Lords of Honor-The Collection

by Christi Caldwell

  Tristan joined Poppy’s brother. Stopped. Considered the available seating, before ultimately opting for the matching wingback chair furthest from the earl…with a rose-inlaid table between them. Directness was always the best way. “I’m here to ask for your sister’s hand.”

  The Earl of Sinclair went absolutely motionless; his untouched drink dangled from his fingers. And then…Poppy’s brother downed the contents in one long, slow swallow, his throat muscles frantically working. When he’d finished, his face twisted in a grimace. “I’m sorry,” he said darkly. “It had sounded as though you said…”

  “I want to marry your sister.”

  “My sister.”

  “Poppy.” When the other man’s face remained peculiarly static, Tristan clarified. “Your sole remaining unwed sister.”

  The earl opened his mouth. And closed it. He opened it again. Then, lifting a finger, he stalked over to the sideboard. He returned a moment later with the same bottle of French spirits. Pouring himself another drink, Poppy’s brother set the decanter and snifter down before him. “You want to marry Poppy.”

  All things considered, even with the repeating echo of Tristan’s every word, the earl was handling this a good deal better than he’d expected. “I do.”

  “No.”

  Tristan frowned. “I—”

  “Beg my pardon? As you should.”

  “I was going to say ‘I don’t understand’,” Tristan drawled.

  Ignoring that bid for levity between them, Sinclair rested his palms on his knees, and leaned forward. “You asked for my permission, and the answer is ‘no’.”

  He resisted the urge to rub at his aching temples. “I was being polite.”

  “Pooolite? Polite. Polite.”

  Perhaps at another time, Tristan would have been singularly impressed at the earl’s ability to transform the same word into three different meanings: incredulity. Shock. And fury. Now, his patience was really wearing thin. “That is correc—”

  “Ah-ah,” the earl cut him off before he’d finished. Poppy’s brother wagged a finger at him like he was a troublesome child. “Polite is not entering my household and stating a desire to marry my youngest sister.” Sinclair’s voice grew increasingly strident. “My sister whom you know, not at all, Maxwell.”

  “Bolingbroke,” he felt inclined to point out. Errors in names and forms of address were a good deal safer than the other man’s volatile rage simmering and about ready to boil over. “And you were correct, I misspoke.”

  Some of the tension eased from the earl’s shoulders. “Indeed.”

  “Poppy and I wish to marry one another.” His earlier tolerance gave way to annoyance. Tristan knew how to make her smile and what she found joy in. He knew those interests that mattered most to her. And now, he knew the taste and feel of her, too… “And we know one another quite well, in fact.”

  The earl’s face went red.

  “Not in that way,” Tristan rushed to reassure. At least, not in ways he’d ever admit. Not if he still wished to remain breathing.

  “Not. In. What. Way,” Sinclair’s whisper was lined in steel.

  Tristan wrestled with his cravat. “Ah, intimately that is. Not yet. Not until we marry, that is.” Stop talking.

  There was a beat of silence, and then—the earl roared. “Get out.”

  He swallowed a groan. Ill. I’m going to be ill. The agony beating around in his skull was going to make him vomit right on Sinclair’s office floor, in the middle of a proposal. In a bid for calm he didn’t feel, Tristan looped his knee across his opposite leg in response. “I am afraid that is not going to make the situation go away. I’m here asking to marry your sister. Your sister who wishes to marry me.” The sister who, in fact, was the creator of their marriage pact, and the one who’d proposed.

  “Absolutely not.”

  Gathering up his glass and decanter, the earl started for his sideboard. He returned the bottle to the row of other fine spirits, and then took a more casual sip, before returning to his desk. Setting his drink aside for the open ledger atop the mahogany piece, the earl proceeded to dismiss him.

  Very well, directness had not worked. Tristan employed another tactic with the gentleman. “In fairness, we are not unalike, you and I.” Even the sound of his own voice made him want to cast up his stomach.

  Sinclair leveled him with a flinty stare. “We are nothing alike.”

  “We both have sisters whom we care deeply for,” Tristan pointed out.

