Once they had reached her little art chalet on the outskirts of the duke’s garden, Tristan suppressed a grin. Only the Duke of Davenport would erect such a structure for his sister. The cozy chalet, designed by Sebastian, was complete with flower boxes accentuating the windows and a front porch with small columns. Inside, Tristan knew, was a large airy room, full of Victoria’s sketchpads, canvases, stencils, and paints. It also contained a small sitting room with a hearth, though it wasn’t currently lit.
As he knew from previous experience, Victoria’s art chalet would provide the privacy that was required for this particular conversation.
Illuminated by the bluish full moon, the quaint limestone and glass structure took on an unearthly glow, Tristan noted, as his boots echoed upon the front porch. Once he had opened the French doors, he motioned for Victoria to enter. The scent of dried lavender mingling with oil paints assailed his nostrils at once.
Though his gas lamp emanated a small amount of flickering light, the interior of the cottage was bathed in cool moonlight, shining through the glass- domed ceiling above the foyer. It was designed to allow optimal daytime lighting and tonight, under the opaque orb of a full moon, it lit the interior in a cool luminescence.
Tristan lifted the lamp, surveying Victoria’s haven. She had painted murals on each of the walls since his last visit. Depicted upon the first wall he passed was a manicured topiary set atop lush lawns as fluffy white clouds floated through the bright blue sky above. The theme continued, with the far wall featuring a white octagonal gazebo surrounded by colorful wildflowers and a large, leafy tree. He noticed with a surge of appreciation the bright red bird house hanging from one of the spindly branches and held his lamp closer to study a bird the color of robin’s egg blue, which hovered nearby.
With her works on full display, Tristan was awestruck at how talented Victoria was.
This woman is remarkable.
He crossed the room, noting that the third wall featured a tranquil lake dotted with floating water lilies and flowers of other varieties. He then wove his way around easels of a variety of sizes, each featuring a canvas of one of Victoria’s works in progress. He placed the lamp on a round table in the center of the room, between a vase of dried lavender and a small framed portrait of an older woman with raven colored hair accentuated with one lone streak of gray. Her smile, sweet and serene, reminded him of Victoria so much so that he absentmindedly picked up the frame, admiring the miniature.
“Who is this?” he asked Victoria, turning to face her.
She stood in the corner of the room, next to an oval table brimming with sketchpads and charcoal. He’d failed to notice them at first, all of the sketches strewn about the table. As Tristan bridged the distance between them, he noted that many of the sketches were of the same woman in various stages of her life.
Victoria gingerly caressed the woman’s framed portrait with her fingertips. It then registered at once, even before she answered him.
“My mother,” her voice was a ragged whisper. “I paint her portrait, or sketch it, every fortnight or so to ensure that I shall never forget her.”
This glimpse into her life, into her very essence, was unexpected and yet so endearing that Tristan’s fingers twitched with an unspoken wish to caress her cheek.
“You could never forget her,” his tone was one of reassurance.
“I have already begun doing so,” Victoria admitted, grabbing the portrait from his hand and placing the frame back atop the table from which he took it. “The passage of time dilutes our memories. It is inevitable.”
Her tone, rich with acceptance, was measured with an intense sadness, one that Tristan had never heard from Victoria. Her usual boundless energy, fierce wit, and mesmerizing smile had altered drastically since their encounter.
She had erected a barrier between them.
His actions and lack of restraint had caused this, Tristan realized with a pang of regret.
Victoria steeled her shoulders, a mask of hardened resolve having replaced her familiar features. “Why are we here, Tristan? I thought we settled everything this morning.”
Her body shivered. Though they were sheltered from the cool night air, there was still a slight chill. Tristan shrugged off his jacket, placing it around her shoulders then rubbed her arms in a slow circular motion to infuse warmth.
“Why do you refuse to discuss with me what occurred last night?” he asked, his calm tone belying the fact that his jaw was clenched so tightly that pain radiated from it.
Where did her denial come from? Could it mean that she felt nothing for him and regretted their night together?
Tristan feared that was indeed her reasoning and didn’t think he could endure it.
Victoria remained silent, avoiding his gaze by instead studying the ruby stud pinned to his crimson and gold cravat.
Illuminated by the moonlight, Tristan noted the drastic change in her features. Last night she was luminescent while, on this night, her serene profile instead appeared pallid and distant.
“Please don’t push the issue,” her gaze met his. “I have no intention of trapping you. Last night will be our secret. Let us leave it at that.”
“Tell me what has happened since last night, Victoria,” his heart skipped a beat, perhaps two. “Please help me understand.”
“Do you have any idea how much pain we will inflict upon our families if we continue this discussion?” Victoria’s eyes locked with his. “Please forget last night.”
They were at a stalemate. He was well aware that Victoria would never relent.
Neither would he.
“I cannot.” Two words, spoken in a raspy whisper.
“No, you will not, there is a difference between the two.” Victoria turned on her heel then marched towards one of the windows. She stood there for several moments, leaning her forehead against the cool glass until he approached from behind and placed his hand on the small of her back.
“Why this sudden interest in my opinion?” Each word dripped with malice. “Don’t you have everything planned?”
