Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
Morning light came early to Duskwood. The house faced the east and, from its height, caught the first slivers of sunlight over the horizon. When Christine entered the breakfast room, the fire was already burning and the silver domes on the sideboard gleamed faintly in the dimness.
Tristan stood by the window, coffee in hand, the collar of his shirt open, and the morning paper folded beneath one arm. He looked more awake than she felt.
“You are an early riser,” she said, taking her seat.
“I am a man who cannot sleep past dawn,” he replied. “Duskwood teaches the habit. The crows outside will not let a man lie idle.”
“I did not hear them at all. I must have been tired,” Christine said.
“Your rooms are one floor below mine, so you will hear them,” Tristan said.
This is a different side to him. Another different side. I have seen the solitary wolf. I have seen the kindly Uncle. Now I see the Lord in his castle. Utterly in command.
“I have been considering,” he said, “that Duskwood has not seen a proper gathering in years. We shall need to correct that, particularly in light of the news we are sharing.”
She blinked. “A gathering?”
“A ball. An engagement ball.” He leaned back slightly, watching her face, “If the notices in London were bait, then a grand celebration here will be the hook. Every gossip in the city will repeat our names. If Charles is alive, he will not resist curiosity for long.”
Christine placed her napkin on her lap and folded it carefully. “You mean to lure him with music and supper.”
“Better than pistols and debt collectors,” he said, “and it will give you what is rightly yours, the freedom to preside as the future Duchess of Duskwood.”
It was an unexpected gesture, and it landed somewhere between compliment and command. The freedom of a duchess. For a girl who had been forbidden even a candle in her room after dark, the idea of deciding how a ballroom would look was both thrilling and bewildering.
“You mean for me to arrange it?” she asked.
“It is your job,” he said, “Mrs. Fogarty will attend to the practicalities, but the design, the invitations, they will be yours. Let the world see your taste.”
She watched the morning strengthen beyond the window and thought again of the woods. When the silence grew too heavy, she said. “I have something to ask of you.”
He looked up, wary. “Yes?”
“Two people. Constance, the maid at Greystone, and James, the coachman. I have given them positions here.”
The pause that followed was small but noticeable. “Have you indeed?”
“She was desperate,” Christine continued, “the Dowager would have dismissed them both if she learned they meant to marry. It would have ruined them. Here they will work honestly and safely.”
Tristan’s jaw tightened. “You fill my household faster than the steward can count them.”
“You object?”
“I object to surprise,” he pushed his plate aside, “but you do it out of kindness, and I have little defense against that.”
“Then you will let them stay?”
He exhaled slowly. “I will. When is this wedding of theirs to be?”
“As soon as possible.”
His gaze sharpened. “Ah.”
He did not ask further, and she was grateful. He understood the reason without needing to hear it for a young couple to be rushing to the altar.
“Then it is your domain,” he said after a moment, “speak to Mrs. Fogarty and Mr. Rollins about the arrangements. I leave such matters to my duchess-to-be.”
He rose from the table, folded the paper under his arm again, and inclined his head.
“Mrs. Fogarty will be waiting for you in the morning room. Discuss with her what you need for your ball and for your couple. She will manage both with equal efficiency.”
“You are going out?”
Christine felt disappointed. She’d become used to Tristan’s company on a daily basis during the Duke Hunt.
“There are matters to settle,” he said. “Duskwood keeps me busy.”
He did not elaborate. Within minutes, he was gone, and the great house seemed to grow larger in his absence. Christine went to see Mrs. Fogarty, and by the time the clock struck eleven, plans were taking shape. Christine felt at once bewildered and exhilarated.
She could not tell if she was being given tasks for idle hands.
The thought stung. Perhaps he wished to keep her indoors, arranging roses, while he went into the dark after ghosts.
She closed her eyes against the idea. If she was to be his wife, however long that lasted, she would exercise the authority that went with that position.
When dinner came, she dined alone in her room.
The butler brought word that His Grace was detained in town and would not return until late.
She sat in the window-seat, trying to read but failing.
Then, she saw him. A figure emerging from the side door, walking with measured purpose across the grass. Tristan.
