“Of course,” she echoed pleasantly. Now that he’d relaxed, he was proving a much better dancer than he’d given himself credit for. He held her a little closer. He smelled of spicy soap.
It was really too bad he was her cousin.
“Juliana deserves to be beaten,” he said.
“You won’t do it,” she returned confidently.
“You’re right. I’m an excessively ineffective father. And I never dreamed I’d be a matchmaking mama.”
“A mama?” she echoed with a laugh. A more masculine man she’d never met. “That sounds more like a nightmare than a dream.” She smiled as they twirled around the room, noting all the women were on the dance floor while many extra men waited around the edges. “Given that you’re a beginner at matchmaking as well, I’d say you’re doing an excellent job.”
“But I have only”—he glanced at the tall-case clock—“four more hours to match Alexandra.”
“Four hours? I hesitate to dash your expectations, but it’s likely to take longer than that. I’ve been searching for a husband for four seasons.”
Four seasons, Griffin thought. Good God. If it took his sisters that long, he’d be well into his thirties before he could concentrate on his own life. “Have you had no offers in all that time?”
“Oh, only about a hundred.” She laughed with him for a moment, but then sighed, the tip of her tongue sneaking out to moisten her lips. The sight generated a ball of heat that smacked him in the chest and spread down, making his body stir in areas it had no business stirring. “My parents shared a special love,” she said softly. “I wish for no less. I’ll wait until I find it.”
“I see.” Griffin danced silently for a few measures, wondering if his sisters were that idealistic. He wanted them to be happy, but four seasons was a long time. Of course, Rachael had been busy overseeing the earldom during that time, too. Perhaps she hadn’t paid enough attention to her courtships. “Have you made progress preparing the master chamber for your brother’s arrival?”
“Yes, much.” Her good cheer returned. “It hasn’t been as difficult as I expected. I haven’t gone through anything very personal yet, but packing Mama’s and Papa’s clothes away has actually recalled many pleasant memories.”
“I’m glad,” he told her with a smile. She smiled back—a smile that lit up the entire great hall as they whirled across the crowded dance floor. No one else smiled like Rachael—she put her whole soul into it. He couldn’t imagine why, in four seasons, no man had managed to snatch her up. She was so open and refreshing.
The music stopped, but he held her a little longer, a little closer, thinking that if he were in the market for a wife, he’d want one exactly like her.
Had he really thought that? he wondered, pulling back. He must be getting soft in the head. This matchmaking business was entirely too much pressure.
She looked bemused, her cerulean eyes wide and opaque. “Um, thank you for the dance.”
“Thank you,” he said, “for being such a sport. I shall have a talk with Juliana. It won’t happen again.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
*
“WHAT DO YOU THINK of my son?”
“Oh, he seems a fine young man.” Casting about for a way to redirect the conversation, Alexandra lifted a silver tray off a nearby table and held it out to Lady St. Quentin. “Would you care for another marzipan fruit?”
“Why yes, dear, I would.” She chose a miniature bunch of grapes. “These remind me of your sweet mother.”
“There you are!” Corinna barged into the refreshment room. “You must see something, Alexandra.”
“One moment, Corinna.” Alexandra smiled apologetically at Lady St. Quentin. “Indeed, Mama made these most every time she held an entertainment. We could but do the same. It’s one of our traditions.”
“I admire a traditional lady. Do you expect you and my son might suit?”
“Alexandra—”
“I’m pleased the marzipan brought back good memories, Lady St. Quentin. If you’ll excuse me.” Still carrying the tray, Alexandra hurried off with Corinna. “What could be so important?”
“Did you really want to answer her question about her son? Just come with me.”
Huffing out a breath, Alexandra lifted her skirts and followed her sister to the far end of the great hall, into the corridor, and up a dark, narrow flight of stairs. “You know what a gossip Lady St. Quentin is. I danced with her milksop son, hoping she’d think well of us. Now she’ll be telling everyone we’re rude.”
