Chapter 18

Lord Bashton's home was, well—Tristan had likely never used this word in his life, but if he must start, now seemed the exact perfect reason to—quaint. Three stories yet still rather small, ivy climbing up all the sides, and an adorable little turret to one side made of stone. With ivy. Looked like something out of a fairy tale. The sea, roaring within walking distance, sent a salted breeze to ruffle his hair. Andromeda would fit perfectly into such a house, her long hair falling down her back as she traipsed down to the sea, the waves lapping at her delicious legs. The very legs he'd had draped over his shoulders a few days ago.

He'd not even met Lord Bashton, but he hated him. That house. Too damn adorable. Like Andromeda. He jumped off his horse, the gravel crunching beneath his boots, two days of travel clinging to every wrinkle in his clothes and crease of sweat on his face.

He strode for the front door, a large wooden affair he could just imagine bursting open to admit the form of a growling giant. Well even if Bashton were a giant, Tristan would defeat him today. Andromeda, who had not been awake when he had dropped Alex off at the duke's residence the morning after the ball, had described the baron in a variety of ways, all hinting at the man's utter perfection. Perfectly handsome, perfectly intelligent, perfectly well-behaved. He had a title and an affinity for books.

Tristan only had one of those things, but that didn't signify. Because he had something better—the desire to see Andromeda happy, loved, and well sated every night and every morning and every hour in between. No man who had put off wedding such a woman deserved her. And Tristan planned to tell him so. Then he planned to find out why the man had not returned her letters. If it was because Bashton did not wish to give her up, even though she had asked to be given up, Tristan would let him know that Andromeda always got what she desired. Especially this.

And when Tristan returned to London and to his lady's arms, her arms would be unshackled from previous obligations. Then he could wed her and bed her and… He froze, arm poised high to knock on the door.

Wedding and bedding. Secondary concerns only. His primary intention was to secure his brother's safety, Tristan's guardianship. And to keep Andromeda's secret contained. Shaking his head, he knocked, and after a small period of waiting, the door opened.

The man who greeted Tristan, the butler presumably, stuck only his head out. He swept his gaze up and down, from Tristan's hatless head to his boots and back up.

"We're not expecting anyone," he said. "Who are you? Don't look like you come from the village."

"I don't. And I am not expected. I'm here to speak to Lord Bashton concerning Lady Andromeda Merriweather."

"Who?" the butler asked.

"Who?" Tristan echoed right back. He'd seen a parrot once, owned by a man on a boat, and the bird had repeated back what the man said. Apparently, Tristan had become a parrot. "Lady Andromeda Merriweather." He said it louder this time. "The Duke of Clearford's sister, and a particular friend of your master, Lord Bashton."

The butler's scowl lightened incrementally. "Oh. Her. Yes, I know of her."

"May I speak with the baron?" Tristan gripped the door frame and leaned in closer, forcing the butler back and peering beyond his shoulder. "Is he at home?"

"He is. Never goes anywhere else. Come this way." He started into the house, and Tristan followed, and the damn house proved as charming inside as out. Tapestries, paintings, marble floors, banisters carved into the shapes of roses. A suit of armor even stood sentry in a corner.

The butler led Tristan to a large library at the back of the house on the second floor. And when they entered, a man waved without looking up from the table he bent over.

"Not right now, Benton. You can save the tea for later." From the back, the man was tall, though he stooped over a book, and he had thick white hair.

"I don't have the tea," the butler, Benton, said. "I have a man. And he's looking for you." He turned to Tristan. "What's your name?"

"Mr. Tristan Kingston."

"I've got a Mr. Kingston," said the butler.

That gained the stooped man's attention. He slowly unfolded himself and faced Tristan, revealing a lined but handsome face, straight nose, haughty brow, and intelligent brown eyes.

"Perhaps I'm searching for your son?" Tristan tried not to brush the dust of travel from his clothes. The man before him, elegant and cool, made him feel what he never felt—a mess.

"I don't have a son. If you're in search of Baron Bashton, you've found him. Who are you Mr. Kingston, and why are you here?"

"I'm here to speak on Lady Andromeda Merriweather's behalf."

Bashton chuckled. "Oh, are you?"

"The lad sounds a mite abrasive, John," Benton said. "Want me to kick him out?"

"Not yet. We'll let her decide what to do."

"Her?" Tristan must have embraced his newfound parrot tendencies.

"Tell me." Bashton dropped easily into a nearby leather chair and crossed one ankle over his knee as he relaxed into it. "What do you have to say on Andromeda's behalf?"

Tristan bristled. "You shouldn't be so informal."

A wide eyebrow flew high. "Oh? I've known her for years now. We have a very special relationship."

