by Cheryl Bolen
“I don’t—” Rachael began before catching herself. Although the last thing she wanted was to dance with her cousin, refusing to his face would be dreadfully rude. “I don’t…want to put on my shoes.”
“Then don’t,” Juliana said gaily, taking the red slippers from her limp fingers. “Just dance in your stockinged feet. You’ve never feared scandal before. Ah, a waltz.” Grinning, she grabbed Rachael’s hand and put it right into Griffin’s. “Enjoy yourselves, will you?”
“I’m not very good at this,” Griffin muttered as he guided Rachael onto the dance floor and took a few tentative steps. “I learned to waltz only this week.”
He was certainly holding her awkwardly. And at arm’s length, as though he could hardly bear to touch her. But at least he wasn’t trodding on her stockinged toes. “You’re doing very well for a beginner,” she assured him. “Especially considering you didn’t wish to dance with me.”
The pink flush that crept up his neck clashed with his green eyes. “I never said that.”
“Liar.” She laughed. “I’d wager you told Juliana you’re not a whit interested in dancing with me.”
A crooked half smile curved his lips. “I said nothing about a whit.”
“Well, I did. I told her I wasn’t a whit interested in dancing with you, but it seems she ignored us both.”
“I’m all astonishment.” The smile turned full-blown now, revealing creases in his cheeks that matched the slight dent in his chin. “That was a brave confession. I promise not to hold it against you.”
“Do you expect I would care if you did?”
“Not at all. That’s what I love best about you. In a strictly platonic way, of course,” he rushed to add.
“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 really was too bad they were cousins.
“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. She’d never met a more masculine fellow than he. “That sounds more like a nightmare than a dream.” As they twirled around the room, she noted all the ladies were on the dance floor while many extra gentlemen waited around the edges. “Given that you’re a novice at matchmaking, 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 gracious. If it took each of his sisters that long, he’d be practically middle-aged 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 a moment, but then sighed and licked her lips. Griffin suddenly felt too warm. “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 suitors. “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 gentleman 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 when he did come on the market for a wife, he hoped he could find a woman 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 28
“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 quit 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 fears Lady St. Quentin might think her less than a perfect hostess.”
“If you’d quit worrying about what everyone thinks, maybe you could find happiness.” With that cheeky 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 young men, the more she’d become convinced he was the only one for her.
As he met her eyes, an odd tingle arose 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 for him. 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 turn up?”
“To make a point.” His gray gaze remained steady, resolute. “To prove to you, once and for all, that life with me would be unbearable.”
The music swelled as she gestured over the edge of the balcony. “What I saw wasn’t real life. I don’t need those people.” She swallowed hard, gathering her nerve. “I need you, Tris.”
“You don’t.”
“I do. But I cannot ruin my family’s good name.” Her throat was tightening. Here she was, in the most beautiful dress she’d ever owned, and she’d never felt more wretched. ”I don’t know what I can do.”
“You can go back down there and find another gentleman.”
“I’ve tried—and I’ve failed!“
He looked startled at her vehemence. A long silence stretched between them, and the music from below was not enough to fill it. He just looked at her, and she just let him. Squashing every bashful instinct she possessed, she stood tall and brazen and watched him watch her. His gaze lingered on her face, then glided ever so slowly down the length of her body, and ever so slowly back up again. Finally it settled on the cameo, and his eyes softened.
It was time to go in for the kill.
Moving closer, she laid a gloved hand against his waistcoat. “I think I’m in love with you,” she confessed quietly.
His eyes 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.”
Her hands curled into fists. “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 old memories. “I’ve thought I was in love before, too—more than once—but it was never more than a fantasy. 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 forever.”
She’d never be free of him, not truly. “Will you tell me about the ladies you loved?” she asked carefully.
He turned to stare out 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 girl 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 proposed, and she accepted happily enough. But then the scandal broke, and when I suggested her reputation might suffer should she stand by my side, she fled without a second thought.”
Leticia. She must have been the girl who had taught him to waltz. Although Alexandra supposed she should be grateful that Leticia hadn’t kept Tris for herself, instead she hated her—and the others—for hurting him. For filling his heart with cynicism.
She studied his shadowed profile—so like the portrait she’d done of him years ago. Except his jaw looked harder. “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. It always dissipates before long. As will yours. You’ll make a nice life for yourself—with someone else.” He finally turned to look at her, but it wasn’t to offer hope. “I won’t change my mind, Alexandra. Not for 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 exposing his wife to society’s derision, she also knew he didn’t want to open himself up for more hurt. She knew he cared for her—he’d acknowledged as much more than once. But those three girls 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 the weakness of old age. 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. No one murdered my uncle. Forget it. Dance with me instead.”
He pulled her into his arms, and they began twirling together across the wide, empty balcony. She found herself buffeted with warring emotions: frustration that he flatly refused her solution, sadness that this might be the last time they’d ever dance together, elation at finding herself this close to him if only for a short time.
He drew her even closer, much closer than he had during their lesson. His strong hand rested once again 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 troubled all at the same time.
As for Tristan, troubled didn’t begin to describe his state. Her declaration had set off an avalanche of jumbled feelings, churning and roaring within him so that he could barely hear himself think.
The most prominent of these feelings was abject horror.
I think I’m in love with you.
In the aftermath of Leticia leaving him, he’d made firm decisions, the main one being he would never again believe a girl’s claims of undying love. He’d been burned thrice already, and he wasn’t so dense as to put his hand in the fire a fourth time.
But mixed with the horror were guilt, anger, exasperation, and a dash of self-pity. And then there was the not-insignificant corner of his mind that longed for her words to be true.
The idiotic corner.
Alexandra 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. His only saving grace was his certainty that she was wrong. She didn’t know love any more than he did.
The waltz was sweet torture, her softness pressed against him, her hand squeezing his so hard he wondered if their gloved fingers had gone blue. 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 and feeling the silky strands tickle his cheeks.
“I’m dizzy,” she breathed as he spun her faster. “Dizzy and in lo—”
“Don’t say it.” Exasperation surpassed horror—though over both fell a flurry of what he could only call lust. “Just dance with me.”
She leaned away from him, far enough to meet his eyes. “Why?” Even as she asked, her grip tightened on his hand, her other arm tugging him closer. “What made you ask me to dance?”
Abject horror, of course. He’d have done anything to stop her from continuing her line of questioning. The only thing more frightening than her talk of love was the murky uncertainty surrounding his uncle’s mysterious 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 for them both. “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 jolly country dance. Tristan 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 remember when I made your profile portrait? Years ago, before you left for Jamaica?”
“Yes, but—”
