Bloody hell. Tristan swiped a hand over his face. He didn’t have the time for this. Not now. Now, he had to try and sort out…what to do…how to proceed on the threat made by Steele. “What is it now, Mother?” he asked, making no attempt to conceal his impatience.
“What did he say?” Her query came faint and threadbare. This from the countess known as a dragon among all Polite Society for her fierceness and fearlessness.
And the previous bells that had pinged at the back of his mind chimed once more. Louder. More incessant. Tristan eyed her wan features. “What did who say?” he asked measuredly.
She dampened her lips. “Don’t be coy and don’t play games. What did he want?”
And for her earlier fury, now all that remained was a shaky fear.
The reason for the investigator’s visit would shatter her, but the story would inevitably come to her. And it may as well be now.
Tristan glanced past her shoulder, and when he spoke, he did so in hushed tones. “I’m not sure how much you’re aware of the manner of investigative work Mr. Steele has done these past years.”
“I’m aware,” she said immediately.
“He came because he…” God help him, he couldn’t even get the damned words out. Untrue though they may be, once he uttered them, the impending scandal became real.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“He claims the previous Earl of Maxwell had a son, and that son did not perish.”
Silence met that revelation. Punctuated only by the occasional snap and hiss of the fire in the hearth.
“I’m sure this comes as something of a shock,” Tristan went on, when still she didn’t speak.
And yet…his mother, given to histrionics when her morning gossip papers were set down on the wrong side of her breakfast plate, remained…motionless. Entirely too calm. Her features even. Her color…the same. There was no call for her smelling salts, or noisy waterworks that produced no water.
He narrowed his eyes. “Mother?” he quietly prodded.
The countess jumped. “Hmm? I…” She scrabbled at her throat. Her fingers frantically moved to her skirts. And then back again to her throat.
“What does he b-believe?” her voice cracked.
His stomach muscles knotted. “That father was responsible.”
“Take a child and place him in some…some…foundling hospital?”—The earth stopped on its axis—“You shame your father’s memory, Tristan. Shame him.”
Oh, God. No. No. No. Tristan’s stomach pitched. “I didn’t say anything about a foundling hospital.”
His mother pressed a palm to her mouth, and then abruptly let it fall. “Why…of course you didn’t. I’m simply saying…I was merely hazarding what that…that Mr. Steele said to you.”
A humming filled his ears. It is true. It is true. Everything Steele had uttered had been based on fact. “Stop.”
“As if your father would ever do something so callous—”
“Stop,” Tristan said through that distant tunneling of his hearing.
“So heinous.”
“I said ‘stop’,” he bellowed, exploding to his feet.
Gasping, his mother jumped back…and for the first time in the whole of his thirty-two years—she had no words.
His hands shaking, Tristan grabbed his half-empty snifter and downed the remaining contents; welcoming the burning trail it scorched down his throat. He set the glass down hard, and then looked to his mother. “I want the truth.”
“Tristan,” she began in those affronted tones she adopted with the damned servants.
“I want the truth.” He bit out each syllable as he spoke.
“He did it for you,” she said on a broken whisper.
Oh, God.
A piteous moan swelled in his throat, choking him with the perfidy that had been his existence. Nay, this…none of it had been his. He’d lived the life belonging to another. An exalted one of wealth and opulence…stolen for him by his parents.
A restless energy filled him. Tristan took a step. And then stopped.
He took another. He needed to flee. To think.
Only there was nowhere to go. And there was nothing that would make sense of…this. Of what his family had done. Of what he himself had unwittingly been part of. Tristan, who’d held his honor above all else: on the battlefield. In his family. In his every relationship. Should now find his fortunes and recent past and now present were a product of the greatest dishonor.
I am going to throw up.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she whispered, snapping him back.
“And how am I looking at you, Mother?” he asked quietly. “As though, you and Father schemed to kidnap a child and divest him of his future? Stole from him so that we could have…this?”
