“We have mothers who greatly value their station in society, and the family reputation.”
“We do at that,” Sinclair muttered, making that surprising concession of a shared connection.
“And, of course, we are both rogues.”
That was the moment he lost Poppy’s brother.
Sinclair jabbed his pen toward Tristan, splattering ink upon the previously immaculate surface of his desk. “That is where we are different. I was a rogue. Now, I’m a married, boring lord with a passel of babes and children. You, however, are still a rogue.” With that, he lowered his focus once more to the book before him.
Undeterred, Tristan remained seated. “Your wife reformed you.”
“I’m not looking to have my sister reform any man.”
Tristan scoffed. “Well, that’s hardly fair given you yourself must credit your wife.”
“The man Poppy marries will be worthy of her from the moment they meet.”
“As in, he’ll not, say, put an indecent offer to her,” Tristan said dryly. Unlike the rumors which had circulated surrounding the earl’s ignoble beginnings with his wife.
The Earl of Sinclair’s pen snapped from the tension of his grip; the article fell in two useless pieces. And Tristan braced for another thunderous explosion. That didn’t come… Sinclair steepled his fingers “Why do you want to marry Poppy?”
Why? His mind went blank. He’d not lie to the other man with false promises of love for the lady. He cared about her. But theirs was a business arrangement. To say as much would end Sinclair’s discussion quicker than it had begun. “We share similar interests. We fish. We…like dogs,” he finished lamely.
“You like…?” A pained laugh burst from Sinclair, and the other man slapped a hand over his eyes. “Do you know that is the first thing she mentioned to me when you nearly trampled her as a child. That you both liked dogs.”
Despite the volatile exchange with the earl, Tristan found himself smiling wistfully. “I recall that day,” he murmured. She’d been a bright-eyed girl, chattering on quicker than he could formulate an answer to her many questions about his dogs.
Sinclair sighed. “Good God.” It was a prayer that Tristan would have made had he found a bounder like himself seated opposite him asking for any one of his sisters’ hands. “Bolingbroke, you are in dun territory. You’ve been stripped of a title, mired in scandal, and you’ve lost the wealth you once possessed.” Ice glazed the other man’s eyes. “Do you truly expect me to believe that doesn’t have anything to do with this sudden offer?”
Tristan fell silent. He’d not outright lie to the man.
“I thought so.” Sinclair seethed.
“You are correct. I would not want my sister to marry one such as me, either. And yet, Poppy wishes to wed me.” In a decision she’d only been logical about. As such, there were no worries about an emotional entanglement. Or are you merely trying to convince yourself of that…?
“Poppy doesn’t know what she wants,” Sinclair exclaimed.
“She is not a girl anymore.” Tristan held the other man’s gaze. “She is a woman. A woman capable of knowing her own mind and heart.” A muscle leapt in Sinclair’s jaw. Tristan sat forward in his seat. “Sinclair, I understand what it is to marry off a sister. I understand it is an impossible moment, accepting one’s sister is no longer a child, and hoping that the man she will spend the rest of her life with is one deserving of her.”
“I assure you, the man Poppy weds will be deserving of her.” And no doubt, if Tristan accepted the other man’s rejection of his suit, Poppy would, in fact, do just that. He was unprepared for the hot rush of jealousy that whipped through him. “She is not for you.” Sinclair pulled open his desk drawer and drew out another pen. “Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
The last vestige of his patience fled. “I’m marrying Poppy, Sinclair. If you wish to keep her dowry or we agree that it remains in a trust for her and our future children, then that is fine.” Tristan came to his feet and, laying his palms on the desk, leaned halfway across until his gaze met Poppy’s brother. “But this will happen.”
They remained locked in a tense primal battle, one that Tristan had no intention of losing.
The earl glared blackly at him. “Are you suggesting you would take her on to Gretna Green?”
Oh, bloody hell.
The other family scandal.
“There won’t be a need for that.” Just a special license. Would Poppy truly marry with her family refusing to support the union?
