by Nikki Poppen
“Yes. I think you’ll like her if you give her a chance. You have been a most reluctant suitor.” Isabella scolded, placing her hand on the sleeve of his claret-colored evening coat.
Instead of keeping Isabella at his side, Tristan covered her hand with his own and turned so that they were standing face to face, a position that implied privacy in a room filled with large, chattering circles. “Isabella, I like all the girls you’ve selected. I just can’t love them”
“Why is that?” Isabella asked breathlessly. There was little distance between them. She could smell the betel leaf freshness of his breath beneath the clean scent of soap and spices. His chocolate eyes darkened. His tongue ran over his lips in a mesmerizing motion. He was going to declare himself. In a moment he would say the words her treacherous heart had secretly wanted to hear since the moment she’d heard his boots on the hardwoods of her parlor: “Isabella, I love you”
The words did not come. Tristan’s eyes narrowed as they shifted from her own face to a point beyond her shoulder. She felt Tristan’s hand tense where it covered hers. Then she heard the low sultry rumble of a woman with an agenda of trouble masked in the purring tones of her voice.
“There you are, Gresham darling. I have been looking all over for you. Don’t tell me you’ve taken to seducing women in the middle of a drawing room. La! That would take even your audacity to new heights.”
The woman who approached them was heart-stoppingly gorgeous. Her raven dark hair piled elegantly on her head showed off the gentle curve of her neck. Her expensive ice blue gown was cut low to reveal her extraordinary cleavage, of which Isabella noted, she was not afraid to offer Tristan an advantageous view. The woman’s deep blue eyes flashed flirtatiously with Tristan as she snapped open her lace fan and said with feigned naivete, “I hope I am not interrupting anything.”
Isabella could not recall being so mortified by another’s behavior. The woman had no shame. If her outstanding looks hadn’t drawn the attention of every man in the room, her insinuations about Tristan would have. Isabella could hear the noise level in the room drop. No one was ill bred enough to stare at them overtly, but no one was foolish enough to pass up the chance to witness tomorrow’s on-dit in the making. Everyone was “looking” and everyone was listening for what would be said next.
“Gresham, are you not going to introduce me?” The woman said brazenly after Tristan glared at her for long moments, long enough to make his displeasure obvious. Isabella watched Tristan charily. The tic in his cheek twitched. Was his displeasure over the interruption or over her appearance?
“Mrs. Smallwood, this is the dowager marchioness, Lady Westbrooke,” Tristan said stiffly. He’d made a point to only fulfill his obligation to introduce Mrs. Smallwood. A smile teased at Isabella’s lips. Tristan had not assumed she would care to be introduced to Mrs. Smallwood. It was a pitiful victory, but she savored it nonetheless.
Mrs. Smallwood plied her fan coyly and laughed. “Beatrix, Gresham. Call me Beatrix. Darling, when have I ever been Mrs. Smallwood to you?”
The muffled murmurs of the room soared in volume now that the crowd had a name. Isabella studied the woman beside Tristan. Beautiful the woman might be, but she was all ice. The woman had no heart. “Gresham, how do you know Mrs. Smallwood?”
“We met on the Continent while I was with the army.” Tristan’s tone was cold.
The woman took the opportunity to slip her hand possessively around Tristan’s arm. “He is too modest,” the woman gushed, “have you heard nothing of his war record? He gave the finest entertainments while the troops were in Belgium. Brussels was never the same after he left. All the ladies could count Gresham as their special friend. He saw to it that none of us were left languishing, if you understand my meaning.” She followed the last statement with a private smile meant ostensibly for Isabella, but those around them noted it as well.
The situation was intolerable. The woman was impugning Tristan’s honor. Isabella had not risen in society as a leading hostess because of her blindness to the ways of the ton. Although her behavior as a widow was above reproach, she knew there were plenty of widows and husbands and wives in the ton who were not so circumspect in their morals. She understood perfectly what Mrs. Smallwood meant to indicate about Tristan. The gall of the woman was unbelievable.
