Chapter 22

Tristan had no time for the sort of high dramatics Lady Eldridge seemed prone to, so when the butler opened the door, then slammed it shut immediately thereafter, Tristan slammed his shoulder into the door and barged right into the woman's home. The butler yelled like a banshee as Tristan followed the sounds of eternal, droning lecturing down the hall and into a small parlor. He was, likely, tearing in for battle when decorum would do instead. He didn't care. It felt as if Lady Eldridge had taken advantage of his absence, had attempted to steal away with Alex when Tristan wasn't watching.

He'd be watching from now on, and she'd know that today.

Lady Eldridge screamed when he threw the door open, her hands flying to her bosom. "You!" Her arm trembled as she pointed a finger at him.

"Yes, me."

"King!" Alex cried, jumping to his feet and running to Tristan. He skidded to a stop just before him. "She says I have to stay here." A panic to his brother's voice Tristan more than understood.

He squeezed Alex's shoulder. "She's wrong." Then he took two warning steps toward Lady Eldridge.

She shrank away from him.

He stopped. He wanted to scare her, not harm her. "What do you mean telling the boy he's staying with you from now on?"

She pulled herself up tall and tried to look down her nose at him, but he stood so much taller than her that she resulted only in wrinkling her nose, poking out her lower lip, and raising her eyebrows impossibly high. "Alex, you are dismissed so I can speak with Mr. Kingston in private."

"I don't want to go," Alex said.

"You're a child and have no business—"

"He can stay." Tristan's statement echoed across the room. "If it is about him, it is his business."

She sniffed and sat primly in a nearby chair. The entire room was fashionably decorated, everything elegant and everything old, reminding him that his stepmother, Alex, his father, too, had all enjoyed the privilege of ancestry. Everything, including title, passed down from father to son, a privilege denied him. And one he did not miss. It trapped people, and he didn't have to play by its rules.

He slung an arm around Alex's shoulder and steered him toward the door. "We're leaving."

"I did not desire," Lady Eldridge said, "to say horrid things about you before the earl, Mr. Kingston. I am too well-bred for gossip. But as they are true, and as you insist, I suppose I shall."

Tristan continued walking Alex to the door.

"I saw you and Lady Andromeda the night of the ball."

Tristan stopped. Her words had thrown ice shards into his heart, and the chill of them rippled down his spine, spread to every limb. He turned to her slowly. "Everyone did. We are fine dancers separate, but when paired together, we—"

"Not that kind of dancing, Mr. Kingston."

Every curse word in his sailor-supplied arsenal flew to his tongue, but he swallowed each and every one down, bitter, razor-edged pills. "Whatever you think you saw, Lady Eldridge, you—"

Hell and chaos, as Andromeda would say. If he weren't feeling like a canon had just ripped right through him, he'd inquire as to whether she'd like a position at one of his papers, finding out and reporting things she had no bloody business knowing.

At least she had no idea about the lending library. Not that this was any better. Except…

A beam of hope swept through the chilly darkness.

"You have no evidence."

"I saw you. I heard you. In that wine cellar and—"

"It's your word against ours."

She smirked. "My word against a bastard's."

"Your word against a duke's sister. Against a duke."

She lost a bit of her bluster, her eyes blinking rapidly.

"Dust in your eye, Lady Eldridge?" he drawled.

She shook away her hesitation. "I do not need evidence. Rumor is enough to ruin a woman. All I need is to cast doubt over her character to convince the judge at the Chancery."

"You're threatening to use this to win guardianship of Alex?" He rocked backward, retreating only to be closer to his brother. "She'll soon be my wife, and then your claims will no longer matter."

"I think the judge will care very much whether that duke's sister you've wed is a trollop or not." Lady Eldridge tsked. "Not a good influence for the earl."

"My name is Alex!" His brother stepped forward, rushing past Tristan to fight his own battle, claim his own identity. "Do not threaten my brother!"

A bloody brave lad. Tristan laid a hand on Alex's shoulder and pushed him back once more. He needed to show him how to be calm and confident during such storms, how to behave like a gentleman even when facing a fire-breathing dragon, a curse-slinging witch.

"Lady Eldridge, you have insulted my betrothed more than once, and once is enough for me to leave you and never seek out your presence again."

"Ha! As if you, a bastard, could cut me."

"I can and I will."

"I will too!" Alex stood at Tristan's side. Pride and love surged in Tristan. Whatever he gave up in life, whatever difficulties he put himself through, it was all for this boy, all for the brother who loved him and always had. He'd throw himself into the bowels of hell before disappointing him.

