Chapter 14

Tristan held her in his arms as long as he could. Quiet, but for the rattling of the wheels, the crunch of the earth beneath them, grew heavy and lovely around them. Outside the window, Clearford's townhouse appeared at the end of the street. Only a few moments remained until he had to let her go.

Something wild had taken hold of him. He'd agreed to court one of Clearford's sisters for a purpose. He'd kissed Andromeda on a calculated whim. He'd courted her with selfish determination. Now he was adrift, all purpose and calculation shattered by the way she'd shivered in his arms, beneath his touch. No, shattered by four words stamped in ink on thick paper.

Proud of him? For seducing her, ruining her, and keeping her well and sated so she wouldn't ruin him? It was his best choice, the one that gave him at least a chance. Less than a year to keep her secret. It would work.

The carriage rumbled to a stop, and Andromeda's head finally popped up, blue-green eyes blinking in the cool shadows. "We're here so soon? Well." She gave a tiny sigh and flicked a glance his way as she eased herself out of his embrace. "Thank you for a… a lovely afternoon."

He stood to help her onto the street, but she did not hook her arm through his as Johnny opened the door for them. He'd have to find a Johnny when they wed, a fellow big enough to keep her safe when she wandered about Town and bold enough to face dangerous men on her behalf when Tristan himself was not about.

"Do you think your Johnny would come with you when we wed?"

In the semi-cool of the foyer, she froze. "Wed? What do you mean wed?" Her voice was as flat as a freshly printed square of paper.

"I mean what every other person means, I suspect."

"You have not asked me to marry you." Her gaze hovered between sharp and hazy, sharp as they were when telling him no and hazy as they'd been when he'd asked if she wished to be courted. She could be seduced, but she wanted romance. Deserved romance. Wasn't that why Clearford had warned him away? He'd been afraid Tristan and his pocket-watch heart could give Andromeda nothing but pain. But romance and love were not the same thing. While he could not give her the latter, he could easily supply the former.

He sauntered toward her, and she stood her ground. He cradled her hands gently in his own.

"No gloves." She chuckled. "If you insist on gifting me books, I should gift you gloves."

"As many as you like, Captain. But I can't promise not to lose them. Besides"—he flipped his hands and wove their fingers together. "I think you like looking at my bare hands."

She looked now, her lips slightly parted. "They're so… capable."

He lifted their hands together and kissed her knuckles. "I don't like being told no. So, I'm not going to propose today. But soon. Quite, quite soon." He kissed her knuckles again, lingering this time, too long, before he released her. "I'll come inside tomorrow when I deliver Alex for his day's lessons."

She stood for several seconds, immobile, staring, one hand lifting to her lips as if she expected a kiss there, desired it. Then she fisted her hands in her skirts, lifted them, and fled up the stairs.

He stretched his fingers wide, shook them out. Had the bones shifted? Had his hand molded itself to hers, so now it felt odd without her holding it? He shook his hands once more and made to follow her upward to retrieve Alex from the schoolroom.

"Kingston."

Tristan startled and whirled around.

Clearford lurked in the shadows of the hallway beyond the stairs. "I'd like to speak with you in my study." He spun on his heel and disappeared into the shadows.

"A damn ghost, he is," Tristan mumbled as he followed his friend down the hall. What obstacle did Clearford think to put in his path now? He hated to face the man in battle and fell him. Not only had he been a friend at school when everyone else sneered at him, but he was exactly the sort of man Tristan needed in his corner if Lady Eldridge decided to sue for guardianship of Alex.

He didn't want to fight Clearford, and being at odds wasn't in line with his needs. But his fists didn't seem to know that. They curled into a ready shape. And his heart didn't seem to understand, either. It beat against his ribs and muscle like a caged beast ready to attack.

In Clearford's study, the duke stood before the painting of his sisters.

And unexpectedly, another man sat nearby. Quinton Chance, Viscount Noble lounged in a chair near the empty fireplace, one boot resting atop his other knee. He raised a quizzical brow at Tristan and offered no answers. Or support. Only a cocky half grin, the Noble Smirk as it had been dubbed in the papers. Tristan's papers. Naturally, it had caught on.