She exploded to her feet. “Hush,” she hissed, alternating a frantic glance from the door and back to Tristan. “It was your father. He convinced me there was no other way.”
A half-mad laugh exploded from him, and at last, he managed to move.
No other way than to kidnap a child. To leave him for dead. To steal his title and his fortunes, and give them instead over to another family. An undeserving one. Tristan’s family.
His mother touched his sleeve, and he startled. He whose hearing and senses had been so heightened that he’d saved himself with nothing more than the crack of a brush in Brussels. Everything had been muted. Distorted as his whole life had become.
“He was sick, Tristan,” she cajoled. “He couldn’t have survived.”
And Tristan wanted to believe that. Only… His gaze fell to the drawer where that folder rested. “Mr. Steele has made a claim to the contrary.” And Tristan had rebuffed it outright. He’d called Steele out for being wrong, and leveled accusations against the man whom Steele had titled the rightful heir. “He survived, Mother,” he said flatly.
“Bah, what does this street rat turned investigator know? Why it’s very likely a fellow street rat colluding with him to divest us of everything we have.”
“The sickly maid hired to escort the boy to London has confirmed the history. There’s a payment history made to this woman, confirming not only that Percival Northrop lived but that the maid who accompanied him was paid off for her silence.”
His mother’s legs weakened and she caught the top of the leather winged chair to keep from collapsing.
Oh, God. Tristan dragged a hand through his hair. “And you know it.”
“He was on his death bed. Feverish. His lungs rattled. His throat swollen. What could be the harm?” The countess lifted her palms up in entreaty. No, not the countess. She was the baroness…his mother. Nay, he couldn’t even think of her in that light. Not in this instance. “Surely you see?”
Did she try to reason with him? Or herself? Tristan wrenched away from her. “What could be the harm?” he croaked. “What could be the harm?” Another half-mad laugh rumbled in his chest and died in his mouth, choking him. He reached for his glass. Found it empty. And then grabbed his bottle. Bringing the decanter to his lips, he drank deep of the fine French spirits, spirits that belonged to another.
He slammed the bottle down so hard it splintered, cracked, and then rained down amber droplets upon the previously immaculate surface, marring the mahogany. “Tell me this, Mother?” he whispered. “If the boy was upon his deathbed and Father was so certain death was imminent…then why…” I can’t. I can’t bring myself to utter that heinous phrase, “…why…?” Why take him to a foundling hospital? Why steal security out from under a child?
“There were you and your sisters, Tristan. We struggled mightily. You don’t recall. But I do.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “I do.”
“Our life was comfortable.”
“You know nothing of it,” she scoffed. “Your father would have ended in debtor’s prison and we would have suffered.”
Instead, another had suffered. The rightful heir. Tristan clenched and unclenched his fists. “But at least he would have had hi
s honor.”
“Bah, honor,” she cried, her voice pealing around the room. She immediately went silent. Closing her eyes, his mother ran her hands over the front of her skirts. When she opened her eyes, her face assumed its usual unflinching mask. “When you have children of your own, then you can speak to me of honor, Tristan. Then you can tell me what you would have done or not done.”
“Not this,” he spat, cynicism dripping from those two words. He shook his head. “I would have never done this.”
His mother gave him a small, hardened smile. “But because of what your father did, you’ll never have to make those decisions.”
Creasing his brow, he stared at her. What was she saying? And then the truth slammed into him—“You want me to fight him for his claim to the title.”
“It can be dragged on for years and there’s no solid proof.” His mother gave him a pointed look. “Not truly.”
And she was correct. It would. Such entanglements would be messy. It would drag on and on for years, unending. Mayhap forever. In that time, Tristan’s sisters would live their comfortable lives…albeit still scorned for the scandal surrounding their family.
Valor nudged at his hand, the dog’s cold, wet nose, burrowing against his palm, as the pup he’d once given comfort to became protector. Tristan automatically stroked the silky top of the dog’s large head, and there was something steadying in the loyal creature’s presence. “You were correct on one thing, Mother,” he said quietly.
