Lords of Honor-The Collection

by Christi Caldwell

  “Ahm afraid you’ll have to refresh my memory.”

  Two and a half years. It had been two years since she and Tristan had agreed to be one another’s spouse if—or as the case turned out—when they proved unsuccessful in finding one. He had no recollection of that night. It shouldn’t matter. It was a chance meeting they’d had long ago. Only, Poppy recalled every detail of that night, and he should remember…none of it. Poppy proceeded to recite the familiar lines, memorized long ago. “If either Tristan Poplar or Poppy Tidemore fail to wed when I, Poppy Tidemore, reach the age of—”

  “Verrry formal language you’ve adopted.”

  “—twenty-six, then we shall marry one another.”

  “Twenty-six!”

  Poppy cocked her head.

  “The contract would only take effect if you were unwed at twenty-six, which you are not.” With that, he fell back on the mattress and reached for a pillow. As he dragged the article over his face, there was a finality to that gesture. “There was a reason we said twenty-six because at twenty, you’re still young and deserving of hope and love.” The pillow garbled those words, and yet, nonetheless, the meaning was clear.

  Poppy frowned at the veiled undertones of what he truly implied: she was a girl, still. She yanked the pillow from his eyes and tossed it aside. “I’m twenty-one.”

  He grabbed his pillow back. “Fine. Then, in five years, if I’m not out of this mess and you’re unwed and still desiring marriage, then we can speeeeak.”

  And then, he proceeded to snore.

  The great lummox.

  Poppy shoved his shoulder until he grunted himself awake.

  “Whaat? What?”

  “Age is arbitrary, Tristan. It was the significance of the terms and what I desire that mattered most in that pact.”

  Tristan slowly removed the pillow. His gaze roved over her face, touching on each place with such an intensity it scorched, as if he could see inside and pluck out the lifetime of secrets she carried. “And what was that?”

  “A say over my own fate.” Poppy turned her palms up, willing him to see. “To marry a man who’ll not stifle my artistic endeavors but who’ll instead allow me the freedom to create what I wish and how I wish.” She looked at him for a long moment. “Would you? Seek to prevent me from undertaking any artistic endeavor?”

  “Of course nooot,” he said with such conviction, she feared the weakening of her heart.

  “Then we will still do quite nicely, Tristan.”

  “You never wished to marry for looove?”

  I wished to marry you for love…

  She stilled, stricken by that reminder. Because it had no bearing on any of this. Poppy was a woman grown now, with a mind for what she wanted, and also a mind for what she’d already accepted would never be.

  Tristan offered another sad little smile. “I’m grateful for the offfer, but I cannot allow either of us to do this. At least, not until another five and a half years.” With a teasing wink, he flipped onto his side.

  Teasing. He’d always been teasing.

  Poppy scrambled around the other side of the bed so that they lay close, facing one another. “What of your sisters and mother?”

  That brought his eyes flying open.

  Her heart thudded hard in her chest. Was it her body’s awareness of him? Or the proposition she awaited an answer on? Or both?

  “I am grateful to you for the offfer. But I cannot, Poppy. Not for you. Not even for my family.”

  “Can’t you?” she whispered. “Your sisters would have entry to Polite Society once more.” Some emotion flickered in his eyes. He wanted to say “yes” in that instant. She saw in the silver flecks that glinted. “I have—”

  He blanched. “Please, don’t say it.”

  Her stomach muscles twisted. Countless English lords had married because of their need for funds. Prudence’s husband had been a fortune hunter. Why, even Ryker had married Penny to save his club after he’d been discovered in a compromising position with Penny.

  And here was Tristan. So proud, refusing to enter into an arrangement that would see him as a fortune hunter.

  Drawing in a deep breath, he flung his legs over the side of his bed and sat there a moment. Then coming to his feet, he padded across the room, to the double doors that emptied out onto the balcony. A wave of cool night air spilled into the room.

  Poppy stared at him a long moment, uncertain. And then drawing her wrapper close to ward off the chill, she joined him.

