Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

T he members of Matthew's staff were waiting at the door when he arrived home, their faces anxious and upset, and he knew at once that something was wrong.

"What?" he asked, looking from one of them to the next. "What is it?" He hadn't even removed his cloak and his hat, and already they had him deeply worried.

They looked at one another, but no one spoke. It was clear that they were trying to make up their minds who was going to be the one to tell him…whatever it was.

An unpleasant thought struck him. "Is Lady Feverton all right? Has something happened to her?"

Perhaps he shouldn't have left her here on her own after all. He was so unused to having a wife and to the expectations that went along with that. He knew it was his duty to take care of her, but what did that consist of—and had he been derelict in his responsibilities by going away for so long?

The meeting had gone well. Lord Cole had been suitably impressed by Matthew's announcement that he had found himself a wife, and they had been able to skip right over the first part of what usually happened when they met on business—Lord Cole asking Matthew what was the matter with him that led him to be so unsuitable for marriage. It had been a relief to focus on business instead of his personal affairs—exactly what Matthew had hoped for when he had chosen to marry.

Now, though, he wondered if he had done something wrong.

The staff exchanged glances, and finally, Mrs. Boggs spoke. "No, Lord Feverton," she said. "Nothing is the matter with Lady Feverton. She's perfectly well."

Matthew breathed a sigh of relief. It hadn't occurred to him until now how bothered he would be if something did happen to her. He supposed that was because she was his responsibility, and he hated it when things he was responsible for came to grief. Growing up, it had always been his sisters he worried about in that way. Now they were under the care of their own husbands, and he did his best to force himself to relax and trust those gentlemen. His worry, nowadays, focused on the state of his home and his business. And business was going better than ever…

So what was the matter here?

Mrs. Boggs glanced at the rest of the staff, then spoke again. "It's just—perhaps you ought to go and look in the sitting room."

Matthew frowned. "The sitting room? Why should I go there?"

"I think you'll understand once you see for yourself."

Having the distinct impression that there was something Mrs. Boggs didn't want to say, Matthew turned and opened the door that led into the sitting room.

For a moment he paused, feeling nothing more than frank confusion. Had he opened the wrong door somehow? Had he gone into the wrong room? This was not his sitting room.

The furniture was all different. Some of it wasn't even there anymore. One of his favorite chairs was altogether gone. Another had been moved close to the fire, at an angle to the wall that it had never been and would never have been. He preferred all his furniture to be either parallel or perpendicular to his walls, because it seemed tidier and more intentional that way. Right now things looked haphazard. It seemed to Matthew as though they had been arranged by a child.

And there was more. His curtains had been replaced. The ones that had hung in the windows when he'd left had been there for years, and they were a part of the room just as surely as the walls were. They had been a thick red velvet, but now they'd been replaced with thinner curtains that were made of a soft white fabric. The difference made him feel slightly dizzy.

"What happened here?" he asked Mrs. Boggs.

She bit her lip, obviously uncomfortable. "Lady Feverton wished to make some changes."

"And you didn't tell her no?" He was appalled. Surely his staff knew better.

"She pointed out that I had no authority to command her—she was right, Lord Feverton."

"I pay your wages. Lady Feverton does not. You do as I tell you."

"If I didn't aid her, she would have done it by herself. I'm sorry, Lord Feverton. I did warn her that you would be displeased, but she refused to listen."

"Fetch her at once," Matthew said, walking into the room and turning in a slow circle, trying to take in all the damage that had been done.

"There's no need for that," a voice said. "I'm right here."

He turned. Sure enough, there she was, standing in the doorway and beaming at him. Beaming! She had the audacity to make all these changes to his home and then smile at him as if nothing at all was the matter!

"What have you done?" he demanded.

The smile faded from her face. "I thought you might like it."

"Like it! If I wanted it like this, don't you think I would have done it myself?"

She didn't back down. Instead, she folded her arms across her chest and regarded him coolly. "Well, it's easy enough to put back the way it was, if it's such a problem for you," she said. "But I think you ought to at least give it a chance. And wait until you see what I've done in the library. It's a much more warm and hospitable room now."

"The library!" He was staggered. "Who told you that you had the right to go changing things?"

"You wanted me to do my duty as your wife," she reminded him. "A wife's duty is to arrange the house."

"I didn't want you to do this! I can't believe you did it without so much as speaking to me first!"

