“You are early,” Matilda said as Tremont offered her his arm, “and you brought your fancy coach.” The vehicle, crests hidden, four matching bays in harness, sat at the bottom of the steps, looking sober and splendid, much like its owner.
Tremont handed her up and climbed in after her. “I thought we’d fortify ourselves with a noon meal at the tea shop before we meet with your prospective buyer.”
Clearly, Tremont had been thinking of much more than that. He was again the punctiliously mannered, slightly distracted gentleman whom she’d met in St. Mildred’s parish hall. He took the place beside Matilda on the forward-facing bench, though he did not reach for her hand.
“I’m nervous, Marcus. I thank you for the invitation, but might we take the extra hour at your house instead?”
He rapped on the roof with the head of his walking stick, and the coach rolled smoothly forward.
“You want to swill tea in my parlor and debate tactics? This is merely a reconnaissance mission, my dear. We go to listen and collect information. Any documents you sign will be genuine enough, so exercise extreme caution if you’re inclined to wield a pen during this meeting.”
“I won’t sign anything. I will invoke a lady’s right to dither and demand time to consider the offer and discuss it with you privately. I wish you’d let me go alone.”
Tremont wrapped her gloved fingers in a light grasp. “You have fought every battle on your own, Matilda. Why take this on as solo combat too? Do you doubt my thespian capabilities? Fear not. I impersonated a peer of the realm for years, when all I really wanted to do was think, putter, and ponder. In the army, my role was regimental whipping boy for my superior officer. In the stews, I took on the part of neighborhood scribe. Harry will never take me for a besotted earl. I am not a swindler, but I can play a part.”
The coach came to a halt at one of London’s inevitable traffic tangles.
“Harry is something beyond a swindler,” Matilda said. “He is like a fox that regards a decimated henhouse as a good night’s work. He doesn’t hate the chickens he kills. It’s just that he’s hungry, and they do taste ever so lovely, and somebody went to all that trouble to pen them up for him. Other people, with few exceptions, are so many chickens to him, and he doesn’t really grasp that his fine night’s work destroys lives. He has his funny little rules—he abhors violence, considers it the tool of fools and drunks—but he lacks what you or I would recognize as morality.”
“And nothing,” Tremont said, scowling out the window, “nothing in your upbringing, your education, or your wildest nightmares prepared you to be under the authority of such a one as he. Let’s walk.”
Before Matilda could reply, Tremont had popped down from the coach and was holding the door for her. She followed and was soon on the walkway, being escorted in the direction of Tremont’s town house.
“Listen to me, Matilda,” he said, after giving the coachman instructions. “You must put from your mind any thought of sparing my sensibilities. If you want to set me aside, I will accede to your decision. I will hate that you made that choice, but I will understand.”
“Why am I doomed to take to my bed men with either too little honor or too much? The last thing I want to do is set you aside.” They turned the corner, and even Tremont’s house brought the man to Matilda’s mind. Elegant and spruce without putting on airs.
“No, that is not the last thing you want to do. The last thing you want to do is be parted from your son.”
“What?” Matilda came to a halt and disentangled her arm from Tremont. “You aren’t making any sense.” Even as she said the words, she knew that Tremont always, without fail, made sense.
“Harry Merridew ensured that your father was present at the wedding, so even though you were not yet one-and-twenty, the marriage was unassailably valid. Harry was not the paragon you thought he was, but that hardly constitutes grounds for an annulment. He put a roof over your head and bread on the table, despite his many, many failings.”
And of course, now the sky had decided to send down not snow, but an icy drizzle miserably blended of rain, snow, and something in between.
Matilda resumed walking. “What has the wedding to do with Tommie?”
“Merridew is legally the boy’s father.”
“Harry’s name is not on the birth registry. He told me that later, in the midst of an argument, when he thought I’d be cowed by the notion that my son dwelled under a cloud of potential scandal.”
“Merridew is still legally the boy’s father.” Tremont took her arm to accompany her up the steps of his town house. “What did he hope…? Ah, he wanted to blackmail Joseph’s family. If they sought any connection with their fallen soldier’s progeny, Harry’s failure to appear on a birth record would aid that scheme.”
Matilda paused beneath the porch awning to survey the dreary street. The coach lumbered into view around the corner, and Tremont waved it on to the mews.
