Chapter 12
twelve
Once again, Tristan had trouble focusing on his work. Being alone in his study with a nice cup of tea and the sunlight coming from the window didn’t help.
The survey of the factory in Pimlico he had with his manager had been sheer torture. He’d asked the manager to repeat simple concepts a few times because he’d got distracted.
He’d gone through the meeting wishing for time to speed up so he could go home and wait for Effie. The situation was ridiculous, or worse, worrying.
She intruded into his thoughts with an ease that surprised him, almost as if she belonged with him.
The only saving grace of the day was that George hadn’t joined him at the factory.
He didn’t have the patience to endure a new sermon from him or questions about his relationship with Effie.
Besides, he wasn’t sure what the relationship entailed, aside from pulse racing and sudden bouts of good mood that shocked him.
So here he was, sitting at his desk, unable to focus yet again as he waited for Effie. He’d sent her a message hours ago. No, actually, the clock on the mantelpiece informed him that only half an hour had passed.
He looked out of the window at the carriages driving by, and the people hurrying along the pavement. The smell of burnt coal sneaked inside the room.
He glanced at the mantelpiece again. Only five minutes had passed since the last time he’d checked the bloody clock. Ridiculous.
He’d burnt the midnight oil with his father for many hours in those earlier years, doing accounting or replying to urgent letters, and he hadn’t had trouble staying concentrated. Nor had he cared about time slowing to a crawl.
He tried to start reading again, a document from his solicitor. Intruding thoughts were a challenge he was quickly losing. Then Harris opened the door.
“My lord, Lady Effie,” Harris said. “And Lady Vaughan.”
Effie entered, carrying her leather bag. Lady Vaughan wore a polite smile, holding a chestnut Pomeranian dog in her arms.
“Hello again, Lord Montcrest.” Effie put her bag down.
“Lady Effie, Lady Vaughan.”
“Montcrest, I hope you don’t mind that I came.” Lady Vaughan kissed the dog. “Effie was kind enough to take a look at my sweet Turi. He got something stuck in his teeth, and I couldn’t get it out.” She laughed.
“I don’t mind at all. Shall I lie down?” he asked.
“Lie down?” Lady Vaughan stopped stroking Turi. “Is your dog going to jump on you, Montcrest, while Effie visits him?”
“Nothing of the sort.” He wasn’t amused.
“I’m not here to visit Lord Montcrest’s dog.” Effie opened her bag. “I need to check his stitches.”
“Stitches?” Lady Vaughan paled, holding Turi more tightly.
“A nasty cut. Here.” She ran a finger over her abdomen to mimic the wound. “It wasn’t clean either.”
“Isn’t that a job for a physician?” Lady Vaughan raked a hard gaze over him.
“I trust Lady Effie to perform a good job.” He returned the hard glare. He was a champion in returning hard glares, and it worked because Lady Vaughan averted her gaze.
“It shouldn’t take us long.” Effie rummaged through the bag, muttering under her breath.
Lady Vaughan half-turned towards the door. “But Effie dear, you know how I feel about blood, sharp scalpels, and stitches. Montcrest should be attended by a physician. I thought you were here to see an animal.”
She glanced at him then at Lady Vaughan. “Perhaps Jane you should wait for me somewhere?”
He didn’t care one way or another. But spending some time alone with Effie wasn’t a bad prospect. “I’m sure my butler will be happy to serve you tea.”
“But—” Lady Vaughan fell silent when he lifted his waistcoat and shirt enough to uncover a couple of stitches. She swallowed hard. “Very well.” She spun on her heels and left quickly.
“Lady Vaughan is a little sensitive,” Effie said. “Even the smell of carbolic acid causes her to faint.”
He waited a moment before reclining on the sofa, his skin tingling and pulling at the stitches as he moved.
He undid the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt, careful not to reveal too much, just as he’d done the night of the ball.
Bruises at various degrees of discolouring marred the rest of his skin, and how he’d got them was a conversation he didn’t want to have with her.
As a veterinarian, she probably had no idea what sort of maladies a human mind could be afflicted with. He wouldn’t be the one who shocked her into the world of pain and darkness that lived in his head.
“You didn’t give me time to bandage the wound properly.” She wiped her hands with a clear liquid, and a pungent smell reached his senses. But the disinfectant didn’t cover her sweet scent of cinnamon.
A little line appeared between her delicate eyebrows, and he was, once again, charmed by her beauty and light. She didn’t need to say anything to enthral him.
“I apologise again for having offended you the other day.” She touched the wound lightly.
“Offended me?”
“You left in a hurry. I must have said something that upset you.”
Yes, something had upset him, but she hadn’t offended him. Her kindness had reminded him how unkind he was, and it hadn’t been a pretty reminder.
“You didn’t offend me. I was caught off guard by your compassion.” The words tumbled out of his mouth without his explicit permission.
He blamed the power of her intense eyes. They made him tell the truth.
She dabbed the cut with a cloth. “You must have met some not-so-nice people.”
He smiled ruefully. “Your heart is so good. It’s unsurprising that you assume I met unkind people. I might be the unkind one, who was repaid in kind, if you allow me the play on words.”
“If you admit you were unkind, then you can’t be completely unkind, can you? An unkind person wouldn’t confess to being one.”
He gritted his teeth when she pressed her fingers to the sides of a particularly sensitive stitch. “One ought to show accountability.”
“True.” She wiped her hands. “The stitches are clean, and I don’t see signs of infection. But I’ll apply some more iodine anyway.”
He watched her work with great attention, which was ironic. Until a moment ago, he’d had trouble focusing on reading a simple document, but now he could easily dedicate his full mind to her.
Her long eyelashes were chestnut at the base and golden at the tips. Her pert nose twitched when she focused on her work. And her skin had a warm hue as if she spent a lot of time outdoors without a parasol.
