Stepping out of his arms, she gathered his hands and squeezed. “I’m going to be happy, Jonathan,” she vowed. “You will see.”
This time, there was no echo of agreement.
“You don’t know that,” he said sadly. “What I do know, is if you marry without love, then you will never be happy.”
And despite her resolve up to this moment, it wavered and doubt crept in, iced with fear. “Who is to say I won’t come to love him?”
He took her by the arms and lightly squeezed. “It is not that I believe you won’t come to love Bolingbroke.” But rather, that Tristan would never come to love her.
Could it be enough? Nay, would it be enough? Or was she merely attempting to convince herself as much?
Chapter 14
The moment Tristan entered through the double doors of the Paradise and found his trunks and valises stacked at the center of the rooms, several facts became clear on sight: Poppy’s brother-in-law had gathered Tristan’s intentions to marry Poppy. Two, Black was throwing him out on his arse for that offense, and three, with the proprietor standing there in wait, a menacing glower affixed to his scarred face, he intended to beat Tristan to a pulp before he did.
As if in confirmation of that fact, Ryker Black cracked his knuckles. “Bolingbroke,” he greeted in graveled tones.
God rot this day.
But then, what did you expect? Despite Tristan’s scandal and circumstances and dire financial straits, Poppy’s family had opened their business to him, free of charge, and he’d repaid that.
By what? Offering to marry the lady. Nay, as he’d said to Poppy’s brother, Tristan couldn’t very well blame them. What respectable family—any family, for that matter—would want a beloved sister or daughter or sister-in-law to wed him?
A small servant came rushing over. “Mr. Black, Oi’ve ’ad the carriage brought ’round,” the boy whispered, adjusting his cap.
“Thank you, Oliver. That will be all.”
The small child shuffled off, but not before he flashed Tristan a faintly pitying look.
“Oi’m not pleased with you,” the proprietor growled, after the boy had gone. Was the gentleman’s movement from proper King’s English to Cockney intentional? Meant to intimidate and terrify? And then, as if in answer to that silent wondering, Black shoved his jacket back to reveal the dagger there. “Not pleased, at all.”
Tristan flashed a bored glance at the less than subtle threat. “I’d gathered as much.” Perhaps had Tristan been another man, that tactic would have roused sufficient terror. Tristan’s having survived five years at war, there was little Tristan hadn’t himself seen…or done. “I was rather able to tell as much by my belongings being all lined up,” he said dryly.
Fire flashed in those near obsidian eyes. Assessing his current nemesis, Tristan contemplated the same strategies he had when dealing with Sinclair, before settling for direct honesty. Tristan marched the remaining distance to Poppy’s brother-in-law. Of a like height, he met the equally tall gentleman’s gaze. “Have I crossed some line with the Tidemores and Blacks? I’m certain you see it that way,” Tristan said in hushed tones that could not be overheard by the servants and patrons milling in the lobby. “Does Poppy deserve more than m—?”
“Yes,” Black said flatly.
“Me?” he finished. “Yes. The lady certainly deserves far greater than a worthless rogue such as myself.” And she would have had so much more, and had the expectations for it…had it not been for some ruthless cad, who’d taken advantage of her trust. Except, there never would have been a marriage with her, which even with the suddenness of the idea of a lifetime with Poppy left him oddly…bereft.
Chatham narrowed his eyes into menacing slits. “Wot are you saying?”
“I am saying what Poppy wants is what matters most and no one: not you, not her brother, not any one of her sisters gets to determine her fate.”
Black looked him up and down, with that eerily menacing stare. “Ya got a lot of nerve,” Poppy’s brother-in-law began his stingingly inventive diatribe.
At his back, Tristan faintly registered the tinkling of the door as the butler admitted another patron. A moment later, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a patron stalking with bold strides through the hall.
“Oi let ya into my home and this is wot—”
Tristan narrowed his eyes, as the gentleman pulled into focus. Nay, the man wasn’t a patron. The tall, very proportional, and pleasing marquess started through the lobby. What in blazes?
