Alexandra (7 page)

She wondered fleetingly if she would faint from lack of air. Then his lips touched hers, and all thought fled for a long, glorious moment.

When he released her, she stood frozen in utter, giddy disbelief, relying on the wall for support.

Her first kiss, it had been, and it had felt wonderful. Soon, she thought dizzily, his surprising, thrilling words still swirling about in her head…
I’ve thought about you all the time
…soon, they would kiss again. Soon, he would be her husband.

She gave him a trembly smile. “That was nice.”

“No.” He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair raggedly. “That was wrong of me.”

“Well, perhaps,” she said, confused. She drew a shaky breath and let it out. “But such a small impropriety cannot really matter so long as we…”

“So long as we what?”

“So long as we…”

He hadn’t proposed, and she couldn’t bring herself to do it for him. But as she watched and waited, she saw understanding dawn in his eyes. And then she saw his jaw set as he stepped farther back. “A kiss doesn’t equal a marriage proposal, Alexandra.”

His voice shouldn’t sound so cold and resolute. Her giddiness seemed to pop like a soap bubble. “But I thought—”

“I’m sorry,” he interrupted, and he did indeed look sorry. “I cannot marry you. There are circumstances…blast it, I knew I needed to think about how to explain this.” She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard. “Please accept my sincere apologies. What I just did was dishonorable, and I can only assure you it won’t happen again. There’s no chance I will ever take you for my wife.”

“I SEE,”
Alexandra said and immediately turned to leave.

Though he knew he should elaborate, Tristan held his tongue as he trailed her back to her family. Along the wall walk, down the winding steps of the tower, and across the quadrangle, he cursed himself a dozen times. Alternately, he considered the wording of his explanation. How could he make her understand that that no matter her feelings or his, an alliance between them would be the worst mistake of both their lives?

And in between all of that, his thoughts kept returning to that one extraordinary moment when, reaching out to touch his hair, her fingertips had skimmed his forehead.

It had been such an innocent gesture. Trivial, even. He couldn’t fathom why it had affected him so. Perhaps he was no longer fit for genteel society, considering the smallest hint of kindness from a pretty girl could rob him of his wits.

He wouldn’t—couldn’t—allow anything similar to happen ever again.

On the steps in front of the double doorway to the castle’s living quarters, he caught up to her. “Alexandra—”

The door opened to reveal Griffin. “My sister doesn’t look happy,” he said flatly.

He—or perhaps Juliana and Corinna—must have been watching them approach through one of the picture gallery’s tall, narrow windows.

Alexandra stepped decisively into the stone entrance hall. “I’m fine.”

Griffin didn’t look like he believed her.

Following, Tristan shut the door behind them. “Alexandra, let me explain.”

“There’s no need.” She raised her chin. “I understand completely.”

As Griffin moved closer to his sister, Tristan looked between the two of them: Alexandra, calm and composed—she would never be flustered for long, nor, Tristan expected, was she the sort of girl to succumb to weeping—and her protective older brother. Theirs was a close-knit family; it seemed to make little difference that Griffin had been gone for years. Such closeness was so foreign to Tristan’s own experience as to be nearly unimaginable.

He felt helpless in the face of their united front.

“I must explain,” he repeated.

“You did,” Alexandra said. “I shall have a word with Griffin and straighten this all out. Now.”

Turning to Tristan, Griffin emitted a long-suffering sigh. “There’s more port in the music room. Please help yourself.”

Tristan heard the delicate notes of the harp wafting down the staircase. But he didn’t need liquor or entertainment. What he needed was to go back to his secluded existence—the one he should never have left—and forget this mortifying episode.

“I believe I shall take my leave for Hawkridge,” he said.

“No.” Griffin stopped him with a hand on his arm. “You’ve promised to help me. Stay, please, at least until you’ve seen the vineyard in the morning.”

It had been a long time since a friend—or anyone, truthfully—had wanted Tristan around. It was a nice feeling, and he gave into it with pitifully meager resistance. “I shall retire, then. Good night.” Before he could change his mind again, he headed for the great carved stone staircase.

Boniface appeared from the shadows. “Allow me to accompany you, my lord.”

“Thank you, but I know the way.”

The butler handed him a lantern. “I shall send a valet to you posthaste.”

Tristan didn’t want a valet. He wanted to be alone. He’d been relieved to escape his own very fine and competent valet this morning and ride to Cainewood in blessed solitude, assuming this would be a day trip.

But he was a marquess now. Upon inheriting the title, the world believed he’d forgotten how to undress himself.

What he’d forgotten instead was his head. His manners. His principles, his integrity, his consideration for the fragile heart of a lovely, innocent young girl.

And then, as an encore, he’d made an awful situation worse with his blasted inability to explain the blasted
circumstances
that made any relationship between them impossible.

