To Marry a Matchmaker

The woman gave a low moan and shook her head.

Robert gently turned the woman over. Her face was white against the darkness of tangled curls. Henrietta Thorndike, but a Lady Thorndike made suddenly vulnerable and without her fearsome expression. He softly swore as his blood sizzled. An added complication. She’d probably blame him for this as well as everything else. Her earlier words about how they had fallen out of civility haunted him. Was she coming to apologise or merely doing her duty visiting tenants?

‘Lady Thorndike, it’s Robert Montemorcy,’ he said quietly, attempting to control his body’s unexpected reaction to a glimpse of her slender leg. ‘The dog has gone. You are safe. You will be looked after. I promise you that.’

Henrietta Thorndike moaned incoherently as she screwed up her eyes tightly in pain.

He tried again. Civility be damned. ‘Lady Thorndike, are you all right? Give me a sign you understand what I am saying. Did the dog bite you anywhere besides your shin? Lady Thorndike, you are ruining a perfectly serviceable bonnet. We need to move before the post-coach comes through.’

‘Call me Henri. Hardly anyone ever calls me Henri these days,’ she murmured, her long lashes fluttering. Dark against the pure cream of her skin. Utterly delectable.

Robert drew in his breath, sharply, and struggled to control the hot rush of blood to his nether region. Right now, she needed assistance. He scooped her up and carried her to the side of the road as the post-coach thundered past.

‘Please. Am I going to die? Is my face ruined? My leg aches like the very devil.’

Robert gave a short laugh as the air rushed from his lungs. How like a woman to be worried about her looks, rather than exclaiming about how narrowly the coach had missed the both of them.

‘Henri, then. Your face is as ever it was.’ He knelt down beside her and supported her shoulders so she could sit up. Her body relaxed against his and the pleasant scent of lavender rose about him. Her bottom lip held a glossy sheen and trembled a few inches below his.

‘Please tell me the truth,’ she whispered, lifting a cool hand to his face. ‘Are you are keeping something from me? If I am horribly scarred, people are going to turn away from me…’

Giving into temptation, he bent his head and brushed his lips against hers. The tiniest of tastes, but firm enough to make his point clear. Her long lashes fluttered and a long drawn-out sigh emerged from her throat.

‘Do I look like a man who would kiss a woman with a ruined face?’

Chapter Four

Do I look like a man who would kiss a woman with a ruined face? The words echoed around and around in her brain. Henri lay on the side of the road with Robert Montemorcy’s arm about her shoulders and his body supporting hers, far too stunned to move. Her lips ached faintly from the kiss. And what was worse, her entire being demanded more.

The world swayed about her. Her entire being was aware of his arm about her shoulders, the thump of his heart and the way her body curved intimately into his as if they were a perfect fit. It would be easy to stay here for the rest of her life, safe.

She wanted him to kiss her again. Properly this time. Long and slow.

The thought shocked her to her core. She was supposed to be beyond such things. Her heart was buried with Edmund. In any case, she had read St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians in the bible as a young girl and her nurse had explained charity was another word for love. Love was supposed to be patient, gentle and kind, bearing all things, and she had decided that was how she wanted love to be. It was what she had felt for Edmund. What she felt now was a red-hot rush of blood and desire. An insidious curl of warmth that kept calling to her, making a mockery of her ideals.

She struggled against the weight of his arm, pushing her traitorous thoughts away. ‘Let me go. I’m out of danger.’

‘Henri?’ The warm tone enticed her to stay, but she forced her body up to a sitting position and his arms fell away.

‘No, I’ll be fine. I’m always fine. There’s no need to be concerned about me.’

She shrugged slightly, hoping the languid feeling would go. The horrifying moments of the dog attack were over, and Robert Montemorcy had seen her in an embarrassingly weak moment. Kissed her even. She curled in her hand in frustration. Lying in this man’s arms was the last thing she desired.

She hated this hot unsettled feeling. With Edmund, she loved him with a pure devotion. But now she’d enjoyed a kiss with another man. And, what was worse, wanted to be kissed by him again.

‘My muscles are akin to jelly. That’s all. I had a momentary lapse.’

‘It is the shock. It will pass.’ He gave her shoulder an awkward pat. The heat from his hand jolted through her.

