by Tracy Sumner
His hiding place? The side garden, resting against a low brick wall missing quite a few bricks, in a shadowy corner where no one would find him unless they were really looking. He’d decided to sneak away when the conversation turned to the rumor that the Prince Regent was going to bestow a medal of valor upon him. Better to face the cold than the war, which is what Lady Fontaine’s entire gathering, for their leisure, wanted him to do. The mere notion of telling anyone about those days made him queasy.
At this moment, he wished only to be the Duke of Mercer, number five.
Simple that, in comparison.
Tristan tilted his head to gaze at the heavens. A crystal-clear night, an endless expanse of black velvet pinholed with a thousand stars. He’d lain beneath such a sky while surrounded by men he’d lead into battle the next day, many of whom would not return. When he’d fled Yorkshire with the desire to become a man under his own direction, he’d had no idea what death looked like, what fear that gripped you from the bone felt like.
How fragile life truly was.
However, he wasn’t going to think about the damned war right now. Enveloped by a frosty twilight and the wine he’d pilfered from the kitchens, he was going to allow alcohol to quietly cloud his mind while he fantasized about his best friend’s sister.
While he’d been away, Camille Bellington had become a woman.
A gorgeous, intelligent, defiant woman.
With a husky voice hinting at raging hearthfires and eyes an unusual blue-green, like a stormy sea one couldn’t help but dive into. Her slender body wrapped in a shimmering confection of ivory silk, a fillet of pearls slinking through her russet strands, he’d been tempted to remove her gown—and those pearls—with his teeth.
He released a tense breath and took a slug straight from the bottle. He needed a woman, any woman but the one who’d sparked his interest this eve, and if he weren’t afraid of falling asleep after the act and waking in the middle of a blinding nightmare, he would’ve already found one.
As it was, he’d been alone for what seemed like forever.
“A botanist,” he whispered into the night. With a grin he guessed was getting wobbly at the edges, he chuckled against the bottle’s neck. How extraordinarily dreadful in the most charming way. No wonder she’d been left behind when less worthy women had been snapped up. Beautiful and spirited and housing actual intellect behind a shy smile, she must have tossed the men of the ton on their arses the instant they asked a question and she provided a clever answer.
He’d not known this about her, the love of plants and such. Though he did recall finding pressed flowers hidden between the pages of his schoolbooks. He’d pop one open in the middle of a lecture, and a squashed daisy or crumpled rose would tumble out. Pushing the heel of his hand into his eye, he tried to recall. She’d been precocious. Annoying, like a burr under his skin. Talkative, too curious, a pest. He’d brushed her off—and away—a thousand times. She had to be eight, nine, ten years his junior, for God’s sake. A pretty child, an attractive girl.
And now…
His cock did a disturbing dance beneath his trouser close.
Oh, no, Tris. No.
Then the terrace door clicked, and there she was, the precocious, delectable Lady Bellington, standing in a spill of moonlight that dripped off the pearls in her hair and did a delicious slide down her body.
She was tall. Tall enough for him to do glorious things to her while standing up. In fact, the wall he rested alongside was a magical height for certain activities.
“Christ,” he whispered and knocked his head against brick.
She stepped to the edge of the terrace. “Who’s there?” Four marble steps and fifteen-odd feet, and she’d stumbled right across him.
He chuckled—another surprise when he’d believed amusement long dead—and spoke before he could stop himself. “I’m sorry about the swan story, Princess. It was a diversion from the things they wanted.” Grinning, he gestured with the bottle. “It’s just, I’ve never seen someone totally covered in mud, head to toe, and battling a violently angry swan. I smile every time I think about it. Which I’m sure says something base about my character.”
She frowned; he saw this clearly when a stray moonbeam struck her face. Then she shook her head, blew out a half-breath, and smiled right back at him. To say his response to that show of wit was like a jarring blow to the solar plexus would have been an understatement.
Proving her mettle, and lack of discretion, she pranced down the steps and to his concealed spot as if being alone with a man of his reputation was a fine idea. “You sound foxed, Your Grace.”
