Chapter 24
Tristan had been in good spirits on the ride back.
He had managed to find her father and convince him to return.
Her family’s accounts were finally in order.
He had even managed to settle two outstanding debts that had been quietly accumulating since before the wedding, and he had done all that without telling Cathy, because he wanted to see her face when she opened the next set of books and found the columns finally, cleanly, balanced.
She will be delighted.
He was thinking about that when the carriage rolled through the gates of Baxter Hall.
Henderson was on the front steps before the wheels had stopped. That alone was enough to make Tristan’s good humor evaporate. Henderson usually waited in the foyer.
Tristan was out of the carriage before it had fully stopped. “Has something happened, Henderson?”
“Your Grace.” Henderson’s voice was steady, but his eyes were not. “Miss Longrove called this afternoon. Her Grace received her in the gardens.”
“And? Speak, man.”
“Miss Longrove was escorted out, but... Her Grace has not returned from the gardens.”
Tristan was already moving.
“How long?” he asked, not breaking stride.
“Not long, Your Grace. One of the under-gardeners came to find me not ten minutes ago. He said—”
But Tristan was no longer listening. He had broken into a run.
He found her at the far edge of the east garden.
Cathy was often too concerned about propriety and composure, but at the moment, she was slumped against a young under-gardener.
Her pale blue gown was torn at the sleeves, while her hair was a jumbled nest of leaves and twigs.
However, those details were not what made his heart stop.
Her arms.
Her arms were full of angry welts, red against her porcelain skin. Droplets of blood stained her bodice.
“Cathy! Good God. Cathy, what happened to you?”
The shout echoed across the grounds of Baxter Hall. Panic gripped Tristan in a way that he had never felt before.
“Your Grace, when did you come back?”
“That is not important. What happened, Cathy?” Tristan demanded, his voice trembling with worry. He was immediately in front of his injured wife, wanting to help her but also afraid to hurt her further. “Who did this to you? Tell me now.”
Cathy looked into his eyes. He expected a flash of pain, and not the searching way she gazed at him as if he was the one who pushed her into the hedge.
There was a vulnerability on her face that he could not bear to see.
It was followed by her walls rising rapidly, with her Miss Priggish mask slicing back into place.
She pulled away from the servant’s support, even as she swayed a little.
She smoothed her ruined dress with trembling fingers, but her face remained composed.
“No one did this. I tripped,” she declared with a flat voice, devoid of any warmth they shared over the ledgers. “My gown was caught on the stone edging. My clumsiness will be the death of me, it seems. Nothing more.”
Tristan froze. A heavy feeling of exhaustion descended upon him. He had journeyed a long way to talk to Cathy’s father. Now, he wondered if he should have gone at all. His wife was now full of jagged slices from the roses’ thorns. They were harsh and red.
The Duke turned to the young gardener. The boy was pale-faced, almost as if he were the one who had had a little accident.
“Did she trip?” Tristan barked.
Instead of responding, the young gardener glanced at Cathy, as if seeking help, and then looked down at his own dusty boots.
“Answer me, man!”
“I... Your Grace...” His stammering spoke volumes.
“Leave the boy alone. He was just trying to help me.”
“I know that, but you are lying, Cathy,” Tristan declared. “Tell me the truth!”
He crowded her, and was stunned when he saw her flinch as if she anticipated being struck. He would never do that. Cathy looked as if she was still traumatized by what happened to her today.
“Someone did that to you,” he said firmly. “Somebody pushed you into the rose hedge. Did they do it out of uncontrolled fury, or was it calculated?”
“It was an accident,” she insisted, her pitch rising, as her own lack of control threatened to overwhelm. “I am perfectly fine. These are just a few scratches. They are very minor and nothing to be alarmed about.”
“Nothing to be alarmed about?” Tristan clenched his jaw hard until it ached.
He would not listen to her protests. They might be minor wounds, but they must hurt tremendously.
She was also clearly lying. Someone had attacked her right inside their home.
Henderson had mentioned Miss Longrove visiting.
Could she have done that? Why was Cathy protecting her?
“Sit, Cathy,” he commanded, gesturing at a stone bench. “Now.”
As if startled, she quickly obeyed, staring at him as he pulled a clean linen handkerchief from his coat pocket.
“You,” he turned toward the young gardener once more. “Get some clean water in a basin and a clean cloth.”
The boy ran as fast as he could, perhaps relieved to be away from the tension between Tristan and Cathy.
The Duke then pulled his flask of brandy and soaked his handkerchief.
It would do for now while they waited for the water and cloth.
He dabbed lightly at the scratches on her arm, feeling every flinch and wince that came from her.