"You claim," Tristan said, buffing his nails on his jacket and looking out the window, "that I and Lady Andromeda are unsavory influences, but it seems to me that you are the undesirable influence yourself. Insulting a lady, a duke's sister, as you have. And in front of a young, impressionable lad." He finally met her gaze and poured every ounce of disgust he could manage into it. "He might come to think that's how ladies are treated, might treat them that way himself. Have you no shame?"

"Shame?" Lady Eldridge sputtered? "Me? You dare speak of shame to me? You, who were a cancer in my dear sister's home, a daily reminder of the sort of man she married, of her own failures as a wife—"

"Your sister did not fail. You insult her to say so. She could no more control my father's actions than I could the circumstances of my birth. She was kind and generous, and the only mother I ever truly knew."

"She was a failure."

"She hated you!" Alex cried out, surging toward his aunt.

Tristan caught his arm, held him tight, but he could not stop the boy's words.

"She hated how you demeaned her and lectured her and compared your husband to my father. You were happy with my uncle as she was not with Father, but you couldn't comfort her. You insulted her. She hated you." Alex's words hit like bullets, cutting neatly through skin and muscle and bone for a killing blow.

Lady Eldridge's face paled, and she clutched her long, slender fingers in her skirts as if she needed some support. Any support.

But Alex was not done. "Mama loved King like I do! She loved another woman's son more than you loved her, your own blood."

"You." Lady Eldridge's voice trembled. "You despicable—"

"Do not finish that sentence." Tristan stepped in front of his brother, blocking him, protecting him.

"He's no better than you." She spit the last word. "Your guardianship has ruined him. I'll not let you insult my nephew with your corrupting presence any longer. I've already begun an inquiry with the Chancery. When Lord Avelford is living with me, he shall be raised to respect his peers and cast down those not worthy of his notice." She dragged her gaze up and down his form, making her meaning clear. Tristan was not worth Alex's notice, nor hers.

"You won't win." She couldn't win. He'd burn London to the ground before he let it happen.

She shrugged. "We don't have to make this public if you simply let me have him. Rescind your guardianship."

"Hell no."

"Then… everyone will know Clearford's sister is no better than a trollop."

Alex's hand tightened around Tristan's wrist. Fear? Fear stunned Tristan, too, pressed him into a corner with no means of escape. "I'll never give up guardianship willingly. Do your worst, Lady Eldridge." But doing her worst would hurt the woman he loved. He slung an arm around Alex's shoulders and swung them toward the door. "And we shall meet you in court."

Not that he wanted to. He'd really, really rather not. Hell and chaos.

Outside the small townhouse, Bashton's coach still waited, and they climbed up and sat opposite one another, every word that had been said the last quarter hour making the air around them thick as mud.

"You're a bloody brave lad," Tristan said once the coach lurched forward. "I'm proud of you."

Alex blushed. "I hate her. I'm glad you came back. She told me you wouldn't. Told me you'd likely run off with some hussy to Italy, back where you belong."

Tristan rubbed his face. "Don't use the word hussy." He looked out the window, rubbed his stubbled jaw. More beard since he'd not shaved in four days. "She's a mean one."

Alex nodded enthusiastically, a movement that soon morphed into a gentle swing of his head from side to side. "Whose coach is this?"

"It belongs to a gallant fellow by the name of Baron Bashton. It's on loan."

"Ah. And when Lady Eldridge said you and Lady Andromeda were… dancing, she meant—"

"I assume whatever you're about to say is correct." They were to have this particular discussion, then? Hell, he'd hoped to avoid it.

"Were you? Dancing?"

"Yes, but Alex… Hell, how do I say this?" He growled and fell exhausted against the squabs. No use running from it. The boy needed this sort of useful information. So, he pulled himself up, straightened his shoulders, and organized his points. "Lady Andromeda made a choice to share a… dance with me, and I chose her, and it's the choosing, the choosing of the right lady or the right man, that makes it good. Do you understand?"

"I think so."

"Good. You're a smart lad, so you'll understand this, too. Dancing can be dangerous. Our father—" He stumbled on the word, difficult to say as it always was. "He never chose the right woman, and I'm the result of one of his bad choices."

Alex scowled. "You say it like you're a… a consequence."

He shrugged. "I was. I am."

"Not to me! Not to Mama."

"Thank you. Not to me either, actually."

"And not to Lady Andromeda."