A shaky smile curled her lips up.
“Because of what my father did, I’ll never have to make those decisions.” He started around his desk. Valor immediately fell into step beside him. “Instead, I’ll make others. Different ones.” A previously slumbering Honor sprang to his feet and joined them. Tristan sat. Opening the desk drawer, he withdrew the folder left by Steele. Except, he didn’t truly need the proof contained within the leather file. His mother had confirmed…everything. He yanked out a piece of parchment…and then reached for a pen.
“What are you saying?” his mother demanded sharply, her voice pitched with panic.
Head bent, he didn’t bother to look at her when he spoke. “It is not what I am saying, Mother,” he murmured, dipping his pen into the crystal inkwell. He tapped the excess ink on the edge, and began writing.
“And what are you doing?” When he still did not answer, she cried out. “I asked what you are doing.”
This time, Tristan lifted his head very slowly. A muscle leapt in his jaw. “Why, I am at last making it right, Mother.” And with that, he penned the remainder of words upon that page that would erase the comfortable, elevated existence he’d lived these past twenty years.
Chapter 2
Around that same time…
Mayfair, England
In every club throughout London, wagers had been placed not on “if” Lady Poppy Tidemore would be ruined…but rather “how”…and when.
The only club where there hadn’t been a wager had been the Hell and Sin Club, and that was entirely because the lady’s brother-in-law was, in fact, the notorious owner of that respective establishment.
Odds had been three to one that her downfall would occur in a garden with some equally scandalous man.
Two to one had placed her inside her brother-in-law’s gaming hell, the Hell and Sin Club.
Many of the gentlemen betting hadn’t expected Poppy to make it past her first Season.
Most had her falling sometime within her second.
Poppy took heart at having made it through two Seasons and a bit of her third before the inevitable had come.
In the end, it had, in fact, turned out a gentleman had ruined her…just not for the reasons scribbled down in those betting books throughout London.
Oh, Poppy had no complaints about how she’d been ruined. If a lady was to shred her reputation, it should always be in the name of art.
Alas, the same, however, could not be said for the opinions of the other members of her family.
Her now, still silent family.
She grimaced.
Silence was the most dangerous of the Tidemore responses. One should think that her eldest sisters, who’d all been recipients of like scandals, should be a bit more…commiserative. Why…they couldn’t bring themselves to look at her: not her mother. Not her sister-in-law, Juliet. Nor any of her sisters. And certainly not her brother.
Her brother, reformed rogue and now proper brother, she could expect such a response from. Poppy, however, had far higher hopes for her brother-in-law.
Why, for all the saints under the sun, he owned a blasted gaming hell. Not even he could speak or meet her gaze.
No one could or did.
Poppy glanced down. And that included her dog, Sir Faithful. With his enormous head resting upon his equally enormous paws, he stared at Poppy with round, disappointed eyes.
Leaning down, Poppy stroked the dog at his side. “Et tu, Faithful?” she whispered, in a bid to break the endless quiet that had greeted this unhappy family gathering. “With your name, I expected better of you,” she said in hushed tones. She softened that rebuke with another stroke, finding that spot. His leg twitched in reflexive pleasure, until his eyes closed, and he flipped onto his back—sated.
Poppy tamped down a sigh. If only one’s family could be so easily appeased.
Yes, she quite expected this of most of them. But not her elder sister, Penelope. Penelope, who’d been caught in a compromising position with a stranger, should have offered far greater support than her silence.
The sisters’ gazes caught across the room.
Poppy narrowed her eyes. “Disappointing,” she mouthed.
“I’m sorry.” Coming to her feet, Penelope claimed the seat next to Poppy.
“I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t say that at least Lord Rochford wasn’t completely naked,” her favorite sister put in…unhelpfully.