“That scheme apparently came to nothing,” Matilda said. “Joseph’s family knew a confidence trickster when one showed up on their doorstep. I take your point regarding Tommie. Harry could kidnap him, and I’d have nothing—legally—to say to it. I had not focused on that scenario, having been more concerned with the damage Harry can do to me personally. I doubt he will consider Tommie’s role in the whole business. Tommie was… a pet, to Harry. Amusing, until it was time to hand a squalling, malodorous baby back to me.”
“That baby is how Harry inveigled you into speaking your vows. You are a devoted mother, Matilda, hence my reminder that you must set me aside if that is the best course for you and Tommie.”
She let herself into the house. “That is your honor talking. What does your heart say?”
Tremont followed her into the foyer and closed the door. “My heart is ready to die for you, but not to kill for you. I wish it were otherwise, but I cannot justify a selfish, murderous impulse in this case.”
“I won’t ask that you die or kill for me.” She let him untie the damp ribbons of her bonnet and tucked her gloves into the pocket of her cloak. “Do you recall asking me once upon a time what I wanted?”
Tremont removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “The memory will delight me until the day I am summoned for celestial judgment.”
“I will cheerfully be your mistress, you know.” Matilda undid the frogs of his cloak and hung the garment at hook. “I’d also marry you, assuming Harry is happy to slink away with the deed to my house in his hand.”
Tremont settled his hands on her shoulders, as if he knew she wanted to discuss anything—anything at all—other than the havoc Harry could wreak in their lives.
“Marriage to me will make a bigamist of you, my love, and that would give Harry even more leverage over us both. Our children would be illegitimate, and thus the shadow he casts looms over them as well. I will not put the woman I esteem above all others at risk for a felony arrest. As for becoming my mistress, that would send the respectability you fought so hard to preserve for Tommie straight down the jakes.”
Matilda leaned into him. “Sometimes, I wish your intellect wasn’t so formidable.”
“Not formidable, but one of few tools I can rely on. Shall I order a tray, Matilda? We certainly have time.”
What do you want, Matilda. What do you want? The words echoed in her memory, as did the wondrous notion of for once having what she wanted.
“I want you,” she said. “Forever and beyond, if possible. If not forever, then here and now would be lovely.”
She expected remonstrations, lectures, philosophy—if Harry was alive, cavorting with Marcus was adultery, a sin, if not a crime.
Tremont regarded her with an odd, slight smile. “You’re sure, Matilda?”
“Yes.” Everything—heart, mind, and what honor a woman could claim—supported that answer. “Yes, and yes, and yes again.”
“So be it.” He took her hand, led her to the steps, and straight up into his sitting room. “We might be late for our appointment.”
“The weather has made traffic abominable.”
“I’m sure it will, but I try not to tell white lies to spare my dignity. If I’m late because I failed to keep track of the time, I would rather say so, or simply apologize for the lapse, and save the lying as a last resort. Shall I undo your hooks?”
“Please.” Matilda stood by the fire and gave him her back. “Do you think your papa is looking down from heaven, knowing when you’ve been naughty?”
“As a boy, I did. Now, Papa holds the place of a benevolent angel, hoping I don’t disappoint him. Do you ever wonder what sort of father your Harry had?”
What an odd question. “He might not know who his father is.” Matilda held still a moment longer while Marcus untied her corset strings.
“Where was Harry when Tommie was conceived?” He slipped his arms around her waist and embraced her from behind.
Matilda scoured her memory for an answer, because there was one. In another of their many spats, Harry had taunted her with proof he could offer publicly that he had not fathered Tommie.
“Harry was in Bristol, looking in on an old chum. He had a lot of old chums whom he looked in on when it suited him to avail himself of their hospitality. I think Sparky Lykens was an old chum in truth, hailing from Harry’s birthplace. I met Sparky a time or two. Not an elderly man, but he had elderly mannerisms. He suffered an injury while taking the king’s… shilling.”
She extricated herself from Tremont’s embrace and faced him. “The limping man is probably Mr. Lykens. Harry turned to him when nobody else would put up with him.”
“When he needed an accomplice he could trust. The name is very helpful, Matilda. We’ll pass it along to the men, and if this Sparky character served in Spain, somebody will know him or know of him. The name is unusual, and that helps too.”
“Spartacus,” Matilda said. “That’s why I recalled it. Not a moniker the common folk are likely to foist upon a child.”
“Who is Tommie named for?”