  That effectively silenced the earl. The other man did tip his chin reluctantly to the vacant chairs, and Tristan took heart.

  “We have mothers who greatly value their station in society, and the family reputation.”

  “We do at that,” Sinclair muttered, making that surprising concession of a shared connection.

  “And, of course, we are both rogues.”

  That was the moment he lost Poppy’s brother.

  Sinclair jabbed his pen toward Tristan, splattering ink upon the previously immaculate surface of his desk. “That is where we are different. I was a rogue. Now, I’m a married, boring lord with a passel of babes and children. You, however, are still a rogue.” With that, he lowered his focus once more to the book before him.

  Undeterred, Tristan remained seated. “Your wife reformed you.”

  “I’m not looking to have my sister reform any man.”

  Tristan scoffed. “Well, that’s hardly fair given you yourself must credit your wife.”

  “The man Poppy marries will be worthy of her from the moment they meet.”

  “As in, he’ll not, say, put an indecent offer to her,” Tristan said dryly. Unlike the rumors which had circulated surrounding the earl’s ignoble beginnings with his wife.

  The Earl of Sinclair’s pen snapped from the tension of his grip; the article fell in two useless pieces. And Tristan braced for another thunderous explosion. That didn’t come… Sinclair steepled his fingers “Why do you want to marry Poppy?”

  Why? His mind went blank. He’d not lie to the other man with false promises of love for the lady. He cared about her. But theirs was a business arrangement. To say as much would end Sinclair’s discussion quicker than it had begun. “We share similar interests. We fish. We…like dogs,” he finished lamely.

  “You like…?” A pained laugh burst from Sinclair, and the other man slapped a hand over his eyes. “Do you know that is the first thing she mentioned to me when you nearly trampled her as a child. That you both liked dogs.”

  Despite the volatile exchange with the earl, Tristan found himself smiling wistfully. “I recall that day,” he murmured. She’d been a bright-eyed girl, chattering on quicker than he could formulate an answer to her many questions about his dogs.

  Sinclair sighed. “Good God.” It was a prayer that Tristan would have made had he found a bounder like himself seated opposite him asking for any one of his sisters’ hands. “Bolingbroke, you are in dun territory. You’ve been stripped of a title, mired in scandal, and you’ve lost the wealth you once possessed.” Ice glazed the other man’s eyes. “Do you truly expect me to believe that doesn’t have anything to do with this sudden offer?”

  Tristan fell silent. He’d not outright lie to the man.

  “I thought so.” Sinclair seethed.

  “You are correct. I would not want my sister to marry one such as me, either. And yet, Poppy wishes to wed me.” In a decision she’d only been logical about. As such, there were no worries about an emotional entanglement. Or are you merely trying to convince yourself of that…?

  “Poppy doesn’t know what she wants,” Sinclair exclaimed.

  “She is not a girl anymore.” Tristan held the other man’s gaze. “She is a woman. A woman capable of knowing her own mind and heart.” A muscle leapt in Sinclair’s jaw. Tristan sat forward in his seat. “Sinclair, I understand what it is to marry off a sister. I understand it is an impossible moment, accepting one’s sister is no longer a child, and hoping that the man she will sp
end the rest of her life with is one deserving of her.”

  “I assure you, the man Poppy weds will be deserving of her.” And no doubt, if Tristan accepted the other man’s rejection of his suit, Poppy would, in fact, do just that. He was unprepared for the hot rush of jealousy that whipped through him. “She is not for you.” Sinclair pulled open his desk drawer and drew out another pen. “Now, if you’ll excuse me?”

  The last vestige of his patience fled. “I’m marrying Poppy, Sinclair. If you wish to keep her dowry or we agree that it remains in a trust for her and our future children, then that is fine.” Tristan came to his feet and, laying his palms on the desk, leaned halfway across until his gaze met Poppy’s brother. “But this will happen.”

  They remained locked in a tense primal battle, one that Tristan had no intention of losing.

  The earl glared blackly at him. “Are you suggesting you would take her on to Gretna Green?”

  Oh, bloody hell.

  The other family scandal.

  “There won’t be a need for that.” Just a special license. Would Poppy truly marry with her family refusing to support the union?