She was the first earl’s daughter he’d ever met who knew both about farming and being a lady. The combination was extremely alluring and felt intimately close to who he was. Like her, he’d worked hard with his hands before being able to settle into the life of a lord.
“Done.” She tilted her head to the side, studying her handiwork. “But this time I need to bandage the cut, or the fabric of your shirt might get tangled with the stitches and rip them.”
“My valet wasn’t thrilled when he saw my shirt stained with blood and iodine.”
She signalled for him to sit up. “May I ask you something?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Why is it so important to buy that land from Father?” She selected a wide roll of bandage from her bag.
Curious. She hadn’t asked her father about the deal. Or more likely she’d asked, and Winchester had refused to answer.
“And please, don’t say you don’t want me to get involved. I really want to know,” she added.
“I’m expanding my London and West Marches Railway towards the southwest. I want the railway to reach a small town, Fletton. It’s in the middle of nowhere, but there’s an old glass factory that will die unless the town gets modernised.”
“With the railway,” she said.
“Yes. The factory is losing relevance due to its isolation. A few hundred people live in Fletton, and almost half of them work at the factory. In order for them to have a hospital and a school, they need a train station. The railway will connect Fletton to Bristol and London, increasing job opportunities for everyone and making the transport of glass more efficient.”
“It sounds like an important project.”
He touched the stitches and groaned inwardly when his fingertips got stained with iodine.
“Why doesn’t Papa want to sell? I don’t believe he has any plans for Easthollow.”
As much as he didn’t like Winchester, he wouldn’t speak ill of him in front of his daughter. “I think he should clarify that.”
“Oh, I see.” She stretched the bandage, becoming serious. “He doesn’t approve of you.”
He didn’t deny or confirm, but his silence was likely more eloquent than his words.
She frowned. “I don’t understand Papa’s prejudice. I’m sure he would change his mind if he took the time to get to know you.”
He heaved a breath as he felt strangely defenceless in front of her, fragile but not in a shameful way. She hadn’t said anything too deep, but her trust filled him with warmth and confidence, like the hug of a loved one. It was the best feeling in the world.
“You don’t know me,” he whispered. “I might deserve the scorn.”
“No, I don’t believe that.” Her eyes held too much honesty. “No one who loves animals as you do can be so terrible.”
“You give me too much credit.”
“You give yourself too little.” She unravelled a large portion of the roll. “Stay still, please. You probably should remove your shirt.”
Tension returned to his body.
“No. I’ll help you wrap the bandage, but the shirt stays on.”
Or she would see the devastation on his skin. His back was covered in bruises and shallow cuts. In fact, it was a matter of chance that his abdomen didn’t have bruises. Usually, all his body, except his face, showed many contusions at different stages of healing.
“I understand. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” She practically hugged him while wrapping the bandage around him. “What did Papa tell you when he refused your offer?”
He swallowed hard, helping her to shift the roll. “First, he refused to give us a simple concession to let the railway go through his land. I offered to buy it. He refused. I tripled the price. He again refused.”
She gazed up at him, and he forgot why he was angry.
“That sounds unreasonable of him. Maybe he has some valid reason not to sell it, well aside from his personal dislike of you. I’ll ask him if you want.
I don’t want to interfere in your business because, quite frankly, I don’t know much about business deals, but I can talk to him. ”
“Do you really want to help me?”
She lifted a shoulder. “If I can, why not?” Her candour was out of a fairy tale, but he wasn’t Prince Charming.
“You’re too kind to me.”
“You’ve met too many unkind people.”
She brushed his skin and his hands as they both worked to wrap his abdomen.
Shivers slithered down his back. For the first time, the twitch was completely silenced, stunned by her brightness.
A sense of peace washed over him, leaving a trail of tenderness behind.
Why was he so vulnerable with her? Sensations overwhelmed him, and he couldn’t control himself.
He took her chin and stared at her mesmerising eyes. “What is it about you?”
She blinked. “I don’t understand the question.”
Neither did he. He stroked her chin with his thumb, wondering if he really wanted to find out why she caused so much turmoil inside him, or if he should simply accept it and succumb to it.
He brushed her plush lower lip with the pad of his thumb. How would it feel to suck it into his mouth until she moaned? Her scent was intoxicating. His pulse raced, for once not because he needed the relief that only pain could give him.
He released her chin and angled his head, giving her the opportunity to say no.
When she inched closer, he brushed his lips against hers as lightly as he could, and a shot of pure, undiluted pleasure coursed through him.
The lightness of the touch was inversely proportional to the emotion it triggered.
She drew in a breath and parted her lips, but when he edged closer to kiss her deeper, she moved back from him.
“Tristan.” She stared at him as if begging him not to hurt her.
Hell. His name told in her sweet voice slapped him back to the present. The sense of peace was replaced by shame.
He buttoned his shirt quickly. He ought to apologise, but at that moment, controlling his voice was a chore; it would sound husky and heavy with desire, and he’d already made a fool out of himself.
She silently put the bottles and gauze back in the bag, her cheeks red.
He swallowed again, standing up. He was an idiot. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
She didn’t look at him.
He was about to ask her to say something when a knock came.
“Effie?” Lady Vaughan asked from the corridor.
Turi barked.
He opened the door just to put some distance between him and her, and Lady Vaughan entered.
“Is it done?” she asked.
“Yes.” Effie’s voice sounded high-pitched.
Lady Vaughan frowned at Effie’s flushed face. She turned towards him then to Effie again. “Is something the matter? Was there a lot of blood?”
Turi sniffled the air.
“No. All is good.” Effie held the bag against her chest. “Lord Montcrest, have a pleasant afternoon.”
He seriously doubted his afternoon would be pleasant.