Page 64 of To Steal a Kiss

Nate sat up with alarm, his anxiety not soothed by the flush of colour at Matilda’s cheeks.

“What the devil was that bastard doing here?” Nate demanded, anger and worry making him speak out of turn.

“Nate!” Matilda exclaimed, glaring at him. “Who his grace invites is hardly our affair.”

Bedwin handed Nate a glass of brandy, an apologetic expression in his eyes. “I didn’t invite him,” he said with a rueful smile before sitting down. “And do, please, call me Robert,” he said to Matilda. “I can only apologise,” he added, still looking at her. “He was not invited, but you do not exclude the Marquess of Montagu if he turns up on your doorstep.”

“But you’re a bloody duke,” Nate said, outraged. “You outrank him.”

“Rank and power are not at all the same thing,” Robert said, serious now. “Montagu is not a man you make an enemy of. His enemies have a nasty habit of disappearing. Besides which, he was so damn scrupulous in begging my pardon that it would have seemed churlish to refuse him. He said he’d not be here above an hour, and that he was just….” He frowned, apparently searching his memory for the phrase. “Reminding someone of a debt.”

“What the devil did he mean by that?” Nate asked, perplexed, but Robert just shrugged.

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to, but I pity the poor wretch who owes him.”

“Nate,” Matilda said, her voice quiet and a little unsteady. “Would you mind if we went home now? I… I’m not feeling terribly well.”

Nate put down his drink and sprang to his feet. “Of course, Tilda. Why didn’t you say so? My word, you do look peaky.”

They made their excuses and Nate took Matilda to his carriage, where she sagged into the corner with a sigh.

“Tilda,” he said, once the carriage had rocked into motion. “About Montagu. He didn’t bother you, did he? Because if he did—”

“No!” she said, sounding a little exasperated. “No, he didn’t bother me. Why should he? He thinks no more of me than a kitchen maid. I’m beneath his notice, you know that.”

“I will make him pay you know. Sooner or later.”

“No, Nate,” she said, sitting up straight at that. “You will not. You will marry Alice tomorrow and have a wife and, soon enough, a home and a family to care for. I won’t have you risk that. I am quite content. What is done is done, and you will leave Montagu alone. You heard Bedwin; he’s dangerous. If even a duke must treat the man with kid gloves, he’s not someone to trifle with.”

Nate glowered into the darkness, his jaw tight. He’d say no more on the matter, not to his sister, but somehow, someday, Montagu would pay for his sins.

Chapter 19

Harriet! You’ll never guess what I just heard about Alice!

―Excerpt of a letter from Miss Kitty Connolly to Miss Harriet Stanhope.

29th June 1814. Baker Street, London.

“I feel quite dreadfully wicked, just like a character in one of my own novels,” Prue said, grinning widely as her husband helped Alice into the carriage. “It’s very exciting.”

Alice, who hadn’t slept a wink, and whose stomach was tied in knots, offered her friend a wan smile.

“I do hope I won’t appear in your next story. I think I shall make a rather woeful heroine,” she said, sitting down beside Prue with a sigh.

“Nonsense,” Prue replied with her usual brisk manner. “You’ve done the hard bit and got out of the house. There will be no more subterfuge after this; it can all come out in the open. You’ll feel much better then, take my word for it.”

Alice gave a laugh that sounded just a touch too close to hysteria. “Mother wouldn’t stop this morning. Mr Bindley will arrive tonight to propose, and she was asking me all sorts of questions about the wedding preparations. It put me in such a quake I nearly confessed everything.” Her voice trembled as the enormity of what she was doing hit her all over again. “And I’ve dragged both of you into my d-drama, and I’ve not got a thing for my w-wedding night, let alone a trousseau….”

She snapped her mouth shut, refusing to turn into a watering pot. Anyone would think she didn’t want to marry Nate, and that wasn’t it at all. Deception and subterfuge were not nearly as much fun as one would imagine, though, especially when she stretched her imagination to include her parents’ reaction to the news she’d married Nathaniel Hunt.

“Alice,” Prue said, her voice steadying with its calm assurance of good sense. “Do you love Mr Hunt?”

With a deep breath Alice found a smile curving her mouth. “I do.”

“And you’ve not changed your mind about marrying him?”

“No. Not for a moment.”