The Honorable Heir (15 page)

For a moment, neither of them made a sound, while their team shouted and groaned on the shore. Then Tristram grabbed the push bar for balance. Upright, he released the chair to go to Catherine’s aid, and the chair soared across the ice, executed a pirouette and came to a standstill a dozen yards away.

“The chair is a better skater than either of us.” Tristram reached down to take Catherine’s hands.

She laughed up at him as she struggled to get her feet beneath her. “We had better catch up with it.”

“Then allow me.” He tucked his hands beneath her elbows and lifted.

With the sun beating down, the surface had grown more slick. Both sets of blades took on minds of their own and Tristram ended up on his knees holding Catherine far too close.

Or just close enough—close enough that the merest lowering of his head would bring his lips in contact with hers. He didn’t give himself time to think whether or not he should; he lowered his head that fraction and kissed her because he couldn’t stop himself any more than iron filings could stop themselves from sticking to a magnet. And once his lips contacted hers, he didn’t care who saw them.

From far away came a smattering of applause, a few hoots and one cry of protest. For far too few moments, Tristram held Catherine to him, her lips warm beneath his. Then cold from the wet ice seeped through his trousers and he remembered where he was, and the size and makeup of the audience.

He raised his head. Her eyes were still closed, her face bright with sunshine and wonder.

“They’re coming to our aid. Or perhaps to string me up.”

“Or me, the wicked widow.” She half turned to face the rescuers. Ambrose, Pierce and Georgette were sailing across the ice, their faces grim.

“I will not apologize.” Tristram took Catherine’s hand.

She shook her head, and kept a grip on his fingers. His heart soared like the skaters racing toward them. She hadn’t rejected him. She wasn’t rejecting him.

Yet she still might, if the faces of the others were indications of trouble.

Catherine reached out for Georgette. “I am so sorry. I never meant—”

“Never mind that.” Pierce hauled her to her runners. “A call just came into the clubhouse for you to come home at once.”

Chapter 14

The bride gives a “wedding present” or a “wedding ring” or both to the groom, if she especially wants to. (Not necessary, nor even customary.)

Emily Price Post

R
eality slammed into Catherine like a streetcar. What was she thinking, kissing Tristram—kissing Tristram in front of everyone, in front of Georgette. She was creating another scandal.

“What urgent message?” Catherine thought to ask as Pierce gripped her hand, pulling her toward the shore like a child’s toy on wheels, leaving Tristram behind with Georgette and Ambrose.

“I don’t know. A call came into the club saying for you to go home immediately.”

A crisis with one of the charity events, no doubt, a frantic hostess on the phone or sending telegrams.

Catherine increased her stride once on shore. “Where’s Estelle?”

“I don’t know.” Pierce glanced around. “I expect she heard of the summons and left already. Get your skates off, I’ll drive you.”

And keep her away from Tristram.

Catherine complied in the event the call was a true emergency. She proved fumble-fingered and unbalanced in her haste to enter the clubhouse. She looked around for Georgette as she removed her skates. She saw neither the old friend she had once again betrayed, nor Tristram. They had likely walked off alone, Georgette remonstrating or pleading, Tristram explaining—how? What would he say? That “it was a madness of the moment”?

But it wasn’t. He loved her. She loved him. It was foolish of her. He was another impoverished English lord, courtesy title or direct heir to marquessate or not. He would likely not find the jewels now unless—

She caught her breath. No, no, not so. He wouldn’t woo her with sweet kisses and tender words, figuring he could benefit from her trust fund and still prove she was the thief to please his father. No one was that mercenary.

Yet the past reared its head, Edwin telling her he had loved her all along and her accepting his words as truth because she wanted to believe she was entering a love match and not one that was purely selfish. The past waved a banner of distrust in her face, blinding her with tears.

“I suggest you go into the city for a few days.” Pierce delivered his admonition as he drew the auto up to the front steps of Lake House. “You’ve proven once again you can’t be loyal to a friend.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what else to say.

Pierce rounded the vehicle to help her down, and the butler flung open the front door.

“Lady Bisterne, so glad you’re here. Mrs. VanDorn is in her boudoir.”

Catherine raced up the steps to Mama’s boudoir and opened the door without knocking. “Mama, what’s wrong? Did Mrs. Rutlidge fail to—”

“No.” Mama slumped over her escritoire, a handkerchief pressed to her eyes. “Not that charity ball.” She lowered the handkerchief and gazed at Catherine. “It’s Estelle. She’s eloped.”

“But I just saw her.” Catherine sank onto the chaise longue. “No more than...”

When had she seen her last? Right before the races started. Thirty minutes? Forty?

“How do you know?” Catherine demanded.

Mama held out a crumpled and damp sheet of paper covered with musical notes on one side and scrawled writing on the other. Catherine took it and read the message in a glance.
Florian and I eloped.