Rochford?
The bastard dared to show his face here, of all places?
I can separate what he did from what he looks like. And…he is appealing to the eye…
“Appealing to the eye,” he muttered to himself. And jealousy reared itself once more, a green-eyed monster that raged all the more at the gentleman’s approach.
“Are ya cracked in the skull?” Poppy’s brother-in-law snapped. “I ask ya why ya want to marry her and ya say because she’s—”
He ignored Chatham; all his focus tunneled on the Marquess of Rochford.
Rochford should dare show his face here, so casually? And carrying a damned hothouse bouquet, for there could be no doubting just what the reason was for his visit, and for that bouquet. As if flowers or what else he surely intended made up for what he had done.
A primitive growl climbed his throat, as he surged forward.
“…ya’ll be lucky if Oi don’t cut yar—”
Tristan was already charging past Chatham.
“Bolingbroke,” Poppy’s brother-in-law thundered after him.
Ignoring him, Tristan raced forward, fury pumping through him, hatred lengthening his strides. Blood rushed through his ears as he was transformed once more into a soldier charging into battle.
He caught Rochford by the back of his cloak, and spun the man around.
“Hey, now!” Rochford cried. Confusion glazed the taller man’s eyes. “Bolingbroke? What is the meaning of—ahh,” he cried out as Tristan connected a flawless right hook square with his nose. The marquess’ legs crumpled, but Tristan had a hand at his cloak, keeping him up, so he could deliver another cuff to his left cheek.
This time, he let the bastard fall. Rochford collapsed, dazed, on his back.
“You bastard,” Tristan hissed, towering over him. His chest rose and fell hard and quick as the same primal energy that had pumped through his veins in the midst of battle, raged within him now. In his mind’s eye, there was Poppy with a sketchpad in hand and a smile on her lips and—
Black settled a hand on his arm, catching the blow before it landed. As Rochford got to his feet, Tristan shrugged off Poppy’s brother-in-law. “I should kill you, Rochford.” He took an unholy glee in the way all the blood drained from the marquess’ cheeks. “You dared ruin her. You dared hurt her and made a mockery of her love of art.”
“I’m sorr—”
A flash of fury blinded him once more, and he slammed a fist into Rochford’s stomach, killing that useless apology as all the air hissed between the marquess’ clenched teeth.
Pleasing form, my arse.
“Bolingbroke,” Chatham barked behind him. “That is enough.” Tristan threw off Poppy’s brother-in-law and the man hit the floor hard.
For, it wasn’t enough. A quick beating would never be sufficient retribution for the man who’d deceived Poppy. “I’m merely doing what you and St. Cyr and Sinclair and every last damned male relative Poppy has should have done,” he bellowed. Tristan caught the marquess by his cloak front.
“I want to do right by her,” Rochford cried, blood streaming down his ashen cheeks.
Shock knocked into him, and his grip slackened.
Do right by her…
Which implied marriage.
“I came to offer marriage,” the marquess croaked, as if he’d followed Tristan’s thoughts.
“Marriage,” Tristan repeated, struck dumb.
Rochford managed a jerky nod.
An
image flashed behind his mind’s eye: Poppy wed to the bounder at his feet. Poppy in his bed, twining her long limbs about his neck, and kissing him with the same enthusiasm she’d made love to Tristan’s mouth with.
Growling, Tristan punched Rochford in the opposite cheek.
“Bolingbroke,” Black bellowed.
Rochford again hit the floor, and Tristan became the beast of war he had been, so that all he was, all he saw, breathed, and felt, was the heart of battle.
Poppy’s brother-in-law attempted to separate him from the cad who’d ruined Poppy. Tristan effortlessly shrugged him off.
“Please, don’t,” the marquess cried out. Like a wounded animal, he scurried on his back to put some distance between them. Rochford fished a white kerchief from his cloak and pressed it to his nose. A crimson splotch immediately stained the fabric.
