Chapter 12
Twelve
The bells of the parish church tolled noon as Christine stepped through the gates of Greystone, her arm linked with Blanche’s.
The Dowager Duchess had insisted that her dearest guests enjoy a constitutional after luncheon, complete with parasols, carriages in reserve, and a troop of footmen carrying hampers in case anyone so much as thought of fainting.
“I swear,” Blanche murmured, “the Dowager would send a battalion of soldiers to escort us if she thought it would end in a marriage proposal.”
Christine smiled faintly. The warmth of the day could not touch the cold knot in her stomach. “Perhaps she should. They would be quicker than talk.”
“Talk?” Blanche glanced sideways, “or gossip?”
Christine made a helpless little sound that was neither laugh nor sigh. “They are the same thing in this company.”
I want to tell all my dear friends, but where do I start? A proposal of marriage, but for convenience and from the Wolf. What I desire and what I fear are all wrapped up.
The ladies strolled down the lane toward the village, the Dowager’s open carriage rolling ahead with a pair of chaperones inside. The old Duchess’s parasol bobbed like a flag of command, her voice carrying back through the summer air.
“Remember, my dears, a brisk walk quickens the blood! And quickened blood makes for quickened hearts!”
“God preserve us,” Blanche muttered, earning a muffled laugh from Christine.
But laughter could not steady her. Since morning, the whole of Greystone had seemed to hum with the word betrothal. It travelled faster than any wind, curling through every parlor and garden walk.
Ladies had congratulated her. Gentlemen had bowed lower than they ever had before. Even servants smiled in a way that told her they knew. She had said nothing. Denying the rumor would only fan the flames. And besides, she had agreed to it.
I must be clear that I will be in control. But how does one control a wolf? Ride it for a time, but eventually one must get off.
A temporary betrothal. A lie dressed in lace. Tristan’s offer still echoed through her thoughts.
“Blanche,” she said suddenly, startling her friend out of some internal reverie, “if you were promised a life of comfort and safety at the price of deceit, would you take it?”
“Deceit?” Blanche’s brows arched, “Good heavens, Christine, you make it sound like highway robbery. Whose comfort and safety are we speaking of, yours or another’s?”
Christine hesitated. “Mine, I suppose.”
“Then I should say yes.” Blanche’s tone softened, “unless the man in question is truly dreadful.”
“He is…” Christine faltered, thinking of Tristan’s eyes, those stark gray eyes that seemed to see everything and reveal nothing, “he is formidable. I do not trust him, not completely. Perhaps not at all. No, there must be some trust there or I would not…”
“Ramble?” Blanche said, leaning close and smiling mischievously, “You are babbling, so I will take it there is something positive in your regard for him.”
“I certainly don’t hate him.”
“You’re not meant to hate him! You’re meant to toy with him until he forgets how to breathe.”
“I wish you would not say things like that,” Christine muttered, though she smiled in spite of herself.
Blanche stopped walking, forcing Christine to halt too.
“Tell me plainly. What did the Wolf Duke do? You have been quieter than a cloistered nun since breakfast.”
Christine tugged at her gloves. “He made me a proposal.”
“Of marriage? Everyone knows that by now.”
“Of convenience.”
Blanche blinked. “The devil you say.”
“He claims it would protect me from Lady Gillray and that I may end it whenever I choose. He says it will benefit us both.”
“And will it?”
“I do not know.” Christine’s voice wavered. “He is honest in the way the wolves are honest. They do not hide their teeth.”
Blanche’s hand closed gently over hers. “Then perhaps he is the safer sort of liar. The ones who smile while they bite are the ones to fear.”
Christine squeezed her friend’s hand in thanks. But her thoughts wandered still to Lady Gillray’s spite, to Dreadford’s leering face, to the hopelessness that had once filled every corner of her life. To Tristan’s words.
I will not be alone.
The idea was intoxicating and terrifying. The road dipped toward the village where shopkeepers leaned in doorways, shading their eyes as the procession passed. The Dowager’s carriage halted by the green. She alighted with surprising agility for a woman of her years, waving them over.
“My dear girls!” she cried, “how very radiant you both look. Lady Christine, a word with you, if you please.”
Blanche, with a tact born of long friendship, slipped away toward a flower stall, leaving Christine to face the old Duchess’s shrewd, smiling eyes.
“I hear,” said the Dowager, “that congratulations are in order.”
Christine felt heat rise to her cheeks. “Your Grace…”
“Hush. I am delighted. You think I did not notice you and the Duke growing friendly during the games? I’ve orchestrated too many love stories to miss the signs.”
Christine found her voice. “There is…less to it than people believe.”
“Nonsense.” The Dowager looped her arm through Christine’s and steered her along the path by the river, “the world rarely errs on the side of less. Besides, his Grace is a complicated creature. He would not waste his time on a passing fancy.”
“I doubt he knows what fancies are.”
“Oh, he does,” the Dowager said, smiling faintly, “he simply mistrusts them. He mistrusts everything. That is why you interest him.”
Christine looked away, the water flashing gold beside them. “You speak as if he were tame.”
“Not tame,” the Dowager corrected, “but tamed briefly, by your presence. My late husband was much the same. A man who bit the world before it bit him. Some men require a steady hand, not a leash.”
Christine’s throat tightened. “You think I could be that hand?”
“I think you already are.” The Dowager patted her arm, “Do not run from good fortune, child. I know how cruel gossip can be, but gossip fades. Security does not.”
They walked in silence for a while. A heron rose from the reeds, beating slow wings toward the far bank. The Dowager sighed contentedly.