  Breathing deep of the night air, Tristan rested his palms on the smooth stone surface and stared out.

  She matched his stance, and followed his gaze to the reflecting pool her brother-in-law had constructed at Penny’s request. With the breeze dusting ripples upon the surface and the overflowing gardens that bloomed with flowers, one could almost believe they were the teasing pair at her family’s summer picnics.

  “You would regrettt it,” he said quietly, not taking his eyes from a pair of white swans that glided over the surface.

  It did not, however, escape her notice that he’d not outright rejected her offer.

  “Why?” She glanced up at him. “Because I’m young and don’t know my own mind?”

  “Because you are young and will one day cooome to regret that you don’t have what your siblings share with their spouses.”

  How very…easily he assumed they’d never have that. And for the first time since she’d put forward their marriage pact as the answer to both their situations, reservations crept in.

  Could she spend a lifetime with Tristan Poplar and not fall hopelessly under his spell?

  Poppy drew herself up onto the ledge, and perched herself there. “We like one another. We get on well. We’re honest. We’ve laid out very clearly our expectations of one another. I say we’d be better off than most married couples.”

  A grin tugged his lips up into that rogue’s half smile that never ceased to play with her heart.

  A moment later, the sharp planes of his face returned to their earlier, more serious mask. He caught her wrist in a grip that was an enthrallingly, contradictory mix of steel and softness. He guided her hand to his lips. “Tell me your expectations.”

  “I-I have our list saved.”

  “Uh-uh.” He guided her off the ledge, and anchored her there between the small stone wall and his chest. “I want the words from your lips, not ones written in a child’s hand long ago.”

  Two years wasn’t so very long ago. She intended to say as much but he lowered his mouth; his breath tickled her skin, sending shivers radiating along her arm. Her breath caught.

  And then he kissed her.

  “Tell me, Poppy,” he whispered into her mouth. Tristan brushed the pad of his thumb along the inseam of her wrist, in a distracted back and forth caress. Her lashes fluttered under the deliciousness of that warmth. “Tell me what you want.”

  You. I want you…

  “I’m to have the largest space in the residence for an art room,” she managed to get out that first ask she’d put to him at Lord Smith’s.

  “I’ve two properties. A crumbling estate in Dartmoor and a London townhouse, falling down. All the rooms are yours and you should use them as a great, big exhibit for all your art work.” He flung his arms wide. “All of it and signed, tooooo.”

  Her lips twitched. “Great and big are redundant.”

  “You’re trryying to change the topic.”

  “A bit, I am,” she conceded.

  “Have I mentioned I’ve a rat infestation?”

  “You’ve not, Tristan.” She made a mental note of that detail. “We’ll require cats, then. Sir Faithful won’t be pleased, of course, but he should also dislike the alternative.”

  A pained laugh escaped him. “Poppy, I’ve no words. What else would you request?”

  “I’ll keep company with whomever I wish.”

  He shifted his hip onto the edge of the balustrade. “Would that list include Rochford?”

  Poppy
lifted her chin. “And if it did?”

  “I’d trust you to choose your friendships assss you would.”

  It was the answer she should prefer. The one she should want. An absolute trust in her judgment and freedom to choose. And yet, perversely, she wished he might care enough to not want her anywhere near the bastard Rochford. “There’ll be no hunting,” she quickly added, lest he detect that inexplicable disappointment she couldn’t herself understand.

  “This is becoming decidedly more real,” he muttered.

  Yes, for the both of them. The significance of what she’d suggested and what they now spoke of, hit her like the weight of a fast-moving carriage…she and Tristan joined forevermore in a marriage of convenience.

  As if he’d followed the uneasy path her thoughts had swerved, Tristan palmed her cheek, his caress gentle and hypnotic. “You see it,” he said quietly.

  “See what?” she whispered.

  “That you want more.” Tristan lowered his hand to the rail, and she bit the inside of her cheek at the loss of his touch. “That you deserve more, Poppy.”