"No. Somehow not to her, either. What I'm trying to say is that what Andromeda and I do in private is none of the ton's business. It's no one's business, ton or not. And it's not bad, either. No matter what, I'll protect her." He hoped. "I would never, never risk getting a woman with child if I did not intend to give her my name, my protection."

"You do intend to marry Lady Andromeda, then? I know you were courting her, but… it's not just something you were saying to get at Lady Eldridge?"

"Lady Andromeda has accepted my suit, and—"

Alex bounced to his feet, almost hitting his head on the top of the coach, and pumped his fist in the air. "Huzzah!" He bounced back to the seat. "When?"

"That depends." On many different elements now. "You'll be the first to know when I do."

Alex chatted as the coach rumbled toward home, and Tristan looked out the window. What the hell was he going to do now?

True, the Court of the Chancery would take their time coming to any decisions. It might not even impact Alex's guardianship at all. If they even heard the case before Alex turned fourteen, Tristan would eat his hat. But he did not want to put Alex through the scrutiny that would inevitably ensue. Nor Andromeda. They did not deserve the censure and the spotlight that would come with Lady Eldridge's suit against him.

The coach rattled to a halt, and they disembarked, Tristan's feet heavy, his mind weary.

"Good evening, sir," Mr. Barnsby, the butler, said as they entered the townhouse.

"Good evening. We need baths, Barnsby. And tea. I'll be in my study."

"Yes, sir." Barnsby bowed and left, and Tristan squeezed Alex's shoulder before the boy bounded up the stairs.

He needed to write a letter to Andromeda, so he padded toward his study and sat behind his desk. What to write? How about … everything has fallen apart. I've few options. I love you, but you're likely better off without me.

Hm. Not an epistle to fill Andromeda with confidence. There was always… Lady Eldridge caught us with my head between your legs, and now you're ruined.

No. Rubbish, that. True… but absolute rubbish. He groaned and fell forward, his forehead meeting the hard desk with a heavy thunk.

"Ow." He rubbed his forehead. He'd faced challenges before. What had he done then? Usually anything, even underhanded things, in order to get what he wanted.

He only wanted Alex safe and happy. Andromeda safe and happy. Those two things more important than any number of newspapers, houses, or other business endeavors. And in this, the most important task he'd ever taken on…

"Bloody hell." He groaned again, beating his forehead against the desk.

A throat cleared near the door, and Tristan whipped upright. Barnsby stood there, a single eyebrow raised.

"Mr. Kingston, you have a visitor. Perhaps I should tell her you are… unavailable."

"Her?"

"Lady Andromeda Merriweather."

Naturally. Of course. She'd worry about Alex. She'd want to know, and she'd not have the patience to wait for the letter he couldn't compose.

He ran shaky hands through his hair. "Send her in."

Barnsby's other eyebrow rose to join the first. "As you wish, Mr. Kingston." He turned to leave.

"Bring tea!" Tristan called after him.

He hurried around the desk to peer in a mirror across the room. "Hell." He looked like death. Not even recently dead. He was caked in dust, and something rather like anguish sat heavy on his brow. He tried for a smile. Looked more like a skull. He tried to tame his hair, but it refused to cooperate, and in addition to the lock that usually dropped like an annoying demon sent to taunt him, another had decided to misbehave, standing straight up at the back of his head. He ruffled his fingers through his hair. No good.

"Preening?" A soft, familiar chuckle. "If you're admiring your countenance, things with Lady Eldridge must not have gone too poorly." Andromeda stood in the doorway, innocent and sweet in a fresh, high-necked, lavender gown. She was clean and no longer dripping wet, and her hair had been curled and coiled prim and proper atop her head. Pretty as a picture.

He strode to her but stopped short of taking her in his arms. "Only a man like me could look good with two days' worth of road etched into his skin." He tried a charming grin. It felt hollow.

She brushed the fallen lock out of his eyes and toward his ear. "Only a man like you."

He kissed her then, taking her face in his hands despite the dirt there, needing the surety of her soft skin against his rough palms. When he pulled away, he discovered a dreamy smile curving her lips like that first time he'd kissed her, asked her if she wished to be courted.

"Come," he said, taking her hand and pulling her toward a small couch placed near the empty fireplace. "Sit. I have unpleasant news."

They sat next to one another, knees brushing, and he kept her hand, squeezed it tight.

"Tristan… you are acting strange. Tell me what happened with Lady Eldridge and Alex."

"She saw us. The night of the ball, Lady Eldridge followed us, saw us slip into the wine cellar, heard… well, yes."

Andromeda gasped. "No!"