"What's this about, Clearford?" Tristan demanded. "Do you know, Noble?"

The viscount shrugged. "No clue. We were enjoying a little chat, and he bolted out of the room, returned with you."

Clearford spoke, facing the painting. "My father had this work commissioned the year he died. He never got to see it finished, but he'd had this very spot cleared for months in preparation of hanging it here. His daughters were his pride. For most men, it's the son. For him"—Clearford shook his head, finally faced them—"he loved his daughters to distraction. It was only right that I put the painting here when it finally arrived, but now it taunts me. They are all five years older than they were here. And those that should be, are not married. I am failing them. Failing my father."

Noble rolled his eyes.

Tristan wanted to kick the viscount in the head. A common urge. He opened his mouth to speak to his friend's imagined failures.

But Clearford strode his way and stopped right before him, a marble man but for moving lips. "What I just saw between the two of you in the foyer. Hell." He snapped his head to the side, as if he could not stand the sight of Tristan. "You reminded me of my parents." He snapped his gaze back to Tristan. "Tell me and don't lie, or I'll apply a very sharp quill to your eyeball, perhaps a letter opener—are you in love with her?"

What could he say to that? Could a man fall in love when he'd never seen it happen, only ever read about it, and only then in the most far-fetched of fiction?

"I want to make her happy." In the painting above his friend's shoulder, every face was a blur but one. Blue-green eyes and shifting hair. "I want to tear apart and burn down anything that harms her or even threatens to. Just seeing her makes me smile, and I have this damn irrational desire to do anything in my power to make her feel the same way about me. You want the truth? Do I love her? I don't know if I can. But do I want to make her feel like the most valuable creature in the world?" Words dissolved like sugar in tea, and he lurched to a chair across from Noble and sank into it. "Yes. Yes, I do."

No one moved. No one spoke. The summer heat seemed to press harder around them, becoming a physical thing, a wall. Then Clearford pushed right through it and sat round the empty grate with Tristan on one side and Noble on the other.

Tristan spread his legs wide and clasped the curved ends of the chair arm. "You told me to choose that first day, Clearford, and I told you who I wanted, and even though you told me I was wrong, I chose her." He turned his head to find Clearford studying him. "You said the most important part was choosing right. Choosing a woman other than Andromeda would be wrong." For so many reasons, some of them more complicated than others.

Clearford inhaled slowly, drumming his fingers on the top of his thigh. "Very well. Then we must host a ball."

"A ball?" Noble laughed. "That's what you have to say to King's admission that he's fallen for your sister?"

"Not fallen," Tristan said. "Just… dedicated."

Noble grunted. "Dedicated to falling for her." He waved a hand in the air like a leaf falling. "You're tumbling all the way down, and I'm not sure there's any ground beneath you. You'll just keep falling and falling and—"

"A ball," Clearford said, redirecting the conversation before Tristan could put a boot in Noble's face. "Lottie gave me the idea the other day. My mother used to host one every Season, and she intended to host rather lavish ones to announce each of my sister's engagements. Which is all fine, but…" He narrowed his eyes at Tristan. "How many invitations do you receive during the Season? To balls and such?"

"None."

"I was afraid of that."

Tristan leaned forward and rubbed his hands down his face. "Can we slow down one minute? I thought you very much disapproved of my courting Andromeda, and now you're planning an engagement ball?"

"No." Clearford propped his elbow on the arm of his chair and rested his chin in his hand. "I don't think it can be an engagement ball. The ton needs to see you courting my sister in the proper environment. So, we'll hold a—"

"Courtship ball?" Noble snickered. "How sweet." He fluttered his lashes at Tristan.

"Why are you friends with this nodcock?" Tristan asked Clearford.

"Because we're neighbors. Here and in the country. He's just always… there."

"As if I don't bring much needed levity to your life." Noble nudged the duke's chair leg with his boot.

Clearford scowled in return. "You are not allowed anywhere near my sisters."

Noble shrugged. "I've no intention of ever being near them. Do not worry over that, friend."

"What am I supposed to do at a courtship ball?" Tristan asked.

