Chapter 11
Eleven
The next day, Tristan did not see Christine at breakfast. He wandered the halls of the ancient house, contemplating visiting her room in order to push his question of the night before.
It felt as though he were a ship lost at sea.
He wandered listlessly, tugged by currents and winds.
So certain had he been that he would see her that her absence was disturbing.
She saw me last night. I know she did. I saw her. Saw her body. Does she entice me? Did she know how much of her I could see?
The vision of her, outlined by the sudden light, was intoxicating. It had haunted his dreams. The fact that he had touched her, kissed her, held her in his arms, made the sight he had seen all the more enticing.
I must be careful. I did not come here to form an attachment but to gain revenge. Attachment is weakness. Feelings are weakness. I will not be weak!
The corridors of Greystone carried voices like funnels, every alcove a snare for gossip. Tristan had little patience for eavesdropping, yet when he heard his own name, he paused in the shadow of an open door.
“…a disgrace, that girl showing her face here at all,” Lady Martha’s sharp tones drifted out, “as though her brother had not robbed half of London! And then to parade herself before my George, sniffing about for what she lost. Shameless.”
Lord Bingley’s drawl followed, smug and brittle.
“She has always been far too forward. I am relieved Providence spared me. Imagine the scandal had we married. She is ruined already, though she plays the innocent.”
Tristan’s jaw locked. He told himself to move on. These were gnats, buzzing in a candle flame. Christine needed no champion, least of all him. And yet, his feet turned of their own accord. He stepped into the doorway.
“If you must speak ill of a lady, have the courage to do it to her face.”
Martha gave a start, paling before she found her bluster.
“Your Grace! We meant no offense…”
“You meant every syllable,” Tristan said coldly, “but let me assure you that Christine Davidson is twice the worth of any who whisper against her.”
His gaze pinned Bingley until the man shifted, flushed, and looked away.
Martha bristled, but no retort came. The silence stretched until Tristan inclined his head, a parody of courtesy, and strode off down the corridor.
Only when the distance had swallowed him did he let out a bitter laugh under his breath.
Fool. To defend her so openly.
He had all but carved his feelings into the wall for the vultures to peck at.
I should have kept silent, let her stand or fall on her own merits.
Instead, he had revealed his own hand. And now Martha, sharp-tongued and spiteful, would spread his defense through the hall like wildfire. Very well. If he had shown his claws, he would use them.
By midday, the ballroom was alive with chatter once more, the Dowager marshalling her second game, Stitch the Lady’s Favor.
Ladies sat with linen and thread, gentlemen called forward to play the part of clumsy suitors as they were selected. Tristan’s eyes roamed the gathering, searching for Christine. He found her just as Martha’s shrill voice cut through.
“Your Grace! I choose you! The Duke of Duskwood!”
Tristan’s head whipped to where Martha stood.
His eyes went back to Christine. She was looking at him, her face unreadable.
He crossed the floor to Martha’s side, wearing the faint smile that unsettled people most. Martha glowed with triumph.
Across the room, Christine’s face was carefully composed, but he saw the slight flare of her nostrils, the stiffening of her hand on her lap.
I am being used. Lady Martha seeks to drive a knife into Christine by inciting jealousy. I will not be used so!
He glanced at Lady Martha, who batted her eyelashes. He looked away, face as stony and cold as he could make it. Lord Bingley loitered on the periphery, fuming impotently—as, Tristan assumed, he did frequently.
Chairs were arranged in neat rows, ladies in silks perched like rare birds, each holding a square of linen and a basket of colored thread. The gentlemen were summoned one by one to sit beside them and be guided in the delicate art of embroidery.
Martha patted the chair. “Sit, Your Grace. Do not look so fierce. It is only thread and cloth, not sword and pike.”
He lowered himself beside her, lips curving into the kind of smile that made people uncertain whether he was amused or preparing to bite.
“I yield to your superior command, Lady Martha. What would you have me do?”
She placed the square of linen in his hands and bent close, her perfume cloying.
“Stitch a heart. Here. I shall guide you.” Her fingers closed over his, soft and insistent, drawing his hand into the first motion with the needle.
Without thought, he snatched his hands away and began to move the needle on his own. Lady Martha looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Everyone else was intent on their own tasks. Except for three pairs of eyes.
Lord Bingley, the jealous fiancée; the Dowager Duchess, tapping her lip with a finger thoughtfully; Christine. The only pair of eyes that Tristan cared about. They met and she looked away, becoming intent on the gentleman that she had been partnered with.
Damn him!
Tristan found himself thinking angrily about her partner, a stranger to Tristan.
He reigned in his own jealousy, examining it with as much detached, glacial intellect as he could muster.
Why? He needed Christine, but he did not want her.
Not wanted in the primitive, primal way of a man and a woman alone, clothed in nothing but night.
Don’t you?
“You are actually quite skilled, Your Grace.” Lady Martha whispered in a voice that said she thought she was being intimate.
Tristan had forgotten her presence entirely.
Thank you, Miss Hardcastle, the best governess I ever had. If I had to spend another minute in this woman’s company, I would walk out of this damnable house and to hell with the consequences.
The game unfolded. Martha made a show of guiding his fingers in the stitching of a heart.
He did not need it and was only hampered by her pretense at teaching.