The earl curved his lips up in a smile that didn’t meet the frost in his eyes. “Make no mistake, you will never marry Poppy.”
Given that Tristan had himself felt every last reservation the other man had hurled at him, he should take his leave and accept that this was not to be. That Tristan’s initial response to the idea of marriage with Poppy was, in fact, the correct one.
He smiled coldly. “We shall see about that, Sinclair.” Poppy would be his bride. They would have the exact arrangement the lady had put before him last evening.
And her brother could go hang.
With that, he turned on his heel and quit the earl’s offices…and found his way a short while later to the one person who couldn’t go hang.
Shown to St. Cyr’s offices, Tristan waited for the other man to arrive.
And all the while, through the haze left by too much drink, plotted and planned what in hell to say to his best friend.
Funny thing…I’ve accepted an offer of marriage from your sister-in-law.
Or mayhap he’d be wise to go with…
I know this will come as a surprise to the both of us…
Tristan eyed his friend’s sideboard. He’d been wrong earlier in Sinclair’s offices: he could use a drink, after all.
“Bolingbroke!” his friend called, strolling in. That booming echo of St. Cyr’s jovial greeting seemed a fitting kind of punishment for the information he was about to impart. “An unexpected pleasure. May I offer you a drink—?”
“No,” Tristan said quickly, his stomach in full revolt.
The marquess shifted course, and found the place behind his desk. “Ahh,” he said with a casual knowing, after he’d settled into his seat. “I know that look.”
Precisely what was the look the other man thought he saw: I accepted an offer of a marriage of convenience from your sister-in-law, and brought the wrath of your brother-in-law’s fury down? “Uh—” Tristan loosened his cravat; it didn’t help. He was being choked off by his own mistakes.
St. Cyr winked. “The look of one who’s consumed too many spirits.”
“Ah, yes.” Well, that was certainly a segue he might use: You see, in the midst of a drunken stupor Poppy Tidemore proposed and I accepted. Tristan thrust aside the horrid idea.
In the end, he opted for blunt honesty. “I thought I should mention, prior to my…” St. Cyr was opening his desk drawer. Tristan stiffened. Mayhap his lifelong friend intended to shoot him on the spot. “Uh…that is…prior to my coming here…” St. Cyr withdrew an official-looking note, stamped with a gold seal.
“Perhaps I should speak first?”
No, Tristan would rather have this said. “I asked Sinclair for Poppy’s hand in marriage,” he blurted.
Tick-tock-tick-tock.
The marquess sat there dumbly, that official-looking note dangling in his fingers.
“I know this must come as a…surprise,” Tristan brought himself to say. “And I wished for you to be the first to know.” He grimaced. “After Lord Sinclair, that is.”
“What?”
“I asked Sinclair for Poppy’s hand in marriage. He declined that offer, but I…” intend to marry her anyway.
St. Cyr’s eyes formed threatening slits of rage. “But. You. What?”
“I’m going to marry her, anyway.” Because he’d given his word. And more…because he had no choice. That pronouncement ushered in another round of heavy tension.
“Why?”
It was ironically the first time he’d been asked that by either Sinclair or St. Cyr. And it was the absolute best question that should have been put to him. Only, it was the one that would never be suitable.
St. Cyr slammed the page in his fingers down on the immaculate desk. “I asked ‘why?’”
“Given our…like circumstances—”
“Oh, Christ,” St. Cyr whispered, sliding his eyes closed.
“We saw the mutual benefits of—”
“A marriage of convenience?”
Yes…well, when put in those terms, that was precisely what Tristan and Poppy had worked out.
“You had one bloody rule to obey,” St. Cyr thundered, and then blanched. His gaze went to the doorway. When he looked back to Tristan, and again spoke, he did so in hushed words that couldn’t be caught by any potential passersby. “One rule.
“I know.”
“And you gave me your word.”
“I understand that. But I’d have you know I didn’t intend—”
“What? To offer her marriage?” And then St. Cyr stilled, his eyes widened with a slow understanding that could only come from two men who’d been closer than brothers. “You didn’t offer for her.”
