“That’s the spirit.” He winked, touched a finger to his hat brim, and bowed. “Do you know, of all the souls in this great metropolis, I believe you are the only one whom I’d trust to keep your word? If you say I’ll have that deed, then I’ll have it. Best of luck, Tilly, and give my regards to the City of Brotherly Love.”

He jaunted off on that grand exit line, and Matilda let him go. She’d never understood him and still didn’t, but he wasn’t all bad. Not nearly. Unlike Papa, Harry hadn’t lied to himself, and that alone took a sort of backhanded courage.

Though thank the heavenly intercessors, she would never see him again. “Harry!” she called.

He turned slowly.

“Best of luck to you too!”

He saluted, and Matilda went upon her way. Harry had not been bluffing about taking Tommie. He never bluffed, though he did cheat, steal, misrepresent, and lie. Matilda had learned to lie as well, and her future and Tommie’s depended on Harry believing the load of falsehoods she’d just served him.

Chapter Fifteen

“I do have a plan.” Matilda said, looking for all the world like a mulish schoolgirl.

“Which you refuse to share with me,” Tremont rejoined from his seat one wing chair and four universes of heartache away from her perch. “Matilda, have we no trust in each other?” She had come back to the house from some outing she would not disclose, but the men reported that she’d missed her usual half day with the MacKays.

And the reticule she’d deposited on the sideboard looked suspiciously full.

She gave him an unfathomable look, and that she would guard her feelings from the man who loved her nearly unhinged him.

“I will leave England for a time,” she said. “Harry’s schemes will result inevitably in his true demise, and when that happens, if you have not taken a proper wife, I will marry you.”

“No.” Tremont had nearly shouted the word, which would not do. They were in Matilda’s private parlor, and half a dozen men, two maids, Mrs. Winklebleck, and Cook wielding her rolling pin would all come running if they thought Matilda was getting the sharp edge of Tremont’s tongue.

“No, you will not marry me?” The question revealed a crack in Matilda’s towering dignity. “My mistake. I do apologize. I should not have presumed.”

She was once again the chilly, proper widow, and Tremont suspected that this time, she was not Harry Merri-dew-man-whatever’s widow, she was Tremont’s widow. Her grief was trussed up in propriety and determination, the twin pillars of her composure since she’d left her girlhood home.

“No,” Tremont said quietly. “No, I will not take a proper wife, if by that you mean some blushing flower whose parents covet my title. The only wife I will ever speak my vows with is you.”