Tristan's body ran hot and cold at the same time. He managed to take a step toward the baron, though every muscle in his body had hardened to stone. "Is that why you've left her letters unanswered of late? Is that why you've strung her along, making her think you'll marry her, then never doing so?" He waited for an answer. Received none. "No more, Bashton. That is what I'm here to tell you. If you will not listen to her letters, you'll listen to me. She won't be marrying you. When I return to London, I'm proposing to her, and if it takes every minute of the rest of my cursed life, I'll convince her to agree to marry me."

Bashton blinked. "Very passionate."

"Speaks like a devil, he does," Benton said.

"Indeed." Bashton propped an elbow on the arm of the chair and rested his chin on his knuckles. "You are in love, then?"

How was he supposed to know that? "I admire Lady Andromeda more than any woman of my existence. She is strong and intelligent. Passionate, too. The type of woman who survives. She should never be ignored or passed over. I want to show her all of life, and I want to discover all of her."

Bashton chuckled. "You two are very much alike, I think. Or perhaps you have influenced her in your recent interactions. You want me to give up my claim on the lady, then?"

"You will give up your claim." Tristan grunted. "Feeble though it was."

A small gasp from behind him in the hallway. He swung around. Andromeda stood there with wide eyes, wild hair, and dressed in men's clothes. She spun. She ran.

And he chased.

"Andromeda!" Damn, but she was quick, dashing away from him like a thoroughbred at Ascot, but soon she met a crossroads, and she slid to a halt in the entry hall, her gaze skittering between every option for escape. She hesitated too long, and he reached her, caught her wrist so she couldn't leave. Panic lit the hazel of her eyes to fields of lightening green. Her mouth opened and closed, then opened again, as if she could not quite decide what to say first.

"You let her go, you blackguard!" Benton huffed and puffed toward them. "We do not accost ladies in this house."

"He's right, Kingston." Bashton sauntered up behind his butler with decidedly less respiratory distress and said coolly, "Release her."

Tristan did not. He pulled her closer. "What are you doing here?"

She stood tall. "What are you doing here? I have a much clearer reason for being here than you do."

"I came to release you from whatever obligation you had to that man." He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. "But I assume you gathered as much. How long were you standing there? Listening?" Not that he minded. He'd not hide any of those words from her.

She rotated her wrist in his light grip and grasped his wrist in return, quirking a cautious smile. "I also came to dissolve my connection to Bashton."

"Then why'd you run?"

"I'm not quite sure. You looked so fierce, and I felt a bit guilty with the eavesdropping. When we do it to Samuel, we always run quick as mice at the sound of the first footstep toward the door."

"How long have you been here?"

"No more than half an hour. You must have been right behind me. I traveled rather slowly."

"I traveled rather fast."

She grinned.

He grinned. Hell. His knees almost gave out as relief flooded through him. The only way to keep himself upright was to wrap his arms around her and crush her to him, hold her tight, feel her heart beating too quickly against his chest, feel her legs tangle with his, no skirts to get in the way.

No skirts. To get in the way.

He held her at arm's length and studied her from head to toe and back up. Her trousers were a bit too tight, and her shirt and waistcoat too baggy. The boots were much too large, and like him, every inch of her was dusty and wrinkled.

"Why?" he asked.

"A woman traveling alone is suspect at least and dangerous at best. But a young man traveling alone is nothing of any great notice."

"I should lecture you for it. But I find it oddly—" His lips quirked up.

She swatted his arm. "Do not finish that sentence. Your eyes tell me all."

"I intended to say endearing. Cunning. Courageous."

Her mouth quivered into a sun-bright smile. "I should be the one lecturing you. Coming here to end my relationship with Bashton, and without asking me. It's more than high-handed, sir, it's barbarous. But… I find myself less in the mood for a lecture and more in the mood for…" Her lips quirked up too as her words trailed into nothing but naughty suggestions. "I suppose I find you endearing as well."

Two male voices cleared their throats. Bashton and Benton.

"As loath as I am to interrupt this rousing reunion," Bashton said, "I think we should discuss a variety of important topics." He rolled his hand in the air. "Sleeping arrangements, repast, my books, and so on and so forth."

"Oh, yes!" Andromeda pulled from Tristan's hold and returned to Bashton's side. "We were about to discuss new arrangements."

"New arrangements?" Parroting was easy to continue once you'd begun. But speaking of arrangements, he did not like the one that left him walking behind Bashton and Andromeda as they made their way back to the library arm in arm. Hadn't she just embraced Tristan, implied she wished to do other things with him? Why then…

He wanted to barge between the two, insert himself like some damn wall between his woman and that man. But he didn't. He crossed his arms and held back, kept pace with Benton, and followed only, though withheld action grew a growl in his chest.

When they reached the library, Bashton communicated some wordless message to the butler with a wave of his hand, then settled back in his leather chair. "Join me, please. After your long journeys, you must be in need of sustenance."

