“I ought to be going.” And yet, Matilda remained on the stoop, her hand in Tremont’s. She wasn’t giddy or rapturous, but she was… interested? Pleased? Something. “I have become so careful, so cautious and circumspect.”

“Hence,” Tremont replied, “the question becomes, do you trust yourself? When I came home from the Continent, I fell into an agony of self-doubt. I had crossed a line at Waterloo, and I did not trust that I could uncross it. I had never thought of myself as a rule breaker or a man who subverted authority, except that I was.”

His lordship would wait for her to retreat into the house until the moon rose, and Matilda did not want to discommode him. She considered their joined hands, and she turned his words over in her mind.

“What you say is true. I was overly trusting of the world and other people, and now I am under-ly trusting of myself. What sort of fool gets herself into a situation where marrying a confidence trickster looks like the answer to her prayers? I want to blame my folly entirely on Harry, but I can’t.”

“He’s dead,” Tremont said, smiling slightly in the gloom. “Blaming him works marvelously because he’s not here to defend himself. Given my sentiments toward the man, that is rather a good thing. I don’t approve of violence in the normal course, and I grow positively pedantic about the stupidity of dueling—from wretched experience, let it be said. For Harry Merridew, I might once again prove that I am capable of breaking my own rules.”

“I’m about to break one of my rules, my lord.”

Despite that warning, Tremont remained calmly gazing down at her as the snowflakes danced onto his shoulders and the wind soughed around the corner of the house.

Matilda braced herself with a hand on Tremont’s shoulder and kissed his cheek. She lingered near for a moment, catching a whiff of jasmine and green grass—a delicate fragrance for such a substantial man.

In Matilda’s lexicon of broken rules, that kiss should barely qualify. Tremont’s cheek was cool and a little rough, and he remained unbending in response.

“That kiss was not for my rapier wit or devilish charm, was it?” he asked.

“Nor for your sparkling repartee, my lord, and while I find you more than passingly handsome, I did not kiss you because I was overcome with animal spirits.” That Tremont had inspired Matilda to even acknowledge animal spirits aloud was another marvel.

He took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. “Please do tell me what inspired your display so I might earn a similar reward under circumstances where I’m in a better position to reciprocate.”

Matilda took courage from that speech. Tremont resorted to rhetoric when emotion threatened his reserve.