The Dowager's Wager (6 page)

Tristan shrugged. “I read. I don’t think I ever forget anything.”

“What a handy trick that must be. I could use a perfect
memory on occasion,” Isabella said wistfully.

Tristan turned somber. “No, it’s not as great a gift as you
might think. I wish I could forget many of the things I know.”

“The war?” Isabella’s voice was full of empathy for him
as she reached for his hand and squeezed it.

Tristan leapt up with a barely restrained yelp of pain on
his lips. He clutched at his left hand, the one she’d touched.
Isabella was beside him, concern for him evident in her
warm eyes.

“What is it? Have I hurt you?”

“It is nothing, just a small problem I have with a nerve in
my hand. My apologies for having alarmed you.”

He should have known Isabella was too tenacious to let
such a thing go with the flimsy excuse he’d offered. Before
he could distract her, Isabella gently took his hand and
stripped off the white glove. She stared for a long moment
at the scar that bisected his palm and wrapped around his
knuckles. The scar was hideous and stark, a thick white line
against the tanned skin of his hand.

When she spoke, her voice was solemn. “How did this
happen?”

“You don’t need to know. Please, Isabella. It does not
signify.”

She stared at him for a long while before finally dropping
his hand and granting his request. “Does it hurt much?” She
asked, letting him cover the scar with his glove.

“I have some salve. As long as I don’t overuse my hand it
doesn’t trouble me”

“Will it heal?”

“I imagine the scar will fade in time.”

“I didn’t mean the scar,” Isabella said sharply. “I meant
your hand. Will it heal?”

“Probably not” Tristan gave a wry smile. “But this is
unseemly talk for Valentine’s Day. We should talk of love, or
at least of roses.” He nodded toward the convenient but dormant cluster of rose bushes lining the garden walk. “Roses
are the official flower of love, being the sacred flower of
Venus”

“Oh, that is nicely done, my lord wolf.” Isabella applauded. “You’ve managed to talk of both love and roses in one
sentence while deflecting me from my desired course of
conversation.”

“Yes, so it seems that I have” Tristan patted her arm as
she tucked it through his. “Let’s go back inside and on the
way I’ll tell you about the cartes d’amities the French send
for the holiday.”

“Salud!” Crystal flutes of newly legal French champagne
clinked in near unison beneath sparkling chandeliers as midnight heralded the time of unmasking in the crowded ballroom of the earl of Denbigh’s lavish town house. People
drank and laughed as masks were discarded. In one corner
of the packed room, Tristan exchanged toasts with Alain,
and the other two who completed their circle of childhood
chums, Giles Moncrief, Chatham Somerset, and of course,
Isabella. She looked delightfully disheveled without her
mask and domino which she had laughingly discarded when
the clock chimed and her cheeks were flushed from the
warmth of the room. Tristan was so enthralled he nearly
missed Giles’s toast.

“Here’s to our prospects of love in the upcoming year and
to the return of Tristan. Our circle is complete again.” Giles
turned to Tristan, his voice booming amid the hubbub. “My
old friend, we are glad you’re home safely!” Giles raised his
glass in salute to Tristan, who smiled humbly in the wake of
his friend’s enthusiasm.

Tonight, with all of them together again, Tristan could
almost believe he’d never been away. His friends had
embraced him with their usual warmth and they’d easily fallen into the camaraderie they’d shared in the past. A small
smile touched his lips as he recalled how he’d met the four
people that surrounded him now.

The four of them had grown up together on neighboring
Lake District estates. When the three boys went off to Eton
together, Tristan joined the group then through the fortune
of being Alain’s roommate. They had taken him in, joking
that Alain needed someone with a decidedly English pedigree to balance out Alain’s unfortunate moniker bestowed on
him by his overzealous French mother. They’d immediately
decided that nothing could be more English sounding than
“Gresham” The bond between him and Alain had been
sealed.

“I have long thought that masquerades became dull dogs
once everyone unmasked. What’s the fun of realizing you’ve
just spent an evening with the same people you spend every
evening?” Chatham remarked, using his height to scan the
ballroom. “People are much more fun when they’re someone else.” Of them all, Chatham was the tallest, and the
darkest, with coal black hair and keen near obsidian-colored
eyes that missed nothing. Tristan long thought Chatham
would have made an excellent reconnaissance officer.