“Oh, do stop being such a fusspot,” Corinna said as they stepped onto the landing.
Juliana was waiting there by a door. “What are you worried about now?”
“Nothing,” Alexandra said.
“Not nothing,” Corinna disagreed. “She’s fears Lady St. Quentin might think her less than a perfect hostess.”
“If you stopped worrying about what everyone thinks, maybe you could find happiness.” With that annoying proclamation, Juliana slowly opened the door. Music floated up and through it from the great hall. “Look,” she whispered.
There, in the minstrel’s gallery, stood Tris. His back to the door, he leaned on the balcony’s rail, gazing down on the festivities below.
Alexandra didn’t know whether she was angry with her sisters or grateful to them. She wasn’t sure whether she should go to Tris or leave. Juliana solved her dilemma with a little push. By the time Alexandra turned around, the door had been quietly shut behind her.
The torches in the great hall threw light and shadow into the minstrel’s gallery. For a moment, she just drank Tris in. His shoulders looked tense beneath the fine, dark blue tailcoat; his hair grazed the collar in the back. He’d be leaving before nightfall tomorrow. This might be the last time she’d ever be alone with him.
Taking a deep breath, she walked closer. “Would you care for a sweet?” she asked over the music.
Tris started, then turned to face her. “No. Thank you.”
He looked different tonight. Perhaps it was the formal clothing, or perhaps it was because his hair was combed neatly for once. Or perhaps it was because the more time she’d spent with other men, the more she’d become convinced he was the only one she wanted.
As he met her eyes, an odd tingle erupted in the pit of her stomach. She held his gaze for a moment, finding nothing encouraging there, nothing to lead her to believe anything had changed. But over the course of the evening, everything had changed for her.
She was just now realizing how much.
Although he was stone-faced, she gave him a little smile. “How did you get back inside?”
“One of the servants’ entrances, a few passageways, a set of back stairs. I learned my way around long ago, playing hide-and-seek with Griffin.”
Of course. Tris had history here. It just wasn’t with her.
“I thought you were determined to avoid this ball at all costs.” The wooden structure held no furniture, so she balanced the tray carefully on the rail. “Why did you put in an appearance?”
“To make a point.” His gray gaze remained steady, resolute. “To prove to you, once and for all, that life with me would be a living hell.”
The music swelled as she gestured over the edge of the balcony. “That’s not life. I don’t need those people.” She swallowed hard. “I need you, Tris.”
“You don’t.”
“I do. But I cannot ruin my family’s good name.” Here she was, in the most beautiful dress she’d ever owned, and she’d never felt more wretched in her life. “I don’t know what I can do.”
“You can go back down there and find another man.”
“I tried, damn you.”
He looked startled at her language, or perhaps at the fact that she’d been pushed to it. A long silence stretched between them, and the music from below failed to fill it. Despite his stated resolve, she watched his gaze rake her form, then focus on his cameo. The steel in his eyes softened.
S
he moved closer and laid a gloved hand against his blue-and-white patterned waistcoat. “I think I’m in love with you,” she confessed quietly.
The steel hardened again as he stepped back. “Think is the operative word. You cannot be in love with me.”
“I know my feelings, Tris.”
“You don’t.”
She fisted the hand that had fallen from his chest. “Stop telling me what I do and don’t feel.”
“Stop pretending you can change our circumstances by wishing.”
“I know I cannot.” She heard tears in her voice and cursed herself for them. “But I cannot change my feelings, either.”
He sighed, a sigh burdened with age-old memories. “I’ve thought I was in love before, too. But it was never more than an illusion, and I won’t make such an error again. Neither will you, once I leave and you come to your senses. Day after tomorrow, Alexandra, you’ll wake up free of me.”
She’d never be free of him, not in her heart. “Will you tell me about the ladies you loved?” she asked carefully.
