Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

T he ball had passed in a bit of a whirlwind, Matthew reflected the following morning. Between the thrill of dancing with Cressida and the pleasure of introducing her to everyone who came their way, he'd found the time passing much more quickly than it usually did for him at these affairs, so that when the moment had arrived to return home for the evening, it had taken him by surprise. He'd felt sure that it couldn't possibly be time, that someone must have set the clock ahead—and yet, the clock had been correct.

Now he and Cressida sat at the breakfast table enjoying their morning meal, and Matthew—much to his consternation—found that he didn't quite know what he wanted to say to her.

"Your gown needs repair," he said at last.

Her head jerked up from the piece of toast she had been buttering. "What?"

He felt foolish at once. He didn't know what he ought to have said to her first thing in the morning, but it probably wasn't that . "I'm sorry," he said quickly. "It's just that I noticed last night that one of the stitches in your gown was out of alignment. We'll have to send it back to the modiste for a repair. You ought to have it sent out as quickly as possible—or, if you prefer, you may bring it to me, and I'll take care of it for you."

Cressida shook her head. "One of the stitches in my gown was out of alignment?"

"Yes, on the bodice." He placed his hand on his own ribs to show her the place where the slipped stitch had been.

"But how on Earth did you notice something like that?" Cressida asked. "I didn't notice it myself, and I was wearing the gown. How could you have seen that?"

Matthew didn't know quite what to say. How could he confide to her that he had spent the whole night staring at her as if she were a piece of artwork that he desperately wanted to absorb? How could he tell her that every detail of her movements and actions had felt so vitally interesting that he had been unable to look away? Of course he had noticed the stitch. He had noticed everything—the way her hair curled around her cheekbone, the way her eyes crinkled when she laughed, the delicate way her hand cradled a glass of wine as if she was barely touching it. If he had been an artist himself, he knew that he could have painted her in perfect detail from memory and that he would have gotten every inch of her correct.

And yet—just as surprisingly—when he had noticed the incorrect stitch, he hadn't much cared about it. And that was as surprising as anything else. Matthew couldn't abide details that were out of place, ordinarily. It was why he was so careful with his ledgers and why he had been so troubled when Cressida had informed him that a mistake had been made. It was why he had been so agitated when she had begun to move things in the house around without first asking his permission. For something to be so blatantly wrong—even something as minor as a stitch on a gown—would ordinarily have itched at the back of his mind until he'd been able to focus on nothing else. It would have ruined the night for him.

Last night, that hadn't happened. The night had been wonderful in spite of that problem, and though he had noticed it, he hadn't found himself giving it all that much thought. It was as if it truly hadn't mattered very much.

To Cressida, he said, "Never mind how I noticed it—the point is that we need to have it tended to. You received quite a few compliments on your gown last night, but if we're to go out again—if you are to wear that gown again—we'll have to make sure that it's perfect."

"I don't think anyone else noticed that," Cressida said.

"Likely not, and yet we must be certain that everything is perfect," Matthew said.

"You worry a great deal about things being perfect," Cressida observed.

Matthew felt a chill. So she had noticed that? He worked hard to conceal the anxiety that plagued him when things were out of place. He knew that his staff was aware of it. Perhaps his sisters were, though he wasn't even sure about them—as their elder brother, he had always sought to maintain his composure as well as he could while in their presence.

And now Cressida, who had hardly known him any time at all, had seen right through him. She had seen what he always tried to conceal and keep strictly to himself.

Perhaps she didn't understand the extent of it. Perhaps she didn't see how he ached to have things just so at all times, and how he found himself unable to rest if things were not the way he wanted them.

"It's important that we show everyone what we want them to see," he said. "We want people to perceive us as having the perfect marriage."

"And you truly think that perception would be harmed by a missing stitch?"

"One never knows what will alter public perception," Matthew told her. "There are so many gossips among the ton . If a gown is shabbily made, no doubt someone will find something to say about that fact, and it will be made to reflect poorly upon the two of us. Better to just ensure that everything is perfect."

"Well, it does me no harm," Cressida said. "I'll have the gown brought down to you today. I just hate to see you waste your energy worrying about things that don't seem to matter. I think we have larger concerns."

"You do?" He frowned. "What concerns do we have?"

"I wasn't prepared adequately for last night," she said.

