“Well, we are to be married,” he replied. “I rather doubt there is a couple in this town who did not share a bed prior to saying their vows.”
She felt heat color her cheeks when she caught him glancing in her direction.
“When will you speak with my father? About my marriage portion?” she asked as they turned to go up to the second floor. Her gaze swept the landing and into what she thought might bea parlor, the floral upholstered fabrics of the chairs barely visible in the light from the lantern.
“I should pay a call on him tomorrow afternoon. Do you think he will be at his home on a Sunday?”
“He will be if the weather remains this cold,” she replied. She thought of Eliza and wondered if her friend was warming his bed as she was about to do with Matthew’s. When only a few days ago she might have felt annoyance at the thought, now she was glad for Eliza. “Perhaps Mrs. Buxton is helping in that regard.”
Matthew nodded. “I would not judge another man’s choice of a wife,” he said softly. “I know you are not happy—”
“I am, actually,” she interrupted. “I’ve given it a good deal of thought, and while I admit I was not at first, I realize it’s only because I felt as if I was losing Eliza as a friend.”
He frowned. “You didn’t think you two could still be friends? Because she will be your stepmother?”
“Exactly,” Catherine agreed. “Well, and also because, well, she’ll be married.”
“As will you,” he reminded her.
Catherine glanced over at him as she squeezed his arm. “Yes.”
For some reason, the reminder had her grinning, and she felt lighter than she had in years.
Meanwhile, in a town coach parked farther up South Audley Street
The embers inthe brazier had long grown cold when Titan finally tapped the ceiling of his town coach with his cane. He had been watching the front door of Wingfield House from the back window of his coach, intrigued when light appeared in one of the ground floor front windows. For nearly ten minutes, nothing happened. Then, Matthew suddenly emerged from thetownhouse, said something to his driver, and hurried back inside. The light in the front window disappeared.
The Wingfield town coach passed his own only a moment later, turning into an alley that led to the mews located directly behind the row of townhouses.
At no point had Miss Kingston taken her leave of Wingfield House, though.
“Wingfield, youdog,” Titan murmured as he chuckled softly.
“Where to, sir?”
Titan glanced up at his driver. “The Lyon’s Den.”
He still had to decide if he was going to share what he had learned with the Widow of Whitehall.
Chapter Twenty
One Couple, One Night
Meanwhile, inside Wingfield House
Matthew and Catherinestepped into the second-floor corridor and passed one door before he opened the next one. “This is my bedchamber, but you have your own next door. They connect through the dressing room,” he explained as he placed the lantern on a dresser. A candle lamp was already lit on the nightstand, and a fire had been set in the fireplace on the wall opposite the four-poster bed.
He took her reticule and hat from her to place them on the dresser. “Would you like to see your bedchamber?”
Catherine shook her head. “Mayhap tomorrow,” she replied, her breathing more noticeable now that her heart rate had once again increased. “When I can see it by the light of day.”
“I think you’ll like it. Mother had it redone before she died. To make it more modern and less… French,” he said as he removed her mantle. “I adore this color on you,” he added, referring to her day gown. He draped the mantle over the back of a chair. “With your hair and all.”
Glancing down at the emerald gown, Catherine said, “Thank you.” She lifted a hand to her head and felt around for hairpins, intending to remove them.
“May I?” he asked.
Catherine froze. “Remove my hairpins?”