Tristan brought the bottle to his lips and watched her through olive green glass as he drank. Either this or give in to the insane urge to kiss her. “Not quite there, but I’m trying.”
“Why?”
He halted, staring up at her, incredulous she’d ask. If she was going to ‘your grace’ him, did she really want to know? “Because they want a piece I’m not willing to share,” he finally said through clenched teeth, a statement he was astounded he uttered.
She tilted her head, chewed on what looked to be a plump lower lip, held out her hand. “Your greatcoat, if you don’t mind.”
He sat up, stunned but accommodating, and wrestled his sleeves off his arms. Giving it to her, he shrugged as if to say, now what? She had on a voluminous cloak herself, her body swaddled in woolen folds.
With a playful smile, Camille spread his coat out like a blanket, and in a relaxed move, settled next to him without flashing so much as a hint of ankle. “I didn’t prepare for a picnic, and this color of silk is unforgiving,” she said and gestured to her gown. Grabbing the bottle from his hand, she took a dainty sip. Ran her tongue along her teeth, then took another, deeper this one.
He studied her profile, moonlight turning the ends of her eyelashes gold, and a haunting tightness deep inside him released, like a lock being sprung. “I’m not going to talk about it.”
She wagged the bottle in his direction. “No need.”
He inhaled to clear his mind, bringing in the scent of peony and a dash of orange blossom. The air surrounding her was suggestive of English summers, and for some bloody reason, freedom. “I visited a rifleman’s family yesterday on my way here, a man under my leadership. He lived in Stamford, a staging point for the London to York coaches, so a convenient stop for my carriage and crew. I told this young man’s mother how he’d fought and bravely perished on a field in the Netherlands during Wellington’s war. La Haye Sainte was where we staged that final battle. Sounds regal, doesn’t it, when it was just a farm. And Daniel Larson, just a boy.”
She turned and stared until he was forced to face her. An owl called out, and the wind whispered between them. His heart ached, and he had no idea how to ease the pain. He reached for the bottle, but she shoved it behind her back. “Pretend I’m Edward or someone in your regiment you’d confide in. Say what you feel you can’t but must.” She brought her knees up and propped her cheek atop them, gazing out across the distance, letting his heart settle without her direct regard. “Sometimes, when I’m rooting a new species of plant, I talk, and the words reveal the answer, the how and why. The sound of my voice relieves the pressure and the mystery. Maybe you could try it. We were family friends of a sort once.”
So he did. Talked until his fingers were numb from the cold, until he imagined his nose was as red as the holly berries Camille had sprinkled across her aunt’s dining table. Talked until, like the girl who’d fought a swan in the Serpentine said he might, he felt the slightest release of the bands strapped around his chest.
The sound of footsteps on the terrace had them both glancing toward the house.
Tristan grabbed her arm before she rose, her pulse skipping where his gloved thumb covered her wrist. The fast tick belied the serene expression on her face. On a spurt of panic at their diminishing time, he said, “This hobby, your plants. I’m staying the night at your aunt’s invitation. Tomorrow, after bre
akfast, you could show me.”
“It’s a business,” she corrected and wiggled her arm from his grip.
“Despite what Ridley thinks.”
She snorted inelegantly while rising elegantly to her feet. Handed him his bottle and his coat. “Despite what the viscount thinks. He’ll have to get used to it.”
The idea of Ridley getting used to anything Camille Bellington dished out caused a twinge he’d best ignore to swim through Tristan’s belly. “Your grandfather’s conservatory? Is that where you conduct your business? I can meet you there. I remember where it is.”
She started toward the house, mumbling something that sounded like ‘not chasing a duke’ beneath her breath before glancing back over her shoulder. “Why, Your Grace, would you be interested in botany?”
I’m not. I’m only interested in you. Instead, he said, “My father’s garden is in terrible distress. Consider it an interview. More business for Bellington Botany at the ducal estate down the way. Imagine how old Ridley will turn eleven shades of crimson when he hears about it.”
