Chapter 37 #2
Lady Montfort sent a look down the table that might have curdled the wine, but said nothing. Tristan only replied, “I shall endeavor to be more frightening, then.”
The meal continued, the air growing easier, lighter. It was as if the tablecloth itself absorbed the weight of old grievances and replaced them with something brighter.
Until Whisper appeared.
He materialized beneath the table, made his way along the guests’ feet, and began an all-out assault on Sophia’s ankles. She stifled a shriek, but it turned into a stream of giggles when the kitten surfaced, climbed onto her lap, and—without warning—leapt onto the table itself.
He landed squarely among the serving spoons, looked around as if daring anyone to challenge him, and promptly began licking the butter from the nearest plate.
Lady Montfort gasped. Frances clapped a hand over her mouth. Sophia’s giggle exploded, uncontainable, and she ducked her head to hide her face.
Lavinia, mortified, reached for the cat, but Tristan simply raised an eyebrow. “It seems our royal guest could not wait for dessert,” he said.
Sophia nearly toppled from her chair laughing, and even Lady Montfort’s face threatened to split in two. The entire table dissolved into helpless, honest laughter, the kind that lingered long after decorum tried to reassert itself.
When the plates were cleared, Lavinia realized she had not once wished to escape, or even to hide. She had simply been there, among them, as herself.
As the party rose from the table, Lady Montfort dabbed at her eyes with a linen napkin. “Well,” she declared, “that was the most entertaining dinner I have endured in twenty years.”
Tristan stood, hands braced on the table. “I hope you will join us again. I believe Sophia and Whisper are planning a coronation for tomorrow.”
Sophia nodded furiously. “There will be a crown.”
Frances whispered, “And a blue ribbon.”
They retreated to the drawing room, and very soon, Lady Montfort’s gentle snoring could be heard. She would deny it later, but every wall in Evermere could testify, and Lavinia found herself wandering the hallway outside the terrace, her pulse oddly uneven.
She was not sure if she wanted the evening to end or for it to go on forever.
“Lady Lavinia.”
She turned. Tristan was there, his hair disheveled as if he had spent the last hour in debate with his own conscience.
He did not come closer at once. “Will you walk with me?” he asked.
“Yes.” She nodded.
He opened the garden door, and they stepped out together. They walked in silence for a stretch, the only sound the crunch of stone and the sigh of distant leaves. Every step Lavinia took felt both heavy and weightless.
At last, they came to a small stone bench beneath the rise of a trellised rose. In summer, it would be a riot; tonight, it was all shadow and suggestion. He gestured for her to sit, and she did, careful to keep her breathing even.
He sat beside her, but not too near. “I had planned to say something clever,” he began. “But it escapes me now.
“Perhaps it was not worth saying,” Lavinia replied, surprising herself with how gentle she sounded.
He almost smiled, but did not. “Perhaps.”
They sat, wordless, for a minute or a year. She heard the sound of her own breath, and his, and the low, unhurried ticking of the world rearranging itself.
He reached into his coat, and her heart stopped.
“I have something for you,” he said, and in his palm was a small, battered pouch. He pulled the drawstring, and there, shining in the moonlight, was her mother’s amethyst pendant.
Lavinia’s hands flew to her mouth. “Where—”
“I found it at the masquerade,” Tristan said. “You left it behind. I did not know it was yours, not until much later. But I could not let it go.”
She stared at the stone, all the memories it contained, the nights she had clutched it for courage, the mornings she had worn it for hope.
He held it out. “I have kept it every day since. I told myself it was a mystery to solve, but the truth is, I did not want to let go of the possibility that someone had once looked at me and seen more than just Evermere.”
Her voice, when it came, was rough with emotion. “You were the man at the ball.”
He nodded. “And you were the woman who vanished at midnight, leaving me to wonder if I had dreamed the whole of it.”
Lavinia’s hands shook as she took the pendant. The chain tangled, as it always did. She tried to steady herself, but her eyes stung and her vision blurred.
Tristan helped her untangle it, his fingers grazing hers, and in the contact, there was more than warmth, for there was something like peace.
He did not let go. “I wanted the woman from the ball, but now I want something else even more.”
She tried to laugh. “Is this where you say you want my hand in marriage?”
He looked away, the smallest flush on his cheek.
“No,” he said. “It is where I tell you that I want you. The true you. The one who has survived heartbreak and poverty and every indignity life could invent. The one who taught my daughter how to be confident and show her foolish father how wrong he had been. The one who makes me wish I had lived differently, just so I could be worthy of you.”
She did not know what to say, so she said nothing. She only looked at him and saw not the Duke, but the man who had once waltzed with her, who had lifted her above the ruin of her world and let her be herself, if only for a moment.
He took the chain and fastened it around her neck, his fingers careful, reverent against her skin. “I am not a good man,” he said, voice barely audible. “But I am yours, if you will have me.”
She put her hand to the amethyst, feeling its old familiar weight. “I will,” she said, and the words were so simple, so final, that she almost missed the gravity of them.
He leaned in slowly, and his arm circled her waist, drawing her to him.
Their lips met, and the world contracted to a single, perfect point.
The kiss was soft at first, then grew with a fire and hunger that put their last kiss to utter shame.
When they broke apart, she was crying, but she did not mind.
He kneeled before her, because of course he did, because even a man like Evermere knew how to make a proposal that could not be refused.
“Lady Lavinia Pembroke,” he said, “will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she answered, and then “Yes,” again, just to hear the sound of it in the air.
Tristan rested his forehead against hers, then kissed her lips over and over again in small, teasing bites. But then something soft wound between them at their feet.
They both looked down, and then up, and then started laughing, and did not stop for a very long time. Tristan scooped up the cat, and Whisper blinked at him with all the hauteur of a prince returned to his throne.
“It seems,” Tristan said, “our family is already complete.”
Lavinia’s heart soared at the word, and she thought it just might break her.
But it did not. It only made her whole.