Andromeda did not sit. She paced, chewing her bottom lip as hair escaped the loose braid curled around her head like a crown.

Tristan sat and watched her worried pacing from one end of the room to the other. "You said the night of the ball you had something to tell me about Bashton. Is it that you were traveling here soon?"

She shook her head, tangling her hands together before her, her steps taking on a faster clip across the room.

"Does he not know, Annie?" Bashton asked.

She flashed him a look, chewed on her thumbnail.

He tsked. "Why not?"

"Because so few know. So few should know. And he's a newspaperman. Owns three of them!"

"Four the day before the ball," Tristan added.

Andromeda threw her arm out toward him. "Precisely. And newspaper men like stories, and what better story than mine?" She stopped pacing, tried to smooth her clothes in a manner that revealed she was smoothing, more successfully, her thoughts. "I'd hoped to undo my tangle before you proposed, Tristan, so I could accept you in good conscience, knowing my life, my… hobbies, would not be a liability to you, to your guardianship of Alex."

"Is this about your reading habits?" A shadow loomed closer to Tristan, a storm on the horizon he wished to avoid, but no friendly wind would pick up the sails and resituate the ship. "I told you that hardly matters."

"How to say this?" Andromeda took a deep breath and met Tristan's gaze. "Lord Bashton is a dear friend only, not my betrothed. He was my mother's friend as well. And her… perhaps business partner is closest to describing it."

Bashton picked something off his sleeve. "I consider myself an acquisitions expert, specializing in rare books of a very particular sort."

Tristan stood and joined Andromeda, though he did not touch her. "Bashton is not your betrothed? Was never going to be?"

She shook her head. "He acquired books for my mother, and now, since my mother's death, he acquires books for me." She closed her eyes, and her face scrunched up in a sort of grimace. "So that I can lend them out to the women of the ton." Her eyes fluttered open, the hazel flickering with shadows. "I don't just host a… salon. I help run a lending library. For erotic texts. And my patrons are the married and widowed women of the ton. We have a rather large library, and a rotation of close to fifty women who borrow our books. We keep records on who has what and for how long, and the records are, perhaps, the trickiest part because the women want to borrow, not keep, but they don't want anyone to know they've borrowed." She opened her mouth as if to add more, then closed it, deciding not to. "I won't bore you with the details."

Sometimes at sea, the coming storm raged harder than you expected. And sometimes it fizzled out before reaching your ship. The same often proved true in the newspaper world. Stories you thought would rile the world turned out to be stones dropped into ponds—forgotten quickly, barely making a ripple. And those you thought harmless ripped the fabric of London in two.

Which was this? It certainly made more ripples than a mere book club. This was organized, purposeful, and far-reaching. And damn if he wasn't impressed.

Yet…

"So, many women of the ton know you're… that you… provide elicit reading materials?" He shoved his hands through his hair. He'd thought it only the handful he'd seen in her drawing room. He'd investigated only those. How many of them were friends with Lady Eldridge? More than one, likely.

She nodded, her face pale.

What to say first? So many conflicting impulses driving him in different directions.

"I had no real reason to come to Cornwall?" he asked, then laughed—a hard bark that scattered into something a bit delirious.

Her hands landed on his forearms, soft, light, tentative. "If, as you say, you wished to release me from my romantic obligations to Bashton, no. I do apologize. I meant to tell you the other evening, but once we met for our second waltz, I didn't want to think about anything except for"—she lowered her gaze and shuffled her booted feet—"you. You do that to me. Scatter my thoughts entirely."

Ah, there—the storm he'd expected. It raged through him, demanded he take the woman before him in his arms, sweep her off somewhere private and make her his for good.

But now he could not so easily explain away the risks to Alex.

He'd seen storms wreck ships at sea, but he'd never felt destructive power of such magnitude until now. Would it have mattered had he discovered the truth sooner? Would he have kept on his path, each turn bringing him closer to Andromeda, closer to complete desire, to aching need. Lady Eldridge's expectations would still have existed, still did exist.

And more than that, Andromeda had become a necessity.

"You're angry with me," she said.

"No." He was angry with himself. "As much as I would have liked to know the extent of your influence sooner." Before she'd crept so thoroughly under his skin. "I can understand why you kept it to yourself. It's a scandal. Through and through. You're not just reading books with a few trusted friends. Impossible to know who might be privy to this. If anyone finds out." He took two steps away from her on feet as heavy as anchors.

She inhaled deeply and took two stumbling steps back, too, as if his had been a physical blow to her.

Bashton rose and stood between them. "You two need time to think. And thinking is best done when comfortable. I'll send you upstairs when Benton returns, and you may bathe and dress in fresh clothes, and eat, and then return downstairs when you are ready. If you are ready." He aimed the last at Andromeda before addressing Tristan. "Do you have any luggage with you?"

"A saddle bag on my mount."

