Lost in Temptation (Regency Chase Family Series, Book 1)

by Royal, Lauren

  "I'm certain you girls recall Tristan," Griffin prompted.

  Juliana and Corinna curtsied. "Mr. Nesbitt," they said in unison.

  Dazed, Alexandra followed suit. "Mr. Nesbitt."

  "The Marquess of Hawkridge now," her brother informed them. "Tristan inherited four years back."

  Tris was titled now? How had that happened? And where had he been all this time? she wanted to ask. That and a million other questions. She hadn't seen him in…sweet heaven, was it seven years? While she hadn't precisely forgotten him in all that time, she had forgotten how just looking at him made her insides melt like butter.

  Or maybe she'd banished that from her thoughts.

  "Lord Hawkridge," she corrected herself.

  "Lady Alexandra," he returned with a vague if polite nod. "And Ladies Juliana and Corinna. My, if you haven't all grown up since I saw you last."

  Of course, when he saw Alexandra last, he'd paid her little mind. If he'd noticed her at all, he'd thought of her as Griffin's bothersome younger sister.

  And he didn't seem to be paying her any mind now, either.

  He turned back to Griffin. "Do you know what time of the year Charles planted the vines?"

  "I haven't the foggiest idea," Griffin said.

  Lord Shelton stepped closer. "Lady Alexandra." There was a cloying quality to his voice that had been missing when Lord Hawkridge said the same words. Alexandra supposed Lord Shelton was trying to sound romantic. She probably would have reacted positively to that yesterday.

  He lifted her gloved hand and pressed a kiss to the back. "My dear, you look exquisite."

  She'd never heard anything quite so disingenuous.

  Juliana elbowed her discreetly. "Perhaps Lord Shelton would like to taste one of your ratafia puffs."

  Alexandra looked down to the silver tray, forgotten in her other hand. "Oh, not quite yet." Her laughter sounded forced to her own ears. "Don't you think we should pour the tea first?"

  Ignoring her sisters' puzzled frowns, she walked clear across the room and put the tray on a gilt-legged table that sat against the wall.

  Juliana began pouring. "The puffs can hardly work their magic from over there."

  "Magic?" Lord Shelton inquired.

  "Please do sit," Alexandra told him, leaving the tray safely distant while she made her way back across the room. She seated herself on one of the light blue velvet sofas instead of a chair; a tactical error, since Lord Shelton immediately took the place beside her.

  That wouldn't have bothered her yesterday. But his scent—an Oriental mix—was too flowery and suddenly annoying.

  When Juliana handed her a teacup, she rose and went to Lord Hawkridge where he was talking with her brother. He smelled of clean soap and starch and something else she couldn't identify—but it was decidedly male. "Tea, my lord?"

  "Thank you." He took it while barely sparing her a glance. "Not every variety is suited to our climate," he said to Griffin.

  "You're welcome," Alexandra murmured.

  "Alexandra," Corinna called conspicuously, "since you're up, why don't you get the ratafia puffs and bring them over here?"

  "Not just yet." Alexandra marched to the sofa and plopped back down, giving her sister a pointed look. "I've decided I'm not certain I wish to serve the ratafia puffs at all."

  Lord Shelton glanced between them, clearly confused. "And why not?"

  "Yes, why not?" Corinna pressed. "They're supposed to be magical."

  "Precisely." Alexandra accepted another teacup from Juliana and sipped. "I've no wish to employ magic."

  "Magic?" Lord Shelton repeated.

  Juliana stood. "May I speak with you in private?" Before Alexandra could disagree, she pulled her up by the arm and drew her out into the picture gallery, Corinna in their wake.

  Juliana's hazel eyes radiated concern. "What's going on?"

  "Nothing." Alexandra glanced away, her gaze landing on a solemn ancestor who glared from a canvas on the smooth stone wall, looking exceedingly disapproving.

  "Nothing?" If possible, Corinna appeared even more disapproving. "Why won't you give Lord Shelton one of the magical ratafia puffs?"

  "Magical?" Putting scorn into her voice, Alexandra focused on each of her sisters in turn. "Do you truly believe that eggs and sugar can be magical?"

  "Of course not," Corinna said quickly. "But don't you think it's worth a try?"