“Doubting Thomas, the apostle my father approved of least.”
Tremont drew her into a hug. “The apostle gifted with the most rational nature. I do love you.”
Matilda hugged him back and then yielded to the temptation to cling. Marcus was handsome and fit and in every way an attractive specimen, but his physical appeal was an afterthought—literally.
The true measure of the man was in the intangibles. He had pondered whether he could commit murder on Matilda’s behalf and rejected the notion. A lesser person would not have faced that question seriously and thus would have preserved an excuse to commit the crime in the heat of the moment.
Tremont had used the excuse of the heat of the moment—the explanation—at Waterloo. He would not allow himself to use it again. His moral rigor, his sense of accountability, refreshed Matilda’s hopes as all of Harry’s ill-gotten coin never had.
“I love you too, Marcus. Please take me to bed.”
Tremont was barely acquainted with Matilda in the erotic sense, and yet, he knew precisely how the encounter she sought should go. He must give her intense pleasure, to be hoarded up against the possibility of equally intense and far more protracted pain.
He had considered refusing her request, but for what purpose? To quiet some cowardly nattering in his head about adultery and the letter of the law? The law said Harry Merriman was dead, so how could allegations of adultery be brought?
“Why is the right thing not the fair thing?” he muttered, pulling his shirt over his head. “Right by whose standards? The right thing to do is supposedly to offer one’s life in the defense of the crown. The fair thing would be for Fat George to sell his art collection and at least pay for a few cannon instead of burdening John Bull with that expense.”
“You are vexed,” Matilda said, taking his shirt and folding it neatly over the privacy screen.
“I am hoist on my own petard. I have prided myself on enjoying logical puzzles and moral conundrums. At this moment, logic and honor are no comfort.”
Matilda had emerged from the privacy screen wearing her chemise and Tremont’s favorite night-robe, a quilted blue going shiny at the elbows. Her hair was in a single dark braid over her shoulder, and the sight of her, ready for bed and for bedding, was both delight and torment.
To never again behold her thus, to know that Harry Merridew had that honor… That wouldn’t be fair or right or honorable, but it was all too possible.
“Love is a comfort,” Matilda said. “When I was at my worst, early in my marriage to Harry, we’d be spatting about his philandering or the coalman’s bill, and I’d despair. What had I done, marrying that scoundrel? Then Tommie would give me a kick,”—she put a hand on her belly—“and I would be fortified. No matter what nonsense Harry dished out to me, I was free of my father, and I had dodged ruin. For Tommie, I would make a go of the situation.”
Tremont drew her into his arms. “And you did, as you always have.” As she would again, if necessary. The thought made him bilious—and very determined.
“It won’t come to that, Marcus. I won’t let it come to that. Please kiss me.”
Matilda did not give him time to comply with her order. She got hold of him by the hair and commenced kissing him witless. Her kiss tasted of desperation and courage and told Tremont that she wanted loving, not philosophy, not courtship, not gentlemanly affection.
He scooped her up and deposited her on the bed, then came down atop her.
“If you want finesse from me today,” he began as Matilda drew her knees up along his flanks, “I fear I am unable to oblige.”
“I want your damned breeches off.”
He was naked in ten seconds flat, and Matilda used the time to slip out of his robe. She lay on the bed, cheeks flushed, knees up, the chemise about her waist.
“To hurry this moment is criminal,” Tremont said, crouching over her. “To refuse it would be… incomprehensible.” He settled closer so they were belly to belly and breast to chest, and still that wasn’t close enough.
“I want to consume you,” Matilda said, linking her hands at his nape. “To inhale you and make you part of me forever.”
“You are part of me forever.” That admission gave Tremont a respite from the lust and bleakness riding him. Matilda was right: Love was a comfort, and love was as real as the law or honor or scandal and more powerful than all of them put together.
He stroked Matilda’s hair back from her brow, took a firm hold of his self-restraint, and began a leisurely kissing campaign. Somewhere between her jaw and her shoulder, Matilda let out a long, soft sigh and retaliated with a slow glide of her palm down Tremont’s back and over his hip.
They lavished tenderness on each other until easing their bodies together became the only intimacy yet to explore. Tremont went slowly and sweetly, holding out for more of those sighs from his lover. She yielded them and arched into his caresses until give-and-take blended into a shared exultation.
