Page 8 of To Steal a Kiss

Matilda pressed a finger to her lips and shook her head. “Come along, Alice. I think we need to have a chat.”

Propelled by a stronger force of will than her own—as usual—Alice hurried off in Matilda’s wake as her friend sought a quiet corner. They found it in the form of a long picture gallery. Lamps illuminated the grand corridor and the spaces between paintings were studded with shadowy alcoves. Within these were displayed other works of art, such as vases and statuary.

“Oh, look at this one,” Alice exclaimed, moving into an alcove to inspect a stunning Chinese vase. Anything to put off the inevitable.

Matilda lingered in the corridor, her gaze focused on a painting that Alice had instinctively avoided as it depicted a nude Venus in a reclining pose. From the fleeting glance Alice had cast it, she’d seen a beautiful woman, staring at herself in a mirror, making her as much a voyeur as the audience regarding her.

Alice turned away from the vase and back to Matilda, who was staring with rapt attention at the painting. In that moment Alice believed that Matilda, not Venus, was the loveliest work of art in the room. Her blonde hair, artfully arranged in loose curls, framed a face any painter would die to capture. A mouth as lush and soft and pink as any ever set to canvas was parted a little, her blue eyes captivated, shinning with… with what? Alice wasn’t sure, only aware that she ought not to intrude. She moved back into the alcove and then jolted as a man’s voice broke the almost reverential silence.

“Alone, Miss Hunt? And regarding such a scandalous painting. Is that wise?”

Matilda’s posture stiffened at once, her gaze flying to Alice’s. Alice moved forward from her hidden spot in the alcove, to show the man Matilda was not, in fact, alone, but Matilda shook her head. It was a tiny movement, barely perceptible but Alice stilled, perplexed. Matilda’s blue eyes held hers for a moment, as if confirming she should stay put, and then she turned, slowly.

Head back, shoulders squared, she stood as proudly as a queen to face whoever had spoken to her.

Alice’s gaze fastened on the reflection of a shadowy figure in a glass fronted case on the other side of the gallery, and her breath caught. The figure was indistinct, but the man was still unmistakable. The Marquess of Montagu. The man who’d ruined Matilda with nothing more than his presence.

Matilda stared at him, her gaze icy with loathing. She did not curtsey as she ought in the presence of such a high-ranking man, neither did she acknowledge him.

“Of all the things you took from me, you have given me the freedom to act as I please. I need no permission from anyone, least of all you. You’ve already taken my reputation. I have little else to lose.”

There was a pause, then he spoke again, his voice every bit as cold as Matilda’s expression.

“I’m not sure that’s true.”

Alice could only see Matilda’s face in profile from her hiding place, but she saw her friend arch one elegant eyebrow, a derisive quirk touching her lips.

“Oh, you’re sure it isn’t true,” Matilda said in disgust. “You know nothing happened between us that night. Thanks to you, everyone else in the world believes it did, so what does it matter? You’ve ruined my life, and if you think I’ll thank you for observations as to how I live it in the light of that fact, you are very much mistaken.”

“I did nothing of the sort,” the marquess replied, sounding bored at best. “I did not invite you into that room and, as you said yourself, I did not lay a hand on you. You were there by your own volition.”

“My father was dying. I was searching for my brother. It was my father’s dying wish to speak with him one last time,” Matilda shot back, the words bitten off, laced with fury.

“So, you left a dying man alone, instead of sending a servant?”

Alice gasped at the cruelty of that statement and saw Matilda flinch, just a little.

“We could not afford servants at that point, as I’m sure you’re aware. My father had gambled away our inheritance and left nothing but debt. That’s why he wanted to see my brother, to beg his forgiveness.”

Even in the glass, Alice could make out the sneer of contempt, though she could hear it even more clearly in the marquess’ voice.

“Ah yes, convenient of him. Who can refuse the wishes of a dying man? Even one who has condemned his family to destitution? So, as an act of contrition, he sends his daughter out into the night, alone. What a saint.”

Matilda gasped at that, one hand flying to her throat.

“You’re a cold-hearted, wicked bastard,” she said, as Alice covered her mouth with her hand to muffle her own intake of breath.

How Matilda had the courage to face this loathsome creature down—and swear with such ease—Alice could not fathom, but she’d never been prouder.

The marquess greeted Matilda’s words with nothing but a snort of amusement.

“Not a bastard,” he drawled, sounding almost apologetic. “I’ll own the rest of it, though. However, I’m still a better man than your father.”

“How dare you—” Matilda began, but the shadowy figure in the reflection raised his hand to silence her.

“My family—my name, their inheritance—that is everything,” he said, and the stunning arrogance behind his words was only diminished because Alice knew they were true. “Montagu is one of the oldest and most powerful names in the land. Everything I do is for the family good. I’d never bring shame or disrespect down upon us. Certainly not by marrying some nameless, penniless chit who has the temerity to visit a men’s club in the early hours of the morning, just because she’s witless enough to enter a room I’m already inhabiting.”

“I never asked for that,” Matilda flung back at him. “My God, I’d rather the position I’m in now a thousand times over than find myself married to a man more dead than alive.”