“My Lady Westbrooke, if you will excuse us? I need to speak with Mrs. Smallwood privately.” Tristan gave her a curt nod. His eyes beseeched her silently for understanding. Understanding of what? Understanding of why he had to leave her alone in the middle of the crowded floor to meet with this woman? Thankfully, Alain and Giles materialized from the crowd. She was not alone to bear the curious, covert stares of those around them. Alain took her arm. He spoke in a quiet, low voice. “Chatham has the carriage waiting, Bella. We’ll take you home”
“Yes, that’s a good idea. There’s no reason to stay,” Isabella said distractedly. She convinced herself that the whole purpose of attending had been to meet Cornelia Hamilton and that wasn’t going to happen tonight or any time soon.
“Did you have to be so flagrant?” Tristan closed the door to a small parlor down the hall and turned to face Beatrix. The woman had a damnable sense of timing. He had been about to declare himself, to tell Isabella the woman he wanted to marry was her, not Caroline or any of her other candidates.
Beatrix dimpled. “I was right. I did interrupt something intimate.” She gave Tristan a coy smile he’d seen her practice a thousand times on less suspecting men. “Is the most renowned lover on the Continent in love at last?” She softened her smile in an attempt to invite the sharing of a confidence. He’d seen this trick a thousand times, too.
“It is none of your business. It has nothing to do with the assignment.”
“There was a time, cherie, when it was my business.” Beatrix glided towards him, placing a knowing hand on his chest.
Tristan stiffened at the intimacy of her touch. “A short time, a long time ago. There is nothing but business between us now,” he reminded her gruffly, removing her hand from his chest.
Beatrix smiled knowingly, seemingly not put out by his rejection. “Lady Westbrooke is your Isabella, is she not? She’s the one who threw you over for the aging marquis. The one that drove you into the army.” She guessed aptly.
She stepped forward again but Tristan was ready for her and moved adroitly to the fireplace, hands locked behind his back as he stared into the flames. “This is my last assignment, Beatrix. I am sure you have guessed as much already since you know about the debacle in October. The man who attacked me on the wharf knows who I am. I had hoped I might have given him a fatal wound that night but it appears that he survived. Since he still has a use for me, I am to be the bait to lure him into Halsey’s trap”
“I know.” Beatrix said simply. The warmth of her earlier tone had faded. Tristan found the cold professionalism of her voice reassuring. Beatrix was part of a past that was finished for him or nearly so.
Tristan did not turn from the fire. “I assume that your appearance on the scene means the roses won’t be far behind.”
“You assume correctly. It will be the standard routine,” Beatrix affirmed. “My flagrant entrance will ensure that people will think the secret admirer is me once you make it known in the men’s clubs that you have one”
Tristan nodded absently. “So the game begins one last time.”
“So it does, cherie,” Tristan felt the caress in her voice, smelled her light provocative scent of violets, heard the confident swish of her gown as she passed him. Without turning, he knew when she had left the room.
Tristan drew a deep breath. Her interruption tonight had been disappointing but it had saved him from making a grand mistake. The game was beginning. The brief idyll of his homecoming was over. Danger was afoot. It was no time to be making declarations to Isabella. If he had spoken the words in his heart tonight, she would have become disillusioned before the week was out. At least now the flowers from a secret adm
irer wouldn’t appear to be a betrayal. When the turncoat was caught and the assignment completed, he could explain it all to her.
Beatrix discreetly left the ball through a garden gate, undetected. Everyone had seen her leave the party with Tristan and no one would expect them to return together. She doubted Tristan would even go back to the musicale. He was smart enough to know that it would add credence to their relationship if it appeared they had retired from the party together.
The ruse had begun well and neither Halsey nor Tristan suspected the double game she played within their larger game. She had worried that Tristan might suspect something but he was so besotted with Lady Westbrooke he couldn’t think past Halsey’s assignment.
Beatrix climbed into the unmarked coach waiting for her at the corner. A moment of jealously took her when she recalled spying Tristan with the lovely woman in the drawing room. There had been a look about him she had not glimpsed before. He’d looked handsome and noble, protective and honorable. What woman wouldn’t fall in love with a man who looked at her the way Tristan looked at Isabella?
