Chapter Three

"Do you make a habit of frightening young ladies at their front door?" Matilda asked coolly as she walked through the gardens with the Duke, who was supposedly her betrothed.

She was careful to keep a pointed distance between them, veering off to wander adjoining pathways wherever she could before meeting up with him again. He frowned the entire time, his mouth permanently fixed in a thin, displeased line. A shame, in truth, for he had full lips that did not suit being squashed together.

"I was expected," he replied, just as coolly.

"We have discussed this. You were not expected. If you were expected, you would have been welcomed," she said. "If the party you are supposed to be meeting is not aware of the meeting, then you cannot be ‘expected.' It is impossible. You believed you were. That is very different, and your unwillingness to see that does not reflect well on your character."

The Duke's lip curled. "You do not know me."

"I am very perceptive," she said. "It does not take me long to decipher someone's nature."

"In that, we are the same," he remarked. "You've also shown an unwillingness to accept that you were mistaken which rather shows a flaw in your character. You haven't attempted to apologize."

She sniffed. "Nor have you."

"I did apologize. Twice. Once to you, once to your cousin," he replied.

"You did not mean it though, and an apology that is not meant is no apology at all."

He took a measured breath and for a second, she wondered what it would take to get a more impassioned reaction from this stern, stoic, stony statue of a man. She was trying her best to antagonize him, and he was giving her nothing in return.

"I didn't realize that my supposed betrothed was a fountain of proverbs," he said.

"Oh, we are not betrothed," she hurried to correct. "This is all my cousin's scheming, and I want no part in it. Indeed, I should have no part in it, considering it is nothing at all to do with me. If he wants to aid you in your pursuit of marriage so badly, then he ought to wed you himself."

"Nor is it anything to do with me what your quarrel is with your cousin," the Duke replied, rather sharper of mind than his appearance suggested.

The trouble was he said it all with such a matter-of-fact voice that it took her a while to realize that he had made a clever retort. She certainly would not laugh, lest it encourage his pursuit.

This is why one must never judge a person by their exterior. She kept that to herself in case he accused her of being a fountain of proverbs again. What he called proverbs, she called wisdom, but she would not waste the exertion trying to explain that to him. After all, he had not yet understood that he was at fault.

"Are they not beautiful orchards, Your Grace?" James sidled up to involve himself, a terrible chaperone.

Ever since the Duke had arrived, James had been desperate to woo the man into conversation, as if he was more interested in finding a powerful, wealthy friend, and the Duke becoming Matilda's husband was merely a secondary prize.

"They would be," the Duke replied, snatching Matilda's intrigue for a moment.

"Would be, Your Grace?" James said, visibly panicking.

The Duke waved a hand, also covered with silvery scars, toward the distant trees. "No one has picked any fruit. If the fruit isn't picked, there's no use in having extensive orchards. The fruits are mature; they should be picked."

"That is what I have been saying!" Matilda cried, swiftly reining in her enthusiasm. "But no one ever listens to me."

The Duke glanced down at her with those intense, dark blue eyes. "Perhaps, that's because you say a great deal yet not very much at all. One might be less inclined to listen if one has to sift through a tide of self-important blather first to find the important bits."

She stared at him, dumbfounded. It was the meanest, cleverest thing anyone had said to her since her father passed, and she did not know how to process it, whether to applaud his wit or spit at him.

A well-aimed spit might be enough to get him to leave, she mused, but that remark had just made her so damnably curious.

"The fruits shall be picked at once," James fumbled, oblivious to his cousin's inner turmoil.

"Don't have them picked on my account," the Duke replied. "They're your trees. I'd just suggest that, if you do have them picked, you bring in the nearby villagers to do it. Offer them a portion in exchange for the picking. Make some cider; serve it at your next ball. Make apple pies; serve those too."

Matilda tilted her head to one side. "You think fine ladies and gentlemen drink cider at balls? I knew you were not what you said you were. Clearly, you are a charlatan."

"A charlatan?" The ghost of a dark smile lifted one corner of his lips. "I will not argue on that count, Lady Matilda, but I am the Duke of Whitecliff."

Her eyes narrowed. "I did not realize that my visitor was a fountain of riddles."

"Your betrothed, Matilda," James hissed, jabbing her in the ribs with his elbow. "It has all been arranged. Of course, Your Grace," he continued, fixing his adoring gaze on the Duke, "I do not expect you to warm to my cousin right away. She is…taciturn around those she does not know."

That mysterious smile drifted across the Duke's lips again. "Then she mustn't know you very well, James."

Her cousin had insisted on being referred to by his given name while Matilda had insisted on being referred to as "Miss Elkins." Thus far, the Duke had abided by James's wishes, but not hers. It irked her.

James burst out laughing, the sound so high and false that it sent a shudder up Matilda's spine. "You are very amusing, Your Grace. I assure you, my cousin and I have a very… genial relationship."

"You are as atrocious a liar as you are a matchmaker," Matilda shot back.

The Duke halted on the crushed shell pathway through the wisteria and hanging rose archways. "Allow me to guess, Lady Matilda—in your eyes, James is a usurper, even though he is your cousin. Perhaps, you didn't know one another before he became Earl for whatever reason families grow distant. You believe he has no place here. He inherited instead of you because society is what it is, and now, you're stuck with one another." He paused, sweeping a hand across his unkempt hair, the movement revealing more scars hidden beneath his dark locks. "I am the means of unsticking you both."

For once, both James and Matilda were matched in their slack-jawed expression.