Heat tripped up his neck. “I made the offer to Sinclair.”
“That is not what I said,” the other man shot back. “Poppy proposed to you, didn’t she?”
He’d not lie to the other man but neither would Tristan reveal that intimate secret—not even to his best friend in the world.
Or mayhap his former best friend in the world?
“I’m aware you are likely displeased by this turn of events.”
“Displeased? Displeased?” A cold, harsh mirthless laugh spilled from his friend’s lips. Coming out of his chair with jerky movements, he stalked over to the sideboard grabbed a bottle and a single glass. He poured himself a whiskey and then downed it. “That is all you’ll say?” St. Cyr demanded, slamming the glass down hard enough to shatter it. “What do you expect me to tell my wife about this?” His friend didn’t await a response and with every accusation a well-placed lash, his guilt swelled. “What assurances will I be able to make her about her sister’s future and happiness…?” St. Cyr dragged a hand through his hair. “Nothing. There is nothing I can say that she will understand. Unless…” Hope flared in his eyes.
Tristan shook his head.
“Do you love her?”
Did he love her…? It was a query that gave him absolute pause. He cared about Poppy. Very much. He always had. They enjoyed one another’s company. But love? “I…”
St. Cyr dropped his head into his hands, and sighed. “Your silence was your answer.”
“I care about her,” he said, the reassurance lame to his own ears.
“You care about her?” Another jaded chuckled shook St. Cyr’s frame. “How…reassuring.”
And for the first time since he’d faced the criticisms of both Poppy’s brother and brother-in-law, annoyance stirred. “I’m so unsuitable, am I, that you’d have this reaction?”
“Don’t you do that.” St. Cyr slammed a fist down, and the bottle and glass both jumped under the weight of his fury. “You don’t get to play the wounded party. This has nothing to do with your circumstances, and you know it. This has everything to do with Poppy and her happiness.” His friend drew in a slow breath, and when he again spoke he did so in calmer tones. “If you told me you loved her, I’d go to battle side by side against my damned brother-in-law for you. But you can’t tell me that. You can only speak of a formal arrangement.” All the fight went out of St. Cyr and he fell back in his seat.
“I am sorry,” Tristan said somberly. “We’ve come to an arrangement suitable to both of us. I’ll not renege on the word I gave her. I merely came to ask that you stand beside me.”
St. Cyr’s brows went arching up. “That is why you came? That is the sole reason?”
“And to apologize.” How lame that sounded to his own ears.
Fury burning from his gaze, St. Cyr grabbed a thick packet he’d been holding earlier and tossed it across the desk.
Tristan caught it against his chest. “What is this?” he asked, already opening the pages. He stilled.
“There were several non-purchase vacancies as part of a new regiment created. It took some…convincing, given the scandal surrounding your name. However, I managed to secure the rank of lieutenant with the cavalry.”
Shock. Relief. Excitement. All emotions he’d given up hope on ever again feeling since Northrop’s reemergence swarmed him. His service in the military had been the only area in which he’d excelled. Where his efforts had made a difference. And the commission alone, when eventually sold, would go towards settling the debt Northrop—Maxwell—insisted he pay. When he spoke, emotion hoarsened his voice. “I don’t know what to—”
Except, that expression of gratitude went unfinished, as reality took root. “Poppy.” The air trapped in his lungs. Bloody hell.
“Don’t know what to say?” St. Cyr finished for him. “Are you referring to me? Or your…betrothed. My sister-in-law.”
Oh, bloody hell. His palms slicked with moisture. “Christ,” he whispered.
“I trust if you intend to move forward with this, you’re going to need the Lord’s help in dealing with your bride-to-be.”
He didn’t blink for several moments. “If I move forward with it?” Tristan scanned the official document. “There’s no other alternative except me fulfilling the commission.” To sell it outright or fail to honor the commission would only be looked at for the dishonor it was.
