Page 40 of To Break the Rules

Matilda should survive it, but only as her reputation was already tarnished. So, it would do her no good, but no serious harm. Lord Cavendish, however… people would mock him for wanting to have married her if that got about, and she cared for him too much to let that happen.

So, she would ensure it never did.

***

Matilda couldn’t breathe.

Mr David Burton had wasted no time in making his admiration of her plain. He seemed to be everything she had ever hoped for in a man, as if God himself had been taking notes.

Good-looking, interesting, intelligent, wealthy, and above all… kind. You could tell all this from the look in his eyes when he spoke, she thought, the respectful way he sought her opinion and actually listened. Not only that, he seemed interested in her thoughts. He was effusive in his flattery, but in a manner that was so endearing that it was not smothering. Charming and urbane, he would make any woman—any woman with an ounce of sense—a husband she could take pride in. Of course, that excluded most of the women of the ton, as they could not see past the fact he worked for a living.

Yet that was something Matilda thought was in his favour.

She had suffered at the hands of the ton, and so would he. Perhaps it would liberate her to turn her back on it entirely, which she would effectively do if she considered marrying him.

Not that he’d asked, but from the comments he’d dropped so far it appeared he was looking for a wife—and he well knew the circumstances of her fall from grace.

It wasn’t this charming, eligible man who was keeping the breath from her lungs, though.

That the instigator of her fall from grace was seated on her left….

Yes. That would do it.

She’d tried her best not to notice him, but the moment he’d entered the room she’d felt his presence. As ridiculous as she told herself that was, it had been true. The sudden shiver of anticipation over her skin, the flutter of a thousand butterflies in her stomach: Matilda had recognised the sensation before she’d even turned and seen him arrive.

He took her breath away.

Tall and lean, and as unreachable as the moon, he was like no other man in the room. The ton murmured of the power he wielded, of the influence he wielded, and that aura clung to him. There was no warmth in his expression and an indefinable air of danger clung to him, like a beautiful big cat you could only admire from a distance. Perhaps a white tiger that appeared tamed and domesticated. Get too close and he’d likely rip your throat out.

His white-blond hair and those unusual silver-grey eyes only added to the air of unattainability, as if such beauty was reserved for the gods and too perilous for mere mortals to enjoy. He carried himself with grace, and with an indefinable air of authority that made everyone in the room look to him as he entered, their conversations stopping.

Since they’d sat down, the marquess had been in conversation with both Mrs Manning and the Countess Culpepper, though conversation was perhaps stretching the description as both women vied to flirt with him and the marquess rarely spoke to encourage them.

He didn’t need to.

Matilda tried not to notice, giving her attention over to Mr Burton. It ought to have been a good deal easier than it was.

“I understand that Miss de Feria is living with you at the moment, Miss Hunt?”

“Yes, indeed, and I was never more pleased with her company. My brother, for whom I kept house, has recently married and I swore I would not be that dreadful relation one can never get rid of, no matter how you try.”

Mr Burton laughed, a warm, merry sound that made her smile. “I find it hard to believe such a description could ever be levelled at you. I’m sure they miss you.”

“Oh, yes,” Matilda said with an airy wave of her hand. “Because all newlyweds are so eager to have their sister underfoot at every moment of the day.”

“Very well, I grant you that much, but now tell me your brother hasn’t begged you to return to them.”

Matilda gave him a wry smile. “He has, of course, but he is the very best of brothers and I love him too well to accept.”

“He is the proprietor of Hunter’s, I believe?”

“Yes,” Matilda agreed, reaching for her wine and taking a small sip, though the temptation to drain it was strong. “Are you a member?”

There was another burst of laughter that made the corners of her mouth tug upwards.

“No, indeed. I’m afraid when one has worked as hard as I have to earn his fortune, well, it makes me in less of a rush to part with it on the roll of a dice, put it that way.”

“How sensible you are,” Matilda said, with genuine admiration. As her own father had sent his family to ruin with his gambling debts, that was an admirable quality to her mind.