“Not another one.” Catherine dropped her head into her hands. “We can’t bear another scandal. Estelle’s reputation. Our reputation. Our family honor.”

She had done damage to her family five years ago. She swore she wouldn’t do it again under any circumstances. Yet she had let Tristram kiss her—she had kissed Tristram—right in front of half the young people in Tuxedo Park.

She squeezed her skull between her palms. “Did you tell Papa or Paul?”

“I won’t do it over the telephone. I’ll have to wait until they get home unless you go into the city on the next train and tell them in person.”

Catherine’s head shot up. “It can wait until they reach home. There’s nothing we can do from the city.”

“You can make discreet enquiries about train passengers from here and in which direction they departed.” Mama groaned. “Where have we gone wrong with our girls? It isn’t as though we forced you into loveless marriages.”

Catherine rested her hand on Mama’s shoulder. “You were possibly too indulgent, allowing Estelle to devote herself to her music, though not doing so would have been a shame. She is so very gifted. And as for me... I let the hunger for status amongst the people here rule my heart instead of the faith you taught me.” She embraced her mother, then strode to the door. “I’ll do what I can to find her.”

She caught up a hat and her handbag from her room and then ran down the steps, calling for the automobile to be brought around.

It already waited for her in the front. Catherine climbed in and they chugged toward the gates and outside the fence to the train station, where another train wasn’t due for an hour. An hour to wait, to pace around the waiting area, to fret over Estelle’s madcap behavior, over her own terrible behavior with Tristram, over her inability to set the past behind after all.

Lord, why can I not make wise choices?

Seeing the station master, she rushed across the room. He had known her family for years. He had been the last familiar face in Tuxedo Park who had seen her when she eloped. “Sir, can you tell me what train Miss Estelle VanDorn took?”

“Miss Estelle?” He scratched his head beneath his railroad cap. “Hmm. I don’t believe I’ve seen her today.”

Catherine stepped back. “Then how—?” she began. Then she clamped her mouth shut. “Thank you.”

If they hadn’t taken a train, how had they departed? They wouldn’t have access to an automobile. But Florian could drive a carriage.

She left the station and headed through the village to the livery. Her actions were going to create a stir. They wouldn’t be able to keep Estelle’s elopement with Florian quiet for long. But that wouldn’t matter if Catherine could bring Estelle back. Once she returned, any hint of gossip would die down. People would put the temporary disappearance down to a youthful lark.

When Catherine hastened into the livery, the liveryman was just unharnessing a horse from a buggy, the former looking weary. He shouted something to a stable hand, then approached Catherine, his face puzzled. People from inside the fence rarely rented horses or buggies from him.

“Ma’am?”

“Has a young man rented a horse from you today? Dark hair, green eyes, about this tall?” She held her hand a few inches over her head.

The liveryman nodded at the horse the hand led toward the stable. “He picked him up around two hours ago. Just sent him back lathered like he’d been in a race. And if he takes sick ’cause of it—”

“Send the bill to the VanDorn household. Where did he come back from?”

“The man didn’t say. Just left him here and walked off.” He narrowed his eyes. “Is there something illegal at foot?”

“I don’t think so. Just a guest being foolish.” She offered him a winning smile and retraced her steps to the train station.

The man who had returned the carriage for Florian and Estelle would have to get back to wherever he came from somehow. If he didn’t have a vehicle, the train was the only way.

The train she intended to take into the city had departed, and a lone passenger slumped on a bench. Catherine approached him, conscious of the station master staring at her from behind the ticket counter. “Did you just deliver a buggy to the livery?”

“Yes, ma’am.” The man didn’t bother to rise. “Got paid well, too, to keep quiet.”

“How well?”

He told her.

She paid him twice as much to talk.

And then she sat to wait for the next train. Outside, dusk fell. Incoming trains began to disgorge passengers returning from the city. She scanned the crowds for Papa and Paul, then thought to duck her head so none of the others who knew her would see she sat waiting for a train alone, a train that arrived at last, delayed by snow upstate. Down the line everything remained clear, giving Florian and Estelle too much of a head start.

Catherine sprang to her feet and headed for the doors, pushing against the inflowing tide of city workers.

“Catherine?” Her name rang out over the general hubbub. “Catherine, wait!”

Catherine spun around on the edge of the platform. Surely her ears deceived her.

They did not. Georgette shoved through the crowd and grasped Catherine’s hand. “Thank the Lord I found you. Your mother said you probably left already, but I had to try. I’d have come after you—” She stopped to catch her breath. “You must come.”

“Come where?” Catherine blinked in confusion.

“All aboard,” the conductor bellowed.

Catherine took a step toward Georgette, then stopped. “I have to get on this train.”

