Price of Desire (56 page)

With a crook of his finger he gestured for Winters, who hovered in the doorway.  “Take Miss Wilkes upstairs and let her make herself comfortable.  I’ll speak with her in my study.  I’ve matters to finish here, first.” 

He ran a finger down Violet’s arm.  She turned, gazing up at him with languid eyes.  He repressed a smile at her theatrical talents.  Unfortunately, not even the beautiful Violet could get him where he needed to be, nor could anyone else in this company.  He considered each of his companions.

He pressed his lips tight.

Turning back, he saw Miss Wilkes obediently following Winters from the room like a scolded schoolgirl.  He could not see her face; her slumped shoulders spoke of defeat.  His gut twisted and his arms longed to comfort her, but he pasted on a wry smile and turned again to his company.

“Now, where were we, Langdon?  I believe you were telling us about your capers at Vauxhall and the three ballet dancers under the table.”

“I don’t know, Wimberley.  It seems to me you have other business to attend to.”  Langdon waved at the door, but his eyes fastened on Violet.  “Why don’t you come over here and keep us company, while Wimberley attends his unexpected guest?”

“Ahh, Langdon.”  Violet, Lady Carrington, turned her lowered lids towards him.  “You know you’re too old for me.  I am only after that first blush of youth.”  She ran her fingers lightly over Tristan’s cheek.  “I only bother with Wimberley, here, because he still has the face of a schoolboy.  I pretend he hasn’t known me from the beginning.  It makes all kinds of fantasies possible.”

She lowered her lashes still further and stared at his parted lips.

###

The muffled sound of chuckles followed Marguerite down the hall.  Were they laughing at her?  They might as well be.  Her one hope had barely recalled who she was.  She had not missed the blankness of his glance when she first entered.  She had dreamed of him for a year, longed for him for a year, yet he had to consider carefully before he could so much as identify her.  So much for the fairytale hero to the rescue. 

He had changed her life, given her a glimpse of passion, of magic, let her see how much was possible beyond her mother’s careful grasp, and he didn’t remember her.  She puffed out her cheeks and blew.  She was on her own.

Still, he had not sent her away.  She glanced at the footman’s back and carefully schooled her features into a ladylike expression.  All she needed was some money, enough to travel to the country for a short time.  If she could make it through these next months, she’d be fine. 

Another wave of dizziness overtook her.  She gratefully followed Winters into an upstairs room and splashed her face with cool water from a porcelain basin.  Loosening the pins from her hair, she tried to repair the damage caused by her travels.  She combed through it with her fingers, doing her best to restore its order.  Finally, she looked in the mirror, satisfied.  She didn’t look her best, but at least she looked neat. 

When Winters rapped on the door a few minutes later, she followed him back down the stairs and into Tristan’s study.  High-carved Elizabethan shelves lined the walls, oppressive in their heaviness.  She shivered.  At Winters’ direction she gratefully sank into the chair beside the fire.  She picked up one of the books on the table beside her, rubbed the soft leather of its binding, and glanced at the title.  Love sonnets –- not what the moment required.  She let the volume fall to her lap.  Leaning her head against the chair’s high back, she closed her eyes.

###

Escape.  At last.  Tristan slipped from the room as the other woman, he couldn’t even remember her name, demonstrated how she could write with a quill held between her breasts.  Had he ever found such things entertaining?

He would find out what Miss Wilkes wanted and then send her on her way.  He didn’t need any further difficulties, and one glance at her thin, pale cheeks had told him she was trouble.

“Tris.”

He turned as Violet slipped from the room behind him.

“Are you tired of calligraphy demonstrations, or do you have information for me?” he asked.

A slow smile spread across Violet’s face.  “I have much better uses for my breasts.  If you were a little younger I’d demonstrate.”

“Be careful with what you say.  You never know who hears.”