Her smile was amazing to observe, unfolding like one of her blasted flowers. “I shouldn’t like that so much, but I do.”
Tristan rose to his feet, his head still light from the wine. “Tomorrow morning, then?”
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
He blinked, utterly unused to being denied. “Why not?”
“All you used the conservatory for was kissing back in the day. It’s a respectable place of business now. What would the flowers think?”
“What?”
Her laugh broke free, a sound as intoxicating as her balmy scent, in such contrast to the winter night. “Victoria Primrose. Remember?”
He muscled his hand through his hair, searching his memory. Ah, yes. “Blasted hell, I couldn’t have been more than fifteen. A bet with Edward. It wasn’t good, the kiss. I had no idea what I was doing. She certainly never asked me to repeat it.” With a shiver, he worked his arms back into his coat. “You must have had your nose pressed to a dirty pane to see the sad performance.”
“And you do now,” Camille murmured around a smile. “Have an idea of what to do.”
He tipped the bottle her way. “Care to find out, Princess?”
The split-second pause, barely perceptible if he weren’t searching for it, made his heart, unbelievably, soar. “No,” she whispered, “I wouldn’t.”
But as he watched her walk away, he could only cheerfully think, by God, I don’t believe you.
Chapter 2
Where a kiss kills.
Camille startled with every sound, every creak, tick, or shift when the conservatory was her safe place. Her peaceful domicile. She frowned and brushed her hand across her cheek, glad, yes, glad she’d worn her oldest dress and smashed straw bonnet, misshapen after her maid, Annabelle, sat on it last week. She didn’t want Tristan Tierney of all people to think anything about this meeting, even if they’d flirted, mildly flirted, the evening before. He’d been foxed, and she bored, or rather, frustrated. With Ridley.
Which was becoming a common occurrence.
Morning, the duke had said. I’ll meet you in the morning. When morning meant anything from eight o’clock to two in the afternoon. Camille enjoyed rising early, unlike most of society. She couldn’t imagine Tristan waking before noon.
She was not getting involved with him beyond this conference, she pledged right there with her hand buried in fresh, flaky peat. Even if he’d told her shockingly private things in her aunt’s enchanting garden the evening prior, brought images from his mind of loneliness and death and destruction—and placed them firmly in hers.
Even if.
She exhaled and wedged her hip against the wooden bench housing her pots and jars and vases. Tools, sacks of seed. Warped shelves lined with plants and cuttings. A sunlit shimmer danced through the greenhouse wall to dust her face. She closed her eyes and drew a loamy breath into her lungs, the smell of moss and freshly-turned earth settling her as it always did.
The Duke of Mercer, more than any man alive, was her weakness. It didn’t matter why or how, but she’d been utterly, irretrievably in love with him since, well, she couldn’t remember when she hadn’t been in love with him.
So, it had been forever.
Forever, when he’d treated her like a child. Because she’d been a child. The mere mention of his name enough to send a dizzyingly twist through her belly when she’d never been a foolish female. Unless he was involved.
When she experienced nothing like that with Ridley. Pleasant, accommodating Ridley, whom she liked but didn’t love.
Which she was as pleased about as she was her choice of bland gardening attire.
Her matrimonial selection had been made in opposition to her fascination with a beguiling man far from reach. Simpler to say, she wanted to be the one who loved less. The control in that decision felt marvelous. She would be a very proper, most agreeable wife, aside from her botany fixation.
Which was acceptable, as she suspected Ridley didn’t love her, either.
But her fiancé’s gaze warmed when he looked at her, a hunger she could appease. A reliable business arrangement, his funds for her ability to provide a family to continue his line. It happened every day in society. Why she felt hesitation about the union was nothing short of ridiculous. She’d known she would someday commit to someone, and the bill collectors had decided it must be soon.
Another minute passed, maybe two, when a demanding footfall sounded on the gravel path leading to the conservatory. Camille smoothed her dress, tugged the flattened bonnet from her head, then, with a sigh, tossed it aside and made herself focus on pruning her potted plumeria.