He turned to stare blindly over the dancers. “There was a girl in Oxford who wouldn’t wait for me when I had to leave. And a girl in Jamaica who wouldn’t come back with me to England.” His fingers gripped the rail. “More recently, there was a woman named Leticia. Miss Leticia Armstrong.”
When he stopped there, she laid a hand over his on the rail. “What happened?”
“She’s the daughter of a local baron. I met her around the time I inherited, when everything in my life seemed charmed. She seemed charming, too, and I was certain she returned my feelings. In fact, she swore her undying love. I asked her to wed me, and she accepted happily enough. But then scandal broke out, and when I suggested her reputation might suffer should she stand by my side, she readily agreed and fled.”
Leticia. She must have been the woman who had taught him to waltz. Although Alexandra supposed she should be grateful for that, instead she hated Leticia—and the others—for hurting him. For turning him into a cynical man who refused to believe in love.
She studied his shadowed profile—so like the portrait she’d done of him years ago. Except his jaw looked harder, and his heart had hardened, too. “Leticia never loved you, or she’d have stayed with you. Perhaps she loved who you were—a marquess. She loved the life she imagined you’d give her. But when that life was threatened, her love disappeared. It wasn’t true love.”
“And neither was my love for her. Or the others. Each time, it dissipated easily enough. As will yours. You’ll make a nice life for yourself—with another man.” He finally turned to look at her, but it wasn’t to offer hope. “I won’t marry, Alexandra. Not you or anyone else.”
She’d heard that from him before—too many times before—but he couldn’t fool her any longer. While she understood that he didn’t want to be responsible for a wife being ostracized by society, she also knew he didn’t want to open himself up for more hurt. She knew he wanted her, in a physical sense, at least—he’d admitted as much more than once. But those three women had damaged him more than he’d admit. He’d built a wall around himself.
She wished she could figure out how to scale it, even as she knew that, for her sisters’ sakes, she couldn’t.
Unless…
“What if you’re proven innocent?” she asked, stunned that she hadn’t considered this angle before. Should he be exonerated, society would welcome him—and his wife—with open arms. “Did you ever search for the real killer?”
He looked defeated before he even opened his mouth. “I’m not convinced there was a killer—my uncle hadn’t been himself since his family was lost. Men often die in their beds naturally, from hidden illnesses or a broken heart. He was ill—a mild chill, we all thought, though it might have been something more serious. But yes, I tried to find a culprit. And no, I’m not going to reopen the investigation now.”
“Why not? Perhaps we can find new evidence.”
“We?” Something like panic filled his eyes. “Stay out of this, Alexandra.”
“But I could help—”
“No. No, you cannot.” Below, the musicians struck up a waltz. “The matter is closed and has been for years. No one murdered my uncle. Forget it. Dance with me instead.”
He pulled her into his arms, and they started moving together to the music, twirling across the wide, empty balcony. She found herself buffeted with emotions: frustration that he flatly refused to try to clear his name, sadness that they would probably never dance together again, happiness at finding herself this close to him if only for the space of a dance.
He drew her even closer, much closer than he had during their lesson. She felt his hard chest against her soft bosom, and her breasts seemed to ache in response. His large hand rested on her back, pressing her closer still. They whirled faster. A lock of his carefully combed hair came loose and flopped over his forehead. Her heart seemed to beat directly against his, quick and unsteady.
She couldn’t remember ever being so happy and so distressed all at the same time.
As for Tristan, distress didn’t begin to describe his feelings. Her declaration had thumped into his midsection like a well-aimed fist.
I think I’m in love with you.
He’d never heard anything more horrifying.
In the aftermath of Leticia leaving him, he’d made firm decisions, the main one being he would never again believe a woman’s claims of undying love. To do so left him too vulnerable, his emotions too close to the surface, his heart too open to pain.
But to disbelieve Alexandra might very well be impossible.