"I'll have it retrieved."

The room became a Drury Lane stage, all the actors tense and stiff, having forgotten their lines. After directing a footman, Bashton perused his book once more, and Tristan found his feet planted to the ground, unable to retreat and equally unable to take back the distance he'd put between them. Andromeda stood with a spine like a maypole, the vibrant ribbons of her feelings wrapping her arms tight to her sides. Tangled and fragile and a bit… dim. As if someone had snuffed her candle. Had it been him? His fists curled, and his heart howled, and he wanted…

But Alex.

And Lady Eldridge's expectations.

He still had but two choices—certain censure if he did not marry the woman he'd told Lady Eldridge he would, or possible scandal so big London would be rocked to bits and pieces.

Clearford had been right. The most important part of courtship was choosing the right woman for your needs.

Every curse word he'd ever learned aboard a boat screamed through him all at once.

Then Andromeda came to life with fake brightness and said, "I know where my room is. I arrived half an hour or so before you." She said the last to Tristan but without looking at him. "No need to wait for Mr. Benton. I'll retire. Clean up." She curtsied to Bashton. "Thank you."

Bashton gave her a gentle smile, and when Andromeda disappeared into the hallway, she took all the air with her. Tristan pressed his hand to his chest, constricted and pained, and let loose all the curses screaming inside in a steady stream of invective that inspired Baston's white brows to climb up his forehead toward his hairline.

When he ran out of words, Bashton waited a beat before saying, "Do you feel better, Mr. Kingston?"

"No," he barked. He'd never feel better.

The door popped open, and Tristan jumped to his feet. Had Andromeda—

Benton bustled in backwards with a merry whistle, tugging a rattling tea cart with him.

"Hell." Tristan dropped back into his chair, hid his face in his palms. "It's you."

"Just so you know, sir," Benton said with a sniff, "I'm insulted. Who killed his cat?"

Tristan dropped his hands to his side. "What cat? Whose cat?"

"It's not a cat he's mourning," Bashton said. "It's his heart."

"No. It's the future." Tristan rested his head back on the chair, letting the wood frame dig into his skull. "I can't see it anymore. Can't clearly see the way to what I want."

"That's likely because you don't know what you want."

He snapped his head up. "I know what I want. Only what I want is not what I need. And there are too many uncontrollable outcomes." He slipped his hand into his pocket, found the silver watch, warmed by his body. "There must be some way to control it, to bend the outcome to my will."

"Bah," Benton barked. "You act like you're a god, but I bet you bleed when cut."

Tristan snarled a bit. "There are some things in life a man can't control." His birth, his family. "And some he can. I've always known the difference."

"And do you think you can control your heart?" Bashton asked.

"Of course he does." Benton snorted.

"Now, Benton, do be kind." Bashton held out a soothing hand to Tristan. "If you could, this very moment, Mr. Kingston, stop your love for her, control it and snuff it out, would you?"

"No!"

Benton chuckled. "Thought you didn't love her."

"I… I…" Oh. "I've never seen a true example of it. Impossible to know, but—"

"You seemed an intelligent fellow." Benton pinched the bridge of his nose. "Your looks are deceiving."

Bashton rose and placed his hands on Tristan's shoulders. "Do you love anyone in any capacity?"

"My brother, Alex. But what I feel for Andromeda is different."

"Of course it is. How did you know you loved Alex, though?"

"It was always there—since the moment I saw him. My heart felt like it would explode. He gives me joy and worry in equal measure. I'd do anything to protect him."

"Said with no hesitation. Good. And Lady Andromeda?"

"I'd do anything to protect her, too." He spoke slowly, but not with hesitation. He spoke with dawning clarity. "She brings me joy and worry in equal measure and makes my heart grow much too big for my chest." He rubbed the muscle over that organ, feeling the pressure of the emotion it contained. Failed to contain.

He loved her. Somehow, it made everything worse.

"Oh, look there, Bashy, he finally gets it." Benton pulled a flask from his jacket pocket and took a swig. "Took him long enough, the nodcock."

Bashton reached for the flask, sipped more moderately, and handed it back. "Now what will he do with the knowledge?"

"Nothing I can do," Tristan said. "My path is set."

"Not entirely true. You can choose to be sour about the loss of control and to let that sour infect everyone else. Your brother. Andromeda. Or you can choose to do your damnedest to protect those you love from insult and pain. Including that caused by you."

A small ray of light, but one Tristan could follow, one that seemed to settle the shifting sands beneath his feet.

"You're right. If Andromeda has kept her secret for as long as she has, there's no reason she can't keep it a secret for one more year, especially with my help." He strode for the door.

Benton yelled down the hall as Tristan picked up speed. "She's on the second floor, third door on the right."

The sound of Bashton's riotous laughter chased Tristan up the stairs as he followed the only constellation that guided him now—Andromeda.