But she couldn’t keep herself from tilting her head and watching the Duke of Mercer saunter into her space as if he owned it. Casually dressed this morning in a cambric shirt, cravat loose, shirt open at the neck, he looked approachable, relaxed. Buckskin breeches clinging with each flex of his muscular thighs. And tall. Had he always been so tall he had to duck when he entered rooms?
Vexed, she squeezed the pruning shears in her fist. Oh, devil take it! Why fight what was? He was gorgeous. And witty. Intelligent and occasionally vulgar. Vulnerable, as he’d been the night before. Arrogant. Impatient.
Good and bad.
The hopelessness was, she loved the entire package.
Tristan glanced around as he traveled the row leading to her, a curious gaze, an interested one. Pausing by a tree, he circled his broad palm around a plum and plucked it free. Tossing her a jaunty look, he dusted the pink-red fruit on the sleeve of his shirt and noisily bit into it, a masculine show of bravado that made her toes curl inside her scuffed boots. “Damn,” he whispered, raising it to his mouth for a second bite, “what is this?”
His tongue slid out to catch a drop of nectar, and she knew she was in dire trouble. She shouldn’t want to close the short distance between them and kiss the juice off his lips, not when her experience equaled exactly two forgettable tryouts with her fiancé. She shouldn’t know what she was missing, but somehow, she did. “A plum. This particular variety was discovered in a Sussex garden last year and is just entering the nursery trade. Not even officially named yet. By spring, it will be so laden with fruit, I’ll have to prop up the branches.”
He hummed softly beneath his breath, moving in until he stood close enough for her to see a stubbled spot on his jaw his valet had missed. Close enough to catch the scent of sandalwood and soap clinging to his skin. Chewing thoughtfully, he circled a sketch on the bench into his view. “Am I to receive the grand tour, then?”
She released the shears and stepped back, giving herself breathing room to assess his mood. Playful, the dark slashes beneath his eyes lighter than they’d been the night before; he’d gotten decent sleep for the first time in days, it seemed. “If you want one.”
His gaze settled on her, this morning a mottled mix of light and dark green. He swallowed and took a deep bite of the plum. “
I want one.”
So she waded in deeper and shared her lone passion with a duke. A walking tour of her grandfather’s conservatory. Her books, drawings, soil, fertilizer, tools. Potted experiments in cross-pollination. Efforts to grow species unaccustomed to Yorkshire. She shared as she would with another botanist as they walked the rows, from one long end of the musty building to the other. She shared in a way Ridley had never asked her to. In a way no one had asked her. It was quite something to open your heart and allow the private pieces to tumble out for casual viewing.
Ignoring the frisson of delight in her belly, she focused instead on the frisson of delight in her mind.
When she finished, they stood by the side door, where she kept the shrubs ready for delivery to Longleat’s garden. Dusting her hands together, she focused on looking anywhere but at Tristan, unsure what to say to get him trotting back to the house and away from her.
“You’re too good for Ridley. Too intelligent, too accomplished, too everything. You must know this.”
Her head snapped up. The blasted man was fiddling with an azalea she’d had to nurse back to health without a hint of remorse for making such a bold statement. “How dare you say such a thing!”
“Why shouldn’t I dare? Someone has to. Your aunt seems mute on the subject. And Edward doesn’t appear to be involved. Did he agree to this?”
“My brother is in London, newly married himself, managing his affairs. Money is, unfortunately, scarce for him as well. I’m not letting Longleat leave this family when I can step in and save it. I wasn’t forced into this arrangement. I made my own choice. Ridley was my choice.”
“Somehow, Princess, that makes it worse.”
“Stop calling me that.” Camille strode past him, heading for the plumeria she needed to get back to pruning. “Hypocrite. As if you’d recognize a suitable duchess if you were hit atop the head with her. I can’t wait to see who you select for the magnanimous position, Your Grace. Let me row my boat, will you?”