Dropping an elbow on the arm of her King Louis XIV chair, Poppy slapped a hand over her eyes.
Their mother’s shuddery sob punctuated the end of Penelope’s optimistic utterance, and her mother buried that sound unsuccessfully into her kerchief.
Poppy let her hand fall to her lap, so she could favor her favorite-until-now sister with a glare. “Really?” she mouthed.
“I tried,” Penelope said from the corner of her mouth. “I was trying to help.”
“You didn’t,” Poppy, Prudence, and Patrina muttered in unison.
As if to punctuate that very point, their mother let out another wail. “A niiiiiiightmare. What were you thinking, Poppy?”
Patrina, the eldest of their sisters, and also the first of the Tidemore sisters to be involved in a scandal, awkwardly patted the dowager countess’ back. “It is going to be…all right,” she finished weakly. “Why…why…it always works out.”
Prudence flashed one of her bright-if-strained smiles. “Indeed. Patrina married Weston.”
The towering marquess in question lifted his fingers.
“Weston didn’t ruin her,” Penelope reminded.
Weston let his arm fall.
Poppy shoved an elbow into her side, earning a grunt and glower. “What?” Penelope demanded. “I’m merely pointing out that she didn’t marry the man who ruined her like I did.”
Ryker scowled. “I didn’t ruin you. You stumbled upon the place I’d been hiding.”
His wife waggled an eyebrow. “And glad for it, you are.”
He winked in response.
The Marquess of St. Cyr cleared his throat. “I’d like to point out, if I may, that I did not ruin Prudence.”
As her family dissolved into a discussion of all past scandals and hers faded from the forefront, Poppy slipped to her feet, and started for the door. The key was to always know when to make one’s retreat. It was an art, really. One that had unfortunately failed her with Rochford.
“Stop,” Jonathan called out, freezing Poppy mid-stride. Sir Faithful knocked into the back of her legs, forcing her to co
mplete that step. Blast and damn. She eyed that doorway to freedom. “Yes, you, Poppy.”
Bloody hell. Drawing her shoulders back, Poppy faced the large gathering of Tidemores and their spouses and made the eternal march back to her previously abandoned seat.
“Now,” Jonathan began as she’d taken her seat beside Penelope. He glanced around at the semi-circle of seating. “Obviously the Tidemores have faced far greater scandals—”
“Have we, Jonathan?” their mother cried. “Have we?”
“I am with Jonathan,” Poppy slipped in. “I personally believe Patrina eloping was—” A single glare from her eldest sister effectively silenced the rest of that.
“All scandals inevitably…blow over.” Her brother rested his folded hands on his belly. Her gaze went to his whitened knuckles, the telling tightness that belied all hint of his bid for calm.
“Blow over?” the dowager countess asked incredulously. She stole a horrified glance at the door and when she spoke, she did so in a furious whisper. “There is a house full of guests out there even now talking about…what has happened.”
“Some greater one will come along, Mama,” Patrina murmured, reaching for her mother’s hand.
“That is your answer to…to…this?” Their white-faced mother slashed her spare palm in Poppy’s direction.
This.
Yes, that is what she’d become. For even as the Dowager Countess of Sinclair loved her children…they were first and foremost their reputations.
“Mother,” Patrina, the motherlike figure of the Tidemore sisters, chided.
Jonathan collected the untouched snifter of brandy at the arm table beside him. “That is my answer,” he said tiredly. “What is the alternative?”
Their mother opened her mouth—
“Don’t even finish it,” he bit out through his teeth. “She’s not marrying Rochford.” He took a long swallow and then rested the drink on the arm of his chair. He glared at Poppy. “You are not marrying him.”
Poppy inclined her head. “I assure you, I’ve no intention or desire to marry Rochford.”
A swell of emotion flooded her chest. Jonathan had been both a father and brother. Any other gentleman would have demanded his sister or daughter marry to save her reputation. Not Jonathan. He’d always loved them more than their rank.
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