Courting Poppy Tidemore (Lords of Honor Book 5)

by Christi Caldwell

  Cutting a path through the crowd, pointedly ignoring the men and women attempting to gain his attention.

  “He knows nothing.”

  While her sister let off on an impressive tirade about artists with inflated opinions of themselves and their works, Poppy followed Mr. Gray’s purposeful strides. Her stomach sank as the path he’d set became clear. Oh, drat.

  “Stop, Pru,” Poppy warned between compressed lips. “He—”

  “I will not stop. I’ll not let an uncouth American, or any man for that matter, diminish your skill.”

  “In fairness, one could make the argument I’m only slightly uncouth, as my parents were English born.”

  Pru ceased mid-sentence, her mouth agape. All the color leeched from her already pale cheeks. “Is he here?” she mouthed.

  Poppy managed her first real smile since Tristan’s leaving. “I fear so,” she returned on a whisper that brought her sister’s eyes sliding closed.

  “Oh, God in heaven.” Then with her usual Tidemore spirit, Prudence brought her shoulders back and squarely faced the artist. “I am sorry you heard all that but I should say, it is unpardonably rude to eavesdrop.” Never mind that the Tidemores had perfected and used that skill since they were old enough to toddle.

  His heavy features, slightly too broad to ever paint him as handsome, perfectly conveyed his boredom.

  Warming to her argument, Prudence’s nostrils flared. “Furthermore, I’ll have you know Poppy is the most skilled artist of all those in our family.”

  Stifling a groan, Poppy slapped a hand over her eyes, but it was too late; she’d already caught the flash of Mr. Gray’s cynical half smile.

  “And I’ll not have you or anyone else disparage her so.” With that curt diatribe, Pru marched off.

  “Rather impressive defense,” the artist drawled after Prudence had gone.

  “Yes,” she muttered. “All except the part where she forgot me here with you.”

  He laughed, the sound emerging rusty and slightly graveled.

  So very different from Tristan’s laugh, which came easily and had always made her heart accelerate several beats.

  “She’s wrong, you know,” Mr. Gray said after his amusement died down.

  “About my skill? Oh, I know that, now.”

  His lips quirked in that jaded grin. “All it took was me insulting your work for you to see the light.”

  “No,” she said slowly. “It was a matter of setting aside my pride to see that you were correct.”

  Did she imagine the spark of approval that glinted in his dark gaze? Either way… Poppy cleared her throat. “I thank you for considering my work and offering your opinion.”

  He lifted his chin in an acknowledgement that bordered on rude.

  But then, she suspected rude was as much a part of his skin as the furrowed lines of his deep brow.

  Poppy dipped a curtsy and started to leave.

  “I’m disappointed in you, princess.”

  She froze and forced herself back. “I beg your pardon.”

  “I expected you’d ask for lessons. Want to hire me.”

  “Are you for hire?” she asked curiously.

  He snorted. “No.”

  She shrugged. “I suspected as much.”

  “I don’t get paid for lessons. I don’t even give them.”

  Poppy leaned in and whispered, “Then, it is a good thing I didn’t waste my time asking.” Once more, she made to go.

  “I’m making an exception. I’m giving you lessons, princess.”

  He was…

  Poppy wheeled back. “I don’t… Are you jesting…”

  “No. But don’t ask me why or I’ll change my mind.”

  She opened her mouth and closed it several times. “Very well.”

  “I’m going to need a name, princess.”

  “Lady Poppy Tide…” No, that was no longer correct. “Poppy Poplar,” she softly corrected. “Lady Bolingbroke.”

  Another bark of laughter escaped him. “Good God. I hope that’s not a married name.”

  “It is,” she said defensively. Even as she herself had lamented the ridiculous pairing of Poppy and Poplar since she’d dreamed of marriage to Tristan as a girl.

  “You should have picked a husband with a different name.”

  Giving him a look, Poppy snapped her skirts, and swept off.

  “We start tomorrow, Poppy Poplar,” he called after her.