“I don’t understand,” he muttered. Truly, he didn’t.
“That’s not what you said last night,” she faced him at last, her azure eyes flashing with defiance. “Must I remind you?”
Cold, spindly fingers of dread crept up Tristan’s spine as Victoria jerked free of his grasp. “I will marry you, but I will never love you.” She began to tap her foot. “Does that sound familiar?”
Had he said it aloud?
The tears pooling beneath her heated gaze confirmed his suspicion.
“Now it dawns on you.” Victoria blinked back her tears, in a valiant effort not to lose control.
Each translucent, pearl-shaped tear stung. He never meant for her to hear, let alone make her cry.
“Tori—”
“No!” she stepped even farther away from him, holding her arm out as if to keep the distance that now separated them. “I refuse to be your burden.”
Tristan’s pulse pounded hard against his temples. How could he tell her how he really felt when even he failed to comprehend the extent of his emotions?
“Victoria …” he began, uncertain what to say next. I didn’t mean it? But he had, at least at the time. I want to marry you? No, he could never make such an admission. Not to raise her hopes and not to dash his own.
What if she rejected him?
That was a risk he was unable take.
You are my salvation? Of course he would never admit that either. To make such a confession would leave his innermost self exposed and he wouldn’t allow that, not even for Victoria.
Instead he chose the logical route, “You may be carrying my child. That leaves us with few alternatives.”
“You underestimate me,” she declared, wiping her eyes with her fingertips, holding her head high. “I am not the damsel in distress you believe me to be. Whether I’m with child or not, I possess options. Not only do I have brothers who will protect me if need be but
, in spite of our archaic legal system, my mother ensured that Sebastian put aside a small fortune for me if I ever needed it, no questions asked. I can disappear and live quite comfortably on my own if I wish it.”
Tristan shook his head as he assimilated her news. She could leave him? Just like that? This wasn’t what he expected. It must have been evident, because Victoria sighed.
“Poor Tristan,” she tilted her head to the side. “You never change. Even now, you are still searching for that damsel in distress, like Eve, who needed your protection, financial though her needs were. You never considered that you would meet your equal but you have met your match, Tristan MacAlistair. I am not weak nor do I care what polite society thinks of me. I refuse to marry you because you insist that I must.”
What in bloody hell happened to his plan to marry her? Hell, it worked for both his brother and brother-in-law with their wives. Why was Victoria so damned stubborn?
As if reading his mind, Victoria continued, her honesty unnerving him. “I don’t need your pity nor do I require your protection. I am strong enough to endure the repercussions of my actions.”
Little did Victoria know that her independence was why he wanted to marry her – because she was different than any woman he’d ever known. She was too exquisite, too special, for him to ever surrender. No, she may have had him pegged on every other assessment with the exception of this one.
His desire to marry her had nothing to do with a misunderstood hero complex.
Victoria was right, though, for he had enjoyed playing the part of Eve’s protector. Then there was the child that Victoria knew nothing about. Victoria had no idea what Tristan had done, what lengths he had gone to by protecting that girl and her mother.
The fact that Victoria read him like an open book chilled him, turning his blood to ice, because she could never learn the truth about the child. He’d have to be even more vigilant so that secret remained well hidden from her.
Turning on her heel, Victoria’s skirts rustled as she crossed the room and picked up a watering can. “Besides,” she said, pausing in front of a long gilded table, watering a potted fern as she continued, “I would make you a terrible wife.”
Tristan didn’t believe such a thing possible.
“I’d be forever speaking my mind,” her tone and stature now conveyed a nonchalance that was almost convincing. “I’d be harassing you to no end in an attempt to procure women’s suffrage and I have no doubt those two faults alone would drive you stark raving mad.”
Tristan was convinced that not marrying Victoria would drive him bloody insane as would knowing that she was living her life without him, possibly with another man, writhing in someone else’s arms.
Fury, hard and merciless, pumped through his veins at the mere thought – no, he wouldn’t allow it. Victoria belonged to him, their fates sealed on a cold, stormy night.
“I refuse to relent, Victoria,” he asserted, deciding to take a more direct tact. “We copulated.”
“For heaven’s sake, Tristan, stop being so melodramatic!” she said, placing the watering can on the table in front of her with such force that it teetered. She then leaned against the mural of that large, leafy tree … the one that reminded him of their encounter on the twins’ birthday, when Tori had been sketching.
He should have kissed her then, Tristan realized. Hell, he should never have stopped kissing her after their first encounter in London. If Tristan were an intelligent man, he would have courted her from that moment onward.
“The world is plagued with poverty, famine, disease, and unimaginable horrors,” Victoria stirred him from his inner torment. “As far as matters of vital importance are concerned, my virtue falls to the bottom of a very lengthy list. I have no doubt that the sun will continue to rise and set, regardless of whether you and I wed.”
She was correct, of course. But it mattered not because Tristan refused to release her.
Though longing to caress her cheek and tell Victoria that he’d always take care of her, Tristan recognized that she wanted to hear more from him than he was capable of expressing. Instead, he insisted, “Nevertheless, we will wed because I have a say in the matter, as well.”
