Page 21 of A Deal with the Broken Duke
But then she said, “You received the letter, didn’t you?”
He blinked again. She must have been in on it.
“Yes.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I wanted to speak to Juliet.”
He decided on the spur of the moment that it would serve him best to be honest with Matilda, since it seemed that Juliet had done the same if Matilda knew about the letter.
Matilda sighed. “You’d better wait in the garden.”
“What?”
“Goquicklybefore someone sees you. Go and wait by the fountain and I’ll bring her to you.”
Matilda turned and ran back into the house.
Harry had been to this house many times and knew the place she had been referring to. He hurried into the garden, found the fountain and sat down to wait.
He thought back to the last time he had seen Matilda. She had been so very young, and, he recalled suddenly with a mixture of confusion and amusement, she had been displeased with him then, just as she was now.
It was the day he had come to inform Daniel of his mother’s death. There had been a moment when Daniel had left him alone in the library and gone to fetch them some tea, and at that moment, she’d appeared.
He had done his best to hide his grief from the little girl who had come wandering into the room. “How are you today?” he had asked her.
She had frowned at him. “Why are you here?”
“I’m here to pay a visit to your brother.”
He had been surprised that she’d needed to ask. She had known him all her life, and he had paid countless visits to Daniel in that time. She had been used to his presence. She knew him nearly as well as she knew her own family members.
“Why wouldn’t I come by?”
“Because I don’t think you like us,” Matilda had replied.
“What do you mean? Of course I like you.”
“You don’t act like you like us.”
He couldn’t fathom what she had been talking about. “You know that Daniel is my closest friend.”
She had nodded. “Maybe you like Daniel,” she had allowed. “But you don’t like anybody else here.”
“What on Earth makes you say that, Matilda? I like you very much.”
The Duke had always been fond of both of Daniel’s younger sisters. He thought they were charming and sweet, and in the absence of any siblings of his own, they sometimes felt like the closest thing he was ever going to have to a big family.
Matilda had shaken her head. “If you liked us,” she had said. “You would be nicer to us.”
What on Earth had she meant bythat?
Perhaps he had been rude, Harry had thought. He had felt as if he was moving through clouds. He had been hardly aware of whom he had seen or what he had said to them. He hadn’t spoken to Matilda before she had come into the library, he had known that. But he had seen Daniel’s other sister, Juliet, just briefly.
I wasn’t rude to her. I hardly spent a moment in her company.
“Matilda?”