Cressida frowned. "You married me," she reminded him. "You wished to have a wife. But you don't want an heir. Now you tell me that you don't want me to tend to the house. What is it you do want from me? Am I meant to sit alone in your home at all times while you go out and deal with your business affairs? Is that to be my life?"

"You're to do as I ask you to do. And I did not ask you to make changes to the house."

"But you told me that it was my house too," she reminded him. "What did you mean by that, if not that I should feel free to make it my home? You even said that I ought to put things wherever I liked!"

"I meant your own things, in your own bedroom. I didn't mean that you could reorganize everything in the house." He sighed and closed his eyes. "You will speak to me first before ever doing something like this again."

"I don't think?—"

"I'm not asking you what you think. You will speak to me first before doing something like this again."

"You shouldn't have left me alone in the house with no instructions if you didn't want me to do my duty as a wife," she insisted. "You should have had this conversation with me before you ever left."

"You're out of line, trying to tell me what I should and shouldn't do. From now on, if there are any changes you want to make in the house, consult with me first."

"All right, I will," she snapped.

"Good."

He started to walk by her, not wanting to spend another moment in her company. He was deeply frustrated by her at present, and just the idea of trying to go on talking to her was upsetting.

But she stopped him. "There's something else."

"You mean, something besides the sitting room and the library?" How much damage could she possibly have caused?

"It isn't about the house," Cressida said. "It's about your finances."

Matthew froze where he stood. "What do you mean, my finances ?" he demanded. What would she know about the state of his finances?

"There's no need to become upset," Cressida said coolly. "I didn't mean to see your ledger. I happened to come across it, that's all."

"You happened to come across it? I keep my ledger in my study. What were you doing in there? There was no reason whatsoever for you to be in my study."

Cressida stood her ground. "I was looking for a spare lantern," she told him. "I knew that if there was one in there, it wouldn't be used while you were away. And there was one."

"And you thought you might just pick up one of my financial books and start flipping through it while you were in there?"

"It was open on your desk, Matthew. I glanced at it. And you ought to be thanking me. I discovered a mistake in your figures."

"Not very likely. I triple-check all my figures. I don't make mistakes." Matthew was the most careful person he knew when it came to bookkeeping. He took his figures very seriously.

"Well, you made a mistake this time," Cressida said with a shrug. "It could happen to anyone. I wouldn't be upset about it."

"I'm sure you're wrong."

"See for yourself. It's in the final column."

"Stay out of my study from now on," he told her.

He pushed past her and went up to his study, resisting the temptation to stop by the library and see what she had done to it. He knew better than to allow himself to become more angry right now than he already was. He would deal with repairing the changes she had made to his house later.

He didn't know how to express the way it made him feel to come home and find everything changed like this. It was as if his skin was covered in a rash that he needed desperately to scratch, only he couldn't do it for some reason. He clenched and unclenched his hands, trying to force himself to relax and let go of the tension and anxiety that was building up within him. Why was it so difficult? Nothing had happened that couldn't be repaired, after all. He would be able to set the house to rights.

All he knew was that it bothered him immensely. He had never been able to cope well with his things being out of order or with anything being outside of his control. He should have anticipated, he supposed, that bringing a new person into his house would cause this sort of problem. He should have talked to her.

But she should have known, shouldn't she? He shouldn't have to tell her that she wasn't allowed to go into his study, for pity's sake. That ought to go without saying.

He went in.

It wasn't until he reached his desk that he was able to put his finger on what had been causing him the most anxiety—his sketchbook. The picture he had drawn of her without even meaning to do it—what if she had seen that while she was snooping around?

He hurriedly opened the drawer where the book was kept.

It was just as he had left it. It looked for all the world as though it hadn't been touched. He breathed a sigh of relief. It would have been deeply embarrassing if Cressida had seen that picture. She probably would have assumed it meant something that it didn't, and then he would have had to explain himself.

He turned to his ledger and looked over the numbers in the last column.

Immediately, he saw the error she had pointed out. She'd been right.

That was irritating.

It was a little impressive, though, he had to admit. She had caught a mistake that he hadn't.

She was probably right that she would make a practical choice of wife for him. He took out a pencil and corrected the mistake, knowing as he did so that he would never confess to her that he was grateful for her assistance—but also knowing that he owed her for noticing this.