Matilda surrendered to pleasure twice, the second occasion being Tremont’s notion of an erotic peroration. He turned a dreamy, delicious loving passionate and then explosive, until Matilda’s body grasped what her mind apparently had not: Pleasure could come in yet still greater increments than she’d imagined.
“You fiend,” she whispered as Tremont levered up to give her room to breathe. “You utter, shameless… You are not what you seem, Marcus.”
At that moment, he was trying to mentally recite from Caesar’s Gallic letters, because even withdrawing might push him over the edge.
“What am I?”
“Not a philosopher, not a peer, not a scholar… You are a lover.”
Because he did love her, he eased from her body, availed himself of the handkerchief on the night table, and spent on her belly.
“I am your lover, Matilda.” And some fine day, he would know every joy that status could confer, but today was not that day. He tidied up and gathered her in his arms. “Nap if you like. I comported myself with unseemly dispatch. There’s time.”
That offer was all wrong, all courteous and considerate, when the moment wanted… sweet, sleepy nothings and quiet caresses. A restorative nap and a resumption of intimacies.
“If this loving is your idea of unseemly dispatch, Marcus, I will not survive your sieges.” Matilda drifted off, while Tremont arranged himself beside her and watched the hands of the clock beside the wardrobe advance.
Matilda’s whole marriage to Harry Merridew had been a siege, and now the invading army was back, ready to pillage and plunder what it hadn’t carried off in the earlier battles. Matilda was mentally preparing for defeat, else she would not have asked for this interlude.
Tremont took another quarter hour to review what he knew, reconsider strategy, and look for options that did not exist. The best he could do before rousing his beloved was to remind himself that the meeting would yield more information, and with more information might come more hope.
He continued to ruminate while they dressed and donned cloaks and hats, pondered yet more while they traveled half-way across London, and waited until he’d handed Matilda down from the town coach to pose his question.
“Before we go in there, Matilda, clarify one point for me: If I’m able to wrest only you or Tommie from Merridew’s grasp, but not both, I am to keep hold of Tommie, correct?”
She studied the façade of a staid establishment going a bit seedy around the gutters and walkways. In spring, the row of houses probably acquired an air of genteel repose, but winter revealed age and the beginning of neglect. Only a shiny plaque by the door—Drees and Son—confirmed that they had reached a place of business rather than a domicile.
“Don’t make me choose. It won’t come to that.”
“When has Harry Merridew ever done what you needed him to do?”
“When he married me.”
“And thereafter?”
Matilda drew down the veil on her bonnet. She’d attired herself as many widows did, in dignity and perpetual half mourning. The gray dress and bonnet suited the occasion and the weather.
“Harry is not a devil, Marcus. He’s difficult but, as you say, entirely self-interested, which makes him consistent, and that works to my advantage this time.”
“Then you are prepared to marry me, though it will mean both scandal and poverty?”
She peered at him through her veil. “I am, but how does poverty come into it? I cannot imagine you mishandling your funds, and you describe your holdings as prosperous.”
“You tell me that the man’s first motivation is money. He likes the games and schemes, but the reward is coin. If Harry agrees to divorce you, then as the peer footing the enormous cost for that undertaking, I tip my hand to him. I will be named and sued in the criminal conversation case, and the extent of my wealth will become obvious to Harry.”
Matilda put a hand on the coach as if to steady herself. “It will, but Harry’s not a fool. You are a peer, he’s a commoner, though audacious in his greed.”
“Precisely, he is audacious in his greed, though he probably considers himself blessed with the virtue of abundant ambition. He’s like that fox, slaughtering every biddy in the henhouse when his belly can only hold one. He is welcome to plunder my coffers, Matilda, because my ambition is to spend the rest of my life loving you. We will have enough left to realize that goal, I’ve made sure of it.”
“The meetings with the solicitors?”
“Putting funds in trust for Mama and Lydia and making myself and Sir Dylan the trustees. Mama and Lydia have been informed by letter, and they will understand. Sir Dylan will as well. My family did want me to marry, after all.”
“Causing a scandal to rock the realm wasn’t in their plans for you.”
“Nor mine for you, but once the press has had its frolic, we will have what we wish, won’t we?”
“If I have you and Tommie, I will be content.”
She would say that, and she hadn’t answered his earlier question. “And if I must choose between you and Tommie, Matilda?”
Tremont hated that the question had to be asked, but it was Matilda’s choice to make. She linked arms with him and hauled him toward the steps leading to the solicitors’ office.
