Page 43 of Wed By Proxy

“Why should you not?” Mathilde sprang from her own seat and moved as though to bar his way to the door. “I don’t want you to leave!” He gazed at her, looking, she thought, rather conflicted. “Please stay.” In the end, he gave a short nod and sat back in his chair. Clearly, he did not mean to take her to bed, she thought, casting about. Conversation between them was only muddying the waters this evening.

“Shall we play cards?” she suggested brightly. “I found some in the drawer earlier. It might be a way to while away some time?”

He grunted, not looking exactly enthusiastic. “What games do you know?”

“I know lots,” Mathilde told him excitedly, and received a rather hard look in return. “I always play cards with Robin and my friends.”

“Your friends?” Guy asked casually.

“Piers, Gordon, Willard. They all taught me how to play cards.”

He said nothing at that, but feeling his scrutiny, she looked up from the drawer where she was retrieving a hand painted pack of cards with hunting motifs. “These,” she said, and carried them over to the table placing them down. “I am not familiar with this precise deck, but they look similar to Huntsman Bold.”

Guy picked up the deck and untied the string binding them together. “I remember these,” he said. “They were my father’s.” He was silent a moment as he shuffled through the deck. “It’s called Hound takes Heron.” He went through the rules of the game, and indeed it was very similar to Huntsman Bold to Mathilde’s way of thinking.

He dealt, and Mathilde arranged her cards into groups. She thought she had a fairly decent hand. “Ten of hounds,” she said discarding her first.

They quickly went through the first round which Mathilde won, though she had a suspicion he allowed it. Then she shuffled and they started a second round. It seemed to Mathilde, that every time she raised her eyes, Guy was watching at her. It really wasn’t so surprising, she thought critically, that she was winning the game hands down. “Should we introduce a wager?” she suggested. That might keep him focused.

Guy’s eyebrows rose. “Do you bet money with Piers, Gordon and Willard?” he asked.

Something about his tone made her look up sharply, but his expression was bland enough. “We gamble, but not with money,” she answered, shaking her head. “They are always short of funds.”

He was silent a moment, absorbing this. “What sort of things would you wager?” he asked.

“Myself? Usually my mending skills,” she admitted with a smile. “Or a penny, or a clean handkerchief.”

“What about a kiss?” he asked.

Mathilde frowned. “None of them ever asked for that,” she admitted.

“I meant for me.”

“Oh!” she blushed. “Of course, if that is what you want.”

“I do. And what about you? What should I wager?”

“A kiss of course,” she answered promptly.

He gave a startled laugh. “So, if I win, you give me a kiss and if you win, I give you a kiss.”

“Exactly.”

He smirked. “We could just forget the cards and kiss, Mathilde.”

She caught her breath. It just would not have sounded the same if he had called her Therese. “We could,” she admitted. “But I like the idea of finding out the difference.”

“The difference?”

“Between me kissing you, and you kissing me.”

His eyes seemed to darken at that. He cleared his throat and gathered up the current hand. “Very well, let’s start a new hand.”

XIX

Guy watched as, flushed with triumph, Mathilde laid down a winning hand. He was not going to withstand much of this.

“I claim my kiss,” she said, clapping her hands together.