The Skilled Seduction (20 page)

“Why won’t she consider the option of marriage?”

“Because I said something I shouldn’t have.” Tristan wished he could leave it there but he knew his brother would demand details. “I said I would marry her, mind you, but I – I admitted that I didn’t love her and that I never would. It was something I said in my sleep. I never meant for—”

“Talking in your sleep? I thought you’d outgrown that phase when you were a child,” Colin closed his eyes, taking time to inhale a deep breath before tackling the issue at hand. “Please, let me see if I understand correctly. You compromised Victoria, the same woman who has adored you for years might I add. You then told her you’d never love her and that you would marry her only because you had no other choice but to do so?”

“I didn’t use that exact phrasing,” Tristan said, turning away from his brother and placing his glass on top of the sideboard with a faint
clink
. “But, what I did say was reprehensible and I regret hurting her feelings.”

A thick silence engulfed the room as Tristan scrutinized his reflection in the mirror above the sideboard. The man before him appeared familiar, possessed an air of respectability, yet it was a façade.
 

He was a fraud.

The knowledge caused Tristan to avert his eyes from his reflection because even he was sickened by the man he’d become.

“I was wrong to have said it, Colin,” he admitted with more emotion than he had planned.
 

“She loves you, Tristan!” Colin glared at him. “How could you say such a thing to her? Or worse yet, treat her like a common whore?”

Tristan flinched. “Victoria is no whore.” This time he did look at his reflection. A stranger stared back at him. Sure he appeared similar to the man he had been just a few years prior, with the exception of a few additional lines around his eyes but he was different now.

Indeed, he’d transformed into a selfish bastard.

His night with Victoria had been precipitated by his own desperation to join with her, his own burning need to take possession of her. It had been years in the making, since their first kiss.

True enough, she had tried everything to make Tristan see her as his equal. Hell, one could argue that her own persistence in pursuing him all but willed last night into existence. But, truth be told, he hadn’t required much encouragement.

“Victoria is no whore,” he repeated, this time to his reflection. “She is spectacular. She is intelligent, witty and fiercely independent. Victoria is precisely the woman I
should
fall in love with.”

Tristan could feel his brother’s eyes boring into his back. When he acknowledged Colin, his brother continued to study him through narrowed eyes. So much so that he felt like one of Dr. Frankenstein’s bloody experiments.
   

At last, Colin broke the silence. “I never said she is a whore. I said you treated her like one.”
   

“Damn it, Colin, no more!” This time it was Tristan who pounded his fist against the sideboard. He then flattened his palms against the smooth wood. His tone, low and dangerous, was testament that on this he brooked no argument. “Say what you will about me but do not utter one more word about Victoria’s virtue.”

Thick silence, like a heavy morning fog, engulfed the room and Tristan suddenly wished that he hadn’t silenced his brother. Wasn’t Colin’s tirade better than this damned false calm?

“I know I was wrong and I am sorry, Colin,” Tristan crossed the room, taking a seat on the sofa across from his brother’s. The two pieces of furniture were each the same color and length, mirror images of each other with a mahogany coffee table separating them. But, as Tristan observed his brother, he realized that while the furnishings were the same, the men sitting upon them were polar opposites.

Colin was a good man, deep down inside. He had a large heart and hung it on his sleeve for his wife. Did Tristan even have a heart anymore, or did it just shrivel up from lack of use?

No, he did use it. He loved his sister, his niece and nephew. Yet, he’d remained distant until the night of Gwen’s brush with death. Fear still seized Tristan’s heart in a vise grip whenever he contemplated those events.
 

Almost losing her nearly destroyed him. Then, like an angel sent from the heavens, Victoria came to him, saving him from himself.

When Tristan remembered the events of that evening, he now recognized the affection that drove Victoria’s actions. Each time she stroked his arm in Gwen’s room and when she humbled herself in his suite, undressing in front of him.

Damn him to hell, he should have seen it then. The way she looked at him with those beautiful blue eyes, the way her gaze pierced his very soul. It was love and he’d discarded it, as if it didn’t matter when it should have meant the world to him.

Her love now meant everything to him.

Was it truly too late?

Since he couldn’t stomach the alternative, Tristan was left with no choice but to believe there was a chance that Victoria would once again care for him. Was he being much too optimistic for his own good? As Tristan could personally attest, he was no optimist – far from it, as a matter of fact. But he held out hope that she was simply salvaging her pride, protecting her wounded heart, like he had done for years.

“This wasn’t our first encounter, Colin,” Tristan admitted, quickly adding, “we kissed twice before, once on the day of your wedding to Eve. I have thought about her and that damned kiss for years, until I thought I was going stark raving mad. I kissed her again, hoping that the attraction had been in my imagination though I was dead wrong.”

Colin inhaled deeply, as if it took all the strength in the world for him to remain silent while Tristan continued.

“I think I have been evading my attraction to Victoria since the day of your wedding, even more than I have been in seclusion to avoid you and your wife.”

Tristan’s eyes locked with his brother’s. “It is time for me to stop running, Colin. I want to marry her but Victoria claims that she no longer loves me.”

His brother sat on the edge of the sofa, elbows on his knees, clenching and unclenching his hands into tight fists. He was itching to punch him, Tristan realized, and he half wished Colin would do it. After all, it was the least he deserved.

Bile rose in his throat as he realized that Colin was correct about one thing. Tristan had treated Victoria like a common whore. Hell, he hadn’t even used the bed. In spite of it, she didn’t run until he’d said those insensitive words.

“I believe she wants to marry me but that her pride is injured and, in response, she is refusing me. I understand her reasoning more than most, as you are well aware.” Tristan reminded his brother with an arched brow.

