent families sent their boys to the boarding school to fill the paid Oppidan slots. There were King’s Scholars, too—poor students—but everyone who attended had to follow the strict rules and have an aptitude for the Classics.
“I suppose you attended university as well?” she guessed.
“Cambridge,” he acknowledged. “But I didn’t…” He clamped his mouth shut, sure if he said what he was about to, she would guess he was an aristocrat.
“Graduate?” she guessed.
He dipped his head. “Oh, I graduated, but I had hoped to go on a Grand Tour. See the world. Eat the food of the gods. Drink too much wine,” he said wistfully. “Alas, it was not to be.”
“So you read books about it instead,” she said, not making it a question.
“How did you know?” he asked rhetorically. He allowed a sigh before he added, “You never did tell me your favorite gemstone.”
Catherine glanced out the window, the light from the coach lantern bathing her face in a golden glow. “My best friend says to accept anything less than a sapphire issettling,” she replied. “I think because she doesn’t know about the value of rubies.”She paused. “I do prefer sapphires, though. There is something rather elegant about that shade of blue.”
Matthew sighed. “A sapphire would look stunning with your hair,” he murmured. “Or an emerald.”