“Save Tommie. Break whatever rules you must, thwart the law, exert your privileges, but save my son. I was afraid the sweeps would get him, or the abbesses, but the real threat turns out to be his legal father. The sweeps haven’t snatched him away, but if Harry tries to take him from me, save my son, Marcus.”
“So be it.” That Matilda would face the question rather than offer another it-won’t-come-to-that declaration was more proof that she expected to lose the battle with Merridew.
The successful confidence trickster realized coin from his schemes, but he also earned proof that he was more clever, wise, and skilled than the average person. He was rewarded rather than punished for abandoning the principles of decency, and for Harry Merridew, that sense of superiority might be the greater motivation.
A divorce would leave Harry rich, but refusing to cooperate might make him happy.
And Matilda apparently shared Tremont’s fear that now, when it mattered most, Harry would decide that he was entitled to more than his share of happiness.
That Tommie would be safe gave Matilda a measure of courage. Harry could be peevish and threatening, but the whole time Matilda had dwelled with him, he’d never raised a hand to her, and she’d never gone hungry for long. Marriage to him had been purgatory, but not quite hell.
God have mercy, she was still married to him.
Shock warred with anger over that state of affairs as she and Tremont were greeted by a jovial, mutton-chopped old fellow whose offices were spotless, though sparsely furnished.
“Hubert Drees, at your service, Mrs. Merridew. And who is this good chap?” He turned a friendly smile on Tremont, though his gaze held speculation.
Tremont had dressed soberly and carried a leather satchel. He exuded propriety along with the same banked inquisitiveness Drees brought to the occasion. But then, Marcus communed with his lawyers frequently. He would well know how to impersonate one.
“Glover,” he said, giving his family name. “I was available to accompany Mrs. Merridew on short notice, and because the asset in question is substantial, she had the great good sense to bring me along.”
“Of course,” Drees said, beaming at Matilda. “One can never be too sensible, can one? Mr. Merriman awaits us in the library. Shall I have the clerk bring us some tea?”
“No, thank you,” Matilda said. “To business, if you please, though I must warn you, Mr. Drees, my objective today is simply to hear your terms. I will not be chivvied into any premature decisions.”
“Certainly not,” Drees boomed, chortling as if Matilda had made a jest. “Oh, certainly not, madam. Glover, your client has a good head on her shoulders.”
If he pats my arm, I shall smite him.
“She also has a competent advisor in me,” Tremont replied, smiling toothily. “Shall we get to the details, Drees?”
Yes, please. The details and the great, much-dreaded reunion.
Harry stood when Matilda entered a stuffy little chamber that smelled of old books and countless pipes. He bowed with all the graciousness of a great actor acknowledging a standing ovation.
“Mrs. Merridew, a pleasure.” His smile conveyed a perfect blend of hope and hesitance, the attitude of a fellow who intended to make a good impression and a better deal. His eyes told Matilda he was enjoying himself, daring her to make a fuss and knowing full well she would not.
Harry Merridew was alive and well and very much on his game—though he did look a bit skinny.
Matilda tossed off a shallow curtsey. “Sir.”
“Mr. Glover is representing the lady’s interests,” Drees said. “Shall we be seated?”
Tremont held Matilda’s chair, and the situation took on an air of unreality. While Drees launched into a monologue that made selling one small house sound more complicated than annexing a French province, Matilda tried to study Harry discreetly, looking for some sign that he was not Harry.
Oh, but he was. The same tilt of his head when he asked a question—the lady does have clear title to the domicile?—the same habit of pursing his lips when he wanted to convey that he pondered a delicate point.
In the space of moments, years of widowhood evaporated, and Matilda was returned to the ordeal of marriage to the man now masquerading as Harrell Merriman. His disappearances, his moods, his philandering, his unwillingness to take on honest work, and his offhand affection toward Tommie—and occasionally toward her—had all conspired to keep Matilda perpetually off-balance and upset.
She had learned to deal with the upset by keeping busy. Their lodgings had been immaculate, the mending always done, and—when matters had grown desperate—other people’s mending had been taken care of as well, and without Harry’s knowledge.
Such misery, and for what? So an intelligent, healthy, reasonably good-looking, and outlandishly charming grown man could survive on schoolboy schemes and think himself clever.