“If you were any other man I would have called you out by now,” Colin glared at his brother as he stood, crossing the room then pouring another tumbler.
   

“What would you like to do, challenge me to pistols at dawn?” Tristan raked his hands through his hair. “You owe me, for God’s sake. I caught you kissing
my
betrothed, remember?”

Colin grabbed the decanter and headed back towards Tristan. “At least I didn’t have a ruinous romp with her,” he said, shoving the crystal decanter of amber liquid in his brother’s direction.
   

It was a low blow but it was also the truth. So much so that Tristan didn’t respond, choosing instead to take a large gulp from his glass, then another, followed by another. He allowed the fine liquor to burn a path down his throat, readily accepting the numbness it offered.

Once he had drained his glass, Tristan reached for the decanter, refilling his tumbler. He then studied its contents, swooshing the amber liquid within its crystal confines. “You owe me for so much more than that, Colin. Speaking to Tori on my behalf is the only thing I have ever asked of you – you know it as well as I do.”

His brother’s tension eased, albeit slightly, in silent acknowledgment.

 
“I can apply for a special license and we can marry in London. No one needs to know the intimate details and Victoria’s reputation can remain intact.”

“Why should I convince Victoria to marry you?” Colin lifted his glass to his lips, taking a hefty swig. “Why the hell shouldn’t I advise Victoria to flee as far and as fast as she can?”

“Because you have offered to help me, several times in fact, since your wedding and I am accepting your offer at long last. And because I have thought of Victoria every bloody day and night since the day of your wedding. I’ve avoided her in a futile effort to protect my heart and hers, but she refused to relent, instead designing an intricate ruse to make me jealous – to make me want her.

Tristan took another sip in a desperate hope that the alcohol would quench his desperate desire to marry Victoria. “Tori’s attempts were successful. So much so that she made me realize how much I need her.”
 

Colin’s eyes locked with Tristan’s. “There are a dozen men who want the same thing and they’d treat her with a hell of a lot more respect than you have.”

His brother was right and a new wave of abhorrence washed over Tristan. He didn’t deserve Victoria. Now he realized just how many men did. Oliver Wainright, for instance … the man possessed wealth and a title. He was also a well-bred gentleman who, aside from kissing Victoria on a balcony, had been nothing but respectful to her. Tori had said the kiss was staged but Tristan doubted that Wainright’s response was.
 

What had Oliver said after the kiss? Tristan wracked his brain. It had been some flowery sentiment, if his memory served him correctly. Something about her beauty and how he’d marry her for more kisses like the one they’d shared. Tristan suspected that the man would jump at the chance to marry Tori. Hell, Wainright would probably do the honorable thing and marry her even knowing that she was no longer pure.

Wainright was a gentleman, a saint in comparison to Tristan, who had taken Victoria’s virtue on the carpet of a cold, dark bedroom.
 

Tristan turned to catch his brother glaring at him. “I’m baring my heart to you, Colin. What else do you want to hear from me?”

“Admit the truth!” Colin’s voice reverberated against the wood paneled walls, echoing through the room and bouncing off the high ceiling painted with a vast blue sky and fluffy white clouds. “If you are incapable of doing so with Victoria or me, then at least admit the truth to yourself.”

Would Tristan even recognize the truth anymore? “She makes me feel—”

“I’d rather not hear how she made you feel,” Colin grabbed the decanter again and emptied its contents into his glass. “This is Victoria you’ve defiled.”

Defiled.
 

Such a harsh word for what had become the most intimate act Tristan had ever experienced.

By the time he broke the silence, Tristan’s voice was hoarse. “I feel whole when I am with her, for the first time, perhaps the only time in my life.”

He leaned forward and placed his empty glass on the table in front of him then traced the rim with his forefinger, avoiding eye contact with his brother.

“You’ve made such a mess of this, Tristan.” Despite his harsh statement, Colin’s tone was free of censure for the first time since their conversation had begun. “I think you love Victoria but are terrified to admit it, even to yourself.”

Tristan transferred his attention to a watermark on the table, unable to fathom the course his thoughts had taken, let alone what he was about to admit aloud to his brother.

“I can’t release her, Colin,” Tristan tried to rub the stain away with his fingertips but it was damaged permanently. Like his relationship with Victoria? He couldn’t tolerate that possibility. “I can’t live without her because I want to be a better person when I’m with her,
because
I’m with her, if that makes any sense.”

Tristan’s heartfelt admissions permeated his tired brain.

He was falling in love with her.

“It sure as hell sounds like love to me,” Colin said, reinforcing what Tristan already suspected.

If Tristan were to step back and consider it logically, it did indeed sound like love. Had he ascertained nothing from his parent’s disastrous marriage and his own broken betrothal? Love hurts, makes one vulnerable, makes one fragile. He learned from his father long ago never to show weakness.
 

Those painful lessons bore scars that not even time could diminish.
 

Viewing this situation from afar, Victoria’s reputation would be tarnished if anyone knew that he’d compromised her.
 

As for his reputation, a respectable barrister doesn’t behave as society perceived him to. He must protect Victoria from his own reputation, his choices, his secrets yet he still insisted upon marrying her.

Why else would he take that risk if not for love?

On the other hand, why take that risk if he did indeed love her?

“I’ll speak with Victoria,” Colin reclined, studying his brother.

Tristan expected to feel relief but, instead, a knot of fear wound tight in his abdomen. What if she still refused? He couldn’t go there. Not now, not yet.

Colin tilted his head to the side, his authoritative baritone breaking Tristan’s silent contemplation. “I cannot promise that I will advise Victoria to marry you. As a matter of fact, I may counsel her against it.”