Giles cleared his throat. “I knew you would say that. So,
to preempt your impending boredom, I have arranged for
something special. If you will all follow me?” He cocked a
challenging blond eyebrow at the group, daring them to dispute his latest game.

Chatham groaned. “Whatever you have in mind, we’ll
have to do it here. It’s positively a crush in here and I doubt
there are any other rooms unoccupied at this point.” He gave
Giles and Alain a wicked wink. “Who knows what kind of
decadence we may uncover if we go opening closed doors.”

“Never fear, I’ve planned for that contingency as well.
The only private place I could secure was the verandah.”
With his trademark efficiency, Giles ushered the group
towards the row of French doors leading out onto the wide
verandah overlooking the now dark gardens. There would be nothing to see out there tonight in the dead of an English
winter. No one would bother them. They would have their
privacy.

Tristan hung back, finding himself reluctant to engage in
whatever scheme Giles had concocted. A tug on his arm
indicated that Giles would not let him slip away. Giles had
maneuvered back through the crowd to usher him along.
“Come on, Tristan. I’ve planned this bit of fun especially for
you. Alain says you’re determined to find a wife.” Giles
winked at him and managed to deftly relieve a passing footman of two champagne bottles. Giles’s deft antics made him
laugh and Tristan found himself capitulating to his friend’s
well intended contrivances.

Once on the verandah, Tristan watched Giles settle them
all on the wide stone steps, and pour everyone another glass.

“Let’s get on with it, Giles. It’s freezing out here!” Chatham
griped, blowing in his hands and rubbing them together.

“Drink your champagne and stop carping,” Giles scolded.
“Besides, after the heat of the ballroom the cold is welcome.”
Then he got down to the business at hand, the surprise. “In
honor of Valentine’s Day, I have invited the lovely Irina
Dupeski, fortune teller extraordinaire, to tell our fortunes in
the hopes that we shall find success in amour.” Giles finished
with a grand flourish, introducing from the shadows a ravenhaired woman dressed in luscious multicolored skirts.

“Your friends, my lord?” She asked in a Russian tinged
accent, sweeping the group with a white smile framed by red
lips. “Who shall be first?” she flirted.

“I am” Alain volunteered with his characteristic impulsiveness, thrusting out his palm as Irina settled on the step
next to him.

She ran an experimental finger over his palm, caressing
the lines. “What do you want to know, my lord?”

Tristan’s thoughts drifted away from Alain’s fortune as
the gypsy’s words were drowned in a wave of laughter from
the group. He looked at each of his friends in turn and felt
an all too familiar pang of loneliness deep in his chest. He envied them their closeness. He envied them the years they’d
had together before his arrival into the tight-knit coterie. He
envied them the last seven years he’d been absent from their
presence, pursuing his own official and unofficial activities
on the Continent for the Crown.

Tristan shifted his position on the balustrade where he sat,
drawing himself further into the darkness, away from the
shafts of light spilling out from the ballroom. He could see
Giles, his golden head thrown back in a deep, honest laugh,
his warm brown eyes sparking with mischief as he playfully
ribbed Chatham. In a moment, the teasing passed. Chatham
threw a warning look to Giles as Irina moved to take his palm.

Tristan sighed. How he’d missed them all! His selfimposed exile had transpired in a vacuum of loneliness. He’d
missed Giles constantly organizing their entertainments.
He’d missed Chatham with his distinctively soft, clipped
aristocratic voice that women fell in love with everywhere.
He’d missed Alain, his best friend, most of all. It had been
too difficult to think about Alain without also thinking of
Isabella-a very good reason why one shouldn’t fall in love
with one’s friend’s sister. He had learned that lesson too late.

Tonight, as Queen of the Heavens, she embodied the sun,
dressed as she was in a high-waisted gown of bronze silk
with tiny puffed sleeves banded in black velvet. Her honeycolored hair was piled high on her head in thick ringlets, a
few trailing down to brush the almost bare expanse of her
shoulders. Around her slender neck hung a topaz pendant
which was designed to emulate the sun. He was filled with
an unexpected and entirely inappropriate impulse to trace
her body with his hand from the column of her neck to the
topaz jewel that rested just above the swell of her breasts.

