Chapter 13
Madeline stared at him, momentarily taken aback.
Her surprised face was so very sweet that Tristan wanted to march over and pinch her cheeks.
She was wearing one of the dresses he had bought for her—the gold-and-white brocade with the puffed sleeves.
This made him happier than he could have explained—a thought best left unexplored.
He did not pinch her cheeks, of course. Instead, he stood there patiently waiting. She drew in a breath, lifting her chin.
“I thank God and the cold blood I am of your humor for that,” she responded, without even glancing down at the book. “I had rather have heard my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.”
“Powerful words,” Tristan chuckled. “There is only one response to it: God keep your ladyship still in that mind; so some gentleman or other shall ’scape a predestinate scratched face.”
“Scratching could not make it worse, an ‘twere such a face as yours,” Madeline muttered under her breath. He suspected she could not help herself.
He tutted and took a step forward. “Ah, now, Madeline, I don’t think you believe that. I think that you rather like my face.”
“I do not!”
“Hmm. Well, we shall agree to differ, I think.”
She seemed to rally a bit at this. The baby had found a natural position, propped on the curve of her hip, with her arms wrapped around him. It struck Tristan that it all seemed very natural, very right.
He was also aware that he wanted to kiss her again. That thought was best put away in the back of his mind, to be thought over later. Or never, ideally.
“I do not. I never lie. And by the way, what do you mean, I am lying to him?” Madeline shot back, placing her free hand on her opposite hip. “I am not lying to a baby.”
“Aren’t you? It’s not possible to keep a smile on a person’s face forever, and if you think otherwise, you’re a fool.”
She flushed. “You are a pessimist.”
“And you are naive. Think of this. When our sweet Adam grows out of his adorable babyhood and past his precious childhood years and becomes an adolescent boy, do you think he will still be so sweet?”
“Well, yes,” Madeline answered, looking baffled. “Why not?”
Tristan bit back a smile. He glanced away, shaking his head. “I can tell that you never had any brothers, Madeline.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
He took a step toward her, and she flinched back reflexively. He stopped, the smile dropping from his face.
“I only wanted to hold the baby,” Tristan said quietly. “My brother’s baby. He is my nephew, after all. And yours too now, of course.”
Madeline reddened a little, glancing away.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” she mumbled. “Of course you can hold the baby.”
She held him out, waiting.
Tristan inched forward, hesitantly taking the baby. They were always heavier than he expected, and there was always the fear that a baby might unexpectedly cry, or vomit, or something like that. One could never tell with a baby.
He regarded baby Adam, and baby Adam regarded him straight back.
“You look like him,” Tristan whispered. “Anthony. You have his eyes.”
Madeline shifted, and he glanced up at her.
“You can go if you like,” Tristan said carefully. “I’ll watch him and return him to Joan when we’ve both had enough.”
Madeline blinked, as if taken by surprise. “I’d like to stay,” she said after a moment. “If you don’t mind.”
Tristan supposed that he did not mind. He kept his thoughts to himself, offering her a brisk nod. Then he walked over to the hearth, carefully lowering himself onto the thick fur rug and placing the baby beside him.
Adam lay on his back, eyes wide, taking in the world around him. He gave a gurgle of vague approval and waved his fists in the air. With this task completed, he began to chew on one of his feet, covered in a knitted bootee.
Madeline kneeled beside him, chuckling, and whipped off the bootee.
“It’ll only get wet,” she said, by way of explanation. “What did you mean when you said that I wouldn’t like Adam when he was an adolescent?”
Tristan shrugged. “Well, adolescents are not exactly delights, are they? Their parents are generally tearing out their hair over them.”
Madeline frowned. “Not me.”
He rolled his eyes. “No, of course not. Not the perfect Lady Madeline.”
She scowled. “You are teasing me.”
“Yes,” he answered frankly. “I am teasing you, and I am probably going to continue teasing you throughout our marriage, so I suggest you learn to live with it. I was awful when I was in my early teens, and so was Anthony. Weren’t you?”
Madeline sniffed, sitting up a little straighter. “I was an inquisitive teenage girl,” she confessed after a moment. “But Papa always encouraged it. He said it was good to ask questions. He was glad.”
Tristan gave a huff of laughter, leaning sideways to prop himself up on one elbow.
“Well, my mother disagreed. She found my brother and me truly insufferable at that age, and said as much, several times.”
“Oh, how awful.”
He winced. “I am not sure that awful is warranted. My brother and I were… Oh, well, you can imagine what we were like.”
He glanced up to find Madeline staring at him, brow furrowed, curious.
“No,” she answered simply. “I can’t.”
He sighed. “We were trouble, I’m afraid. We consorted with maids and gardeners, we broke things, we made messes, we were just generally insufferable.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
He glanced up, meeting her eyes. She averted her gaze, flushing deeply.
That blush is becoming more and more adorable.
“I remember once,” Tristan said, speaking slowly, “we took a pair of horses and ran away. Well, we did not run away exactly, but that was what Mother thought we had done.”
“Why did you leave?”
He chuckled, rolling onto his back and lacing his hands behind his head.
“The maids had told us about a festival held in the next town over,” he admitted.
“There were supposed to be lots of pretty girls, as much cider as a man could drink, pies, cakes, sweets, beer, everything. Whiskey, even. Anthony heard about it first. We knew if we asked permission to go, the answer would be a resounding no. So, we saddled up a pair of horses and decided that it was best to ask forgiveness instead of permission.”
Madeline made a strangled sound, and Tristan glanced over to find that she was struggling to hold back a giggle. A smile slipped onto his face.
