Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
The chandeliers blazed with such brightness that it felt like standing inside a star.
Every candle had been doubled, every mirror polished to merciless perfection, every musician tuned to an inch of his life.
Duskwood glowed like a jewel box flung open, and Christine stood at the centre of it, smiling till her cheeks ached and her heart trembled.
She had practiced the smile. The serene hostess, gracious duchess-to-be, mistress of all she surveyed.
It worked, almost. Guests arrived in a shimmer of silk and murmur of gossip, and one by one she greeted them at the foot of the staircase, alone.
Tristan’s absence grew heavier with each curtsy and bow.
“Lord and Lady Atherby!” announced the butler, his voice firm as granite.
Christine stepped forward. “How good of you to come.”
The lady’s eyes flicked to the empty space beside her, where Tristan should have been.
“Such a grand affair,” Lady Atherby said, brittle with curiosity, “His Grace must be very proud.”
“He is detained,” Christine replied, the words now rote, “he will join us presently.”
Lady Atherby’s smile said she doubted it. “But of course.”
Each guest after her offered the same polite disquiet, the same half-smiles that pretended not to whisper about the absent duke behind their lace fans.
The Duke of Duskwood’s absence had become a spectacle unto itself.
Christine could feel the eyes of the ton moving over her, measuring, judging, calculating how long a lady could stand alone before it ceased to be tragic and became humiliating. She stood her ground.
The orchestra began to play a quadrille, the first of the evening, but no one asked her to dance. Men bowed, women curtsied, conversation swelled and ebbed. Still, Tristan did not appear. Her throat ached with the effort of dignity.
What if this is the point? What if this is the lesson? Putting me in my place. Teaching me that I am nothing after all.
She tried to banish the thought. A murmur rose near the doors. The butler’s voice faltered. Christine turned.
“Lady Gillray,” announced the butler, his usual composure thinned to a thread, “and guest.”
The crowd parted like fabric under a knife.
Lady Gillray entered on the arm of a heavyset man with a powdered wig and a magistrate’s insignia on his coat.
Her face wore that same expression Christine remembered too well, piety painted over poison.
The air froze. Christine’s hand clenched on the rail of the staircase.
“Lady Gillray,” she said, managing civility by force, “I was not aware you had been invited.”
“You did not invite me, dear,” Lady Gillray said sweetly, “but when one’s ward throws an engagement ball without permission, one must naturally intervene.”
A low ripple of voices shivered through the room. The magistrate cleared his throat.
“By law, a ward under the age of one-and-twenty may not enter into marriage without the explicit consent of her guardian. The lady before us,” he gestured at Christine with a bureaucratic flourish, “has not obtained that consent.”
Christine felt her blood drain cold. “You cannot mean…”
“I do mean it,” Lady Gillray cut in, her voice shrill now with triumph, “as her legal guardian, I forbid this union. This…charade,” she said, sweeping her arm to encompass the hall, “is null and void. I shall not see my ward ruin herself upon a beast’s title.”
Gasps punctuated the silence. Somewhere, a violin gave a small, pitiful squeak. Christine steadied herself.
“You have no right to be here.”
“Oh, I have every right.” Lady Gillray turned to the magistrate, “Show her.”
The man withdrew a folded parchment from his pocket and held it aloft. “A writ for the arrest of one Christine Davidson. On charges of theft.”
Laughter rippled from one corner, someone too startled to hide it. Christine stared. “Theft?”
“You took what was not yours when you fled my house,” Lady Gillray said, her eyes glittering, “jewels, books, clothing, all paid for by my generosity.”
“Your generosity?” The control she’d fought to maintain snapped, “You kept me as a servant in your home, you denied me correspondence, you starved me of everything but humiliation…”
“How ungrateful,” Lady Gillray sighed, the perfect portrait of injury, “I took you in when you had nothing. I raised you as my own.”
“You raised me as a slave!”
Gasps again. Whispers scurried across the room like mice. Christine stood trembling but unbowed, her voice rising with years of unspoken truth.
“You call it kindness, what you did to me. But there was no kindness in locking a girl away from every joy, in beating her when she spoke out of turn, in sending her to…”
“Enough,” Lady Gillray snapped, “your hysteria proves my point.”
“’Tis not hysteria if it’s truth,” said another voice, a woman’s, small but clear.