“I know.  I just grow weary of the masquerade.  For all that, you are the best of company, darling Tris.”  She bent forward and nuzzled his cheek.  “Is that better?”

He couldn’t resist grinning back at her.  No matter how troubled he was, Violet always could get a smile.  “What do you have to tell me?”

“Lord Simon Moreland called on me this afternoon.  Brought the most hideous flower you’ve ever seen.  Who wants black tulips?  I imagine he appropriated them from his mother’s table.  I don’t know any woman, besides Lady Harburton, with such taste.

Tristan resisted the urge to sigh.  What was the point of this? 

Violet caught his look and hurried on.  “I know you’ve expressed concern about Simon’s father, Lord Harburton, and how quickly he changed his vote in the Lords on whether to expand the number of British naval forts. Simon was full of talk about Sir Thomas Raffles and how foolish the government would be to follow his advice to expand in Singapore.  Simon almost had me persuaded that England should withdraw all support from foreign ports.  He twisted things around until it seemed that the only sensible course was to stay home and drink tea.  Why should we worry where things came from?  There is always somebody else to bring goods to us.”

“Drink tea?  And where does he imagine the tea will come from?  Is he an idiot?”

“We both know that he is, my dear, but although twisted, his words made sense.”

“Then they were not his words.”

Violet stepped back.  “Yes, I know.  I tried to find out whom he’d been speaking with, but of course he acted as if it were all his own idea, and I didn’t want to press.  It would not do for him to guess that I had any interest beyond my gowns and jewels.”

“Where’d he been?  To his club?”

“No,” she replied.  He’d spent the afternoon entertaining his mother’s guests and then stopped briefly to call on the Whytes.  They have a daughter of both looks and fortune, and Simon thinks she might be a suitable match.”

“He said that to you?”

“Yes, he doesn’t understand why his looking for a wife might be inconsistent with a dalliance with me.  He hinted again that if you ever seemed bored –”

“Sorry, my darling Violet, but back to the point.  Simon hasn’t been anyplace but the best parlors in town, and yet he’s filled with talk of Raffles and the China Seas.  Hardly the usual drawing room drivel.  Damn.  I need to be there myself, to hear who is directing this talk.  A few more peers changing their votes could seriously damage British security and trade.  I don’t suppose –”

“I haven’t paid morning calls since my second-to-last husband died.  I’m afraid that I can be of no help.”  Violet spoke with dignity, but refused to meet his gaze.

“There must be some way.  Perhaps if I just appeared, and offered my card.  No one would refuse me.”  Tristan spoke mostly to himself.

“Yes, but all the talk would be of why you were there.  Nobody would speak of anything else.  Why is it so important that you solve this issue?  I thought you were done with these matters of state and politics at the end of the war.”

“You should know there is never an end to politics.”

“Are you sure this is not personal?  I know you were not pleased that you never managed to tie the Harburtons to that French courier, Dupree.”

“That was a slight matter – the information involved was insignificant.”

“But still unresolved.”

“Yes.” Tristan forced himself to relax.  “That, however, is beside the point.  What concerns me now is getting into Lady Harburton’s drawing room.  I need a pretext to be there.”

As the door behind Violet opened a few inches and they could hear Langdon’s laugh, she leaned forward displaying her truly magnificent breasts.  She smiled.  “I’ve told you before, all you need to do is marry.  You could be a most attentive husband and follow your wife around.  And then la
ter, when you were bored . . .
”  She bent further and the door shut.

He looked away.  “Don’t say what you don’t mean.”  He was tired of this game.  “Courtship takes too long.  By the time I was wed this whole mess would be over.”

“But wouldn’t courtship itself gain you entry?  All you need is to choose a miss and go where she goes.  Nobody would question your motives.  You do need an heir.”

An heir.  His child.  He didn’t even want to think about that.  There were some things he definitely did not need.  “No, the silly girl would expect me to talk about her, and us, and romance.  I’d end up talking about how blue her eyes were, not protecting trade routes.”