“You will find, in time, that courage is not always in defiance. Sometimes it is in surrender.”
Christine was still pondering that when Blanche rejoined them, breathless and carrying a tied bouquet of cut flowers. The Dowager wandered away, sighing over the picturesque village. Blanche tucked the flowers into Christine’s hand before they climbed aboard.
“For courage,” she said softly.
Christine sniffed them, appreciating their fragrance. She and Blanche resumed walking along the river in companionable silence. Ahead of them, Lady Martha appeared, escorted by Lord Bingley.
“There is a woman who should now be your best friend,” Blanche whispered, “you cannot be seen as a threat if you are engaged to another.”
“Should,” Christine said.
Lady Martha smiled as they drew close enough to acknowledge each other’s presence.
“Lady Christine, Lady Blanche. Are you enjoying a break from the festivities?” she asked, sweetly.
“We are,” Blanche replied, “and at least one of us hopes to be sharing the state which you and Lord Binley currently enjoy.”
Martha’s smile was frozen, matching her eyes. She looked at Christine entirely correctly, but with projection spikes and daggers.
“So, I am given to understand. Quite a catch. Did you need a net?”
Christine had been prepared to present a face that would enable her to walk on by and forget Martha’s venom. She heard the insult to Tristan and felt a corresponding surge of anger.
He needs no one to spring to his defense but…he did help me on the first night. He is offering me help now.
“Better a tidal wave than a drip,” Christine said.
Blanche almost choked and grabbed Christine’s bouquet to hide her face.
“Hmm, such a lovely fragrance,” she managed.
“Not to the captain of a ship. Easy to keep a firm hand on the tiller.”
“You need a firm hand?” Christine asked, glancing at Bingley.
“Rarely.”
“That is what I found. So nice to find someone so malleable.”
Martha’s eyes widened, and Bingley stuttered.
I have been around Tristan entirely too long. If a matter of days can be considered too long. I am growing fangs!
“Let us not pollute this lovely vista with harsh words, eh?” Blanche offered to play peacemaker.
“I see the rumors about the Lady of the Scullery are true. You talk with a servant’s mouth,” Martha spat, abandoning the game of veiled meanings.
Christine lost her words. Blanche took her arm and smiled something bright and gay that allowed them to walk on by. But as they passed, Christine reclaimed her arm and turned to face Martha.
“Will you tell me what it is I have done that has so upset you, Lady Martha?”
I can guess. Is this yet another family grievously injured by Charles’ reckless financial misconduct?
Lady Martha stopped, though Lord Bingley was whispering, ineffectually, that she should walk on. Christine regretted her harsh words about him. He was not a bad man, and it was not her nature to be unkind. Lady Martha seemed capable of bringing out the worst in her.
“I was told that you were trying to rekindle your abortive relationship with my fiancée,” Lady Martha said.
“Yes, which I would not have done had I known you were engaged.”
“I have only your word for that.”
“But your anger was hot from the moment you set eyes on me. Was there nothing already in your mind fueling that fire?” She had known cruelty and malice, but rarely such acute venom.
Casual cruelty from Lady Gillray as well as mercenary exploitation.
But this seemed pure hatred. Where could it possibly come from?
“Do not pretend that you do not know,” Lady Martha spat.
“I will not because I do not. What…?”
But Lady Martha’s nose was in the air and her back was turned. Lord Bingley was whispering and darting furtive glances at Christine, who threw up her hands in frustration.
“Hush! There is nothing for it!” Blanche said, pulling her along the path, “Some people are just wicked. I would say Lady Martha is one of them.”
“No, she has a reason. She just won’t tell me,” Christine protested.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, if she is going to be sniping at me for the rest of the week.”
“Just count yourself one up by virtue of your engagement to a duke. Even if it is that duke,” Blanche said, “now whatever does she mean by the Lady of the Scullery? I cannot fathom it. Is it a riddle?”
Christine forgot her frustration at Lady Martha’s reticence. She thought of the insult that had been hurled at her. Blanche was regarding her with wide-eyed innocence, and she did not have the heart to see that expression turn to pity.
How could the dear girl do anything but pity if I told her of my life at Gillray House? Who would not pity? But that is the one thing I have never had to endure from Blanche.
“Perhaps it has been noted that I do not shy away from helping people when they are struggling. There was a man who dropped some glasses on the first night. And a woman struggling with far too much crockery.”
She hated not being entirely truthful with Blanche, but their friendship had developed before Lady Gillray had begun exploiting her ward as badly as she now did.
When Christine was still allowed out of the house, even if for only an occasional luncheon or breakfast. Lady Margaret, Blanche’s mother, had been a regular visitor to Gillray House, with Blanche in tow, and they’d promenaded at the park and supped at tea shops around London.
Blanche squinted against the sun as it broke through a tuft of clouds. She held Christine’s gaze for a moment and then nodded.
“Doubtless. It is exactly the kind of odd thing you like to do. And precisely the sort of thing a woman like Martha would seize upon. You do not need to worry. As your man pointed out, you will be a Duchess. Take courage from that.”
Christine glanced down at the bright petals trembling in her palm.
Courage. It was an odd sort of courage that meant accepting help from a man she barely knew.
But she could not deny that the air felt easier to breathe since she had agreed to the Duke’s plan.
Perhaps for a while she could allow herself to pretend that freedom and safety were the same thing.
“Anyway, it is vile gossip and will not stick,” Blanche said, “patently ridiculous. Lady of the Scullery indeed,” she sniffed. “We were enjoying ourselves. Let us continue.”