She couldn’t be in love with him—she just couldn’t. She was too loyal, too sincere, too difficult to heartlessly deny. He couldn’t cope with her love, with the guilt of leaving her, with the thought of her going to another man. His only saving grace was his certainty that she was wrong. She didn’t know love any more than he did.
And he wasn’t even certain it existed.
The waltz was sweet torture, her yielding body against his, her gloved hand squeezing his so hard he wondered how the blood could make its way through their veins. Beneath a fussy little bonnet, her hair was piled atop her head in a loose, sensuous arrangement, and he buried his nose in it, inhaling the fragrance as though it could sustain him.
“I’m getting dizzy,” she breathed as he spun her faster. “Dizzy on lo—”
“Don’t say it.” There was no point, and it wasn’t even true. “Just dance with me.”
She leaned away from him, just far enough to meet his eyes. “Why?” Even as she asked, her grip tightened on his hand, her other arm tugged him closer. “What made you ask me to dance?”
Sheer terror. He’d have done anything to stop her from continuing her line of questioning. The only thing more frightening than love was the murky uncertainty surrounding the mystery of his uncle’s death.
But he couldn’t tell her that. “It was our last chance,” he said instead, not wanting to encourage her but unable to come up with another explanation.
“And Griffin isn’t watching.”
“No,” he agreed, “he’s not.”
When the music stopped, he twirled her once more before reluctantly releasing her.
“Will you kiss me?” she whispered in the hush that followed. “It’s our last chance for that, too.”
He shook his head. “I cannot.” His reputation might be in shreds, but he still had his honor.
“You kissed me before.”
He couldn’t tell her he’d been sleepwalking. That would be humiliating, not to mention somewhat of an insult. “I cannot trust myself to only kiss you. I thought I explained—” “Never mind.” She began pulling off one of her gloves.
Below, the musicians struck up a cheerful country dance. But Tristan was feeling anything but cheerful. He stared at her busy hands. “What are you doing?”
“I just want to touch you.” She dropped the glove to the floor and started on the other one. “Do you remem
ber when I made your profile portrait? Years ago, before you left for Jamaica?”
“Yes, but—”
“I wanted to touch you then. I pretended I was touching you while I traced your face. I’ve loved you for all that time, Tris. Maybe longer.”
“You cannot have.” As her second glove hit the wooden planks, he started backing away toward the rail. “Young girls often have crushes on their older brothers’ friends. You never let go of that. Now I understand.”
“No. You don’t understand.” Following him, she raised a hand to his forehead and swept the hair from his brow. Her fingers were gentle, and she smelled warm and sweet, and it took everything he had not to drag her back into his arms.
“That won’t work,” he said unsteadily.
She only shrugged and reached for one of his hands, tugging to loosen the glove, slowly and deliberately, fingertip by fingertip. As she slid the silk free and dropped it to join hers on the floor, a tremor ran through him, leaving a queasy ache in his gut and a more urgent ache down lower.
Damn if she wasn’t seducing him—and successfully, at that. His body was sending him all sorts of messages his brain didn’t want to accept. He should leave. Now.
Before he found himself lost in temptation.
The door was right there in front of him, but instead of leaving, he backed away some more. A smile curving her lips, she followed again, giving his second glove the same rapt attention as the first. When it hit the floor, she linked her fingers with his—both hands—and sighed so prettily it made her breasts rise and fall in the tiny bodice Griffin had said she couldn’t wear.
“I just wanted to touch you,” she breathed.
He just wanted to kiss her. He couldn’t. As she swayed toward him, he took one more step toward the rail—
And knocked the silver tray clear off of it.
“Drat!” Alexandra cried, twisting sideways to lean over the rail. They both watched in horror as the tray hit the floor below with a resounding metallic crash, scattering miniature colored marzipan fruits all over the polished wood. A few dancers screamed, scattering along with them, while the rest of the dancers froze. The musicians stopped playing mid-note.
Good Guy Heroes Boxed Set Page 79