  The earl curved his lips up in a smile that didn’t meet the frost in his eyes. “Make no mistake, you will never marry Poppy.”

  Given that Tristan had himself felt every last reservation the other man had hurled at him, he should take his leave and accept that this was not to be. That Tristan’s initial response to the idea of marriage with Poppy was, in fact, the correct one.

  He smiled coldly. “We shall see about that, Sinclair.” Poppy would be his bride. They would have the exact arrangement the lady had put before him last evening.

  And her brother could go hang.

  With that, he turned on his heel and quit the earl’s offices…and found his way a short while later to the one person who couldn’t go hang.

  Shown to St. Cyr’s offices, Tristan waited for the other man to arrive.

  And all the while, through the haze left by too much drink, plotted and planned what in hell to say to his best friend.

  Funny thing…I’ve accepted an offer of marriage from your sister-in-law.

  Or mayhap he’d be wise to go with…

  I know this will come as a surprise to the both of us…

  Tristan eyed his friend’s sideboard. He’d been wrong earlier in Sinclair’s offices: he could use a drink, after all.

  “Bolingbroke!” his friend called, strolling in. That booming echo of St. Cyr’s jovial greeting seemed a fitting kind of punishment for the information he was about to impart. “An unexpected pleasure. May I offer you a drink—?”

  “No,” Tristan said quickly, his stomach in full revolt.

  The marquess shifted course, and found the place behind his desk. “Ahh,” he said with a casual knowing, after he’d settled into his seat. “I know that look.”

  Precisely what was the look the other man thought he saw: I accepted an offer of a marriage of convenience from your sister-in-law, and brought the wrath of your brother-in-law’s fury down? “Uh—” Tristan loosened his cravat; it didn’t help. He was being choked off by his own mistakes.

  St. Cyr winked. “The look of one who’s consumed too many spirits.”

  “Ah, yes.” Well, that was certainly a segue he might use: You see, in the midst of a drunken stupor Poppy Tidemore proposed and I accepted. Tristan thrust aside the horrid idea.

  In the end, he opted for blunt honesty. “I thought I should mention, prior to my…” St. Cyr was opening his desk drawer. Tristan stiffened. Mayhap his lifelong friend intended to shoot him on the spot. “Uh…that is…prior to my coming here…” St. Cyr withdrew an official-looking note, stamped with a gold seal.

  “Perhaps I should speak first?”

  No, Tristan would rather have this said. “I asked Sinclair for Poppy’s hand in marriage,” he blurted.

  Tick-tock-tick-tock.

  The marquess sat there dumbly, that official-looking note dangling in his fingers.

  “I know this must come as a…surprise,” Tristan brought himself to say. “And I wished for you to be the first to know.” He grimaced. “After Lord Sinclair, that is.”

  “What?”

  “I asked Sinclair for Poppy’s hand in marriage. He declined that offer, but I…” intend to marry her anyway.

  St. Cyr’s eyes formed threatening slits of rage. “But. You. What?”

  “I’m going to marry her, anyway.” Because he’d given his word. And more…because he had no choice. That pronouncement ushered in another round of heavy tension.

  “Why?”

  It was ironically the first time he’d been asked that by either Sinclair or St. Cyr. And it was the absolute best question that should have been put to him. Only, it was the one that would never be suitable.

  St. Cyr slammed the page in his fingers down on the immaculate desk. “I asked ‘why?’”

  “Given our…like circumstances—”

  “Oh, Christ,” St. Cyr whispered, sliding his eyes closed.

  “We saw the mutual benefits of—”

  “A marriage of convenience?”

  Yes…well, when put in those terms, that was precisely what Tristan and Poppy had worked out.

  “You had one bloody rule to obey,” St. Cyr thundered, and then blanched. His gaze went to the doorway. When he looked back to Tristan, and again spoke, he did so in hushed words that couldn’t be caught by any potential passersby. “One rule.

  “I know.”

  “And you gave me your word.”

  “I understand that. But I’d have you know I didn’t intend—”

  “What? To offer her marriage?” And then St. Cyr stilled, his eyes widened with a slow understanding that could only come from two men who’d been closer than brothers. “You didn’t offer for her.”

