Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

" D id you get a chance to examine the ledger?" Cressida asked.

They were sitting at the dinner table together, and Matthew had hardly looked at her all evening. The tension in the room was fierce. Cressida had noticed that he hadn't gotten around to having the changes she had made to the house undone yet, and she couldn't help hoping that this meant he was going to leave things as they were. Perhaps he had gotten over his momentary anger and was ready to accept that, in fact, her ideas really had made things better.

He looked up at her now, in response to her question. "I looked," he said, his voice tight.

"And?" she prompted.

He let out a long-suffering sigh and set down the glass that had been in his hand. "You're really going to force this conversation?"

"I don't see why not," she said. "Wasn't it you who said we should talk more about everything?"

"I didn't mean that we ought to discuss my finances. I meant you should ask my permission before changing things around here. You know that's what I meant."

"I just want to know if I was right about the error or not," she said.

"And I suppose you're going to sneak back into my study and find out for yourself if I don't tell you what you want to know?"

"There's no need for dramatics," Cressida told him. "I never said I was going to do anything like that." He was going to take a lot of getting used to, she thought, especially if he made a habit of overreacting to every little thing like this. For heaven's sake, all she wanted was to know if she had been correct about the error she thought she had spotted. Surely that wasn't such a problem. Surely he could let her know about that without compromising too much.

"Very well." He picked up a knife and fork and began to cut his meat with exaggerated dignity. "Yes, you were correct, and I've fixed it now."

"I see."

He was silent for a brief moment. "Thank you," he said.

The words sounded strange, as if he was speaking a learned language instead of saying something that came to him naturally the way she would have done. And yet, she found herself believing that he meant what he said.

She decided to accept it. "You're very welcome," she said. "I'm glad I was able to be such a help to you."

His lips pressed together in a thin line. Cressida couldn't help wondering whether he was still upset with her. If he was, it was completely unjustified. She had done nothing but help him. She had decided to forgive his frustrated response to her helpfulness. And now he wasn't going to speak?

But then, to her surprise, he did say something.

"How is it you know so much about figures?" he asked her. "I've never met a lady who did."

"I've always helped my father with his books," she explained. "I've been doing this for years." She hesitated, then added, "I know I shouldn't have looked at yours without your permission. I know that was wrong, and I'm sorry. It's a habit, that's all. The ledger was sitting open, and as I walked by, I glanced down. Before I could stop myself, I was assessing what you'd written, because that's what I've always done for my father. I didn't mean to insert myself where I didn't belong. I was just doing what came naturally."

"I forgive you," he told her. "In all actuality…I'm rather impressed, Cressida."

"Are you really?"

"Yes," he said. "The truth is, you did do me a kindness by noticing something that I hadn't. And I did tell you I wanted a wife who could be helpful to me in my business. It serves me well that you were able to catch my mistake, even though I don't much like to admit to it."

"Well…I meant what I said," she told him. "I am glad that I was able to help."

"I'm like you," he told her.

"In what way?"

"I've had to help my father see to his duties too. Particularly in the last few years before his death."

"I can imagine that it must have been difficult for you," she said.

"I didn't mind," he said. "A great deal of what I had to do consisted of readying my sisters for marriage and making sure they were married to worthy gentlemen, and I think that's been handled with great success."

"I'm glad to hear it. I haven't had the opportunity to meet your sisters yet, of course, or their husbands, but I do look forward to it. That is—I know they were at the wedding, but because we never had any sort of celebration, I didn't have the chance to have a proper conversation with any of them."

"Yes, they'll want to meet you as well," Matthew said.

"You'll permit it?"

"Of course I will. Did you think that I wouldn't allow you to meet my family?"

"I don't know," Cressida admitted. "I'm not trying to be difficult, but I have trouble understanding exactly what you want from me or what you want my role in your life to be. Perhaps you want me to stay shut up in the house all the time and never associate with anyone other than yourself."

"Of course I don't want that," he said. "As a matter of fact, there's going to be a ball later this week, and you'll be attending with me. I need the members of the ton to see me out and about with my new wife."

"Oh," Cressida said.

"That's what you want, isn't it? My sisters will be there as well, so you'll have the opportunity to meet them."

"Yes," Cressida told him. "That will be lovely. What ball is it?"

"Lady Gunderson's."