“No, you have to come back to my house.” Georgette dashed a hand across her eyes. “It’s Tristram. He—”

The train’s whistle blew, drowning her words.

“Tristram what?” Catherine grasped Georgette’s arm.

“He’s been badly injured.” Georgette’s shout cut through the whistle, the hiss of steam from the boiler sounded like the scream rising in Catherine’s throat. “He’s asking for you.”

Catherine pulled at the fingers of her gloves, torn between listening to Georgette and going to Tristram, and going after her sister to prevent the scandal already in the making.

The train would leave in no more than a minute or two. Catherine must be on it or Estelle would be lost somewhere in the city, or even on a ship across the Atlantic.

“I have to be on that train.” Her heart squeezed. She teetered as though physically pulled in two directions.

“He could die if his injuries are bad enough.” Georgette grasped Catherine’s shoulders and shook her. “If you don’t come, then you truly have betrayed our friendship because you don’t deserve a man who loves you as he does.”

“My sister... The scandal... I—”

“Last chance, ma’am.” The conductor called to Catherine across the empty platform.

Perhaps her last chance to see Tristram, her last chance for love. She could lose him forever. Estelle had made her own choice to create a scandal. Mama had made the choice to keep it quiet and not make telephone calls that could have stopped her younger daughter.

If Catherine chose not to go to him to protect her family’s reputation, it was the sort of selfish action that had caused so much trouble in the past. If she wanted to truly set the past behind her, she needed to go to Tristram and show him that she put him first.

She waved the conductor on and turned to Georgette. “What happened?”

The train doors closed, the whistle blasted again and the train drew forward, gathering speed with every yard.

Georgette tucked her arm through Catherine’s and dragged her toward the exit. “He was walking down the hill to see you at Lake House when the brake on an auto failed and struck him down.”

“An auto.” Catherine pictured the heavy machine barreling down the hill, striking him, crushing him. “Who-whose auto was it?”

Georgette sighed with a catch in the middle of the exhalation. “Ours.”

* * *

Tristram raised his lids to see Catherine gazing down at him with eyes as soft as velvet, her hand holding his. He managed a smile. “I needed to see you.”

“I’m here now.”

He closed his eyes again, aching all over from bruised and broken ribs, a sprained wrist and ankle, and more bruises. About the only part of him not hit by the speeding automobile was his head, spared when he dove headfirst into a snowbank.

One more attempt on his life, this one coming too close to be brushed aside for the sake of not making his father angry. The culprit had to have known he had left the Selkirks and headed down the hill.

He knew the answer. Of course he did. But Dr. Rushmore had made him drink what felt like a gallon of chloral hydrate for the pain, and his brain felt too fogged to think.

“I’ll stay here as long as I can.” Catherine drew his hand to her cheek, then rested it on the coverlet again. “So are Georgette and Ambrose with you.”

“Florian? Where?” Tristram levered himself up on one elbow. “Where is Florian?”

“Later.” She smoothed hair back from his brow with a cool hand. “When you’re more awake.”

“Where is Florian?” He would ask the question until she answered.

“May as well tell him.” Ambrose’s voice rumbled across the room.

She sighed. “Florian seems to have eloped with my sister.”

“Did he?” Tristram started to chuckle. A stab of pain sliced through his ribs and he stopped. “He’d better marry her or I’ll take drastic measures.”

“He’ll marry her.” Ambrose sounded disgruntled. “Some men enjoy charmed lives. Florian gets his heiress. You get yours. Me, I get nothing.”

“I have little enough to offer a bride.” Tristram managed to open his eyes wide enough to look into Catherine’s. “Perhaps a true title in a few years, but no money.”

“You could still find the thief by your father’s deadline.” Her smile was probably meant to be encouraging.

He shook his head, making it swim, but held his ground. “I’ve given up on that. I can’t risk my life just to impress him.”

Across the room, Georgette emitted a little sob.

He wished she weren’t there. He had tried to talk to her there at the racket club. But she had given him a curt, “I understand,” and climbed into the automobile with several other ladies. He had walked, forming a speech to her in his head. He recalled most of it, but his limbs felt too heavy, his mind too slow for speech. His eyelids drifted shut, but sleep was too easy an escape.

“Georgette? Please... Here?”

A rustle of fabric, the tap of heels on the floor and she stood on the opposite side from Catherine. “I’m here.” She sniffed.

“Thank you. I’m sorry.” He tried to breathe, winced and pressed on. “I value the friendship you’ve offered me. And I should not have let you think there could be anything between us. Please forgive me.”

“You’re forgiven.” Georgette sighed. “I should have known from the night of the ball when I saw you talking to Catherine.”

“I never intended,” Catherine blurted. “I tried to stay away, to keep him away.” She lowered her head. “I tried not to love him.”