Holding the lantern high, he mounted the stairs, cursing himself. He cursed himself all the way through the picture gallery, across the arched dining room, and down the impossibly long length of the hammerbeam-ceilinged great hall. At its far end, he stomped down a corridor and slammed into the room he’d been assigned.

Seemingly endless rows of guest bedrooms lined this wing, and he’d never been given this one before. Of course, he hadn’t been a marquess before. The Gold Chamber, this room was called, and it was saved, a chatty chambermaid had informed him, for the castle’s most honored guests. Having been decorated for a royal visit in some previous century, it was filled with heavy gilt furniture and draped in golden fabric. It dazzled the eye. And had him tiptoeing his way around.

The makings of a fire had been thoughtfully laid on the marble hearth. Within Cainewood’s thick stone walls, even summer evenings were chilly. No doubt the chambermaid hovered in the passageway, waiting for his summons to start it. In an act of defiance, he set the lantern on a gilded dressing table and bent to light the logs himself.

Straightening to retrieve the lantern, he managed to jostle an ornate painted vase and only just righted it in time. He groaned.

With any luck, he’d be leaving in the morning, right after inspecting the vineyard. But in the meantime, this gaudy room was no place to relax.

He sat gingerly on a carved, gold-leafed chair to await the blasted valet. Hawkridge Hall, the mansion he’d inherited, had its share of impressive rooms, including one very much like this. He rarely went in there. He hadn’t been raised among such valuable trappings. He was almost afraid to touch anything.

He shouldn’t have touched Griffin’s sister, either.

“SIT DOWN,
Alexandra.”

Griffin waved her toward one of the study’s leather wing chairs, then settled himself behind the big desk she still thought of as belonging to her father. Establishing his authority, she thought with an internal sigh. Well, it didn’t matter. Everything had changed. She was finished being the obedient sister, and she wasn’t going to let Griffin pressure her into marrying Lord Shelton—or anyone besides Tris.

He rested his elbows on the mahogany surface, steepling his fingers. “What happened out there?”

She had to say it. She squared her shoulders and opened her mouth before she could stop herself. “Tris kissed me.”

“He did
what
?”

She struggled to maintain eye contact, but the shock on her brother’s face was too much. Instead she looked down at her hands clenched together in her lap. ”You heard me. We wish…we wish to marry.” She’d have to do better than that if she meant to persuade him. She drew in a breath and all but shouted, “I don’t want to marry Lord Shelton. I want to marry Tris!”

“I heard you!” Griffin snapped. He sat back in the chair, rubbing the nape of his neck. “He hasn’t asked for your hand, has he?”

“Not exactly.” Something in Griffin’s eyes, in the tone of his voice, was making her uneasy. She managed to look up at him, though not with anything like conviction. “He seems to think you won’t approve.”

“He’s right, and that’s why he would never ask.” He fixed her with a piercing green gaze. “The man’s been accused of murder.”

“MURDER?”
Alexandra’s elbows gave out, and her energy seemed to drain on the spot. She couldn’t have heard Griffin right.
“Murder?”

“Murder. His uncle—the last Marquess of Hawkridge—died under suspicious circumstances.”

She sagged in her chair, trying to wrap her mind around her brother’s words. “What circumstances?”

“The old man went to bed with a mild fever and failed to awaken the next morning. Poison, it was rumored, and Tristan was with him at Hawkridge at the time. Since his father had recently drunk himself to death and left him heavily in debt, penniless and well nigh desperate, there are those who believe his timely inheritance of his uncle’s title, property, and massive fortune proved rather too convenient.”

“Poison?” With some effort, she righted her posture. “I don’t believe it for a moment.”

“Neither do I,” Griffin said with a sigh. “He was never convicted—there was no solid evidence—but many still think him guilty of the deed. What we personally do or don’t believe has no bearing on the fact that Tristan is not a suitable husband.”

Alexandra smoothed her dress over her knees while she tried to remember to breathe. If what Griffin said was true, she had to agree that wedding Tris was out of the question. Although she could live without the social whirl, if her family aligned themselves with him by any bond so strong as marriage, their own good name would be ruined. Juliana and Corinna would find it impossible to make good matches for themselves…and despite Alexandra’s new resolve to be less in thrall to societal convention, she wasn’t selfish enough to doom her sisters’ marriage prospects.

If
what Griffin said was true.

“I don’t believe it,” she repeated. “I don’t believe any of it. How did I never hear of this? It must have been an enormous scandal.”

“It was. So major a scandal that Tristan has remained cut off from the respectable sphere. He hasn’t claimed his seat in the House of Lords. He abandoned his friends rather than subject us to society’s criticism. Did you never hear the murmurings, the nasty rumors? Well, of course you didn’t,” he answered himself. “You were hidden away here in the countryside wearing black.”

Pushing himself up from the desk, he moved around it to lay a hand on her shoulder. He meant it to be comforting gesture, Alexandra knew, though his own discomfort with such familiar contact was obvious.