  Chapter 20

  Three Months later

  London, England

  Dearest Tristan,

  I’ve greatly come to appreciate each of your sisters. The question remains: how have we not been friends before this? As for your mother…as I have vowed to speak with candor in all, I shall merely say, I hope you are endlessly well.

  Yours,

  Poppy

  It was a universal truth long accepted by Polite Society that married ladies were permitted endless freedoms.

  Poppy’s mother-in-law, however, appeared to be the one woman in all of England wholly unfamiliar with the rules surrounding marriage.

  Sir Faithful and Tristan’s two dogs, Valor and Honor, bounded ahead, noisily announcing Poppy’s arrival in the breakfast room. “Good morning,” she called, plastering on her widest, most cheerful smile for the other occupants.

  Head buried in the morning gossip column, the dowager baroness peeked over the top, and glanced down her aristocratic nose before reverting her attention back to her paper. Soon after her husband’s departure for Ireland, when she hadn’t been weeping copiously at his absence, she’d been cursing him for saddling her with the shrewish dowager baroness. And for everything that had changed in his absence, that annoyance with his mother had held steadfast. “Breeches,” she spat like the vilest epithet. Though in fairness, to the ever proper matron, it no doubt was.

  “Actually…” Claire, who’d become Poppy’s greatest champion to the dowager baroness, smoothed butter on a piece of crusted bread. “They are trousers. Breeches would fall just below Poppy’s knee.” She paused mid-smear, and considered Poppy over at the buffet. “Though I do believe Poppy would look smashing with her legs exposed.”

  “Her legs? Her legs?” Over the top of the squawking dowager baroness, Poppy held her sister-in-law’s gaze. “Thank you,” she mouthed.

  Claire winked once, and then discreetly dropped a sausage link over the side of her chair and the three dogs abandoned Poppy at the sideboard and raced over.

  Faye, the more reserved, and sadly downtrodden of Tristan’s sisters might have smiled. All hint, however, was effectively hidden behind the rim of her teacup.

  “…Absolutely unseemly it is, prancing about as you are…” Her mother-in-law turned a page in the scandal sheet hard enough to tear the corner. “A public spectacle is what she is.” She directed that criticism to her morning reading.

  In the two months since she’d come to reside with Poppy, not a day had passed that she hadn’t wanted to toss the miserable harpy out on her arse…and, in fact, respect for one’s in-laws be-damned, she would have done that very thing if it hadn’t been for her pity for Tristan’s sisters.

  “Might I point out—” Claire, Tristan’s youngest sister piped in.

  “No, you may not, Claire.”

  “That Poppy has not worn them in public.” She fed a portion of her bread to Valor. “Only here.”

  “And at that hotel she is—”

  “Decorating,” Poppy supplied, carrying her plate of eggs and bread closest to Claire.

  “Nor does she prance. She paints.” Though, in fairness, it wasn’t solely pity. Poppy genuinely liked the two women; near in age to her own sisters, and delightfully spirited, they’d become much needed friends in Tristan’s absence.

  “With that…with that…?”

  “Artist?” Poppy dryly supplied, taking a bite of eggs.

  “American.” The dowager baroness slammed her paper down and exchanged it for her cup of coffee. “Americans are not artists. Th
ey are provincial. They are common.”

  “I’d hardly call Mr. Gray common,” Claire said with a gleeful relish in her smile.

  “Mr. Gray. Bah. Mr. Gray.” Grimacing, Poppy’s mother-in-law took a drink of that bitter tasting brew perfectly suited for her.

  “His reputation quite precedes him,” Poppy intoned. Although she appreciated her sister-in-law’s defense of the famed artist, neither could she sit silent while he, or anyone, was disparaged by the shrew across from her. “His work is being praised throughout Europe for its originality of design and the manner in which it provokes thought.”

  “Art isn’t supposed to provoke thought, dear.” The other woman stretched out that chastisement with such patronization that Poppy gritted her teeth. “It is intended to be a thing of beauty. Like a woman.”

  Oh, good God.