‘I will live,’ she said, frowning as she suddenly became cold. Fate must be laughing. She was now beholden to Mr Montemorcy for saving her when only seconds before the attack, she had been filled with such righteous anger about how he’d treated her and her cousin that she’d failed to notice how close she was to Mr Teasdale’s house and that dog.

How could she be angry with a man who risked his physical safety for her? She’d seen him wrestle that beast to the ground, the act of a true hero.

‘The dog savaged your leg. It will have to be seen to.’

She half-closed her eyes and again saw the beast’s jaws, coming ever towards her, and then how it had turned to attack Robert Montemorcy. The world turned black at the edges.

Henri gritted her teeth. Whilst she despised her own weakness at being so cripplingly afraid of dogs, she refused to faint. She never fainted. It was a point of principle. Fainting was for people like her late mother who had nothing better to do and wanted attention.

‘You shouldn’t have risked yourself for me,’ she said, concentrating on the stones in the road. ‘I fell and became winded. It could happen to anyone. That coach would have missed me.’

‘Why would I walk away from a person in trouble, particularly someone I consider to be a friend?’ he asked in that lilting Northumbrian accent of his. ‘And I refuse to allow my friends to be crushed under the wheels of a coach.’

‘Shall I fashion you a halo? Your Good Samaritan credentials are impeccable,’ she said, trying to move her ankle; waves of pain crashed over her. Perhaps she’d been overoptimistic in thinking she could make her way home. Her ankle seemed to be insistent on aching. Of all the stupid accidents, to try to run but instead to trip and turn her ankle. And then the dog had sunk his teeth in, pulling at her. It might hurt, but there wasn’t much blood. That had to be a good sign.

She would be willing to guess that Robert Montemorcy had had a good glimpse of her petticoats. She tried to remember if she was wearing her lace-trimmed one or the more practical flannel one or, worse still, the one that needed mending.

‘Your humour was unaffected and that is a start.’ A dimple flashed in his cheek. ‘Henri.’

She looked up into his piercing amber eyes. Her insides did a queer sort of leap that had nothing to do with her ankle. ‘Are you really going to call me that? You’ve always called me Lady Thorndike before.’

‘You said I might as I saved your life.’ He leant close and his breath fanned her cheek. ‘Who am I to deny a beautiful woman? You may call me Robert if you desire.’

‘Not that. I’m just…well…me.’ Henri squashed the faint sense of giddy pleasure that ran through her. Not even Edmund had considered her beautiful—striking, maybe, but not a beauty. Her nose and mouth were too big for her face, and her figure a bit too angular. ‘My colouring and figure are all wrong to be considered fashionable.’

‘You’re far too modest, Henri.’ The lines about his eyes crinkled and made him appear younger, more approachable. ‘And here I thought you didn’t care a jot for fashion. You have your own unique style.’

She stared up at the blue sky, trying to gather her wits about her. She knew what he was doing—speaking of inconsequential things until she had recovered. She wished they weren’t quite so personal. She needed to change the subject quickly or that unsettling ache in her belly would grow. She needed to get up and be on the same level as he. Then she could take control of the conversation and keep it away from potentially troublesome personal details. If he was a gentleman, he’d never refer to the kiss again. It was an aberration brought on by the dog attack.

Henri attempted to stand, then sat back down again as throbbing pain shot from her ankle. She hugged her knees to her chest.

‘A dangerous dog like that should have been chained. It savaged my leg without provocation,’ she said, attempting to control the pain. Mind over body. Once she started to walk, she’d shake off the pain. ‘I expect I need to arrange a talk for next autumn on the correct care of dangerous animals. The last one obviously had no effect whatsoever.’

‘The dog is not to blame. The owner is.’ His dark brown eyes burned. ‘And as I’m the man who pulled the dog away from you, I’m not the one who needs the lecture. As attempts to deflect attention from your injury go, that was pretty pathetic. I’m concerned about you, Henri, not what caused the accident. The causes can be remedied later.’

He’d seen through her ruse. With an effort she turned her head. The world tilted slightly and if anyone else had been standing beside her she would have given in to the darkness. Here she was berating Robert Montemorcy and he had saved her. Tears pricked her eyelids.

