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“Your great-uncle allowed my aunt and me to stay at the cottage because we have little income, no major support, and no connections. He valued my father, who had once been his steward, and promised him he would take care of us. I had hoped to find you were the same sort of man with a sense of honor and duty. I see that I am mistaken. Excuse me, my lord, but I have a long walk back to the cottage and if you haven’t noticed, it’s snowing quite fiercely.”
Matilda spun on her heel and was halfway out the room when he called after her.
“You walked here?”
She spun back to face him. “OfcourseI did. If we couldafforda pound a month, we might have had some other form of conveyance other than our own two feet!” On that note, she stormed down the corridor muttering to herself. She reached the front door, which Stodgens hastily opened.
“So very sorry, Miss Matthews.”
“It’s quite all right, Mr. Stodgens. Your master is the monster, not you.” She stepped out into the snowy night. She was only a dozen feet away when she heard Lord Castleton call out from the doorway.
“If you ask me sweetly, Miss Matthews, I might be convinced it’s worth the trouble to have my coach take you home.”
Matilda stopped dead and drew in a fortifying breath before she turned around.
“I’m afraid I’m all out ofsweetness, my lord.” She emphasized the word in her most honeyed tone. “Unless you are willing to allow my aunt and me to stay at Meadow Cross, we have nothing to discuss.”
Castleton lounged in the doorway of his home, his arms crossed and face smug.
“No, I’m afraid not. I am the lord of this estate now, and I plan to see it do more than crumble from neglect as it had under my great-uncle. I have made my decision and it will be upheld. Five days are all you have to come up with the rent before I have you tossed out.”
Matilda was never quite sure what made her do what she did next. It was rash, but she had been pushed to her limit. It was also immature, but then so was everything about this man’s attitude. It was wrong, but at that moment she did not give a toss one way or the other.
She bent down, grabbing a slushy pile of snow in her gloved hands, packed it hard into a ball and, with no warning to her intended victim, hurled it directly at his head.
The slushy, icy mixture hit him square in the face and exploded. He lost his footing and fell onto his backside, laying half in the doorway of Castleton Hall.
“Bloody hell!” He roared and swiped a hand over his face, sending wet snow down the fine waistcoat he wore. She stared at him as he sat up and glared at her.
“Oh dear …” Matilda gasped as her sanity restored itself. She lifted her skirt above her knees and started to sprint down the road. She was breathing hard as she struggled through the snow. His harsh breaths and heavy, booted steps grew ever closer as he chased her.
“Come back here, Miss Matthews!” he shouted.
Suddenly she tripped, plummeting facedown into the snow just as he slammed down on top of her. She struggled and managed to elbow him. He grunted and flipped onto her back beneath him. He lay fully on top of her, his gray eyes bright as he stared down at her.
“Aren’t you a little polecat?” he growled as he pinned her wrists over her head in the snow. She was so furious and frightened, lying with the wet and cold seeping into her back beneath her.
“A woman shows the slightest courage and you deem her a polecat? You’re no gentleman!” she snarled back.
The frown on his face vanished and he suddenly smiled. “I have never claimed to be a gentleman, only the lord of this land. And the fact is, Ilikepolecats.” His gaze drooped and she realized too late he was going to kiss her. The instant his lips touched hers, she lifted her knee hard into his stomach. His eyes bulged as a load groan escaped him.
“Christ! I was only going steal a kiss!” He rolled off her and they both lay panting in the snow. Matilda stared up at the snowflakes coming down from the sky, still dazed from the encounter. The earl recovered before she did. He crouched over her and lifted her up into the cradle of his arms like some silly damsel in a gothic novel. Recovering her senses at last, she screeched and fought to escape his arms. He carried her past the very shocked Mr. Stodgens.
“My lord?” the butler said uncertainly.
“Do you have the key to that blue bedchamber facing the sea?” Castleton asked.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Give it to me. Now.”
The butler removed a heavy brass key from a ring of keys and gave it to Castleton. Then the earl was climbing up the stairs to the floor above.
“What are you doing?” she cried out, fearing the worst.
But he refused to answer her, telling her only to be quiet.
He entered a room, where she was dumped unceremoniously onto a wonderfully soft surface. By the time she realized it was a bed and not a dungeon cot she’d been deposited onto, he was outside the bedchamber, closing the door. The key turned in the lock with a deafening sense of finality.