Tristan growled. “I’m going to happily kill you.” He reached for the marquess once more.
“Tristan, stop.”
In the end, it wasn’t the heavy hand of Ryker Black, Viscount Chatham, or the burly servants hovering in a circle around him just waiting for the call from their employer that stopped him.
The click of booted footfalls striking the marble floor faintly reached him.
Poppy broke through the throng of observers. She staggered to a stop beside him.
The haze of violence lifted from his vision, and reality slid in—she slid in. “Poppy,” he said flatly.
Wide-eyed, her cheeks wan, Poppy stared at him as if they’d never before met one another. As if he were a monster.
Which is what he’d been in war. That viciousness had earned the accolades of every military man who’d ever fought with him in battle, or learned of his pursuits. It was not, however, a side a single member of Polite Society had borne witness to. Over the years, Tristan had taken great care to control that part of himself. Until now. Now, he’d laid the warrior who’d killed more men than he could count, and remembered little of it, open before society.
Tristan had to say something.
A pin falling could be heard in the lobby.
“Poppy,” He lifted his palms up.
She gasped.
Tristan blankly followed her eyes to the blood staining his knuckles.
The remaining color leeched from her cheeks.
Oh, God. He’d lost control. The walls of the hotel lobby were closing in, and he whipped his gaze around at the sea of observers staring on. Among them Sinclair, Black, and Poppy’s sister, Lady Penelope. None of her kin mattered in this moment.
God help him. Tristan couldn’t even meet her eyes. “I trust if there’d been even a spot of hope that your family would approve of a marriage between us, that is officially at an end.” He attempted humor, but it came out regretful to his own ears.
“Hush.” She caught him by the wrist, and tugged him from the circle of on-lookers. He braced for the hue and cry of her family to go up…that shockingly didn’t come.
But then, she could bend the sun to her will, if she so wished it.
Poppy didn’t stop until they reached an elegantly furnished room, and she closed the door behind them.
And alone, away from the prying eyes, and his heart having since resumed a normal cadence and the bloodlust lifted, reality sank in.
She watched him through hopelessly round eyes and sat silent. Silent when Poppy had only ever been garrulous, and his chest constricted.
“Poppy,” he began hoarsely. “I am sorry you witnessed—”
Going up on tiptoe she pressed herself against him, and claimed his mouth, a spark of heat and warmth that erased the ugliness he’d turned himself over to moments ago.
He kissed her, finding an oasis. A sanctuary. Taking when he had no right. Wanting when, with her brother’s refusal, it was only wrong.
She sank back on her heels.
“Poppy,” he tried again.
Poppy kissed him, and this time, he slipped his tongue inside the warm, moist cavern of her mouth. Heat raced through him as he tangled with her tongue.
It took a herculean effort, but he managed to pull away.
“I am so sorry,” he said hoarsely, gathering a dark ringlet between his thumb and forefinger; he caressed the silken tendril, before tucking it behind her ear.
“Because you kissed me?” Her lips, swollen and red from their kiss, tipped down in a frown.
And for the first time since he’d left her brother’s with a “no” to his proposal and then beat up Rochford, he found himself smiling. “Never that, love.” Which only confirmed what her family had already believed—he was a scoundrel, unworthy of her.
“Why, then?” she asked with her usual Poppy-like curiosity.
“Because you saw… that.” Unable to meet her piercing stare, Tristan slid his gaze to the painting behind a broad mahogany desk. He wandered over to that painting.
There was the faint rustle of satin, indicating Poppy had moved. She drifted over, and slipped between him and the wall, all space gone between them. “I saw you defend my honor.”
“You saw me bloody Rochford to a pulp,” he said bluntly.
“Yes.” Clasping her hands behind her, she leaned against the wall, and arched her neck back so she could better meet his gaze. “You challenged him when, as you indicated, my own family did not.”
“They did not because they didn’t want him making an offer for you.”
“And why did you beat him then?” she asked softly.