“Ah,” Victoria sighed, as if realization had just dawned upon her. “Am I your first, then?”
His world was overrun by mass chaos once again. “First?”
“Your first sexual conquest,” Victoria clarified in a clinical tone.
“For God’s sake, I know what you meant and no, my encounter with you was not my first.” He raked his hands through his hair, frustrated with the direction of their conversation. All this talk of lovemaking unnerved him and, if the opportunity presented itself, Tristan would have happily retreated into the garden, hiding behind the nearest shrub.
“Did you offer to marry your previous conquests?” she adjusted a bunch of dried lavender tied with a satin ribbon, hanging upside down from the drying rack next to her.
Tristan couldn’t find his voice, chastened by her astute observation. He knew full well that Victoria suspected the answer long before he offered it to her. “No.” It was a rugged whisper.
“What makes me different than your other lovers?” she asked, now turning to face him. “Were they not someone’s daughters … or sisters?”
God, she was magnificent and so bloody intelligent. She was correct, of course, with one exception.
“You are different!” he insisted.
No truer words had ever been articulated. She was the exception, and a wave of nausea washed over Tristan upon hearing Victoria compare herself to his other sexual partners because they meant nothing to him and because she meant everything to him.
Hell, most of those partners, or conquests as she put it, were his failed attempts at forgetting her. Filling the void that remained since their first kiss, his repeated attempts to forget the desire she ignited within him.
Violent waves of self-loathing washed over him for failing to see it sooner. He hadn’t been fleeing from Eve these past two years – he’d been avoiding his feelings for Tori because after Eve’s betrayal he refused to allow himself to fall for Victoria.
What a useless endeavor that had been.
Little did Tristan know that he had already fallen for her during their first kiss and, God help him, continued to fall for her. Straight into unknown territory and it scared him senseless.
“You are different,” he repeated, his tone gentle, his expression heartfelt as Tristan reached for her arm. He pulled her towards him then cupped her face in his hands.
Tristan stroked her cheek with his thumb. “You are exquisite,” he said, surprised at how foreign his own voice sounded. It had taken on a dreamy quality. She was surprised by it as well, he realized, as her guard fell at last and Victoria tilted her head ever so slightly, pressing her cheek against his hand.
Leaning into her, moving closer until her sweet breath fanned his face, he then added, “You, only you.”
His lips lingered above hers. Victoria seemed to be holding her breath as Tristan caressed her cheek with his thumb. The repetitive motion heightened her yearning, he could tell by the way she leaned into him. That is when he captured her lips in a feather light kiss.
In this kiss, he wanted to convey that he cared without having to say the words, without fully understanding his feelings himself. In this kiss, he offered her his heart, or at least what small remnant was left intact.
Victoria’s breath caught in her throat.
Had she felt it, too? The jolt, more powerful than any bolt of lightning, shocking his inner core whenever their lips touched.
Slowly, her lips parted for him and he tenderly probed her mouth with his tongue. His hands then trailed to her hair, where he laced his fingers through her thick curls.
Though Tristan MacAlistair had kissed many women, he had never before felt so emotionally connected to anyone.
Surely she must feel the magnitude of this moment?
As if reading his thoughts
, Victoria slid her hand up his arm, to the nape of his neck. She then traced his tongue with her own. Tristan was in doubt as to how much time had elapsed. Funny, he thought, for such was always the case when he kissed Victoria.
He couldn’t kiss her enough.
When their lips parted at last, he noticed a line of concern etched in her brow. “What if I’m not carrying your child?” she asked, tears pooling in her indigo eyes as they searched his.
Damned if he knew.
She must have noted Tristan’s ambivalence in his expression. “I see,” she dropped her hands to her sides. “I am such a fool.”
“No, you’re not,” he assured her, his hands still entwined in her hair.
“Yes, I am,” she nodded followed by a throaty laugh. The hollow sound reverberated within the small enclosure, grating upon his exhausted defenses.
“Why?” his chest constricted. Try as he might, he couldn’t comprehend her logic, not after such a kiss. “Would our union truly be so bad? Sebastian and Gwen married to avoid scandal. So did Colin and Eve. Look at how their marriages turned out. How would our union be any different?”
She pulled away from him, clutching the lapels of his jacket over her chest before responding at last. “They loved one another. You find the notion of love morally repugnant. Therein lies the difference.”
Damn it, why didn’t she just relent? Then they could move forward, wherever that led. Hopefully, it would lead to many more nights like last night, many more kisses like the one they just shared.
Even without love, would it be so bad?
“You asked me to find you a husband,” he tried a different approach. “And I have – me.”
“I asked for a suitable match,” she countered. “A man who refuses to ever love me doesn’t qualify as such.”
She got him there.
It was time for the cold, hard truth.
“Tori, you knew what would happen last night, once you’d been compromised,” he reasoned with her. “Women have been ruined for less, for one inappropriate kiss. What we did was much more scandalous.”
Victoria leaned against the cool wall for support. She had offered her soul in their kiss tonight, done just what she vowed not to, and it still wasn’t enough for this man.
The Skilled Seduction Page 12