Heads turned. Jane stood at the edge of the crowd, hands clasped before her apron. Her face was pale, but her chin lifted.
“I served in Lady Gillray’s house. I saw how she treated Miss Christine. She was no ward, she was a prisoner.”
Lady Gillray’s lips peeled back in a snarl. “You are a servant. Your word is worth nothing.”
Jane flushed but held her ground. “Then let the bruises she gave her speak instead.”
The magistrate shifted uneasily. “If this…discourse could be taken elsewhere…?”
Christine barely heard him. She saw movement at the back of the hall, doors swinging open, a gust of cold air, a murmur rising from the guests.
Then Tristan entered. He looked as though he had come straight from battle.
His coat was torn at the shoulder, dust smudging his cheek, a shadow of blood at his temple.
The fury in his eyes parted the crowd faster than any herald could have.
He crossed the floor in three strides and stopped between Christine and the magistrate.
“That,” he said, low and dangerous, “will be quite enough.”
“Your Grace,” the magistrate stammered, “I am acting under the authority of a sworn guardian…”
“And I,” Tristan interrupted, “am acting under the authority of the law. I trust you have heard of habeas corpus? You will not take her anywhere.”
The magistrate’s confidence wilted under the ducal stare. “It was not my intention to…”
“To arrest my fiancée in her own house?” Tristan’s voice sharpened, “Then you must have a singular definition of restraint.”
Lady Gillray stepped forward, mouth tight. “You presume too much, Your Grace. The girl is not free to marry. The special license you obtained is invalid. I will see it revoked.”
“Then I will marry her somewhere your permission is not required,” Tristan said evenly, “Scotland, perhaps. I am told the journey is most romantic.”
A gasp swept the room.
“You would elope with her?” Lady Gillray spat, “You would destroy what little reputation she has left and your own as well?”
“She is more vital to me than my reputation,” Tristan said, and his voice carried through the hall like the toll of a bell, “if you wish to contest that, madam, I invite you to try.”
He turned to the magistrate, whose pen now quivered in his hand.
“Will you defy me as well, sir? Or have you had your fill of humiliation for one evening?”
The magistrate’s eyes darted between them. “I…will take no action, Your Grace.”
“Wise,” Tristan said.
Then, for all to hear, he added,
“Let it be known that the Duke of Duskwood will defend the woman he loves. With words if I can, with arms if I must. And now, since you have all come for a ball,” his voice softened to something perilously edged, “you shall have one.”
The orchestra, which had frozen in terror, gave a collective start as he turned his head toward them.
“Play,” he said, “now.”
Violins scrambled into life. Guests shifted, half-stunned, half-thrilled, the air quivering between scandal and awe. Christine stood motionless, heart pounding. Only when he turned back to her did the world begin again. He took her hand, his fingers warm, steadying.
“Come,” he said softly, “we’ve given them a spectacle. Now let’s give them something finer.”
He led her from the room, into the smaller drawing chamber beyond, shutting the door against the curious hum of voices. She barely had time to speak before he caught her shoulders, eyes dark with a hundred unsaid things.
“What happened to you?” she whispered, touching the bruise at his temple.
“An ambush,” his mouth curved without humour, “a letter reached me this morning supposedly from my solicitor. Said Charles had been located in Surrey. I thought to end this once and for all. Instead, I found a deserted barn and two men who took issue with my skull.”
Her breath hitched. “You could have been killed.”
“I might have been, if their intent were murder. But they only wanted to delay me.”
“Why?”
“One of them was the same fellow who tried to abduct you on the lane. I got him this time, and to escape the wolf’s jaws, he told me who paid him.” Tristan’s jaw tightened, “Lord Bingley.”
Christine stared. “Bingley? But why?”
“I mean to find out,” he brushed a thumb along her cheekbone, as if to reassure himself she was real, “but first, you must rest for an hour. You’ve weathered worse than Lady Gillray tonight. The guests will stew in their scandal for a while, and then we will conquer them together.”
“I could not have done it without you,” she said, her voice breaking, “I thought you’d never come.”
He gave a half-smile, weary but sure.
“Then trust me once more, Christine. Whatever this is, whatever they plot. We will end it together.”
She nodded, and though she knew the music beyond the door was only a dance, it felt, for the first time, like the prelude to war. And in that quiet space between candlelight and shadow, between fear and faith, she realized that she had already chosen her side.