  Heat tripped up his neck. “I made the offer to Sinclair.”

  “That is not what I said,” the other man shot back. “Poppy proposed to you, didn’t she?”

  He’d not lie to the other man but neither would Tristan reveal that intimate secret—not even to his best friend in the world.

  Or mayhap his former best friend in the world?

  “I’m aware you are likely displeased by this turn of events.”

  “Displeased? Displeased?” A cold, harsh mirthless laugh spilled from his friend’s lips. Coming out of his chair with jerky movements, he stalked over to the sideboard grabbed a bottle and a single glass. He poured himself a whiskey and then downed it. “That is all you’ll say?” St. Cyr demanded, slamming the glass down hard enough to shatter it. “What do you expect me to tell my wife about this?” His friend didn’t await a response and with every accusation a well-placed lash, his guilt swelled. “What assurances will I be able to make her about her sister’s future and happiness…?” St. Cyr dragged a hand through his hair. “Nothing. There is nothing I can say that she will understand. Unless…” Hope flared in his eyes.

  Tristan shook his head.

  “Do you love her?”

  Did he love her…? It was a query that gave him absolute pause. He cared about Poppy. Very much. He always had. They enjoyed one another’s company. But love? “I…”

  St. Cyr dropped his head into his hands, and sighed. “Your silence was your answer.”

  “I care about her,” he said, the reassurance lame to his own ears.

  “You care about her?” Another jaded chuckled shook St. Cyr’s frame. “How…reassuring.”

  And for the first time since he’d faced the criticisms of both Poppy’s brother and brother-in-law, annoyance stirred. “I’m so unsuitable, am I, that you’d have this reaction?”

  “Don’t you do that.” St. Cyr slammed a fist down, and the bottle and glass both jumped under the weight of his fury. “You don’t get to play the wounded party. This has nothing to do with your circumstances, and you know it. This has everything to do with Poppy and her happiness.” His friend drew in a slow breath, and when he again spoke he did so
in calmer tones. “If you told me you loved her, I’d go to battle side by side against my damned brother-in-law for you. But you can’t tell me that. You can only speak of a formal arrangement.” All the fight went out of St. Cyr and he fell back in his seat.

  “I am sorry,” Tristan said somberly. “We’ve come to an arrangement suitable to both of us. I’ll not renege on the word I gave her. I merely came to ask that you stand beside me.”

  St. Cyr’s brows went arching up. “That is why you came? That is the sole reason?”

  “And to apologize.” How lame that sounded to his own ears.

  Fury burning from his gaze, St. Cyr grabbed a thick packet he’d been holding earlier and tossed it across the desk.

  Tristan caught it against his chest. “What is this?” he asked, already opening the pages. He stilled.

  “There were several non-purchase vacancies as part of a new regiment created. It took some…convincing, given the scandal surrounding your name. However, I managed to secure the rank of lieutenant with the cavalry.”

  Shock. Relief. Excitement. All emotions he’d given up hope on ever again feeling since Northrop’s reemergence swarmed him. His service in the military had been the only area in which he’d excelled. Where his efforts had made a difference. And the commission alone, when eventually sold, would go towards settling the debt Northrop—Maxwell—insisted he pay. When he spoke, emotion hoarsened his voice. “I don’t know what to—”

  Except, that expression of gratitude went unfinished, as reality took root. “Poppy.” The air trapped in his lungs. Bloody hell.

  “Don’t know what to say?” St. Cyr finished for him. “Are you referring to me? Or your…betrothed. My sister-in-law.”

  Oh, bloody hell. His palms slicked with moisture. “Christ,” he whispered.

  “I trust if you intend to move forward with this, you’re going to need the Lord’s help in dealing with your bride-to-be.”

  He didn’t blink for several moments. “If I move forward with it?” Tristan scanned the official document. “There’s no other alternative except me fulfilling the commission.” To sell it outright or fail to honor the commission would only be looked at for the dishonor it was.

  “I know,” St. Cyr snapped. “And what of my sister-in-law? Do you still intend to see this through?”