"Oh, we've been introduced."

"Have you? And what do you think of her?"

"I haven't given her a great deal of thought—though she certainly thinks highly of you ," Cressida said. "Actually, she may not be very happy to see me."

"What do you mean?"

"Well…the last time I spoke to her, she was telling me how she hoped to see you marry her daughter."

Matthew burst into surprised laughter. "Did she!"

"She said you were the most eligible bachelor of the season," Cressida recalled. "She was very relieved to know that I wasn't looking for a match myself—one less person for her daughter to compete with for your attention, I suppose. But when she sees me now, having married you, she's going to think that everything I said to her was some kind of deception or scheme, that I always wanted you for myself."

"Does that bother you?" Matthew asked, watching her closely.

Cressida wondered if there was a specific answer he was hoping to hear. "I'm not happy about it," she said truthfully. "It won't be pleasant to spend an evening in the home of someone who judges me, who's resentful of me. I suppose there's a chance she won't feel that way. I hope she won't."

"Well, if she does, it will be her problem to reckon with," Matthew said. "You've done nothing wrong, Cressida. I was never going to marry Lady Gunderson's daughter."

"But…" Cressida hesitated. This was one of the mysteries she couldn't seem to get past. "Forgive me, but why not? It isn't that I'm not happy with our arrangement, of course, but I can't help thinking that you could have married her—or any other lady— and still collected the money my father owed you. Exchanging a debt for a wife only makes sense to me if you can't find a wife any other way, but you could have. Why did you choose to marry me?"

Matthew picked up his glass, took a long sip of wine, and set it back down.

As he did, Cressida couldn't help but notice that he made rather a show of ensuring that the glass was returned to exactly the same position as it had been in when he had picked it up. He even went so far as to rotate it so that the same side of the glass was facing him. As he did so, his arm bumped his fork, and he straightened that carefully as well.

She frowned. Was he being so fastidious on purpose? Was he doing it to make some sort of point to her, to show her that he cared for the way things were arranged? If that was what he was doing, there was no need for the theatrics. She'd learned her lesson. She wouldn't move things around without his permission again, and she had thought they'd begun to reach a point of being at peace about what had happened on that score.

But then—maybe he wasn't doing it for her benefit. He didn't even seem to notice that she was watching him, and after a moment, he removed his hands from his utensils and continued their conversation as if nothing had happened.

"All you need to know is that Lady Gunderson's daughter was never an option for me," he said. "I was never going to marry her. I don't want you to waste your time thinking about that. What's important is that you prepare for the ball."

"What preparations do I need to make?"

"We'll need to find you a new gown. I'll take you into town to select something."

Cressida frowned. Was he slighting her wardrobe? "I have plenty of gowns," she told him. "There's no need to go to any trouble."

"It's no trouble."

"Well, perhaps I would prefer to wear something I already own."

He dabbed at his lips with his napkin, then folded it carefully before replacing it in his lap. "Cressida, I know that you are accustomed to making decisions for yourself, and I don't wish to suggest that it will never be that way for you in the future. But I do have to insist that you listen to me when it comes to certain things. As my wife, you ought to be wearing the very latest fashions when we attend parties, and it's my intention to take you out shopping to buy exactly that. If you are so insistent that your own gowns will do for future balls, we can examine them and make a decision together. But this time, at least, I expect you to listen to me."

Cressida wasn't used to being told what to do in such a firm way, but she also hadn't expected that he would have a defensible reason for wanting to tell her what to wear. "All right," she conceded. "I'll go shopping with you."

"Thank you," he said. "I appreciate your decision not to make this difficult."

She nodded, wondering what to make of the meal the two of them had shared tonight. The truth was, she hadn't expected things to go anywhere near as well as they had. She would have guessed that they would sit at the table, unable to find a single word to say to one another, until finally the food grew cold and they were compelled to leave.

It hadn't been like that, though. Instead, they had found a way to talk to one another with civility, almost as if they were…not a normal husband and wife, certainly, but two people who got along with one another. Friends.

Could they really have a friendship? Cressida didn't know. It seemed unlikely. She hadn't believed he even liked her very much.

But maybe she'd had that wrong.

Maybe things were going to be all right between the two of them.

Anyway, this upcoming ball would certainly be interesting. Cressida found that she could hardly wait.