  It was then that she knew definitively with all reservations lifted: she was going to marry Tristan Poplar. Her decision wasn’t born of a young girl’s flight of fancy. Or a young woman’s secret yearning. Nay, it came from a place of knowing that if she could not have love in her life, she would have a man of honor, who put her happiness before that of his own. Poppy smoothed her palms over her skirts. “There is the matter of my garments, Tristan. I’d wear—”

  “Whatever you wished.” He held his palms aloft. “I assure you, I am in no way attacking your white garments. I wellll understand you are free to be annoyed by your skirts; however, it is an altogether different matter for others to express an opinion as to what you’re wearing.”

  Her heart skipped several beats. Those words, a near verbatim echo of her warning to him, tugged forth that long ago night. That night, which despite his protestations he recalled. Oh, he might say he had no recollection of their exchange in Lord Smith’s conservatory, but he’d just proven otherwise. Something told her that if she asserted that point, this increasingly “more real” discussion would be at an end, and so too would their pact. Poppy came ’round to face Tristan, effectively trapping him upon the perch he’d made. “There are two more matters to address,” she said, tipping her head back.

  His gaze slid to her mouth. Heat filled his eyes. “Yes?” he asked hoarsely.

  He wants to kiss me. And I want that kiss. She wanted all of him and a lifetime of exploring the desire he’d awakened in her just days ago.

  Then drawing her shoulders back, she put that last, and most important demand to him. “There’s to be no mistresses.” She’d have his loyalty. “Ever,” she added. “No opera singers, actresses, widows, serving girls. And…and…any other type of woman I might be missing.” Whether they never moved beyond anything more than friendship—which, given that was the state they’d found themselves in these past six years, was increasingly likely—she’d know she at least had his loyalty.

  “There’ll be no mistresses, Poppy,” he murmured.

  How effortlessly he made that pledge.

  She darted her tongue out, tracing the seam of her lips. Could she finish the remainder of that request, one she’d been too innocent and even shy to present two years earlier but now could not have a marriage without a commitment from him? “There is one more…”

  “And what is that, Poppy?” Tristan ran the pad of his thumb along the same path her tongue had traveled. She shivered, as a streak of heat went through her. His eyes darkened, reflecting back the very desire that now throbbed within her.

  “I won’t have a marriage in name only, Tristan.”

  “Say what you would have, Poppy,” he urged in a husked voice, just as he’d urged in Lord Smith’s conservatory. Only then there’d been teasing. Now, there was only his passion-laden command that liquified her. “Tell me what it is you want.” Tristan shifted his teasing caress lower, along the line of her jaw, and lower to the small teardrop-shaped birthmark upon her neck; he lightly touched it, as if discovering that mark she’d hated as a girl and sought to conceal as a young woman. But with his ministrations, somehow felt like a thing of beauty.

  Her pulse thundered in her ears, and as she spoke, her voice came thickly. “I would have you…” Poppy tried again, her voice breathless, “…share my bed.”

  A smile ghosted his lips; this was the smile she’d never had turned on her. Not from this man. Not from any man. This was the rogue’s grin more potent than the apple that had tempted Eve into sinning, and every fallen lady thereafter, into willingly—happily—shedding her virtue—for the promises contained within that smile. “I assure you, Poppy, ours would never be a marriage in name only.”

  His veiled promise said everything and nothing all at the same time, weighted her eyes closed.

  Tristan lowered his head, so their breaths mingled. “Very well, Poppy.” As he spoke, their lips brushed in fleeting, all too brief kisses. “I’ll marry you.”

  Chapter 12

  Tristan had done many outlandish things while drunk. There’d been the time, on a wager, he’d raced shirtless astride his mount in the dead of winter. A wager he’d won. Or the time, fresh out of university, when he’d broken into a tavern ditty at Almack’s. An invitation that had been rescinded and then again only extended after his return from Waterloo.

  Never before, however, had he proposed marriage.