  Poppy shoveled in another mouthful of eggs to keep from saying something she’d regret. And the only reason she’d regret it was because she was forced to abide under the same roof until either the end of the Season or until her sisters-in-law made matches.

  All these years Poppy had lamented having a mother who was so painfully staid and proper.

  Only to find out how unfairly she’d judged the Dowager Countess of Sinclair.

  Tristan’s mother made Poppy’s look like a tamer Elizabeth Chudleigh. Yes, Poppy’s mother had sought matches for her children, but she’d always supported them and their choice in spouses: be it a former governess or widower with a past or, in Penelope’s case, a gaming hell owner.

  Whereas the dowager countess? The woman had a mercenary ruthlessness that terrified even Poppy. How could her husband have thought to take any blame or responsibility for the machinations surrounding the Maxwell title? There could be no doubting that the key orchestrator of that crime sipped on her coffee at that very moment.

  “Poppy,” the dowager baroness began, employing that affected tone she adopted when she sought to sway Poppy. “I know several perfectly acceptable French tutors who might provide you art lessons. Why, Claire’s previous tutor, I’ve heard, even this late in the Season is accepting students.”

  “Because no one wants his services,” Claire muttered, earning a sharp scowl from her mother.

  Poppy took a sip of tea to keep from smiling. “Although I am grateful for that generous offer, I’m quite content with how my lessons are proceeding with Mr. Gray.” Gathering up the remainder of her bread, Poppy hopped up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me?” She started from the room, having learned early on the art of a swift exit where her mother-in-law was concerned.

  She was halfway to the ballroom when the quick footfalls sounded behind her, along with the noisy parade of dogs following after. “Poppy!”

  Poppy slowed her steps and waited until Claire had reached her side. The three dogs kept close, as the young woman had become a sort of defacto mother to the group.

  Poppy stared wistfully at Sir Faithful, who could not go without being with the other woman.

  Claire stopped before her, and thumped her side once. All the dogs, now trained in whatever skilled language the young lady had managed to speak to them, promptly sat in a line. “I wanted to—”

  “Don’t.” She already anticipated the familiar exchange.

  “Apologize. She’s horrid and unappreciative and I’d have you know that she does not speak for me or Faye and that Tristan would be equally, nay, even more horrified, were he to learn of how she treated you.”

  Poppy took Claire’s hands. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for, Claire,” she said softly, in an echo of that guidance given her by Juliet almost ten years ago. “You mustn’t hold yourself responsible for the actions of others. And I am so very happy you are here. You and Faye.”

  Before their arrival, she’d dodged her family because she couldn’t stand to see the pity or the know-it-all looks in their eyes. As miserable as the dowager baroness had been, her daughters had helped bring Poppy out of the misery she’d mired herself in with Tristan’s leaving.

  Tristan…

  Pain returned; still present, but less sharp than in those earliest days.

  “He misses you,” Claire said softly, unerringly following Poppy’s thoughts.

  “Perhaps.” Poppy was too mindful of her sister-in-law’s sensibilities to ever provide the cynical truth: their marriage hadn’t been a real one, and he’d left for something of much more importance than that hasty union. His honor.

  “No, he…does. He asks of you often in his letters.”

  “I know,” she said gently. He wrote, and on those pages proved his usual charming, Tristan self.

  Sir Faithful hopped up; and crouching low, he faced the opposite end of the hall, and growled, announcing the visitor before he even turned the corner.

  “Be nice,” Poppy scolded as Caleb Gray started down the hall.

  In fairness to Faithful, a few inches shy of seven feet, broad as he was tall, and in possession of long, black locks that he drew back, there was a rather primitively threatening aura to the gentleman…which would have inspired fear in creatures of two legs or four.

  That was, if Poppy herself hadn’t known the man.

  He stopped before them, and earned a sharp bark from Sir Faithful. “Morning,” he greeted, with that peculiarly flat tonality to his speech, marking him American. And without all the usual pomp of bowing and proper greetings.

  “Caleb,” she greeted warmly, eyeing the heavy leather bag in his fingers with a covetous longing. Caleb had been the other one to pull her from her misery.