“I think you underestimate women.  If you only –”

The door behind Violet swung open and Langdon pushed through.  “We’re off for more exciting adventures.  Are you coming, Violet?  Wimberley?”

Tristan and Violet did not miss a beat.

“I think I’d best make my excuses,” Tristan replied.  “I’ve a guest to see to.”

Langdon smirked.  “Is that what you’re calling it, now?  I’d enjoy some
seeing
myself.  Well, and what about you, Violet?  Will you join our romp, or are you going to
see
things with Wimberley?”

Violet started to demur, then stopped.  She pulled herself straight.  “Miss Wilkes, you called her?  That would mean –” She turned towards Langdon and smiled up through her blackened lashes.  “Ahh, I am afraid I cannot follow on your adventures, but I’d certainly be grateful for a ride.  You wouldn’t mind helping me run a small errand, would you?”

Langdon nodded, his eyes fastened on Violet’s cleavage.  It was clear that he’d not object to any activity she proposed.

Tristan stood and offered his farewells as his remaining guests departed.  He turned towards his study, still pondering why English trade routes were suddenly the main topic of conversation and why conservative men who’d always favored a strong military were unexpectedly turned isolationist.  Somebody was persuading them to change their votes, and it was his job to find out whom.

Raffles.  Tea.  The China Sea.

Damn, he’d have to deal with Marguerite Wilkes first.  But that, at least, shouldn’t take too long to sort out.

He entered his study, prepared to commence an interrogation – and found a sleeping nymph.  Her hair had escaped its pins and spilled across one velvet cheek, shimmering golden by the firelight.  One white palm curled against an even whiter cheek, but her lips were as red as the roses blooming in his garden.  Her eyelashes, lying black against her skin, did not betray the sooty smudge of kohl or blackening.  His fingers twitched again, with the desire to stroke her cheek. 

Instead, he sat on his haunches for a moment and watched her sleep, caught unaware by the surprising poetry his mind supplied. 
Spun gold touched by sun.  The pink first rays of morning racing across fresh fallen snow.   Innocence that made the angels cry.  Velvet skin crying out for caress.
  God, he’d not realized he had partaken of so much brandy.  He pursed his lips in consideration before taking the chair across from her.  He had forgotten how she tempted him, drew him towards foolishness.

There was a great appeal in simply letting her sleep on.  The deep shadows beneath her eyes betrayed her need, but the time had come for an explanation.  Why had the lamb wandered into this wolf’s den?

###

“Miss Wilkes, what are you doing here without a chaperone?  What brings you to London at all, much less to my bachelor abode?”

The question startled Marguerite awake.

She opened her eyes to find herself captured in a quicksilver gaze.  Her breath caught and held for a moment as she stared back.  Tristan sat across from her, the languor of his posture belied by the silent drumming of his fingers on the upholstered arm of the chair.  “Are you going to answer, or did you come simply to stare at me?”

“You’re worth staring at.”  Her hand rose to her mouth in a gasp of confusion.  She could not really have said that aloud.

A smile curved across Tristan’s lips drawing her attention, and for the first time this night she saw the man she remembered.  It gave her the courage to continue.

“At Wulf’s wedding you said you would help me if ever I needed it.  Don’t think me a complete fool.  I knew you did not mean it.  People think that women become fools at weddings, but I think men are the same.  I knew you were just speaking frivolously.  But I had no other choice, nowhere else to turn.”

“What of your mother, your family?”

Marguerite lowered her eyes and stared at her tangled fingers.  She did not want to consider Mama’s reaction.  She did not answer.

Tristan’s lips drew flat.

“What of your sister?  Surely Rose would take you in, and her husband, Wulf, must certainly offer protection.  Though I know not what perils surround you.”

Marguerite clasped her fingers tighter.  She could feel the hint of a blush rise in her cheeks.  “It is so improper for me to tell you this.”