  Had he proposed marriage? Even drunk as he’d been, he would wager the rest of his holdings that it had been Poppy Tidemore who’d put the offer to him.

  He, however, had been the one who’d accepted.

  In the light of a new day, with his head throbbing to beat the Devil, and being escorted through the halls of the Earl of Sinclair’s townhouse, Tristan conceded that he may have made a mistake.

  And a terrible one at that.

  It had been one thing to lose his fortunes and his title. There’d still been the possibility of Tristan restoring his wealth and eventually redeeming his name.

  It was an altogether different matter forfeiting his life, which was certainly what he was doing, coming here to ask Poppy Tidemore’s, loving, overprotective brother for the lady’s hand in marriage. After all, there could be no going back from being murdered dead.

  In fact, had he not given the lady his word, he might actually have changed his mind altogether.

  Nay, that wasn’t altogether true.

  The memory of her, on that terrace outside his rooms, with the scent of crimson roses thick in the air, and the crisp hint of citrus clinging to her skin, whispered forward as it had since their meeting. He’d wanted her in that moment. And he’d been spellbound with the possibility of knowing her—in every way.

  “Here we are, my lord,” Lord Sinclair’s butler murmured, and he stifled the urge to groan as that slight sound sent another round of throbbing to his temples. The servant rapped once on Sinclair’s door.

  Dying.

  I am dying.

  His stomach pitched, and he gave brief thanks when the knocking stopped and the door opened.

  That relief was short-lived, however, as the reality of what he intended replaced that previous misery.

  The brother.

  The offer of marriage.

  Or hell, he wasn’t ready for marriage in and of itself.

  And certainly not to Poppy. He’d only hurt her. There could be no other outcome. She was young. Innocent. At some point, she’d convinced herself that she cared more for him than she did. More than he was worth.

  “Baron Bolingbroke,” the servant announced, and Tristan flinched as his head again screamed in protest.

  He tried to make his legs move.

  Who would have imagined that running to face a French soldier’s bayonet should prove easier than entering Lord Sinclair’s offices and putting an offer of marriage before him.

  The butler coughed into his hand.

&nb
sp; “Bolingbroke,” Sinclair called from the middle of that room. “Have you found yourself at the wrong residence? Is it my brother-in-law whom you seek?”

  With that, the other man unknowingly offered Tristan an out. Tristan could very well claim to have been seeking St. Cyr on a matter of importance.

  Only…

  He could not. Not for Poppy whom he’d entered into an agreement with. And not for the sisters who depended upon him. That compelled Tristan forward.

  He entered. “No, my lord,” he said, even the sound of his own voice excruciating. The servant bowed and took his leave, closing the door behind Tristan, and sealing off that path of escape. Uninvited, Tristan came forward, joining the earl in the middle of his Aubusson carpet. “I wished to speak with you.”

  The other man’s eyebrows came together ever so slightly. “Oh?” There was a warning there, one that suggested he knew, which was both improbable and impossible. Tristan himself hadn’t known until just last evening that there would be anything between him and Poppy. The earl crossed to his sideboard and made himself a brandy.

  It didn’t escape his notice that Poppy’s brother offered neither a seat, nor drink. Which was all well and good. After the bottle he’d consumed last evening, he never intended to touch a drink again.

  Tristan tugged off his gloves, and beat them together in a nervous rhythm before catching Sinclair’s focus on that distracted movement. Tristan hurriedly stuffed the articles inside the front of his jacket, and clasped his hands behind him.

  “I must admit,” Sinclair said, as he carried that drink over…and then promptly bypassed Tristan, for the sofa. “When I was informed you were here to meet with me, I wondered: what business we could possibly have with one another,” the earl went on, as he settled himself into the leather wingback chair at the hearth. “Because we’ve never had any business together that should merit a sudden visit.” Over the rim of his drink, Sinclair arched a single, dark, menacing brow. “Am I correct?”

  So it was to be that manner of meeting.

  “May I?” Tristan asked, looking to the seating.

  Wordlessly, the earl waved his spare hand.