“You expect Mrs. Merridew to surrender the deed to the house in exchange for a promissory note?” Tremont asked when Drees came to a pause in his droning.
“That is how the agreement reads,” Drees said, “the draft agreement. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with real estate transactions here in the capital, Mr. Glover? When a provincial banking institution is involved, and with the posts being unreliable, the promissory note assures good faith and a contractual obligation. The courts are happy to enforce such obligations, provided good fellows such as ourselves write them up properly.”
He offered a vicar’s patient smile to a gossipy dowager.
Tremont offered the same smile, not to Drees, but to Harry, the poor sod who had the misfortune to retain such a bumbler as his attorney.
“And because,” Tremont said, “the posts are unreliable, the courts slow and whimsical, and a widow’s lot trying at best, I could not advise Mrs. Merridew to accept anything other than cash or a bank note—made out on a London account—before she executes the deed. When the funds are in her account, she will surrender that deed to me for transfer to you, Mr. Drees.”
Ye gods, Marcus sounded for all the world as if he were indeed a lawyer. And yet, the legal posturing was just that, because Harry had no intention of paying for the house and probably no ability to pay for it either.
Drees grasped his lapels and filled his oratory sails, clearly prepared to lecture Tremont into submission, and that bootless endeavor could go on for the rest of the afternoon. Matilda was abruptly unwilling to afford Mr. Drees a captive audience.
“If you lawyerly gentlemen will absent yourselves,” she said, “Mr. Merriman and I will take a moment to confer directly.”
“I cannot approve,” Drees said, shaking a finger at Matilda. “Rank foolishness to allow the clients to go off in corners. Never a sound idea. Glover doubtless agrees with me.”
Marcus gathered up the paper and pencil he’d used for taking notes and aimed a look at Matilda over his satchel.
“I take my orders from Mrs. Merridew,” he said. “If she seeks a moment to negotiate directly with the prospective buyer, then I am prepared to do as I’m told, though I will remain just beyond the door, available to my client at a moment’s notice.”
“I’m happy to hear what Mrs. Merridew has to say,” Harry so helpfully added. “In my experience, lawyers can needlessly complicate the simplest transactions.”
“I leave under protest,” Drees said, heaving to his feet. “Let the record reflect my protestations. Glover, you are my witness.”
He huffed and harrumphed his way from the room. Marcus followed, though he left the door open three inches. Harry—of course—rose and closed the door the rest of the way.
“You are looking splendid, Tilly, but then, I knew you’d manage. The boy appears to be thriving as well.”
Five years ago, Matilda would have responded to the challenge in that opening salvo, to the latent taunt—I knew you’d manage—sandwiched between superficial compliments. Five years ago, she’d been perpetually exhausted, anxious, and without allies.
Now, she saw the scuff marks on Harry’s polished boots, the cravat carefully folded to hide a stain. His right cuff had been mended inexpertly, and the sharpness to his face suggested he’d been on short rations.
“Sit down, Harry, and stop trying to goad me. Widowhood has been challenging, but I prefer it to resuming wifehood at your side.”
He sank into the seat across from her, which put the door at his back. “You’ve learned some plain speaking in my absence.”
Matilda had learned how it felt to be respected and cared for. Powerful lessons. “Harry, what in God’s name happened to you?”
“I doubt God had anything to do with it.”
“You prevaricate to give yourself time to concoct a taradiddle because you did not think I’d demand a private audience. Please tell me the truth.”
He linked his hands on the table before him, as if preparing to recite grace before a meal. “I wish I knew, Tilly. One moment, I was playing a friendly hand of cards at ye old posting inn, the next I was in the ditch, my head throbbing, not a coin to my name.”
“Which inn?” The door behind Harry had eased open two inches. Matilda willed herself to gaze fixedly at Harry’s handsome, lying face.
“I don’t know. That’s the hell of it. When I roused from my injuries, I not only had no purse, I had no memory. I knew I was Harry, but I couldn’t even settle on a last name. The past came back in bits and dribbles, and that took months. The whole business was humbling, and I still have gaps in my recollection.”
A part of Matilda wanted to believe this outlandish tale—Harry had regularly invited life to hand him a sound thrashing—and wanted to believe the bewildered tone, the bent head. Five years ago, she might have.
“Why, then, when you recalled you had a wife waiting for you back in London, didn’t you return to me?”