“That does not look minor now, does it?” he murmured.
She stubbornly took the pain, although her body betrayed her by trembling with each dab.
For him, it was torture seeing her this way, especially up close when he could see her lashes fluttering over her cheeks and her full lips parting, and then, her white teeth making an appearance to bite her lower lip.
“You should not protect the person who did this to you,” he advised, his voice barely suppressing his rage.
“They must be punished. I will question every soul in Baxter Hall. If I had to drag them out into the foyer, I would do so to discover who dared to do this to my wife, so you had better tell me what happened yourself.”
Cathy barked out a laugh that was more bitter than joyful, taking him by surprise.
She pulled away from him. He let her go, only because he was already done with the first round of cleaning her wounds.
She stood up, a statuesque woman, looking down at him as he knelt before her like a supplicant.
Like someone willing to serve her all his life.
“You do not have to pretend to care for me,” she said. The words were spoken in a harsh, disbelieving tone. “We are alone here. There is no need for a performance. This is a private garden, not a ballroom where people will look at us to see if we get along. Not even the staff are here to see us.”
Tristan rose slowly, suddenly the weight of the past few days’ mission crashing on him. His height loomed over her, then, but the way she saw him made him feel small. Was that how she thought of him?
I was the one who asked to be done with pretenses.
“Are you turning the accusation my way now? Are you accusing me of pretending?” he asked incredulously.
“I was never a woman with silly, romantic dreams of love,” she confirmed, her voice no longer trembling.
The fear and pain were slowly disappearing.
“I knew what our marriage was from the very beginning. I knew what I was to you. You do not need to show me a display of devotion. There is nothing to gain from that. Please spare us both the exhaustion.”
Tristan felt like someone had jabbed him in the chest. It was almost like a fencing foil had dug in and twisted around in it.
He had traveled day and night. He had endured asking her father to come back home.
Quinten was a coward living in squalor. Tristan would not have gone to see him if not for her.
He wanted Cathy to regain her peace. To let him take care of her.
“Do you really think that was a performance?” he asked, his voice cracking.
“I went to the coast not for my own business, Cathy, but for you. I had people look into your father’s whereabouts.
I found him living in a hovel by the sea.
I wanted to take that burden off you. It may not seem that way, but I did it for you because I know you still care about your father’s well-being.
I did it for your family! I did it because I care about you, and I hoped that you would come to care about me. For real this time.”
Cathy’s mask slipped away for a moment. He then saw hope and disbelief play in her eyes. Her lips parted, but nothing came out of them. But it was brief, so brief that one might wonder if it happened. She quickly rebuilt her walls and closed her doors against him.
“If you truly care for me, you should do right by Miss Longrove and her baby.”
Tristan felt everything tilt. Blood roared in his ears. He could not believe what he had just heard.
“What in God’s name are you talking about, Cathy? What is this about Miss Longrove? Henderson told me that she was here earlier. Did she do that to you?”
“Do not dare deny it or change the subject!” she cried, stepping back and away from him.
It was as if he had something contagious that she feared.
“Yes, Miss Longrove was here. She stood right where you are now and told me everything. She is with child; she carries your child! Do not insult my intelligence by saying it is not so. I have always known you are a rake, but this...”
“Cathy, listen—”
“I should have known this would happen,” she interrupted, her voice ragged and thin.
“My grandmama warned me about how one woman would never satisfy you. So, I worked hard to secure my place before you replace me with somebody else. I suppose it is fortunate that we never got to consummate this marriage. My ledgers are finally in order; please do not hesitate to ask for an annulment.”
Tristan felt nauseous. Everything that they had tried hard to build, the trust and the bond, was shattered in this moment. It was being poisoned by a venomous woman’s lie.
“Did she do this to you?” he asked, gesturing at her cuts. He could clearly visualize Anne shoving Cathy into the rose hedge. It was easy to imagine the woman doing something so vile. “Did she push you?”
“It does not matter!” Cathy snapped, no longer pretending indifference. The walls crashed, but what Tristan saw beyond was not what he had always hoped for. “Have you not heard a word I said? None of it matters now! This was a marriage born out of scandal. A mistake.”
“Cathy, please—”
“I wish to return to my family, Your Grace. Please make sure that you take responsibility for your actions.”
While words still failed Tristan, Cathy took the opportunity to turn on her heel and run toward the house.
Tristan stood by the briar hedge, overpowered by the crushed roses’ scent. The feeling of failure.
“Your Grace?”
The boy finally returned with the basin and the cloth.
“I am sorry for taking too long, Your Grace,” he apologized.
“It is all right. I believe I also took too long to come back.”
And to tell Cathy everything that he wished for in this marriage.