‘I give you my promise. It will be sorted out. And, Henri, you know you can depend on me keeping my promises. I have always kept them.’

‘Give me a moment to compose myself and I shall be on my way. I’ve only slightly twisted my ankle. I used to do that frequently when I was in my teens and it never lasts long. And the bite on my leg looks worse than it is,’ she said and forced her body to be upright. Sharp pain shot through her ankle, sending a wave of dizziness crashing through her. It might take a little longer than she first considered to shake the pain off. She’d worry about the blood later, rather than put Robert out by asking for help. Other people always needed it more than she did.

‘How far do you think you will get on that ankle?’ He hovered near her. His hands brushed her elbow. A jolt went through her and she was intensely aware of him standing behind her, ready to catch her if she fell.

‘I should make it back to my aunt’s. This little incident has inexorably altered my scheme for the afternoon.’ Henri looked at him. She was in no fit state for visiting. Her skirt had a great tear and she also wanted to keep her wits about her when she met Miss Ravel. She had to tread carefully. She wanted to keep both her promise to Sebastian and to Montemorcy.

Henri risked another excruciating step and felt the sweat begin to gather on her brow. She hated to think about walking all that way home, particularly as a fine drizzle had started and a Northumbrian drizzle nearly always turned into a full-blown rainstorm. But Henri knew she could not stay in the road or, worse still, rest at Mr Teasdale’s. The man was a disgrace to the neighbourhood.

Mr Teasdale, having secured the dog, advanced towards them, whining about how this was not his fault. Robert waved him away, telling him to go and fetch the doctor.

‘I’m going home,’ she announced in a loud voice.

‘You won’t make it, not on that ankle,’ Robert said, turning back to her. His face darkened as she took a hopping step. ‘Henri, you are a danger to everyone else. What will happen if a cart or carriage comes along the road? I give you a half-dozen steps before you have to sit down again.’

‘Is this another one of your idiotic wagers? How far can Henrietta Thorndike walk before she gives up? Let’s see, I will wager that I can walk further than you think!’

‘A statement of fact. You have no need to play the martyr.’

‘You know nothing about me and my strength of character, Mr Montemorcy. I have a strong constitution.’

‘I do not doubt your spirit, but your flesh.’

Henri took a cautious step. The pain went through her in agonising waves. ‘See, I can do it. You should have more faith in me. My mother was strict about my upbringing. She hated weakness in anyone but herself.’

‘Are you always this stubborn? Dark humour doesn’t change your injury.’

‘I find it helps.’ Henri hated the way her voice caught in her throat and looked down. Her stomach lurched again, and she finally gave in. ‘My ankle hurts…Robert…oh, I want it to stop.’

He held out a hand. ‘You don’t have to do this on your own, Henri, simply to prove a point to me. If I apologise for not telling you about my ward, will it help? I do regret that you took the news in the wrong fashion. I made a mistake. There, now can you accept my help, rather than fighting me every inch of the way?’

She shook her head, hating the lump that formed in her throat. Why did he have to start being pleasant? ‘You will observe the stern stuff I am made of. I persevere.’

She took a third step and wished she hadn’t. More than anything she wanted to give way and accept his arm.

‘You delight in taking stubbornness to new heights. It will take you hours.’

‘I’m pleased you see the sense in what I am doing.’ Henri concentrated on taking the next step.

‘I only see nonsense.’

Her foot slipped. And, somewhere, the dog began barking again. She reached out a hand and encountered his stiff shirt front. She clawed at it.

‘Falling. Dizzy,’ she mouthed as the humiliating blackness threatened to claim her. ‘Dogs frighten me. Always have. Help me, please, I don’t want to be a weak-willed ninny. Want to be strong. Have to be.’

‘Allow me. Now, hush.’

He scooped her up, holding her against the broad expanse of his chest. Henri turned her face so that she could not hear the steady thump of his heart and took deep steadying breaths. There was something reassuringly safe about his arms and the way he walked with firm steps. She could allow herself to be carried for a little way and then, when her ankle hurt less, resume her journey.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked. ‘Mr Teasdale’s front room?’