"She's threatening to take Alex, and if I don't surrender guardianship, she says she'll tell everyone about you, us, the wine cellar."

"Hell and chaos."

"Precisely."

"What are you going to do?"

He jumped to his feet and paced, brushing his hands in frustrated motions through his hair. He didn't know what to do next, but he didn't want to admit that. He always knew what to do next.

"Let's state the facts," he said finally. "Lady Eldridge knows everything."

"Almost everything."

"Almost. But what she does know is harmful enough. To you, to Alex." Any harm to Tristan did not matter. "She is determined to gain guardianship of Alex in any way she can. Through blackmail or through the courts. She will use the information against me and you in either case."

"And in either case, it is made public."

"Unless," he said, "I relinquish guardianship now of my own volition."

She jumped to her feet and stood determined before him in a few, rapid steps. "You can't do that. It is not what is best for Alex, and a good guardian will always do what is best for their ward. You are a good guardian."

"Am? Perhaps she's right."

"No!" She clutched his face between her hands, forcing him to look at her. "You love him, and that is what is most important. She won't take him. We won't let her."

"She won't hurt him. She'll teach him proper ways I can't and—"

"And treat him coldly because she thinks that's how young earls should be treated. She'll put him in a room with nothing but cold tutors all day long and refuse to let you see him. No child deserves that. Alex deserves to have a guardian who loves him and who will guard his heart as well as his reputation, his funds, all of it. That's you, Tristan. And if you don't see it right now, I'll see it for you."

He wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his cheek against the top of her head.

"Andromeda," he said, the terror of his admission almost choking him, "I don't know what to do. I—"

The door burst open, and Alex rushed in, stomped in, really, chin high, shoulders back, a militaristic bearing too mature for a boy of thirteen years. "I know what to do. I will go live with Lady Eldridge. It is only nine months, and when I am fourteen, I can choose my own guardian and will return here. I'm strong enough to withstand her for that long."

"No," Andromeda and Tristan said as one.

"It is very brave and kind of you to offer," Andromeda said when the boy's face fell, "but neither your brother nor I will allow you to make such a sacrifice. Isn't that right, Tristan?"

Tristan nodded. "You are, under no circumstances, to concede defeat to that woman."

"But if I don't…" Alex swallowed hard. "Lady Andromeda will be ruined. You told me in the coach that you love her, that she is the right woman for you. You should not be punished for choosing love. I love you, too." Alex looked away from his brother when he said it, and his cheeks flamed red. He shifted from foot to foot. "I do not want Andromeda to be ruined. If you could keep it from happening, wouldn't you?"

The answer, of course, was yes.

"See," Alex said. "You do not have to say so. I know how it is. And if I'm going to be a good gentleman like you, then I should do the same."

Andromeda laughed, and strangely enough it did not sound forced or mocking. It was a sound of pure delight, pure joy, pure hope. Tristan shared a look with his brother that confirmed Alex worried the same thing Tristan did—Andromeda had gone mad, broken beneath the pressure of the last few months.

When she was able to silence her mirth enough to speak, she said, "How blessed I am to have found such gallant males to spend my life with. I'm quite honored. But I do not need such protection, I think."

"You desire a future as a social pariah?" Tristan said. "I do not think that is what you envisioned for yourself. It's certainly not the one you described to me."

"The future I described to you was one of love, family. And no matter how many people refuse me invitations or snub their nose at me in public… if I have you two and my sisters and my brother, then I have everything I ever dreamed of."

She meant it. Not a thread of doubt laced her voice, not a single shadow haunted her face.

He hated it, though, that it had come to this. All of it his fault and he was helpless to fix it.

"Alex," he said standing, "you should go upstairs. Andromeda"—he pulled her to her feet— "you should return home." Comfort could be found in barking orders.

"We're not done with our conversation." She shoved her chin high, his captain.

"No. But I must think. I need to be alone."

She frowned, but she let him wrap his hands around her arms and steer her down the hall, out the front door, and into the carriage waiting out front for her.

When the carriage carried her away and Alex retired safe to his room, Tristan locked himself in his own chamber with a bottle of wine and one of whiskey, and he drank. He drank as he had only a few other times in his life. He didn't need to think. He needed a sense-numbing drunkenness. It would offer no solutions, would only sink him deeper and deeper into a darkness of his own making.

He'd finally found a woman he loved, finally realized what love was—the desire to give someone everything. Tragedy that for the first time in his adult life, he seemed capable of offering nothing.

If there was a solution, he certainly couldn't see it in the dark, not a single candle burning bright.