“I know,” St. Cyr snapped. “And what of my sister-in-law? Do you still intend to see this through?”
Did he…? That question hovered on the air. Filled with a restiveness, Tristan came to his feet, and wandered a back and forth path before his best friend’s desk. The promise he’d made Poppy had come in the heat of the moment, with him three sheets to the wind. It had been met with disapproval by…all members of her family, and Tristan’s own best friend included. As such, there were numerous ways in which to disentangle himself from this. Poppy would be fine. In fact, she would be better off without him. As he’d reminded the lady, she’d be free to marry a gentleman whom she loved.
Jealousy wound its way through his veins; pumping fire, and spreading rage.
His nape prickled with the intensity of St. Cyr’s focus.
“I…gave her my word. I cannot renege on that pledge.” Is it really about your honor this time? Or is it about more? Is it about a visceral hatred for any man who might win her affections? Thrusting aside that silent jeering, he faced St. Cyr. “Poppy knows her own mind. This”—he lifted the commission—“it changes nothing.”
St. Cyr flashed a sad smile. “Are you trying to convince me of that, Bolingbroke? Or yourself?”
Perhaps a bit of both. “I am sorry I’ve betrayed your trust—”
“Not sorry enough to do anything differently, however.”
Touché. What was there to say to that? Tristan turned to go when his friend called out.
“I’d tell you not to hurt her, and yet, I know that there is no other possible outcome of this.”
And with that ominous prediction lingering, Tristan took his leave.
Chapter 13
He’d been gone for the better part of the morn. Poppy knew because she’d waited for a glimpse of him leaving the hotel. Partly out of uncertainty in the light of a new day that Tristan had, in fact, changed his mind. Partly because of the need to see him.
That perilous, inexplicable desire that had plagued her as a girl, and did so all these years later.
Adding a second coat to the wall in her brother-in-law’s hotel smoke room, Poppy stole yet another glance at the doors that led out to the patio.
He’d said yes.
Oh, that “yes” had come with a good deal of convincing. But in the end, when he’d accepted her terms, there had been a heat in his gaze that had touched her to the core. That
primitive glimmer that could not be feigned, and proved that at somewhere along the way, despite his words to the contrary, he’d ceased to see her as “younger sister” or “little friend”.
I assure you, Poppy, ours will never be a marriage in name only…
She made herself draw a slow, even breath.
“I felt a dark brown would…” her sister was saying.
“Mmm.” Poppy had simply assumed that Tristan would see them live together as friends, friends who happened to be joined in a marriage of convenience.
“…with tinges of olive green and mustard yellow.”
But he hadn’t expected theirs to be a formal arrangement devoid of intimacy. He—
Wait… Poppy blinked slowly. “Olive green and mustard?” What in blazes was her sister asking for? “I swear every art lesson Juliet gave you was in vain. Surely you aren’t asking me to paint…”
Penelope’s eyes twinkled.
“Oh.”
Penelope pushed aside Poppy’s sketch for the smoke room redesign and drew herself up onto the work table cluttered with paints, brushes. “You seem distracted.”
“Why do you say that?” She bristled defensively. She was not some kind of silly ninny to be woolgathering about Tristan and his kiss and…well, anything. Liar. You’ve been thinking of him and only him since you parted ways on the patio outside his room early this morning.
Penelope leaned in. “Because you’ve had the brush poised at the wall for nearly two minutes now and haven’t made a single stroke with it since,” she whispered. Her sister gave a pointed look at Poppy’s fingers, and she followed her stare.
Poppy blinked. “Oh.” She added a belated swipe to the wall, covering a place where a grotesque pair of horns sprang from a cherub’s tousled golden curls. “Quite hideous, really,” she said lamely. “A devilish cherub.”
“The artist intended for the room and mural to represent a contradiction.”
“What does that even mean?”
Penelope lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “It sounded perfectly reasonable when he explained it. Just as it sounds as though you are attempting to distract me now.”
Courting Poppy Tidemore (Lords of Honor Book 5) Page 16