‘To my house.’ He lifted an unyielding eyebrow. ‘It is no more than a few hundred yards. You need medical attention. I would not send a dog to die in Teasdale’s front room. The man lives in squalor not even fit for a pigsty.’

Henri struggled against the bounds of his arms. ‘Don’t you think you should ask me first?’

He stopped in mid-stride and seemed amazed that she could possibly object. ‘You will be quite safe there. The doctor has been sent for and my man Fredericks will alert your aunt to your whereabouts.’

‘You’ve thought of everything.’ Henri leant back against his arms. The wind tousled his hair slightly, highlighting his strong jaw and the way his mouth was bow-shaped. ‘But I don’t want to trouble anyone.’

‘Suffering from a dog attack is no time for missish behaviour,’ he said, covering the ground with rapid strides as if she weighed no more than a feather. ‘Miss Ravel and her mother will be pleased that you are calling, even if in an unorthodox fashion. She has heard of you and your romantic past. She was asking about you this morning at breakfast. I haven’t bothered to enlighten her that you are the least romantic person I know.’

A small shiver went down her spine as she examined his hawklike profile. She didn’t know which was worse—that Robert thought she was unromantic or that Miss Ravel had spoken of her. She needed to discover Sophie Ravel’s side of the story before she decided on her course of action. ‘My fame precedes me. How stupendous.’

‘You grow pale, Henri. Is your ankle bothering you that much?’

‘I have finished fainting for the day.’ Henri attempted to keep her teeth from chattering. ‘I simply twisted it. It will be better in a few moments. You should leave me to rest at the side of the road.’

‘Stop being a hero. You’ve gone grey with pain. But we will allow the doctor to decide.’

‘The doctor will agree with me. It is a twisted ankle and the bleeding has stopped.’ Henri held her body slightly away from his. She was intensely aware of the way his chest muscles rose and fell underneath his frock-coat, and the way his stock was a bit undone, revealing the strong column of his throat. And the way her heart had started to thump. ‘And I’ve no intention of fainting again.’

‘A lady who declines to faint. Will wonders never cease? My mother had it down to a fine art. She swore it was useful in ending arguments.’

‘The force of the argument should hold sway rather than a dramatic gesture. Any fool knows that.’

A light flared in his eyes as a half-smile tugged at his mouth. ‘You’re definitely not most women.’

Henri frowned. A compliment couched as an insult or the other way around? Her head spun as her body shifted slightly in his arms.

‘If I get too heavy, you must put me down. I dare say I can hop.’

‘Hopping doesn’t come into it. And you will have to obey me for once.’

His arms tightened about her, pulling her more firmly against his body. His chest hit hers and she forgot the correct manner of breathing. It was as if she had been encased in ice and had suddenly come out in the sun. If she turned her head only slightly, her lips would brush his neck.

She screwed up her eyes and tried to conjure up Edmund’s familiar features. Annoyingly they were indistinct, like a miniature that had spent far too long in the sun, and were growing more indistinct. The memory did help to curb her impulse, but it also frightened her. If she failed to remember his exact features, what else had she forgotten? For so long it had been a part of her, but it was slipping away.

‘My duty is to ensure you are safe and keep off your ankle, Henri,’ Robert Montemorcy said, bringing her back to her current predicament. ‘And I do endeavour to do my duty. Always.’

Henri gritted her teeth and tried to keep the world from turning dark. She glanced up in his eyes and noticed they were not solidly brown as she’d thought, but full of a myriad of colours. ‘And that is what I am—a duty?’

‘Why are you out this way?’ he asked, not replying to the question.

‘I wanted a stroll,’ she said too quickly. How could she confess without explaining everything?

‘Indeed. All the way out here. Were you going to call? Apologise?’ He gave a cynical smile. ‘It is far too much hope for. The great Lady Thorndike has no need of apologies.’

Henri knew her face flushed. Perhaps she had been a bit high handed at their last meeting, but he had been as well. ‘What I was going to do is of no import now. Everything has changed.’ Robert sat in his dark oak-panelled study, contemplating the glowing embers of the fire Dorothy Ravel had insisted was necessary to ward off the chill of a Northumbrian summer. But instead of seeing the embers, he kept seeing Henri’s pale face and remembering how her body felt curved against his, how her lips had touched his for one glorious instant.

