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“My lady,” he said, a soft smile curving his lips, “I hope I did not frighten you.” He did not seem to know her, and she willed herself to be calm. She had never given him her name and until she did, he would never know who she was and loathe her for both the scandal and stopping their correspondence.
“Of course not, Your Grace.” She kept her voice calm as she spoke and curtsied respectfully.
“You know me?” he asked, his hazel eyes warm and curious, just as she had imagined they would be. His question surprised her, and she wondered if he had seen any sign of recognition in her expression. Diana strengthened her composure.
“We have not been introduced but it is not difficult to know who the master of this castle is.” She smiled, feeling the knots in her stomach loosen. She had nothing to fear because she was no longer the woman he knew.
“May I know your name?” he asked. He was standing in front of her now, and the heat from his body was awakening sensations in her skin.
“I am Miss Pearson.” She purposefully left out her first name because he likely had heard about the scandal.
One of his dark brows rose, and the corner of his mouth slanted. “Just Miss Pearson?”
“Mystery makes the mundane interesting, Your Grace,” she smiled.
Matthew frowned. “Have we met before?”
Diana recalled writing something similar to what she had just said in one of her letters to him, and she quickly thought of what to say to distract him from Dee. “Perhaps we have met in our past lives.”
“Then that should explain why you captured my attention the instant you walked into the ballroom.” His voice was soft yet deep, and it made her want to listen to him talk.
“And why you captured mine,” she smiled under her breath.
“Pardon?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Will you satisfy my curiosity, Miss Pearson?” he asked, tilting his head as he regarded her. He was studying her, she realized, and she sought to be entirely aware of every thought she had and what she said. She must not reveal herself, no matter what.
“I will if I am able, Your Grace,” she answered.
“Why did you leave the ballroom?”
Because she recognized him. Diana did not let her smile falter when she said, “I find crowded ballrooms intolerable.”
Matthew grinned. “Do you, now? What about them do you find intolerable?”
“The gossip,” she said truthfully, “and the masks people often wear to appear better than they are.” She contradicted herself by saying that but she believed that she had just reasons for her actions. They were necessary.
“I find that bothersome, as well, Miss Pearson.” His eyes gleamed with amusement.
She nodded and turned to look back at the painting she had been observing. After a moment of silence, she spoke again. “Who painted this?”
“My father,” he said, his voice turning solemn. “He was very talented.”
She recalled him telling her in one of his letters that his father was melancholic and had been since his mother’s death twenty years ago now. Without thinking, she touched his arm, and he looked down at her, the intensity in his gaze growing.
“My condolences,” she whispered.
He nodded, his expression becoming unreadable for a moment. But then the heat returned to his eyes, and she blushed when his gaze moved to her lips and fought the arousal coursing in her veins by turning to another painting, one of an angel descending from the heavens. Slowly, she moved away from him, but her breath caught when she heard him follow her, and he began to tell her about the paintings and sculptures around the room.
They stopped in front of a marble sculpture of a woman holding up a torch. “This one was collected by my grandfather, and it was made by Michelangelo’s apprentice, or so I was told,” Matthew said behind her, and she discovered he was closer than she thought. If she leaned back a little, she would be able to feel him. “It took a very long time to sculpt this, and the woman had to hold the torch for many hours in a day so he could carve the forms of her body accurately.”
“How tired she must have been,” Diana observed, marveling at the skill required to sculpt something to near perfection.
“I was told that she wanted to be sculpted, and she willingly held the torch until she was asked to put it down,” he explained.
Diana giggled. “I could never do that.”