"We won't call it that, of course," Clearford explained. "But you'll dance. I'll show my approval of your suit, and everyone in attendance will know you are part of the family now. And not to be snubbed."

A chill slipped across Tristan's soul. "Would they dare snub Andromeda?"

"Annie? I'm not sure. Difficult to snub someone you don't see. She's easy to miss. Mousy. Quiet. Though her connection to you might make her more visible."

Tristan sat up taller. "Andromeda? Mousy and quiet? Are we talking about the same woman?"

The duke blinked at Tristan. Tristan blinked back.

"Which one's Andromeda?" Noble asked.

"You can go to hell," Tristan snapped.

"The one remaining problem, of course," Clearford said, falling backward into the chair, "is Bashton. I'm assuming she's gently and quietly told him he's no longer wanted. I can't see him caring much. If he'd cared, he would have married her already. But they do write to one another quite often. She sent another letter just the other day. Perhaps she ended their association."

Bashton. Hell. Tristan had not even thought of the man since their kiss the day of the tea. She'd seemed Tristan's that day. And his today, too. He'd ignored the brick wall named Bashton between him and Andromeda as if it were of no consequence. Merely a wall to scale. But even on the other side, the wall remained. He'd have to consider how best to approach it now, bring it down.

Surely Andromeda would not have allowed Tristan to touch her as he had if she'd not ended things. He'd ask her. He stood and strode for the door. He'd gather Alex and take him home and think on the best way to broach the subject the next morning.

"Kingston." Clearford's voice followed him across the room, a warning ringing there.

Tristan stopped in the doorway and looked over his shoulder, facing the Noble Smirk and the duke's gaze so hard it felt like a fist to the face.

Clearford stood slowly and ambled toward him. "Choosing the right woman might be lesson number one, but there's another much more important one. Whomever you choose, try to love her, and if you can't, leave her alone. Especially if she's my sister. You don't know if you can love? Try. Because she deserves it."

She did. No doubt in Tristan's mind she did.

His only doubt—whether he could give her what she deserved. But Clearford's golden rule could hang. Because selfish arsehole that he was, he'd have her, anyway.

After he dispatched Bashton.

* * *

"Are you going to marry him?" Lottie spoke with her nose in a book as Andromeda entered their room and hurtled the attack at her like an arrow. She lay out on the bed, her ankles crossed, her skirts hiked up to her knees, her slippers who knew where. A rare moment of wrinkled imperfection.

"Why would you ask that?" Andromeda abandoned her sister for the rather large dressing room that connected their chamber to the twins' chamber. She peered into the mirror there. My, but she looked a mess—flustered and mussed and entirely undone. Her cheeks were flushed, and her body vibrated with unsatisfied need. She closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip to kill the thrumming. It didn't work. "And whom do you mean?"

Lottie snorted. "Whom do I mean? Why, the man who just helped you out of a carriage, the man you swept out of the door so quickly to go find a few hours ago. The man I highly suspect, based on the state of your hair and gown and that flush riding high across your cheeks, you've been kissing."

Caught.

"Don't try to hide it. I've read more naughty books than an on-the-shelf spinster should. I know the signs, even if I've never experienced them myself. And I'm rather proud of you."

Andromeda met her sister's gaze in the looking glass and carefully placed the printed paper she carried on the dressing table. "It's… remarkable."

"Then you'll marry him?"

Her legs went wobbly, almost gave way. She reached for a chair in the corner where they sat to don their stockings and sank into it. She pressed her fingers into her temples. "I begin to suspect I want to. But… the books. Our library." She shook her head, her heart tearing in two. "I don't know if I can. A kiss is one thing. Touching—"

"There was touching?" Lottie popped to her knees, book forgotten. "Where?"

"But marriage is something else entirely."

Lottie frowned. "You're not going to tell me where, are you?" She sighed. "Very well. We'll converse on weightier matters. Do you think a man like him cares whether his lady has elicit reading tastes? My guess is he does not."

"That is not my fear. He needs a respectable woman, Lottie. In case Alex's aunt sues for guardianship. He needs a woman with a spotless reputation and mine is now, but—" A fact she'd begun to brood over as he'd held her in the hack.