The vulnerability in her eyes when she claimed that she could cope tugged at his heart-strings. And her determination to make good her promise.

What was he going to do about her? She was an added complication that he didn’t need. Beautiful headstrong women were always trouble. He’d seen it when his father remarried, and how his father had changed, particularly after his stepmother ran away with her impoverished but titled lover. His father had been unable to take the rejection and had taken his life. Later still, he had his own experience with changeable women and had learnt to trust facts rather than emotions.

What was her destination? Here? And if yes, why—to apologise? Henrietta Thorndike never apologised for anything. Was she trying to do her duty as she saw it in welcoming the Ravels to the neighbourhood or did she have an alternative plan?

She had singularly neglected to answer his question about her cousin. He curled his fingers about his pen. He’d view any attempt to open communication between her cousin and Sophie as a clear breach of their wager. And he’d inform her of that.

‘The doctor is here, sir,’ Davis the butler intoned.

‘Show him into the green drawing room. The upstairs maid is sitting with Lady Thorndike,’ Robert said.

‘Is it true, Robert?’ Dorothy Ravel burst into the room. Her Belgian lace cap was slightly askew. ‘Have you brought that man’s cousin here? I will not have my girl getting upset again!’

‘Dorothy,’ Robert said evenly, looking at the woman who had helped to bring him up, ‘Lady Thorndike is a friend. She had a mishap. The New Lodge was by far the most sensible place to bring her.’

The woman’s ribbons quivered and she tightened her layers of shawls about her shoulders. ‘I’d hoped and prayed that it had all ended, but I worry so. Sophie must make a good match. Her father longed for it.’

‘And I’m well aware of the necessity. I did promise James on his deathbed. No rogues, rakes or rascals. I intend to keep my promise. Sophie will marry a man who is worthy of her and her fortune.’

‘I suppose…there is no hope—you and Sophie? You could always move to a warmer climate. London would welcome you. You are thirty-three and it is high time…’

Robert recoiled from the unspoken request. ‘You, better than most, know my history, Dorothy. Sophie deserves someone she loves with her whole heart and who is closer in age and temperament. I’ve known Sophie since she was in her cradle.’

‘I curse that stupid woman.’ Dorothy Ravel rolled her eyes. ‘What she did to you was less than kind. You had a lucky escape, Robert. And your father was an old fool to marry that…that short-heeled wench. Mr Ravel told him to his face when he remarried. No good comes of lust and indulging spoilt women’s whims. He attempted to add her to his collection of beautiful objects and paid the ultimate price. But that was his shame and not yours.’

‘I know what my father did. I choose to remember him for other things. The way he was before it happened.’ Robert focused on the fire. His father might have felt compelled to commit suicide after his stepmother deserted him, but he’d learnt to trust facts rather than his instincts where women were concerned. He’d learnt that long ago. All relationships were governed by logic and scientific method. It was the only way.

‘And Daphne Smith—do you know what she was?’

‘I understand Lady Alderney is quite happy living abroad in Italy. I go down on my knees nightly, thanking God that I was saved from a fate worse than death. And logic should rule the heart rather than the other way around.’

Robert pulled at his cuffs. He had been far too young then and far too ready to believe the lies that sprang from beautiful titled lips. Daphne had seemed to be an angel set on this earth and he had worshipped the ground her dainty foot trod as only a lovesick youth could do. He’d naïvely believed her protestations that she could care for him, if only her parents would allow her to. Her refusal of his proposal and her subsequent mockery after she had secured Viscount Alderney’s hand had made him even more determined to succeed and to follow his father’s injunction that a rational approach was the only way. And succeed he had, until one day he realised that success had a sweetness all of its own and the refusal was no longer the spur it once was. Thereafter he’d been very careful to take his pleasure only from sophisticated women who expected little in return—always ending the affair before his emotions were fully engaged rather than risk the hurt.

‘Do you think that Lord Cawburn sent Lady Thorndike as a spy? Does she know what he tried to do to my darling girl? The wickedness he had planned? I have heard stories, terrible stories. Why he remains accepted in polite society, I have no idea!’ For the second time in as many days, Dorothy appeared to be on the brink of hysterics as she fumbled for her handkerchief.