"But you did wonderfully. Everyone admired you. Everyone thought you were lovely. You know that my sisters adored you."

"And that's all very good," Cressida agreed. "But I don't think I was able to be as convincing as I should have been. When I spoke to Lady Gunderson, for example, she asked me about your business."

"What of that?"

"I don't know anything about your business, Matthew."

He burst out laughing. "You know a fair sight more than I ever intended that you should!" he told her. "Peeking at my ledgers when I never gave my permission for you to do so."

"Well, that doesn't mean I know anything!" Cressida said, and Matthew was pleased to see that she hadn't taken offense, that she was laughing right along with him. "I wasn't going to speak to Lady Gunderson about your finances . We may differ as to whether those numbers are any of my business, but they certainly aren't any of her business."

"We're in agreement on that," Matthew said. "But then what did she want to know?"

"Whether you were happy with the way things had been going in your business," Cressida said. "Such a simple question! Any wife ought to be able to answer a question about her husband's happiness. And yet, I found that I couldn't!"

"She could hardly check you to see whether you had given the correct answer," Matthew pointed out.

"I know," Cressida agreed. "And I simply told her that you were very pleased and left it at that—if I got it wrong, then so be it. But it also made me realize that I want to know the answer. Not only because I wish to be forthright with Lady Gunderson. I do want that, but it isn't my primary concern. I want to be the sort of wife who knows about her husband's happiness or unhappiness. I realize that we don't have a marriage based on love and affection, but that's still the kind of person I would like to be, and I see no reason why it can't be that way."

"I'm perfectly happy," Matthew assured her. "Since we married, my business affairs have been better than ever. I feel accepted into that world in a way I never have, trusted by the gentlemen whose trust I require."

"That's good," Cressida said, beaming. "That's very good."

"So…does that resolve what you were worrying about?"

"Not in the least."

Matthew set his fork down. "I'm afraid I'm confused," he admitted.

"Well, that was only the start of it," Cressida told him. "That was the first moment I realized that I didn't know you as well as a wife ought to, but there were many other moments like that."

"What do you mean? Other people asked you about the state of my business?"

"Not that, no," Cressida said. "But they asked me other things. Things for which I had no answer. I was asked if you had been to Paris recently. Well, not in the time I've known you, to be sure, but I don't know when the last time you went there was, or if you've been at all. I was asked if you had replaced the horse you sold. I didn't know you had sold a horse, much less anything about any replacements. I haven't even seen the stables since I've been here. I was asked if you had read a certain book, but I don't know what you read—I only know that you don't like it much when I disturb the library. I couldn't even answer the Earl of Carroway when he asked what your favorite drink was so that he could have someone fetch it for you. A perfectly reasonable question to ask of a gentleman's wife, but I didn't know the answer. It was humiliating, to tell you the truth. I felt as if I knew nothing at all about you, and I thought they must certainly be judging me for my ignorance."

"I'm sure no one was judging you," Matthew said.

"You know as well as I that these lords and ladies are the most judgmental people in all of England. You got married specifically to impact their opinion of you. Of course they were making judgments."

"Well, what are we going to do about it?" Matthew asked.

"I've got to get to know you better," Cressida said. "If the aim of our marriage is truly to create a good impression in society and to convince people that we have a traditional marriage even when we don't, the only thing to do is to get to know each other properly so that we can present ourselves as husband and wife. I simply don't think we were as convincing as we could have been, and if we are to do this, I want to do it perfectly."

She made eye contact with him when she said the word perfectly , and Matthew wondered if she was aware of the effect that word had on him. If she knew just how powerfully she was reaching out to him and how much he wanted everything to be exactly as it should.

It had happened again—she'd distracted him from his need for perfection. He'd had such a good time at the ball that he hadn't even noticed these little flaws in their facade.

And Matthew found himself facing a conundrum.

She was right. The best way to fix the problem was to ensure that they learned more about one another so that they would be able to convince everyone that they were in love.

But the closer he got to her, the more he found himself forgetting to keep his defenses up. It was so important to Matthew to make sure everything around him was just as he liked it. It was the only thing that made him feel safe.

Cressida, he realized, was beginning to make him feel unsafe. She was challenging the perfect order of his world.

And what made it all the more alarming was that he thought he was beginning to enjoy it.