She had known many men in her time. She knew Tristan was a man worth having just as she knew she could never have him. She’d set her cap for him once and failed to snare him. Now it was payback time in more ways than one. Tristan was about to face a well-deserved and long overdue reckoning.
The tittle-tattle started slowly with hints dropped at clubs and by women visiting each other for afternoon tea. The rumors escalated as the story of Tristan and Beatrix Smallwood was told over and over at this rout and that card party. Old military dispatches were dug out so people could refresh their memories regarding the viscount. Scandal mongers dragged out the Gresham family history, resurrecting the story of his parents’ deaths in an outrageous carriage race. The gossip began to accumulate like a snowfall, starting as nothing more than tiny specks on the dark ground and then overnight transforming into carriage stopping drifts. One week Tristan was a nonpareil. By the end of the next he was the rake of the century.
Isabella was beside herself. She had done all she could to deflect the ill-effects of the encounter away from Tristan. She reminded all who would listen that Tristan had made a point of not presenting the woman to her. Surely that suggested the woman was an unwanted nuisance to him. But there were too many other claims for which Isabella did not have answers. What had Gresham done during the war? What had the woman meant by her reference to his entertainments?
Isabella had her own questions and doubts. Had Tristan known this woman as more than a casual acquaintance? The woman had certainly suggested as much. If so, did he still care for her? She recalled Tristan’s response that he liked the candidates she’d chosen, he just didn’t love them. Didn’t love them or couldn’t love them? Why? She had thought it was because he might love her, but in hindsight she thought perhaps it was because he was already attached to Beatrix of the bountiful cleavage and cold heart. What did an honorable man like Tristan see in a brazen woman like that? Worse, perhaps he had meant to tell her about Beatrix that night at the ball. Like a silly girl, she’d thought he meant to declare himself when in actuality he’d been ready to let her down easily. She was mortified that he might have guessed her feelings for him. She’d tried so hard to hide her growing attachment to him under the guise of friendship. Apparently, she had failed.
Isabella poured out her speculations to Amy as they sat over tea at Briarton House five days after the scandal broke.
“You did the best you could, my dear,” Amy comforted her. “Have another scone, you look wan. I am sure all this has worn you out. I suppose there’s no hope for a match with Cornelia Hamilton now. What will you do?”
Isabella tried to show a lack of concern. “The scandal will pass by the time the Season is in full swing. He’ll be presentable again by then. I am certain there is a large amount of misunderstanding mixed in with all this nonsense. All the nosy parkers who are whispering rumors now will be groveling for his forgiveness by April.”
“And if not?” Amy replied in a cautious tone that hinted at more.
“What do you know, Amy?” Isabella asked suspiciously, setting down her teacup and waiting for the worst.
Amy lowered her voice. “Briarton told me that the latest rumor around the clubs is that Gresham has recently acquired a secret admirer who sends him roses on a daily basis with love notes tucked inside. Everyone speculates the admirer is the Smallwood woman.”
Isabella looked at her friend triumphantly. “That’s the biggest bit of poppycock I’ve heard in ages. Who started the rumor? I’d bet it’s that idiot, Calverton.”
Amy shook her head. “Briarton heard the rumor from Gresham himself, just the admirer part, not the bit about Mrs. Smallwood. That’s everyone else’s addition,” she clarified.
Isabella was grateful she’d already set her teacup down or she would surely have dropped it, so great was her shock. Tristan had an admirer? First the rejection of the decent candidates she’d put together, then the appearance of the problematic Mrs. Smallwood and now the brazen secret admirer he flaunted for public notice. These were not the behaviors of the Tristan who had counseled her to make the honorable choice seven years ago. This new Tristan was a womanizer, a man of dubious connections and questionable practices. This Tristan had come home with a shattered hand and a murky past which he never discussed. What had her heart gotten her into? Isabella began to realize she didn’t know this Tristan at all.