He shifted, trying to exorcise his growing discomfort.
Seeing her yesterday had affected him more than he could
have imagined. The incident in the garden had nearly
unmanned him. The evening’s festivities with their overt
themes of love had done nothing to alleviate his situation.
Isabella had been true to her word in assisting him with his search for a wife. She’d been by his side most of the evening,
guessing at which Eligibles were cloaked beneath the dominoes. But not even the beauties she’d encouraged in his direction had been enough to distract him from her presence or the
recent memory of her touch when she’d held his hand by the
fountain. Tristan shifted again and made to slip further into
the shadows but Giles’s voice broke into his reveries.

“Tristan, give Isabella your domino, she’s left hers inside.
We all know you’re a furnace anyway.” Giles ordered with a
goodnatured laugh, referring to the inordinate amount of
body heat Tristan managed to generate regularly, even in the
middle of a winter night. Tonight, Tristan wished he weren’t
quite so hot-blooded. A dash of cold would be welcome to
subdue his more heated thoughts.

The object of his ungentlemanly discomfort was indeed
shivering, Tristan noted as he complied with the command,
draping his cloak about Isabella’s shoulders while Irina finished with Giles’s fortune. He hoped everyone was too distracted by the fortune teller to notice the effort it took for
him to make his action look like a casual gesture. His fingertips inadvertently brushed the exposed skin of her shoulder and he felt her stiffen at the contact. He wished he could
see her face at that moment of contact. Did she shiver from
hidden desire or from dislike? Had his scar repelled her?

Irina approached the spot where he and Isabella sat.
Tristan withdrew hastily back into his dark corner behind
her. He hoped the fortune teller would overlook him or at
least have the wits to sense his reticence and leave him alone.
He was not destined to be so lucky. Irina stepped past
Isabella and took possession of his hand. “Such a handsome
man must have a good fortune awaiting him.” Irina flirted
playfully, drawing him from his latest shadowy perch. He did
not protest her inspection. He had not planned to participate
in such a school boyish venture, but he was trapped now. He
was only glad she had grabbed for his right hand and not his
ruined left. He was not ready for others to know of his injury.
There would be questions asked that he could not answer.

“Alas, a cold but loyal heart dwells within you” Irina fell
silent, letting Tristan’s hand go slack in her own. “I am sorry.
You are blank to me” She turned his hand back to front and
back again, studying the short, clean nails on one side and
the multitude of criss-crossing lines scored deep in the palm
on the other. The pretty gypsy furrowed her brow in puzzlement. Her eyes suddenly brightened. “Wait, there is something else here.” She smiled up at him with dazzling white
teeth. “You will find love soon. It will be a deep, abiding
love that transcends all else.” Redeemed, she let his hand
drop back to his side.

Giles clapped his hands appreciatively. “We are all in
luck tonight! What good fortunes await us all in amour.”

Chatham held up a hand. “Don’t jinx it, Giles. We still
have Isabella’s fortune to hear.”

Chatham had meant it goodnaturedly, but from his position behind her, Tristan could see Isabella flinch at the
reminder. Was she also reluctant to have her fortune told?

Irina took the cue and studied Isabella’s hesitantly offered
palm. “Let’s see, my lady. This is good. You have a long life
ahead of you. You shall become a Grande Dame. What’s
this?” Irina ran a finger down a line creasing the center of
Isabella’s palm. “Love” Irina shook her head sadly. “This is
not good. The line is troubled. You have loved intensely in
your youth, but only for a short while and it has hardened
you,” she paused here for dramatic effect. “You fear love and
all the things that accompany it. You caution yourself against
loving again. But you must, or you will be doomed to spend
your long years alone.”

The other three laughed and offered humorous consolation to Isabella, but Tristan was not amused at all as he
watched Isabella angrily snatch back her hand. She gave a
gallant toss of her head and declared in what he expected
was her best London-hostess tone, “La, Giles, you are not
paying her enough. Fortunes are only supposed to be
good.”