“Because he’d wronged you. Because he violated your trust. Because he sullied your name.” He swept his gaze over her slightly flushed face, and lowered his mouth close to hers and confessed the whole truth. “And like your family, I didn’t want him to marry you, either.”
Her chest heaved. “Why?”
“Because I despised the idea of you being with him,” he whispered. Falling as fast as Adam, Tristan touched his lips to her neck, and thrilled at the rapid acceleration of her pulse. “Because even as I was denied your hand, even as you won’t be my wife, I’d sooner kill Rochford than see you with him.” He needed to taste her once more. Tristan lowered his mouth, but Poppy brought her hands up between them, and pressed them against his chest, halting his kiss.
“There is…just one thing.”
He forced himself to focus on those words and not the raging hunger to take her in his arms. “What is that?”
“We are to be married. My brother relented.”
That knocked him firmly back to earth.
“What?” He searched her face. Sinclair had been adamant. Not even God himself could have changed the earl’s mind.
She smiled. “I was able to make him see reason.”
Make him see reason. Of course she had. But then, that was part of Poppy’s magic. She could convince a saint to sin. They would marry. It had been the goal that had sent him to Sinclair’s that morn, and when met with rejection, he’d been left hollow. So there should be greater relief. Only, panic reigned.
Her smile slipped. “You’re…not pleased.”
“No. I am. I’m…” Terrified out of my mind. For with her revelation, what they’d agreed to—what this represented—had suddenly become all too real again. “…pleased,” he settled for; the word lame to his rogue’s ears. “Very pleased,” he added, grimacing.
And yet, as she raised her mouth to his, he could not help the niggling that he was going to make a blunder of all this.
Chapter 15
In the end, Poppy had managed the same feat as her sisters before: a rushed wedding.
Granted, an entirely different scandal had brought her to this point, but a scandal, nonetheless.
In the end, her mother had come. No doubt fetched by Jonathan in the hope that she might make Poppy see reason.
Either way, one would expect the dowager countess would be grinning. As it was, she’d been grim since the moment she’d descended from the carriage, weary from the pace set so she might attend Poppy’s wedding…so she might then return for P
atrina’s confinement.
“At least it is to be a real wedding,” Penelope chimed happily as Prudence chased her toddling daughter about the room.
“Seraphina, come away from there now,” Pru scolded, scooping the unsteady babe up as she wandered close to the hearth.
All the while, Mother remained silent as Poppy was prepared in her wedding attire. Did the dowager countess hear Penny’s falsity ring? Or was it only Poppy who knew her sister so very well that she picked up on the sadness, anxiousness, and disappointment?
Regardless, at least, she was trying…which was a good deal more than she could say for her Mother. The pair of them, who stood with arms folded, wearing like expressions of disapproval.
“If it were a real wedding, we would be waiting until Patrina delivered her babe,” their mother said in arch tones.
Touché.
Poppy had never known or appreciated until her scandal, her mother’s ability to sting.
Penelope’s daughter clapped her hands excitedly, and shimmying down from her mother’s lap, Paisley toddled over to Poppy.
“Weddy—Weddy.”
Poppy scooped up the babe. “At least someone is excited about Aunt Poppy’s wedding,” she said, nuzzling the little girl’s neck folds.
Paisley giggled uncontrollably, flailing her arms in the air and a squealing Seraphina immediately made a beeline for the excitement.
“And tell me why should we be excited?” the dowager countess snapped, and Pru’s daughter toppled over.
The girl promptly began to cry.
“Mother,” Prudence chided, gathering up her babe. With a look to the nursemaid, she handed her daughter off. “Will you bring Lady Seraphina below stairs to join her brothers and my husband?”
“As you wish, my lady,” the young woman murmured, keeping her eyes downcast.
The moment the maid had gone, their mother turned her outrage on her daughters. “What do you expect?” she asked in strident tones. “Am I to be happy that my last remaining daughter fulfilled all of society’s expectations and brought a scandal down upon her name?”
Poppy’s smile fled as she held her niece closer. “That wasn’t my fault.”
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