“Was it worth it?” she choked. “The festival, I mean?”
“Heavens, no. It was all old men and fearsome farmers’ wives. The pies were edible; the cakes rather disappointing. The cider and beer were acceptable. No whiskey. It didn’t matter, though. We drank about a barrel each, it felt like, then tottered home drunk.”
“Drunk!”
“Gentlemen get drunk, Duchess,” Tristan remarked wryly.
“It’s a fact of life, I’m afraid. In all honesty, it was foolish of us.
We made it home only because of our horses.
We managed to get ourselves into the saddle, and the faithful creatures simply walked us home.
My mother was frantic.” The smile faded from his face a little.
“We shouldn’t have put her through that.
But that is my point. A child cannot understand the pain they might inflict on others.
My brother and I did not understand how our mother felt. We do now, but now is too late.”
There was silence after that. He could feel Madeline’s eyes on him.
Did she blame him? Judge him? It was hard to tell.
Tristan longed to look over at her. It would be the easiest thing in the world to roll onto his elbow again, lean up, fit his lips to hers…
or perhaps that was too much. He could simply reach up, letting his fingertips ghost across her exposed collarbone, up the column of her neck to where her pulse fluttered at the side…
Adam burped loudly. Tristan flinched.
Madeline tutted, leaning over to fiddle with his swaddle.
“Well, I don’t think that Adam will be doing such reckless things,” she announced.
Tristan burst out laughing. “That is the second time you have used that word, duchess. Reckless. Forgive me, but I think that everybody needs to let go every once in a while.”
Madeline sniffed disapprovingly. “Well, as long as they don’t embarrass themselves.”
He studied her for a moment. She was aware of his eyes on her; he knew that. He wondered briefly if she felt his presence the way he felt hers.
Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe she was only putting up with him in exchange for raising her friend’s baby.
He glanced down at Adam, who was smiling up at the ceiling.
“He’s smiling,” Tristan said, hearing the surprise in his own voice. “How long has he been smiling for?”
“I don’t know enough about babies to know that,” Madeline admitted. “But he has been smiling today. We can expect that he will start crawling soon, and walking quickly follows that.”
“He’s going to be a menace,” Tristan breathed, with growing horror.
Madeline nodded. “I think that’s quite likely, yes. And as to what you said regarding people letting themselves go…”
“That isn’t quite what I said.”
“Well, at any rate, I think it depends on whether they’re likely to embarrass themselves.”
He chuckled. “I think it depends on how easily they are embarrassed, wouldn’t you say?”
As he’d known would happen, color rushed to her face, and Madeline threw him an annoyed glare.
They sat in silence for a moment, the fire crackling, the fur warm beneath them. Adam burbled a little more, and after a while, his eyelids grew heavy. Before they knew it, the baby was asleep.
Tristan watched the baby’s sleeping face and saw traces of Anthony there. A lump formed in his throat, and he abruptly sat up, turning away.
“You didn’t come back to the party last night,” he said shortly. “Why not?”
Madeline sucked in a breath. “Why, I… I thought it best to put some distance between us.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
He could feel her eyes on him, but did not allow himself to turn and look at her.
“Why do you think?” Madeline said after a moment. “You speak of my being easily embarrassed. Well, perhaps I am. I do not like being looked at. I do not like being the center of attention. That party was an awful experience for me.”
“I’m not sure how else I could have arranged it.”
“I am not blaming you. Truly, I am not. But after that day, when we met in the reading room, when…” She broke off abruptly, but Tristan knew what she was going to say.
When we kissed.
“It was a mistake,” she said at last, her voice growing stronger.
“I imagine you had had something to drink. I had some champagne. Too much, I imagine. Neither of us was in our right minds, and we were about to break our rule of keeping our distance. So, I thought it would be best if I kept myself out of the way. I thought you’d be grateful. ”
He pursed his lips. “You know, I can’t make you out at all, Madeline.”
There was another silence. Adam sighed in his sleep, waving one arm in the air.
“What do you mean?” Madeline managed.
Tristan sighed, twisting around to face her. “You like babies, don’t you?”
Whatever question she had been expecting to hear, it was not that. Madeline flinched, eyes widening.
“What?” she stammered.
He gave a wry smile. “You heard me. You like babies. You clearly love Adam and have a knack with him, which makes me think you are used to looking after children and good at it. You don’t just love him for his mother’s sake, but for his own, yes?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“In that case, why are you so adamant that you do not want a baby? Why not have a baby of your own? And the quickest way to get a baby of your very own is, of course, me.”
Madeline eyed him for a long moment. He held her gaze and found, to his horror, that he was holding his breath.
“You’ve changed your mind already, have you, Your Grace?” she remarked at last.
Tristan blinked. That was a surprisingly even answer, considering what an invasive question he had asked.
“I have not changed my mind,” he responded tartly. “I am merely curious.”
Madeline abruptly rose to her feet, shaking out her skirts. For a moment, he was sure that she was about to storm out, or perhaps to kick him, or something like that. Instead, she walked over to the fire and began prodding it with a poker, reviving the blaze.
“Now, I don’t recall that being curious about each other was part of our deal,” she responded calmly, straightening up.
Tristan grinned. “Well, well, my duchess, I don’t recall you being so feisty before we were married. Marriage suits you, it seems. Interesting.”
He jumped to his feet, pausing only to press a kiss to Adam’s sleeping forehead.
“I shall leave the baby with you, if I may,” he added. “I’ll be leaving now, and I shall spend the day at my club.”
She said nothing, not even goodbye, but Tristan felt her eyes on him all the way out of the room.