The heart he stitched was small and perfectly formed.
Christine guided the hands of a man with fiery hair and a long face who was pricking himself with the needle.
The Dowager Duchess declared Martha and Tristan the winners, and he folded the linen, putting it into his coat pocket.
The gathering dispersed for refreshments ahead of luncheon.
Tristan strode through them to Christine.
She watched him approach and then turned away at the last minute.
She smiled at her red-haired partner, curtsying to him and thanking him.
“Would you escort me to luncheon, Sir Nathaniel?” she said.
“I would be delighted,” he replied.
“Might I intercede?” Tristan growled, suddenly feeling an uncomfortable sensation at the sight of her about to accept the arm of another man.
Pull yourself together, you fool. This is how the game is played.
“We were about to go in for lunch. Would you not rather accompany Lady Martha?” Christine said, sweetly.
“Hang, Lady Martha,” Tristan said, brusquely.
“Well, I say!” Sir Nathaniel exclaimed.
“Come with me,” Tristan ordered, taking Christine’s hand and stepping away.
“You brute!” Sir Nathaniel protested, “That is no way to…”
Tristan stepped close, towering over the other man. “A wolf is a brutish animal. Take care lest you learn how brutal it can be.”
Sir Nathaniel retreated. A wave of looks and whispers spread out from the three of them like ripples from a rock tossed into a pond. Tristan could not help scowling both with jealousy and his own failing.
I am not a politician. I speak my mind, and I seek out what I want. I do not dance like these people do.
“Would you like to tell me what that display was all about?” Christine said as they walked through the ballroom and into the room beyond.
“I did not ask to be chosen by Lady Martha,” Tristan said.
“I was talking about you mauling of that nice young man.”
“He is a sniveling drip.”
“How interesting.”
“Why?”
“That you assumed I meant the game.”
Tristan glanced at her. She was watching him from the corner of her eye, and he knew he was losing in this particular round of their duel.
He wanted to conjure a scowl, a glower, but he found that he was enjoying the crossing of verbal swords too much.
Enjoying being in her company too much. Every time he looked at her, he could only see the outline of her body beneath her robe.
Christine plucked the embroidered heart from his coat pocket.
“You did a remarkable job with this.”
“It is not my first time at needlepoint. And I am good with my hands, Lady Christine.
She blushed so fiercely that Tristan’s self-control wavered. His mind filled with the image of her lips parted, her breath catching, her skin flushed beneath his touch—her voice trembling as she moaned his name.
“Really? What an onion you are. Always another layer revealed. Where did you learn needlepoint? I think you are better at it than I.”
That brought him back to reality.
He took back the linen and replaced it in his pocket.
“We are no longer playing Three Questions. That was yesterday.”
They stepped onto a veranda where tables had been set up in the midday sun with jugs of fruit juice and a selection of cheese and crackers.
Peacocks strutted on the lawn below. Lady Martha moved within a court of her own, followed by her obedient fiancée.
The frequent glances over at Tristan and Christine told of the subject of their conversation.
“That is a nasty scratch, Lady Christine,” said a young lady whose name Tristan had not bothered to learn.
“I did not see a branch while I was walking with Lady Blanche in the gardens last night, Lady Elaine,” Christine replied smoothly.
“Ah, branches in the dark can be dangerous,” Lady Elaine, a blonde girl with a pointed, slightly vulpine face, said with a thin smile.
“Particularly when one is rolling on the ground,” Lady Martha said, having drifted close enough to overhear.
Lady Elaine smiled, completing the image of a vixen.
“I was not rolling on the ground,” Christine said.
“Your dress had to be laundered, did it not?”
“Do you wear the same dress two days running?” Christine asked.
“I do not, but when laundered, my dresses do not have to be cleansed of soil.”
“Neither do mine.”
“I have had a word with the Dowager Duchess on the subject of her staff. I saw one prowling around last night where he certainly should not have been. And then you appear, scratched and…soiled.”
Christine was on her feet in an instant, face scarlet. Tristan rose no less quickly, putting a hand to her arm. Christine’s other hand held a cup of tea as though she meant to return the favor Lady Martha had paid her on the first evening. Lady Martha eyed the cup but did not step back.
“Apologize,” Tristan growled.
“I have done nothing but state facts.”
“Apologize!” Tristan roared.
Not one gentleman and certainly not her fiancée stepped forward to defend Lady Martha. She finally took a step back into the bosom of her court, swallowing and darting glances from Christine to Tristan.
“What is she to you?” Lady Martha demanded, “I know who and what she is.”
“My fiancée. We are betrothed. That makes her the future Duchess of Duskwood.” Tristan said.
“And my father is the Earl of Faversham,” Lady Martha said, lifting her chin.
“Quite so. And I would not speak to a woman the way your behavior demands. So, I will require your fiancée to give the apology.” Tristan looked at Bingley. “Apologize if you have a shred of honor,” Tristan said in a voice as remorseless as the glaciers that had once covered England.
“I apologize,” Lady Martha said, finally, “I did not appreciate your relationship to His Grace, the Duke.”
“I accept. Please take care in the future about rumors of the kind you were peddling,” Christine said.
Tristan was looking at her, ignoring the others.
She could have publicly rebuked me. She did not. She accepted the role I put on her shoulders. She accepted my offer.