Chapter 4
It was a mistake, of course. Tristan was in no doubt about that. Still, it was worth it to see the look of horror and consternation spread over Lady Madeline’s face. He turned on his heel and strode out of the cottage.
Outside, Betty’s aunt—Hilda—was briskly weeding a vegetable patch. She glanced up as he ducked through the doorway and lifted her eyebrows.
“Well?” she demanded. “Did you come to terms?”
Tristan put aside his annoyance at her sharp tone.
“Lady Madeline and I will be traveling back to London together,” he said smoothly. “With the baby, naturally. There’s more to be decided, of course, but I have a rather fine plan that will suit us all, I think.”
“I agreed to no such thing!” Madeline squawked, shuffling along behind him. “Hilda, do not listen to him. Send word into the village. Tell Papa…”
“No need to tell Papa anything,” Tristan interrupted. “Is he a short, round-faced fellow with a rather fabulous set of mustaches? Because if so, he is trundling toward us at this very moment. Sans carriage, I notice.”
He didn’t wait for a response, instead setting off at a loping stride toward the distant gentleman.
Lord Beaufort was not making good time. Red-faced and sweating, he lumbered along slowly, still managing to flash a genial smile at Tristan.
“The Duke of Tolford, I do declare!” Lord Beaufort remarked. “What a surprise.”
“Your daughter, I assume?” Tristan asked immediately, jerking his chin in the direction of the cottage. Madeline stood on the little terrace in front of the cottage, clutching the baby. He imagined that she was still glaring at him.
“Why, indeed,” the older man blinked. “An old friend of Madeline’s has recently passed away, and we have hurried here to collect her baby. The child must be cared for, of course.”
“Of course. Tell me, Lord Beaufort, where is your carriage?”
“Ah, about that,” he sighed. “There was an awful rattling noise on the way here. Madeline alighted at Hilda’s home and walked the rest of the way. I enlisted a man to help, and it turns out our axle has a serious crack. Can you imagine?”
“It is beyond belief. Let me offer you a ride back to London in my carriage.”
Tristan gestured to his carriage sitting further up the driveway, and Lord Beaufort beamed.
“Oh, excellent! I am thrilled to accept. But let me ask, Your Grace, why you are here?”
“I shall explain all in the carriage,” Tristan assured him. “We shall leave at once.”
Lord Beaufort nodded, frowning ever so slightly. Tristan could hear the pitter-patter of footsteps behind him and guessed that Madeline was hurrying toward them, probably eager to hear what he was saying to her father. It was hard to blame her.
“I was not aware that you and my daughter were acquainted, Your Grace.”
Tristan let out a slow breath. Now was the time to break the news, he decided. He did not expect a very good reception, but that hardly mattered. Madeline arrived alongside him, out of breath. She scowled up at Tristan. He offered a wide, cheerful smile.
“About that, Lord Beaufort. I am, in fact, your daughter’s husband-to-be.”
There was a heavy silence.
“I beg your pardon?” Lord Beaufort managed.
He seemed a little tired and required the coachman’s help to get into Tristan’s high-sprung carriage. While he was clambering up, Madeline grabbed Tristan by the elbow and hauled him aside.
At least she tried to haul him aside. Tristan merely humored her.
“What on earth do you mean by saying such a thing to my father?” she hissed, red-faced. “Engaged indeed!”
“Your father seemed almost thrilled at the prospect,” Tristan shot back smoothly.
“That is because he thinks that marriage will make me happy. You had no right…”
“Marriage equals happiness? What a strange opinion to hold,” Tristan murmured, tilting his head. “And in society, of all places.”
Madeline reddened further. “Do not change the subject. If you must know, my mother and father were exceptionally happy. What do you mean by telling my father that we are to be married? I cannot conceive why you would do such a thing!”
Tristan sighed. “Come now, Lady Madeline, you must admit that it is the obvious choice.”
“I will admit nothing of the sort.”
He leaned forward, catching her crisp green gaze and holding it. It occurred to him, quite out of nowhere, that it was rare indeed to find somebody with truly green eyes. Plenty of people had green-blue eyes, or hazel eyes, but a proper grass-green color was rare.
He collected himself, swallowing down a sudden, intense desire to grip her by the chin again and turn those pretty eyes up toward him.
“The death of my brother and your friend has changed everything,” Tristan managed at last, feeling as though he had missed a beat. “Both of us are duty-bound to care for this baby, and neither of us is willing to concede.”
“I’m in!” Lord Beaufort called breathlessly. “Madeline, dearest, do hand that baby up to me. I would rather fancy a little cuddle. Babies of that age are so very sweet.”
Madeline wordlessly obliged, leaning up to gently transfer the baby into her father’s arms.
Adam, Tristan noted, had fallen asleep, clearly comfortable and safe in Madeline’s arms. Lord Beaufort held him with practiced ease, clucking fondly at the baby before leaning back into his seat and out of view.
Madeline turned back to Tristan, folding her arms tightly across her chest.
“You never mentioned a word to me about marriage,” she hissed.
“The idea is a newish one.”
“Hmph. Well, it’s a ridiculous idea.”
“Is it? How else are we to share the guardianship of this child? You want to raise him for the sake of your friend, and I want to raise him for the sake of my brother. We are barely even in London at the same time, Lady Madeline. When we arrive in London, I shall want to go my way with the babe, and you’ll want to go yours.
Do you suggest we take a leaf out of King Solomon’s book and slice the baby in two? ”
She blanched. “Good lord, Your Grace, don’t be vile! Anyway, King Solomon never intended to hurt the baby. He did all that only to make the real mother show herself.”
“I shall take your word for it.”