“I was in Ireland by then, barely scraping by, and I knew very well I hadn’t been much of a husband to you. I also know I’m not Tommie’s father and the rest of what brought us together. When I had the means to come home, I lacked the confidence. You deserved better, Tilly, and for all I knew, you’d remarried and had other children. When I decided that no, you’d be better off knowing the truth and might not be faring so well on your own, I lacked the means to book passage. I could not make up my mind what the right thing to do was.”
Having had so little experience with that exercise. “What do you want from me, Harry?”
“The house would be a nice gesture in the direction of putting me back on my feet, Tilly. I’ve had a hard time, and I still get the most miserable headaches. You seem to be doing well. You don’t need that house, and I do. ‘For better or for worse’ means you can’t just turn your back on me. I don’t want to make trouble, but I’ve run out of options, and I’m still your husband.”
An ambiguous declaration, part threat, part confession. “I have not missed you,” Matilda said as the door eased open another inch. “But I worried for you, Harry. Every time you vanished—and you vanished frequently—I prayed myself to sleep, hoping you had not come to a bad end.”
“I nearly did, but I’d like to make a fresh start. Settling matters with you is part of that.”
“Bilking me of my only security, you mean?”
“Don’t be like that, Tilly.” He spoke chidingly rather than angrily. “You are pretty, you can run a household without trying, you’re a devoted mother, and men like that in a woman. You have a lot of good years left, while I…” He spread his hands in what was probably supposed to be a gesture of surrender. “I’m ready for a change, and I can’t make that change unless you’ll part with the house.”
“And how can I remarry, Harry, how can I meet any man I esteem at the altar, knowing myself to be your wife? Please recall that my gifts as a swindler are paltry compared to those of present company. Recall that bigamy is a hanging felony, and the children of a bigamous union are bastards. You would steal my only security—Tommie’s only security—and go on your merry way, until the next time you decide to come around looking for any savings I’ve managed to build up.”
“I didn’t much miss you either, Tilly.” This was said mildly, almost affectionately.
“So what threat are you about to aim at me to inspire me to give you an entire house in a decent neighborhood?”
The door opened another inch.
“I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, dearest wife.”
“And I knew it would.”
Harry sighed. He gazed about with an air of heroic long-suffering. He pursed his lips and frowned at the table. Matilda would have applauded this grand performance of a man deliberating over a difficult choice were she not so bored by it.
“Tommie’s father came from a good family,” he said. “Tommie is their only grandchild, the son of their fallen firstborn.”
“And they rebuffed your efforts to extort money from them on that basis.”
“They are older now. They’ve lost a daughter, and they don’t know that you and Tommie are biding with a house full of drunks and ne’er-do-wells. They don’t know that Tommie is tagging around for much of the day after streetwalkers wearing maids’ caps. They don’t know that the boy has no father even in name, but I can make them aware of all those details, Tilly, and there’s not a judge in this country who’d leave Tommie with you if the squire decides to petition for custody.”
Matilda felt a familiar fissuring in response to Harry’s threat. While she was tempted by the very reaction Harry had intended—you cannot take my son!—she had also learned to doubt every word out of Harry’s mouth.
“Harry,” she said, conjuring a semblance of amusement from some latent well of thespian talent. “Give it up. The squire and his goodwife have known of my widowhood for years. They’ve made no overture, sent not so much as a groat to their grandson, nor asked after his wellbeing. They weren’t about to fall in with your schemes years ago, and they don’t give a holey sock for Tommie now. You are bobbing about in the River Tick, and I’m your last option. Why don’t you simply find another bride, this time with more of a dowry?”
Harry merely shook his head, and Matilda had the sense that was the first honest response he’d given her. Bigamy was apparently not a crime he was willing to commit—one of his quaint little rules—though he’d gladly see Matilda take that step.
“Then we are at point non plus, Harry. You cannot threaten me into giving up that house, but fortunately, for you, there is something I want even more than that dower property. My lord, you can come in now.”
By the most fleeting consternation in his eyes, Harry betrayed surprise as he shot to his feet.
Marcus walked back into the room. “Tremont, at your service, sir, family name Glover. I hardly know what to call you, though cheat, liar, and scoundrel come to mind. Sit down, and don’t even think about issuing me a challenge, because I will refuse. I am a peer and a dead shot, while you are”—he wrinkled the lordly beak—“Matilda’s husband. For now.”
Harry sat back down.