"I see," the Duke said, nodding slowly. "Perhaps, I ought to return in a week or so, once the two of you have fought your personal battles."

James took a few steps back, putting his hands up. "No, no, all is well. We are genial with one another. You should walk and converse—do not let me interrupt. Please, continue."

The Duke shrugged and began walking again. Matilda followed suit though his rude, unnuanced assessment of her had put a black cloud over her head. She did not want him there, and she wanted him there even less if he was going to cast aspersions without bothering to ask for the details.

"I suppose you are accustomed to battles," she said sourly. "You must be quite the brawler. Or do you favor duels over petty matters? Does each scar have a drunken story, I wonder? That is what you dukes do, is it not? Amuse yourselves, disgrace yourselves, do as you please until such a time as your family demands that you become respectable—that, of course, is when we ladies find ourselves shackled and dragged to the wedding market like chattel."

The Duke's eyes clouded over, his posture straightening. "You do not know me, Lady Matilda. Don't presume to."

"But I see right through you, Your Grace," she retorted. "I know exactly what manner of man you are, and you are not one that I would be bound to, even if you were the last."

"My scars are so repulsive to you? That's rather judgmental for a woman who obviously thinks of herself as modern, isn't it? Weren't you raised to judge people as they are, not by their exterior?" he said drily.

How did he get them, I wonder? Curiosity was ingrained in her very being, and even faced with a very rude man, she could not subdue it. For scientific purposes, she wished to know what they felt like, how they had been healed, what different healing methods had done to neaten each eventual scar, among other questions that whipped through her head.

Not that she would admit to him that she found his scars and his surprising wit fascinating. She would have married her blasted cousin first.

"It is nothing to do with your scars," she replied, unable to look him in the eyes. "Undoubtedly, you know how intimidating you appear, and you use it to your advantage to get what you want. All I am saying, Your Grace, is that you shall not have me."

He struck her with another of his intense stares. "You judge me on the way I present myself, but I have presented myself politely and courteously.You have presented yourself with a lack of charm and tact. It's unbecoming which is unfortunate."

Because you have decided to sever this arrangement with my cousin? Hope leaped in her chest.

"You're certainly not what I expected to meet today, nor what I expected for my wife," he continued. "I think there are things your cousin hasn't told you."

She sniffed. "Were you not listening? He does not tell me anything."

"No, you said no one ever listens," he pointed out, a prick of embarrassment catching her in her puffed chest. He was right. "You should talk to him, find out what's at stake. When you have, write to me, and maybe we can do this again with more civility."

Matilda stood taller though she still did not reach past the tip of the Duke's shoulder. "No matter what is at stake, I will not bend to his will. Or yours."

"Talk to him," was all the infernal Duke said as he turned back and announced, "I've just remembered a prior engagement. I'll send word to you about our agreement. And don't forget what I said about those orchards."

He bowed to Matilda and without another word, headed off around the manor as if he knew it well, disappearing out of sight. James looked like he was ready to race after the fellow, but Matilda stuck out her hand, grabbing her cousin roughly.

"What have you not told me?" she demanded to know, hating that she had been made to feel small. Knowledge was power, and any lack of it was unacceptable to her.

James blinked. "I do not know what you mean."

"He said there are things you have not told me. What are they?"

James shrugged her off. "This match will erase a great debt. A debt that, if not erased, will be catastrophic."

"You are using me to erase a debt?" she spat, grabbing his sleeve again. "If you think I am going to marry that brute to clean up a mess you caused, you may think again. He does not even seem to want a wife, so I doubt he shall be too wounded by it. Either way, I will not be your pawn. Never!"

James's eyes glinted with anger as he grabbed her sleeve in return. "You have no worth, Matilda—do not flatter yourself. You are a spinster. You have made yourself intolerable to the ton. You have no value there, but he is willing to overlook that. And if you do not overlook your own self-importance, you shall find yourself turned away from this house and will have to watch as others reside here, for I will have no choice but to rent it to anyone who will pay to give back what is owed. Perhaps, I shall even have to sell it. If you do as you are being asked, nothing here will change."

Matilda's grip loosened, her resolve slipping with it. If those were the stakes, then she truly had no choice. The trap had been set much earlier than she had realized, and she had been caught in it from the moment James inherited, bringing his debt with him. She was his pawn, and he had just made her last move on the board.

Albion would have taken the worst battles he had faced over another ten minutes in pretty gardens with Lady Matilda. It was not merely the fact that she was not the sweet and nice girl he had imagined but that she clearly did not wish to be married to him… or, indeed, to anyone.

The last thing he wanted to be was a hypocrite. He had not said so in her company, but he, of all people, could understand the agony of having a role thrust upon you that you did not ask for.

Yet, he did not know if this would be the end of their acquaintance. She had confirmed something he had long suspected but had not thought about when he was surrounded by men who did not see scars or care about them. In a battalion, even as Captain, everyone was equal. Everyone was in the same boat.

I am beastly here… I am monstrous. It had shown in the way she could not look at him for longer than a few seconds without lowering her gaze or veering away to wander a different path as if his closeness was as repulsive to her as his face.

"Judging by that winning smile on your face, it went so well that there's to be a wedding tomorrow," Ben said, tossing an apple from hand to hand as he rose from the back step of the carriage.

Albion sighed. "Hilarious, as ever."

"She isn't keen?"

"I think she said something along the lines of, if I were the last man in existence, she still wouldn't deign to marry me," he replied, and he could not blame her. She was a beauty; he was a beast—a happy ending only existed between such people in fairytales.