Price of Desire

by Lavinia Kent

  “But wouldn’t courtship itself gain you entry? All you need is to choose a miss and go where she goes. Nobody would question your motives. You do need an heir.”

  An heir. His child. He didn’t even want to think about that. There were some things he definitely did not need. “No, the silly girl would expect me to talk about her, and us, and romance. I’d end up talking about how blue her eyes were, not protecting trade routes.”

  “I think you underestimate women. If you only –”

  The door behind Violet swung open and Langdon pushed through. “We’re off for more exciting adventures. Are you coming, Violet? Wimberley?”

  Tristan and Violet did not miss a beat.

  “I think I’d best make my excuses,” Tristan replied. “I’ve a guest to see to.”

  Langdon smirked. “Is that what you’re calling it, now? I’d enjoy some seeing myself. Well, and what about you, Violet? Will you join our romp, or are you going to see things with Wimberley?”

  Violet started to demur, then stopped. She pulled herself straight. “Miss Wilkes, you called her? That would mean –” She turned towards Langdon and smiled up through her blackened lashes. “Ahh, I am afraid I cannot follow on your adventures, but I’d certainly be grateful for a ride. You wouldn’t mind helping me run a small errand, would you?”

  Langdon nodded, his eyes fastened on Violet’s cleavage. It was clear that he’d not object to any activity she proposed.

  Tristan stood and offered his farewells as his remaining guests departed. He turned towards his study, still pondering why English trade routes were suddenly the main topic of conversation and why conservative men who’d always favored a strong military were unexpectedly turned isolationist. Somebody was persuading them to change their votes, and it was his job to find out whom.

  Raffles. Tea. The China Sea.

  Damn, he’d have to deal with Marguerite Wilkes first. But that, at least, shouldn’t take too long to sort out.

  He entered his study, prepared to commence an interrogation – and found a sleeping nymph. Her hair had escaped its pins and spilled across one velvet cheek, shimmering golden by the firelight. One white palm curled against an even whiter cheek, but her lips were as red as the roses blooming in his garden. Her eyelashes, lying black against her skin, did not betray the sooty smudge of kohl or blackening. His fingers twitched again, with the desire to stroke her cheek.

  Instead, he sat on his haunches for a moment and watched her sleep, caught unaware by the surprising poetry his mind supplied. Spun gold touched by sun. The pink first rays of morning racing across fresh fallen snow. Innocence that made the angels cry. Velvet skin crying out for caress. God, he’d not realized he had partaken of so much brandy. He pursed his lips in consideration before taking the chair across from her. He had forgotten how she tempted him, drew him towards foolishness.

  There was a great appeal in simply letting her sleep on. The deep shadows beneath her eyes betrayed her need, but the time had come for an explanation. Why had the lamb wandered into this wolf’s den?

  ###

  “Miss Wilkes, what are you doing here without a chaperone? What brings you to London at all, much less to my bachelor abode?”

  The question startled Marguerite awake.

  She opened her eyes to find herself captured in a quicksilver gaze. Her breath caught and held for a moment as she stared back. Tristan sat across from her, the languor of his posture belied by the silent drumming of his fingers on the upholstered arm of the chair. “Are you going to answer, or did you come simply to stare at me?”

  “You’re worth staring at.” Her hand rose to her mouth in a gasp of confusion. She could not really have said that aloud.

  A smile curved across Tristan’s lips drawing her attention, and for the first time this night she saw the man she remembered. It gave her the courage to continue.

  “At Wulf’s wedding you said you would help me if ever I needed it. Don’t think me a complete fool. I knew you did not mean it. People think that women become fools at weddings, but I think men are the same. I knew you were just speaking frivolously. But I had no other choice, nowhere else to turn.”

  “What of your mother, your family?”

  Marguerite lowered her eyes and stared at her tangled fingers. She did not want to consider Mama’s reaction. She did not answer.

  Tristan’s lips drew flat.

  “What of your sister? Surely Rose would take you in, and her husband, Wulf, must certainly offer protection. Though I know not what perils surround you.”

  Marguerite clasped her fingers tighter. She could feel the hint of a blush rise in her cheeks. “It is so improper for me to tell you this.”

  Although not a feature moved on his face, Marguerite could sense Tristan’s brow rise.

  “I know this whole thing is improper. I would be ruined, if I were not already.” The invisible brow rose higher. “I cannot go to Rose, because she is increasing. And –- and –- do forgive me for telling you, but they think she might lose the baby. I do not know the details – most things are kept hidden from my ears – but there is great worry that if she is upset, she will miscarry. I had thought of telling only Wulf, but then he would worry, and then, of course, Rose would fret even if she did not quite know why, so she would be upset anyway, and I might just as well have told her to begin with.” She frowned. “That did not make any sense, did it?”

  Tristan leaned farther back in his chair. She wondered if it would be possible to feel the beat of his heart beneath his heavily brocaded waistcoat. His glance drifted towards the ceiling. “Actually, I think I understand very well, although I still can’t imagine any secret you could have that would so worry your sister. A longed-for lost love, perhaps? Is that what you don’t want your mother to know? And won’t your sister be worried if you simply disappear?”

  “My mother and my sister rarely communicate. Mother will not confess that she has lost me. I will have time to write my sister and say that I am off with friends. She will understand my wish to escape my mother.”

  His gaze moved back down and pinned her. She knew he would not forget the rest of his questions.

  It felt like he was pulling the secrets out of her soul. His eyes were quicksilver; they caught and held, offered no release. She’d been prepared to lie, to spin some tale of loss or hardship, but as he perused her, she found the truth fleeing its containment.

  She held the words tight for a moment, refusing to legitimize the truth their utterance would force her to accept. Her lips parted and the words sprang free.

  “I am also with child.”

  The deep pupils in the midst of the silver tightened, then grew large. There was no other movement, no hint of the shock she must have given him. He kept his gaze on her, waiting to drive any further secret from her depths. When no additional words came, he dropped his glance to his fingers, the tapping increasing in tempo.

  Her shoulders sagged the moment his eyes released her. A great emptiness spread through her, as the truth settled unpleasantly, like dry, fallen dust. She had said the words. She could no longer hide from the facts. If not for a hurried, brief confidence from her sister, months ago, she might never even have known before the whole world knew. It might have been too late, if it was not already too late.

  His silence surprised her. She did not know what she had expected, but not this unceasing quiet. She stared at the pattern on the rug, wondering how many knots were in each inch. How many hands had tied those knots? How many years ago? Why was he so quiet? No, think of the rug. Would it be soft or scratchy to the touch? Were those flowers or leaves? Who would make the leaves red? Why didn’t he talk?

  She lifted her gaze and found him staring at her, his lips pursed, his brows drawn together. She could almost see the thought behind his eyes.

  Finally he spoke. “We can marry by special license. It should not be a difficulty. I will have to decide how to proceed in the meantime.”

  His low-pitched words shocked Marguer
ite from her stupor, a great chasm opening in a wasteland.

  She gasped, “You do know the child is not yours, do you not?”

  Taste of Desire will be available in February 2012! In the meantime, Hint of Desire, the first book in The Desire Series, is available now.