She sighed, passing a hand over her face. “Marriage cannot possibly be the solution here. There must be another way we can share Adam’s guardianship.”
He shrugged, turning toward the carriage. “If you can think of another solution, I’m all ears. We’ve got a long enough journey for you to consider it. We are going to have to share this child.”
“Share? I don’t like that word.”
He paused, glancing back at her. “Don’t you? What a pity. There’s not a great deal that I can do about that, though, is there?”
She let out a long breath, and Tristan suspected that she was fighting to control her temper. That was interesting, because he hadn’t thought that Madeline Huxley had a temper.
Although that’s not fair, is it? I glimpsed a hidden well of rage when she recited that poem, didn’t I?
He caught her eye and held it. She flushed, dropping her chin.
“I think you are being rather selfish,” she said at last. “You must know that this child will be happier and safer with Papa and me.”
Tristan suddenly found that he wanted very badly to grab her chin and lean close to her face, close enough so that the tips of their noses almost touched. She would have to look at him then, wouldn’t she?
“Selfish, eh?” he murmured, voice low. “Do me the courtesy of looking me in the eye when you make such accusations. It’s rather cowardly to level the worst insults you can think of at a man while not even bothering to glance his way.”
Madeline’s face turned a vibrant shade of red. Her capacity for blushing was a most interesting thing. It should probably be studied.
To her credit, she lifted her chin, forcing herself to look directly at him.
“I am a coward, I suppose,” she said at last. “The Society Papers described me as a wallflower, which I think is a rather kind way of saying that I am frightened of everything and just plain boring. And yet I think I would rather be described that way instead of the way you were described.”
Tristan folded his arms. “And how was I described? Do enlighten me. For somebody who never reads the gossip columns, you are certainly well-versed in their contents.”
“You’re described as a rake, a decided flirt, and a blackguard. I overheard that said in a ballroom. A devil, they said.”
“Imaginative,” Tristan shot back. Even talk of all that ridiculous gossip left him wanting to yawn. Did people have nothing else to do with their time than gossip and scribble about their peers? No, he supposed they did not. He did not care much about what he was called in the gossip columns.
Their anonymous writers all seemed fascinated with him; equal parts awed and disgusted to the extent that he wondered whether he had accidentally paid the authors a slight of some kind.
After all, everybody knew that the gossip column writers moved through society with the rest of them, watching and listening and making notes.
“You can’t possibly care about the baby,” Madeline tried again.
She was attempting to appeal to his better nature.
How sweet. She still believed that he had one.
“Papa and I can raise him, and I promise you’ll have a say in how he is raised.
You can visit him, you can choose the school he goes to, you can… ”
“He has my brother’s eyes,” Tristan interrupted. He was not sure why he had chosen to say that. But the words were out now, and there was no cramming them back into his mouth.
There was a brief silence after this. Madeline blinked up at him, her eyes growing large behind her spectacles. It was odd how one could forget that she was even wearing them. As he stared down at her, she lifted her hand, nervously pushing them further up her nose.
They slid defiantly down again, and Tristan’s fingers itched to reach out and take them off her face altogether. Would she blink nervously without them? Would her face look vulnerable and naked without her eyeglasses?
He cleared his throat, taking a step backward.
“He reminded me very much of Anthony when I first saw him,” Tristan continued, when Madeline did not immediately speak. “The resemblance was… was striking. Listen to me, Lady Madeline. Neither of us wishes to compromise on this matter. My solution is the only one that leaves us both happy.”
“Marriage. Your solution is marriage,” Madeline responded bitterly.
He eyed her for a long moment. “Did you plan to marry somebody else?”
This seemed to take her aback. “What? No.”
“Well, neither do I. I have no intention of relinquishing my nephew, Lady Madeline. And regardless of what your friend wanted for her child, the plain fact is that he is my blood relation, and therefore the law is on my side.”
The color left her face, and Tristan found himself wishing he’d phrased that sentence a little more gently. Too late now, however.
“I suppose you are right,” she responded bitterly. “I can think of no other solution.”
He let out a long sigh. “Shall I take that as a yes?”
“If you must. I cannot let Betty down. I cannot.”
It was a victory, but it did not feel like a victory. Tristan stared down at the woman he had just become engaged to and wondered if it was normal to feel quite so hollow.
There were spots of color on her cheeks, tracing out the line of her cheekbones. There was a spray of freckles there, standing out against her pale skin. Freckles were not, of course, fashionable and were considered rather ugly.
Tristan disagreed with such ideas. Freckles, like other unusual marks and beauty spots, could be very endearing. They could be very attractive. They certainly suited Madeline very well.
She met his gaze and scowled, a stark reminder that Madeline Huxley certainly did not find anything about him endearing.
Fine. I can live with that, Tristan told himself firmly. The baby began to cry faintly in the carriage, and he heard Lord Beaufort gently hushing the child. The cries faded away gently.
Sleep well, little one, Tristan thought grimly. I hope you’ll understand one day just how hard we fought over you.
“I daresay the next business to discuss will be where the child should live for now, until our marriage,” Tristan said aloud.
“I shall forestall that conversation by inviting you and your father to stay with me at once. My people will pack up your things. You can have a suite of rooms to yourselves if sitting in the drawing room with me proves too unpleasant for you. Will that suit?”
“I suppose so,” Madeline huffed, turning toward the carriage and placing her foot on the step. “It’s unavoidable, isn’t it?”
“Yes, rather,” Tristan agreed. “And once news of our engagement gets out, I suggest you avoid reading the gossip columns for a while. They’ll be rather cruel about the whole thing, I imagine.”
“Gossip columns? Cruel? No change there, then,” Madeline shot back, and climbed into the carriage.
Smothering a smile, Tristan climbed in after her.