  Sir Faithful yapped loudly.

  “Hush,” Claire murmured, stroking the top of the wary dog’s head, and like a sorceress casting her canine spell, he sank onto his haunches.

  Poppy’s sister-in-law cleared her throat. “Mr. Gray,” she said crisply, without her usual charm and warmth.

  Without a word of greeting, Caleb touched his fingertip to his brim in a dismissive exchange before turning to Poppy. “Time’s a-wasting.”

  Claire stiffened. “Forgive me. I’ll leave you to your work.” She tapped her thigh twice and in concert the dogs jumped up.

  “You are certain you won’t join us?” Poppy offered.

  “No. I’d not want to bore Mr. Gray with impressions of my floral arrangements.” With that, Claire marched off; her army of dogs close at her heels.

  “What did you say?” Poppy demanded as soon as the young woman was out of sight.

  He lifted one broad shoulder in a shrug. “You know I don’t lie, princess.”

  Poppy shoved an elbow into his side twice, eliciting the desired grunt.

  “What was—?”

  “The moniker and for being rude to Claire.” Taking the bag from his hands, she grunted and adjusted her grip on the heavy weight of it, and started forward.

  “You hired me because of my plain speaking.” Yes, and after living in a society where all danced around meaning and truths with intricate steps, there’d been something all too refreshing in Caleb Gray.

  “I tried to hire you,” she reminded, not glancing back. “You proved too kind to accept payment.”

  Caleb laughed. “Kind ain’t a term used to describe me. I was impressed by your skill,” he said bluntly. “Had nothing to do with me being nice.”

  Yes, the papers and gossip circulating about the artist new to England had all spoken of his reputation as being an uncouth, unkind, and dangerous American.

  All the reports had proven largely false.

  At least, by way of her experience with him.

  Poppy dropped his bag.

  “Have a care, princess.” He effortlessly hefted the satchel up and swung it over his shoulder before she had a chance to pillage through whatever he’d brought this day. “You’ve an ease in your command of the brush now.”

  She beamed. “Thank you.”

  “That is never a compliment in art.” He started down the length of the ballroom, motioning to the murals she’d completed these past months. “Landscapes.
Still-life. Nature,” he continued, his deep voice booming off the walls.

  “You say that as if it is a bad thing,” she noted, lengthening her strides in a bid to match his longer steps.

  “Always,” he said automatically. “If there’s no growth, and no variety, there is no art.” At last, Caleb stopped, and Poppy’s gaze slid beyond his shoulder, to that first rendering she’d ever added to these walls.

  The mural…hers and Tristan’s, nothing more than colors thrown upon the wall, that she’d not been able to bring herself to cover or repaint.

  And she resisted the urge to rub the dull ache in her chest.

  Caleb and his too clever eyes, however, followed hers. “I’m still curious about this one, princess.”

  “Artists must have their secrets. Wasn’t that the first bit of advice you gave me?”

  Caleb grinned, flashing a flawless, even white smile. “That was different.”

  “Why? Because you don’t wish to share?” Poppy winked.

  “Because you were demanding to know about my past.”

  Poppy smiled at his drawl. “I didn’t demand, per se.”

  He snorted. “We’ll not argue history. Our kind have never been on the same side of it.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “And princess?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Don’t think I don’t know that mural there has something to do with your fool of a husband.”

  She frowned. “Tristan isn’t a fool.” He was honorable and proud and, well, stubborn because of that pride.

  “He walked away from you to rejoin the military?” Caleb molded the clay in his hand. “I’ve served in the military. Sane men don’t do that. Especially when they have a wife like you.”

  There was so much contained in his words that she didn’t know which to unpack first. In the end, Caleb diverted them safely back to his lesson. “If an artist isn’t growing, he’s not an artist.”

  “She.”

  “Anyone,” he allowed. This time, he set his own bag down, with greater care than she’d shown that heavy sack.

  Drawn as she always was by the fascinating items he brought for her to explore, Poppy fell to a knee. “What is it?”