  Juliana laid a gloved hand on Alexandra's arm. "If they did work," she said gently, "you could add a notation to Eleanor Cainewood's entry in the recipe book, verifying her allegation. It's a tradition."

  "I don't care," Alexandra said blithely. At least, she hoped she sounded blithe.

  Her sisters stared at her, their eyes wide.

  "You don't care?" Juliana breathed. "About tradition?" She pulled off a glove and reached to touch Alexandra's forehead. "Are you ill?"

  "No." Alexandra drew away. "I just don't care about this silly tradition."

  "But, Alexandra…" Juliana hugged herself. "You're the most traditional person I've ever met."

  It was true. Juliana was known for her wild ideas—always meant to help, of course—and Corinna was a bit of a rebel. But Alexandra always did exactly the right thing. She ran her brother's enormous household like clockwork; she kept up with her correspondence; she visited the villagers and tenants, both healthy and ailing, always with some famous Chase sweets in hand. She could sing, play the pianoforte, make lovely profile portraits, and embroider—and if she wasn't exactly renowned for any of those talents, at least she was competent.

  Alexandra was a perfect lady. The best single word to describe her was traditional. But right at the moment, tradition could hang for all she cared.

  She set her jaw. "I don't want Lord Shelton to eat any ratafia puffs."

  Her sisters exchanged matching looks of astonishment. "Why?" Juliana asked carefully.

  Corinna cocked her head. "Are you that certain he'll propose without them?"

  "I don't wish him to propose at all."

  Juliana dropped her glove. "What?"

  "You heard me." Alexandra drew a deep breath, relieved the truth was out. "I've changed my mind."

  Juliana blinked. "But Griffin expects you to marry Lord Shelton."

  When Alexandra only shrugged, Corinna frowned. "You always do the expected thing."

  "How very tedious. It's about time I changed, don't you think?"

  "Girls?" Alexandra's flabbergasted sisters were saved from answering when Griffin stepped into the gallery. "What are you all doing out here?"

  "Talking." Juliana bent to retrieve her glove.

  Griffin looked toward the stone-vaulted ceiling as though praying for heaven-sent strength. "Lord Shelton is inquiring after your presence." He lowered his gaze to Alexandra and smiled. "He likes your sweets very much."

  "Oh!" she said, when she wanted to say "Drat!" Not that she believed in magic, but…what if the ratafia puffs worked? She didn't want to actually turn down Lord Shelton's proposal. Griffin would never forgive her.

  "I'm not feeling well," she told him—and suddenly, it wasn't a fib. The thought of marrying Lord Shelton made nausea rise in her throat. "Please give Lord Shelton my apologies," she said. "I must go lie down."

  FOUR

  ALEXANDRA SAT at her gold-and-white Chippendale dressing table, gazing at the oval cameo she'd dug out of the bottom of her jewelry box. "It's pretty, isn't it?"

  "Beautiful, my lady." The maid she shared with her sisters deftly pinned up her hair. "I've never seen you wear it before."

  "It's been put away for a long time."

  Alexandra hadn't been able to find the note that had come with the cameo that exciting day it arrived, about a year after Tris left for the West Indies. But she'd read it so many times, the words were burned into her memory. My dear Lady Alexandra, it said in a bold scrawl so distinct she could picture it even now,

  Here is the gift I promised you from Jamaica. I expect it will arrive a year or two before mysel
f, but I saw it in a shop and knew it for the perfect choice. The cameo reminded me of your profile portraits, and its subject reminded me of you. It is my wish that you'll wear it in the best of health and happiness.

  Yours,

  Tristan Nesbitt

  The cameo, set in a beautiful white gold bezel with three tiny diamonds, featured a girl carved of mother-of-pearl in profile on an oval of black jet. She'd cherished it and been thrilled to think the pretty, curly-haired young miss on it reminded Tris of her. She must have read the words My dear and Yours a million times, wishing there were some way he could be hers. But after a year had passed, and then two, she'd given up those childish dreams and put both the cameo and the note away.

  After another year, she'd taken his profile portrait from her wall and put that away, too.

