“I learned to keep Harry in sight at all times.”

“The better to guard against presumptions upon your person?”

Tremont posed his question dispassionately, which made answering him easier. “Not particularly that. I learned that if I simply acquiesced to Harry’s overtures, he soon lost interest. He married me for my money and my respectability. Part of him enjoyed exercising his marital rights with me—he liked the idea of a vicar’s daughter disporting with a rascal—but another part of him could not handle being passively tolerated as a lover. Toward the end, he left me alone.”

Tremont’s town house came into sight, though Matilda could have done with more walking and more talking. The past was easier to discuss when she and Tremont weren’t facing each other over a teapot.

“Did you miss Merridew’s attentions when he withheld them?”

That question, too, was posed without any particular weight. “No. Not in the least. On my worst, most bleak and hungry days, I am still glad to no longer be married to that man.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What have you to be sorry for?”

“I’m sorry, Matilda, that even in the most basic comforts the married state is intended to confer, your husband failed you. That doesn’t explain why you had to keep him in sight at all times.”

No, it didn’t. Matilda gave the matter some thought. “He didn’t strike me.”

“We have established that he did not need to strike you when he could instead threaten to send your child to a baby farm or foundling home.”

And that observation was offered with exquisite dispassion.

Matilda resigned herself to sharing another sordid truth about her past. “Harry stole things. From me, from Tommie. Aunt Portia somehow put together the coin to gift Tommie with a silver rattle. He loved it. He shook that thing by the hour, fascinated with the sound, with how sunlight gleamed on the surface. Harry pawned it or sold it. He pawned my best boots to buy me a fancy cloak, as if people wouldn’t notice my worn boots because fancy hems were draped over my frigid toes. My little trousseau—a tea service, some linen, bride clothes, and so forth—didn’t last a year.”

“And let me guess,” Tremont said, escorting Matilda up the steps to his town house. “When you asked your husband if he’d seen the rattle, he turned an innocent expression on you, or—if he was vexed by some detail of the day that had nothing to do with you—he’d chide you for not taking better care of your son’s toys. Merridew would ask you where your good boots were and then mutter that clearly you could not be trusted with any item of value. For a long, desperate moment, you’d wonder if he was right and if you were losing your wits.”