Late Afternoon, the Sail and Anchor Public House on the docks
The sounds of workmen loading and unloading drays in the dockside street were minimally shut out in the relative privacy of the dingy parlor she had frequented all too much in recent weeks. Her surroundings added to her growing irritability as she glowered at her partner. “You look too comfortable in such squalid surroundings. Used to slumming, are you?” she snapped as she shoved his polished, booted heels off the table. He was handsome enough with his sleek blond hair, but it was hard to believe he was a professional the way he’d dawdled this past week.
“I thought you had everything under control.” The woman’s eyes flashed blue fire as she paced the length of the private parlor at the inn. “I did my part at the musicale. I kept him busy once I got him out of the drawing room. I expected you to do yours. All you had to do was retrieve those coded love notes arriving in the rose bouquets from his `secret admirer.’”
“Darling, there was some difficulty sneaking in through the back gate of Moreland’s town house” The man tried to placate her with explanations.
She tapped him firmly on the chest with a well-manicured finger to emphasize her point. “Then don’t sneak about like a common thief. You’re a titled noble man; it isn’t unlikely you might pay him a visit as a peer. Go in through the front door,” she condescended. Good lord, how difficult is it to create options? He was exasperating.
He rose to his full height of six feet plus, his temper finally pricked. “Don’t treat me like a novice, my dear. I am not one of your fledgling agents panting at your heels. Moreland and Halsey are on to us. We need to be careful.”
“They are on to you,” she clarified. “Moreland and Halsey suspect nothing unusual about my appearance or involvement. Still, that doesn’t give you a license for sloppy work. We need to be quick.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked up into his face, calculating her next move. She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I could have Tristan take me home for old time’s sake and afterwards, I could take the cards while he’s sleeping.” She got the result she was looking for.
He grabbed her upper arm forcefully. “Never. I know what you once were to him, but you’re mine now and I will not allow it. I’ll get the cards. In the meanwhile, I’ll remind Moreland how dangerous I am”
She smiled coyly at his display of jealousy. It was good he believed the tales about her and Moreland. “Excellent. I’ll stay close to him and keep rumors of our supposed affair alive, in case we need other avenues of access to his town house.”
He grimaced. “As long as they’re just rumors”
She purred wickedly. “But of course.”
March 5, 1816
The house was beginning to resemble a florist shop in both look and scent. Tristan stood in the middle of the front hall, half dressed and more than a little annoyed at how roses were taking over his foyer and drawing room mantel. An arrangement had arrived everyday for the last week. He would have preferred something more exotic like the Turkish roses in his greenhouse on his country estate. At least, he supposed the roses he’d sent back were still thriving. He hadn’t been home yet. But he’d done his job by bragging about the bouquets to any male who would listen for five nights in a row. He couldn’t remember when he’d spent so much time in London Society. Surely everyone knew his “story” by now.
From the center of the bouquet he withdrew the card containing a coded message of moderate difficulty. Tristan scanned the card quickly before placing it back in the center of the bouquet. At least Halsey had been right about the simplicity of his role in the plot. He had only to leave the flowers with the card semi-visible on the foyer table or on the fireplace mantel in the drawing room with the other bou quets to attract the notice of anyone who might happen to call.
The untutored eye would notice nothing untoward about the cards in the bouquets. They would only see a novice’s attempt at romantic poetry. An agent with training in codes would immediately see the beginnings of a pattern and the double agent who hid among the ton would attempt to steal the note. It wouldn’t be a difficult feat to palm the note and slip it into a pocket.
Tristan’s other part in the game was to get the play in motion. He needed to get the word out about his “admirer” and wait for the visitor to arrive. To get the rumor circulating, he had to tell someone, preferably a lot of someones. Beatrix’s bold performance at the musicale had certainly helped. With word of the admirer spreading, everyone would assume it was she who sent the bouquets when in reality there was no one, just a trap for the informant. The sooner the trap was sprung, the better. He had not seen Isabella since the musicale and he chafed to set the record straight.