  And now, he wasn't even Tris anymore. He was Lord Hawkridge, a strange and distant man. But she couldn't help thinking that, now that he was a marquess, he was no longer unsuitable. Perhaps—

  "Are you ready yet?" Corinna called from the doorway.

  "Almost. Come in a moment." As her sisters entered, she threaded a delicate chain through the cameo's bale and quickly fastened it around her neck. Then she lifted a little pot of clear gloss. Watching in the mirror, she slicked it on her mouth.

  "A Lady of Distinction doesn't approve of lip salve," Corinna informed her. "In The Mirror of the Graces, she says—"

  "A Lady of Distinction can go hang," Alexandra interrupted. "Do you expect Lord Hawkridge might have stayed for dinner?"

  "Oh, yes." Juliana straightened Corinna's pink satin sash. "Griffin has asked him to stay the night, so he can assist him with some sort of problem at the vineyard tomorrow morning."

  So that was what Tris and Griffin had been so busy discussing while Alexandra was trying to keep the ratafia puffs from Lord Shelton. If Tris would be here through tomorrow, she thought with a little frisson of excitement, perhaps she might have time to make him notice her. But she was terribly inexperienced…

  Did she have what it would take to tempt a marquess?

  "And has Lord Shelton departed?" she asked with not a little trepidation.

  His presence could ruin everything.

  "Of course. He was invited only to take tea, after all." Corinna sat carefully on Alexandra's blue damask bedcovering. "He said he hopes you'll feel better soon."

  "I'm absolutely recovered," Alexandra assured her. Even more so now that she knew she'd escaped the dreaded proposal. She handed her maid a blue ribbon. "Lord Hawkridge didn't seem to mind staying?"

  "Not at all." Juliana smiled at her in the mirror. "I don't mind him staying, either. He's quite handsome, isn't he? In a rugged way, I mean."

  "He's gorgeous." Corinna flung herself back on the bed. "I want to paint him."

  "He's mine," Alexandra said quietly.

  The room fell silent.

  "You cannot be serious," Juliana finally said. "You're marrying Lord Shelton."

  "I am not. I thought I made that clear this afternoon." Alexandra turned from the dressing table and glanced up. "Thank you, Mary. That will be all."

  As her maid slipped from the room, Alexandra squared her shoulders. "I mean to marry Lord Hawkridge if he will have me." Juliana gasped, but Alexandra rushed on. "I hope you two will support me in this. I'm aware it seems rash, but the truth is, I've been in love with him since I was fifteen. Or years earlier. I'm not sure."

  Corinna sat upright again, her eyes round as blue saucers. "Does he know?"

  "Of course not. Last I saw him, he was a grown man of twenty-one and I was still in the schoolroom. He wasn't supposed to even notice me."

  "He noticed us," Corinna disagreed. "He talked to us quite often, and he used to tease us mercilessly."

  Alexandra sighed. "That wasn't the sort of noticing I was hoping for."

  "In any case, he was a mere mister then," Juliana pointed out, "with no prospects."

  "I never cared."

  Juliana smoothed her yellow skirts. "Father would have cared."

  "I know. And I accepted that then. But now everything's changed—"

  "Good evening, girls." Griffin appeared in the doorway. "Father would have cared about what?"

  The sisters exchanged glances before Juliana looked toward him and smiled. "Father would have cared to see one of us wed to Lord Hawkridge."

  Griffin blinked. "Let us hear none of that. I didn't invite Tristan here as a potential suitor."

  "Why not?" Corinna asked. "You've invited every other unmarried man in all of Britain."

  "Not quite yet, but I'm working on it." He flashed her a crooked grin, then nodded toward a book on Alexandra's bedside table. "Have you been reading The Mirror of the Graces?"

  "Oh, yes. Every night," she assured him, ignoring her sisters' muffled giggles.

  Griffin had given them each a copy of the etiquette manual, authored by "A Lady of Distinction," in the hope that they'd learn to deport themselves in a manner conducive to winning fine husbands.

  He was leaving no stone unturned in his quest to get the three of them married off.

  "Excellent," he said. "I trust you're feeling better now?"

  "Much better, thank you. Shall we go down to dinner?"

  Downstairs, she thought as she trailed her siblings out of the room, Lord Hawkridge was waiting. Just realizing she would see him again made a pleasant hum warm her body.

