She sipped her tea, took a bite of sandwich, and took another sip of tea. “Why did you not return home, my lord?”

He deserved that, for bringing up his past. “I told myself that I wasn’t fit company for my family, that I needed time to adjust to civilian life, but, in fact, I was hiding. I had made decisions—those impulsive decisions you allude to—and they haunted me. You might have noticed that I have a talent for rumination. I ruminated myself into a morass of misery from which I could not extricate myself.”

Mrs. Merridew studied him as if he were one of those medieval paintings of fantastical beasts and strange flowers. What could one say about such a piece?

“Did you impulsively choose to marry a complete bounder thinking he was the answer to all your prayers?”

How fortunate for Harry Merridew that he was dead. “I shot my superior officer at point-blank range in front of dozens of witnesses.”

Tremont did not speak of his gross breach of military protocol, civil law, and God’s commandments, and neither did the men who’d seen him fire his pistol.

Mrs. Merridew set down her cup and saucer carefully, and Tremont braced himself to be told that she’d see herself out. That must be some kind of record to put a lady off before she’d finished even a single cup of tea.

“I’m not sorry I told you,” Tremont said. “But you seem to think that marrying Merridew was an unforgivable offense on your part. That is simply not the case. We do the best we can, Mrs. Merridew, and one cannot control the results.”

Her expression remained unreadable, so Tremont blundered on. “My superior officer was ordering us into certain, stupid death on a battlefield where every able-bodied soldier had a contribution to make. He ignored the very clear direction we’d had from headquarters and was willing to sacrifice his men on the altar of military vanity. What I did was wrong, a violation of military decorum, a crime, et cetera and so forth, and yet, I would do it again.”

That speech settled something for Tremont. He’d pondered and considered and ruminated on the events at Waterloo until he was sick of the memory, but he’d never quite admitted to himself that he’d made the only possible choice.

“Your superior officer,” Mrs. Merridew said, “was begging for a bullet, and you are right: From a certain perspective, I needed marrying. There is that.”

A log fell on the andirons, sending a shower of sparks up the flue. In the ensuing quiet, Tremont reviewed Matilda’s words in his head to make sure he had the sense of them.