William froze, startled by the suggestion. Hadn’t she run away from his passions before? He could not have a lover who disliked the tone of his desires. “I had not considered it.”
“You held my hand a great many times in the beginning,” she whispered.
“I remembered something of that,” he acknowledged guiltily. He had a hazy recollection of comfort whenever she was close. A nightmare made smaller and insignificant after her whispered words of kindness. “I don’t recall your making any attempt to stop me from touching you. Not even once. You were kinder to me than I
deserve.”
“You were ill.” She brought her hand up to her chest. “It was sometimes easier to let you have your way. You were not yourself.”
No doubt he’d been exactly himself, full of want to control her, but he would not reveal that truth to her now. Not if he could never have more than she was comfortable giving up. A marriage of unequal passions was utterly out of the question.
He threw himself out of the bed and followed her. “My actions reflect only on me.”
She stared up at him, her bottom lip quivering. “Yes, Captain.”
She should flee now. Her wary gaze drew him like a magnet, and he took a pace forward, unraveling the ribbon in his hand. “Come here and I will repair your hair.”
She held out her hand for the ribbon, but William shook his head stubbornly. It was his mistake to fix. “Turn around and face the mirror.”
She jumped, and he realized he’d said much the same thing to her that sunny afternoon he’d spanked her bottom red. He waited to see if she would comply, and when she slowly turned like she had the last time, he was pleased. Good servants were hard to find. Obedient ones like Matilda were extremely distracting.
William wasted no time in gathering her hair and running his fingers through the dark locks. He plaited the mass into a thick rope and tied it off with the ribbon and a bow the way he’d prefer it worn at night. He held her shoulders, admiring his handiwork, and then drew the light lemony fragrance that clung to her skin deep into his lungs. His cock ached as she held still, almost in his arms but not quite close enough to reveal his desires should she brush against him. “That should suffice,” he said in a voice thickened by growing lust.
“Thank you.” A hesitant smile teased her lips as she turned.
He kept his hands on her upper arms and his breath caught. Dear God. If he didn’t release her soon he might go mad. She seemed the type to…
His bedchamber door creaked open. “Captain?”
Dawson’s voice cut through his desire in a horrifying second.
He released Matilda and shoved her rudely toward the dressing room door before she was seen standing in his arms by his valet.
Tomorrow night, no matter what else occurred, he would take himself to the brothel and deal with his desires in the only way he could. There were women there who liked what he could make them feel far more than Matilda Winslow ever would.
Three
Matilda dumped the soiled linen in the laundry for washing, then turned to follow the sound of rushed steps toward the servants’ hall. She passed the butler as he clutched a bottle of red wine in his hands, rattling his keys as he locked up the wine cellar behind him.
“You are tardy, Miss Winslow.”
She was early. There wasn’t much point in protesting that she was ahead of her own schedule. Mr. Carter commanded the servants by his own rules, most of which had nothing to do with kindness or forward thinking. “Yes, Mr. Carter.”
She hurried to her place at the long table of the servants’ dining hall for her first meal of the day. It had been a week since the captain had emerged from the relative privacy of his bedchamber, and she’d been up for several hours already, preparing the house for the new day, lighting fires, dusting tables in every room and hallway on the ground floor.
Now that she no longer needed to perform the lighter work of hovering near Captain Ford’s bedchamber, she was already tired. The months she’d spent at his bedside were the easiest days since she’d entered his service.
The cruel whispers swirling around her daily made her hours of drudgery worse, and she had no one to comfort her here.
She did her best to ignore the other servants as she sat down to eat, but it always stung that everyone thought so little of her efforts. Because the captain had singled her out, they assumed her his lover. They believed she’d shared his bed during his recovery because she desired him, or desired his money. Jenny and Jane, the other two upstairs maids, were the most dim-witted imbeciles with but one thing on their mind—attracting any man no matter what they offered—a pretty trinket in return for their favors pleased them very well. They teased her constantly, assumed her after the captain’s attention.
The captain gave her nothing but trouble.
She glanced down the table, missing the steady presence of her beau Harry Lloyd but grateful he might never hear these terrible whispers about her character. They had met when he was a footman here, but he had gone away to make his fortune so they might marry one day soon. It was disappointing that she’d not had word of him recently, but the promise of his love kept her warm at night. It could not be too long till he came back to collect her and they could start a life together somewhere nicer.
She took her place well down the table from the highest-ranking servants in the house and forced a smile as the housekeeper strolled in with Mr. Dawson following close on her heels.
“His Lordship passed another quiet night,” Mr. Dawson informed everyone, smiling broadly at the news.