  And to think, only this morning she'd considered finding love to be an unrealistic, childish expectation.

  PRETENDING indifference toward Lady Alexandra was one of the hardest things Tristan had ever done. And years of practice didn't seem to be making it any easier.

  Dinner had been pure torture, chitchatting with Griffin about his trouble with the vineyard while all the while he could feel Alexandra's gaze on him. Now, their little party having removed themselves to the music room, he was sipping port at an impolite pace while Griffin's sisters provided entertainment.

  Corinna had a pretty voice, and the music Juliana coaxed from her harp was nothing less than exquisite. But Tristan had eyes only for Alexandra. She'd removed her gloves, and her bare fingers, long and elegant, flew gracefully over the keys of the pianoforte. Though his ears told him the resulting tune was proficient rather than inspired, her playing had him enthralled.

  She was wearing the cameo he'd sent her several years earlier, and he found himself entirely too pleased about that.

  "Would you care for more?"

  Tristan looked up to find Griffin standing over him with the bottle of port. "My thanks," he murmured, raising his glass.

  Griffin settled beside him on the small gold brocade sofa. "Civilized, aren't they?" He gestured toward his sisters, all seated primly on dainty chairs with brocade seats and gilt backs. His chuckle was low enough not be heard across the room. "Whoever would have thought they'd actually grow up?"

  Tristan smiled, but he'd always known Alexandra would turn out to be something special. A rather gangly girl, she'd grown into her looks during the years since he'd last seen her. Sweet curves now softened her slender frame. Her sooty-lashed brown eyes, which had always reminded him of warmed brandy, looked large in her delicately featured face. Her chestnut hair was the same as it had always been—so springy it seemed alive, refusing to stay pinned primly atop her head.

  Any man would find her alluring.

  But there was something else about her—something harder to put his finger on. Even as an adolescent she'd been responsible beyond her years, accomplished and more than competent…and yet, underneath, he'd sensed a melting romanticism, a yearning for love that the younger, more idealistic Tristan would have given anything to fulfill.

  Then, as today, he'd sometimes sensed his feelings were returned—something in the way her eyes would soften when he caught her looking at him. But there had been no sense in pursuing anything. From the start, he'd known the Marquess of Cainewood would never allow his high-born daughter to wed the son of a common drunkard.

>   And nothing was different now.

  True, his situation had changed, and his friend was the marquess now. But Griffin had new reasons to reject Tristan's suit—reasons even more damning than the ones Griffin's father would have objected to all those years ago.

  Alexandra glanced over at him again, and a gentle smile curved her lips. He looked away and sipped. He would have to have a talk with her. He disliked discussing his circumstances, but honor compelled him to explain.

  "What is life like at Hawkridge?" Griffin asked quietly.

  Lonely, Tristan thought. He hadn't realized how lonely until now. But he wasn't looking for pity. "I keep busy," he said. "Doing very ungentlemanly things."

  "Are you implying you work?" Griffin asked in mock horror.

  "Incessantly, I'm afraid."

  Griffin's laughter brought Alexandra's head up once more. She met Tristan's gaze, her eyes melting in that way that threatened his resolve.

  But he wouldn't allow her to pierce his armor. Especially because, as her older brother, Griffin would see that nothing ever came of it.

  "Hawkridge's restored vineyards are the least of my improvements," he said, turning deliberately to Griffin. "I'm building a gasworks. And I've found that careful land management produces significantly larger crops."

  Griffin sipped slowly. "According to rumor, you've begun a new breeding program as well. Not just for horses, but common swine and sheep."

  "Yes, I'm importing stock from distant estates. I ascribe to the theory that interbreeding produces weak animals."

  "I look forward to learning more of this."

  "I look forward to explaining it," Tristan told him with a smile.

  Miraculously, it seemed that Griffin had remained his friend. Still more reason to steer clear of Alexandra. It wasn't worth ruining such a long-standing relationship over something that could never be.

  When the song came to an end, instead of launching into another one, the sisters held a short, murmured conversation. Tristan saw Juliana nod before they all rose. As they started across the parquet floor, Alexandra's hand went up to touch the cameo she was wearing.