Lottie shrugged. "You're a duke's sister."

"Who runs a private erotic lending library."

"You don't have to, though." Lottie leaned against the doorframe, her perfect golden curls glittering against the white painted wood.

Choices. One path led to Tristan, a future shrouded in shadows but lit by his confident grin and caring heart. The other path looked exactly like her mother's parlor, the wardrobe full of books. Leaving that path felt like letting go, like a part of her heart dying all over again.

She swallowed hard. "He's not proposed. I do not have to decide anything yet." She'd spoken of decision-making with such confidence to Alex, but she did not have half the young boy's courage to face them for herself. Then again, his choices would lead to happiness. And hers…

Her chest ached just over her heart, and she rubbed it to no avail. Still ached. Likely would never stop, and abandoning their mother's enterprise would simply make it worse. Wouldn't it? Perhaps not if it was filled with moments like today. Not just the way he'd touched her and praised her. But the way he'd listened and shared, trusted her. Every moment had been lovely. No shadows or grief, though none of that part of her past had been washed away.

"I've been thinking," Lottie said. "The ladies at the last tea spoke of a woman—Lady Aphrodite—who reads her poetry out loud. I think we should find her. She sounds the perfect sort to take over the library. A risk-taker. And she clearly enjoys the sort of literature our borrowers do. A perfect match."

"You want to give her mother's books?"

After a brief hesitation, Lottie nodded. "I've already slipped the idea of hosting a ball in Samuel's ear. ‘Just like Mama used to do,' I said, and he jumped right at it."

"Lottie!" Andromeda shot to her feet. "We can't!"

"And why not?"

"Mother is not here to plan it and host it, and… and we simply cannot!"

"I can plan it, and Samuel can host it. It will be a nice change."

Everything changing. Exciting or terrifying? She could not tell. Both?

"Besides," Lottie said, "Mama would want her balls to go on. She would be horrified we'd canceled them for so long. She used to hate the idea that Lady Templeton's ball would be the crush of the Season instead of her own, and for the last several years, it has been. Aren't you always saying we must honor her legacy? Why not in this way?"

Andromeda sank back down into the chair, Lottie's words a physical blow. Because she was right.

"Samuel is already writing up a list of guests."

"How do you know Lady Aphrodite will be on that list?"

"I don't. But apparently, the woman has her ways. And if she appears here, we'll find her."

"And offer her mother's books?" She barely felt the words as they fell from numb lips.

"Not just yet. We'll make friends first. And eventually… Oh do perk up, Annie." Lottie knelt beside Andromeda and laid her head in her lap. "It won't be so bad. You'll see. You have Mr. Kingston, and the way he looks at you makes me shiver. He likes you. And not every woman has a man like that." Her voice fell softer with each word until the final word of her sentence came out a mere whisper.

Andromeda rubbed Lottie's shoulder.

"Do you like Mr. Kingston?" Lottie asked.

So much it scared her. He walked about as if he owned the world, but he carried a young boy on his shoulders as he did so. He acted as if the world should mold itself to his pleasure, but he molded it for hers. With his ungloved hands, nicked and strong with the slightest dusting of dark hair on their backs. Such expectation glowed in his eyes, such challenge, and something long silent in her dared to raise its head and meet it. He had accomplished much, yet his eyes had glistened when he'd read the paper that she'd printed for him.

Lottie sighed and rose to her feet. "Well, think on it. The ball is coming whether you wish or not, but I'd like your help if you can bear it. And since you know all about the state of my own pitiful heart, I expect details when you come to understand the state of your own." A direct order as Lottie left the room.

Andromeda stood and peered into the looking glass once more. Passion still sang hot in her cheeks. She'd understood his marital intent from the very first. But not even today, when he'd whispered hot and lovely words into her ears, across her skin, had he mentioned love.

Did she want love? Did she expect it?

She had once, long ago. Had wanted it more than anything—a husband, an army of children, a home, love. Like her parents had before...

What did she want now? The comfortable present or the unknown future?

She went to her writing desk, sharpened a quill, and sat with the nib poised, hovering above the paper. She'd still not heard from Bashton. And no matter which choice she made, which path she took, she needed his reply.