Free Mary Fran and Matthew by Grace Burrowes Page A

fortunate, because for the hash he’d made of things, Matthew deserved to be sunk at sea.
    ***
    Gordie had done the same bloody thing—started spouting off about marriage before he’d even stuffed his pizzle back in his knickers.
    His relatively unimpressive pizzle, come to that.
    And Matthew did not look smug or even nervous. He looked so very, very serious, even with his shirt hanging open and his breeches not properly fastened.
    “I owe you an explanation, Mary Frances. I’d rather you hear it from me, because Altsax seems all too willing to give you his version of events.”
    “Put yourself to rights,” she said, reaching under her skirts to make use of his handkerchief. She hadn’t understood why he was trying to pull out until the instant he’d given up the effort. She’d come again, unbelievably hard, when he’d spent in her body.
    Marriage wasn’t out of the question, if the damned man but knew it.
    “I can put my clothing to rights,” he said, tucking himself up, “but to untangle what’s between us…”
    He ran a hand through hair Mary Fran herself had put in thorough disarray. She tidied herself up as best she could and scooted to one side of the trunk. “Sit with me, Matthew, and let’s have none of your English dramatics.”
    This earned her the smallest smile, the smallest, saddest smile, but he sat beside her. He didn’t take her hand, so she took his.
    “I am the corrupt colonel.” He recited this like a penitent’s catechism.
    “And I was Gordie’s Highland whore. Did you lose a shipment of the cavalry’s horse blankets, then? Slip them off to some orphanage?”
    “I do love you, Mary Fran.”
    “Must you make it sound like this dooms you to misery?” Her attempt at a light moment failed utterly, and where a rosy, even optimistic glow had tried to take root in Mary Fran’s heart, dread began to form.
    “I love you for your fierce heart, for your courage, for your passion,” he went on. “And because I love you, you must know the truth: I publicly compromised my general’s daughter, and I did so while my wife of less than two years lay dying. My disgrace took place”—he kissed her fingers and then deposited her hand back in her lap—“my disgrace took place at the regimental ball.”
    Cold shivered over Mary Frances, a cold even worse than when, after deflowering her, Gordie had poured himself a drink and toasted their future.
    “You would not do such a thing.” She wanted to reach for his hand, but his posture was so calm, so self-contained, she stifled the impulse.
    “I did such a thing. The girl—she was only twenty-two—went home under a cloud of scandal. I resigned my commission and put it about that my father was demanding my return. Ask anybody billeted to the Crimea, and they’ll tell you all about the corrupt colonel. They have worse names for me too, of course…”
    The cold became something worse, something like panic, dread, and rage, all rolled into Mary Fran’s middle and jammed against her heart. “I don’t believe you.”
    “You must believe me. It is the truth. We were found in a shocking embrace by no less than the girl’s mother. Had I been single, the girl would very likely be my wife now.”
    “Did you make love with her?”
    Why this should matter, Mary Fran did not know. For most men, particularly aroused men, the difference between kisses, caresses, and coitus was simply a few more minutes of privacy.
    “I kissed her thoroughly, had my hands where a gentleman’s hands do not belong, had my tongue—”
    “But not your cock.”
    He reared back a bit, as if he’d just walked in on a scene such as the one he was describing. “Not my cock, but you have only my word for that, and the word of a cad should never be trusted.”
    Except he wasn’t cad. Could not be.
    She’d had the same argument with herself over Gordie. Told herself he would never take advantage of her curiosity, never proceed if she decided to call a halt. Gordie had