He wore no coat again, only a shirt open at the throat. It was as she had seen the night before. He crossed the same ground, entered the same trees, and vanished. She told herself not to follow. She told herself that a lady did not chase a man into the woods in her nightdress.
But her heart had already chosen disobedience. Within minutes, she had thrown on a cloak and slippers, caught up a lantern, and slipped through the corridor to the side door. It took longer than she thought to navigate the dark passages of the house.
But eventually, she was outside. The air smelled of wet grass and pine. Her breath made small ghosts in front of her face.
She followed the faint print of his boots, careful not to let the lantern show too high.
The house behind her disappeared. After perhaps ten minutes, the trees thinned, revealing a clearing.
In the center stood a stone structure with an arched doorway.
She stepped closer, extinguished her lantern, and peered through the arch.
It was a bathhouse. Mossy with age, stone dark and smooth. Inside, the air shimmered with warmth. A stone pool was fed by a spring that bubbled quietly from a fissure in the wall. And there was Tristan gliding through the water away from her, his shoulders silver in the light.
For a moment, she could not move. The water clung to his skin as he stroked through the water with graceful, powerful movements.
His hair was a mane, slicked back to lie on his back.
His muscles were sleek, the water outlining their power.
In the dim light, he gleamed as though his naked body were covered in diamonds.
Reaching the far side of the pool, he floated, tossed his head, and stretched. The moment was unguarded, private.
He was all power and stillness, the same man who had commanded a ballroom now belonging to no one but himself. He reached the far edge. His head turned slightly, as if he had heard something. She drew back behind the wall, heart pounding.
“Who’s there?” His voice echoed softly in the chamber.
She froze.
“Rollins?” he called, then, lower, “No, Rollins knows better than to disturb me…Christine?”
Her breath caught. He pulled himself out of the pool, water streaming down his body. The sight sent a rush of heat to her face, heat that raced down from her shoulders, tingling into her fingertips and even lower. She turned quickly, facing the door.
His body is as perfect as I imagined. Michelangelo himself would have despaired at trying to capture such masculinity as the Duke of Duskwood.
The image lodged in her mind could not be displaced. Shining muscles, slick with water. Faint traceries of steam rising from him. Rigid definition to his arms and his torso, tight lines. In the periphery of her vision, she had been aware of something else. Of his utter nakedness.
Something she had felt but never seen. She thought she would expire from the burning heat of her face. That steam should be rising from her instead of him.
“Come out,” Tristan commanded.
“You should lock your doors better,” she said faintly, looking back over her shoulder but not facing him fully.
He was half in shadow now, the darkness cast by a crumbling pillar enough to give him modesty. He looked her up and down slowly, and Christine felt his eyes as a physical touch.
“You followed me.”
“I thought you were…” she stopped herself. “I didn’t know what to think. Disappearing into the woods each night, I ask you, who does that?”
“People who wish to bathe privately and who own a bathhouse on their land,” Tristan said.
“The very kind I had overlooked,” Christine replied.
She felt his silence. His gaze upon her. Water dripped from him onto the stone. Her mind blazed through images of where upon his person that water had touched. She wanted to trace one of those droplets with a fingertip. She wanted to be one of those droplets.
“And now that you know?”
“It seems perfectly innocent, I grant you,” she admitted, “I only knew that you disappear each night, and I could not bear wondering.”
A long moment passed. Then he smiled, slow and tired. “You see what I do. Nothing more dramatic than bathing and swimming.”
“Bathing,” she repeated, trying to sound calm, “in the middle of the night. In a spring no one else knows exists.”
“It clears the mind. This place has been on this land since the Romans. I found it soothing.”
“You might have told me.”
“Why? It is my preserve. But now that you know, you are welcome to come here whenever you like.”
Christine looked at the water—a dark, steaming surface that filled her with dread. It looked fathomless. How deep was it? She shook her head, closing her eyes against a feeling of sickness.
“No, thank you,” she whispered.
Tristan moved closer. Christine listened to his footsteps drawing nearer, feeling his presence.
“Why?” he asked, over her shoulder and so close she could feel his breath on her shoulders.
“Perhaps I will keep that as my secret.”
“Do we have secrets?”
Christine began to turn before she remembered and forced herself to face away from him. “You certainly do.”