Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

" I don't want your help," Savannah seethed. Hot anger flushed through her but did little to warm her. Despite the beautiful June day, the tall, cramped buildings hid whatever sunlight warmed the day. Certainly, no warmth thawed the streets. Or her fingers where they locked around the rabbit. "And I certainly don't need it."

His lips pressed together and his gaze flicked around the street.

So many emotions raced through her, she didn't know which one to grab first. Anger. Anger worked. Anger had sustained her; it gave her something to hold on to when she thought she'd drift away from heartache, drown in anguish. Anger gave her a means to stand tall in the face of gossip and those horribly pitying looks.

A broken engagement, abandonment. The scandal that had accompanied all that. His family had tried to contact her, of course, but Savannah hadn't wanted anything to do with the Conrads. Unfortunately, their families were far too intertwined to sever all ties.

However, Savannah had tried. She'd cut off all contact with Tristan's siblings, though she'd once been close with them. She'd stopped visiting Hertfordshire where her grandmother lived with the Conrads, even though the long trip from there to London made her grandmother ill.

"Someone tried to kill you," Tristan said in such a reasonable tone that she wanted to slap him again. Unfortunately, she knew him far too well, despite the pain and heartbreak and three years' separation.

Fear. It lurked beneath his reasonable tone, thick and heavy between them. She struggled with that. His fear for her, that something might happen to her. He had no right.

"Why do you care?" She shoved away whatever feeling she had at realizing he still cared for her and grabbed onto that anger again. It buoyed her in this new storm she found herself wading through. "You have no right, waltzing back into my life and acting as if you care."

As if three years hadn't passed. As if he had any say in how she lived her life now. Lifting her chin and holding his gaze, Savannah shoved down her heartache, that persistent longing for his arms around her. At the moment, it was all she had. The rabbit squirmed in her arms, and Savannah loosened her hold. Bringing Jiesha closer, she gathered her strength and stood her ground.

"Of course I care, Savannah?—"

"No. Whatever happened three days ago won't happen again. Things happen in St. Giles, you know that." Her words belied the prickling down her back, as if someone was watching her. Which was ridiculous. No one did. Well, perhaps some onlookers gawked because of this very public argument, but not for any other reason.

"I know your family isn't prone to overreaction. If Lyneé suggested a guard, there's a reason." He stepped closer, and Savannah had the absurd feeling that she should hold up the poor rabbit as some sort of ward against Tristan.

No. Never. She wouldn't back down or show him any weakness. Never again.

"Whatever the reason for that man's death, I'm not involved. Whatever happened, it no longer concerns you." Savannah ran a comforting hand down Jiesha's soft fur and wondered again how the rabbit had come into Tristan's possession. She held back her curiosity. "You left. Our engagement is broken. We have no attachments any longer."

Her throat ached with those words, words she never thought she'd speak aloud. Tristan paused, his only reaction the slight widening of his eyes.

"Goodbye, Tristan." She spoke the words she hadn't been able to say when he'd abruptly announced his departure, through a letter of all things. When she'd thought, for one wild moment as she read his laughingly brief letter, that of course she'd accompany him.

They'd done everything together from the moment they met. Learned their families' businesses, learned to ride and dance and read together, explored London and the wharves and the grounds of his family's estate. Learned each other's bodies. Nauseous now, Savannah wondered if he'd taken other lovers while he was out exploring.

Her throat closed with that staggering realization, and she turned and left. Tears blurred her vision, and she angrily blinked them away. Until this moment, that thought had truly never occurred to her. Fool that she was.

She already knew she was a fool when it came to Tristan Conrad. She didn't need her own internal voice reminding her over and over.

He didn't follow her. Savannah knew that without looking around. Then again, she always knew where Tristan stood, felt his presence as keenly as she did the breeze over her face.

No, he hadn't followed her, and she had no idea what emotions that evoked.

Her path cleared as she strode toward St. Giles in the Fields, the church where her carriage always waited to take her home. Lyneé was nowhere to be seen, the traitor, leaving her alone with Tristan. Closing her eyes for a moment, Savannah pushed that aside. Lyneé had no doubt returned to her errands in her own carriage. She knew the dangers in the area. On any street, for that matter.

Nodding at Browne as he held open the door, Savannah wordlessly climbed inside. She needed a moment, one single moment of privacy, but she couldn't foresee that happening. Not in St. Giles, where so many knew her. Not in the carriage, where any crying or screaming she indulged in would be heard by the staff. Not even her family home. Given what happened three days ago, she might never have a moment alone again, and she needed one now more than ever.

The rabbit burrowed into her lap, seemingly content.

At least one of them was.

"What am I supposed to do with you?" Savannah asked her, throat tight with too much emotion. Anger and grief and even tears, though she'd never shed them. Jiesha's large dark eyes looked up at her, her little nose working up and down, and Savannah melted. "Oh, all right." She rested her hand along her furry back. "You're adorable, you are. But I've no idea how to care for a rabbit."

Leaning her head back against the wall of the carriage, she closed her eyes and blocked out her thoughts. Or tried to. They whirled around and around, jumping from the murder she witnessed to the dagger embedded inches from her head.

Tristan's sudden arrival mixed up everything, and Savannah had no idea what to make of that. Then again, whatever he'd expected from his gift-bearing return, it probably wasn't an argument about whether she needed protection.

As the carriage made the final turn that would bring her onto her street, Savannah tried to remember the exact order of events from three days ago. She'd been talking with Dem, who said some of the gin houses had closed, she remembered that now. Was that important to what came after? She didn't think so, but then, with all the fuss over her safety—and her own dismissal of that concern—Savannah no longer knew.

The man had fallen dead from a rifle shot, and then the knife had embedded itself in the wall beside her. She was positive it happened in that order. The problem was no one knew who the dead man was. Not necessarily an oddity in the rookery, where people appeared and disappeared with a rapidity that made keeping track of the populace difficult. If someone could identify him, perhaps a magistrate might be able to learn something.

Savannah sighed at her own naivety. Given the location, any investigation would most likely be terminated before it truly began. Still, strange that he'd been right beside her when he died.

No matter how she tried to dismiss that as coincidence, Savannah didn't quite believe it.

Perhaps she didn't need a guard. Perhaps that incident had been wholly unrelated, as most things were. However, the unease that slithered down her spine told her not to take this lightly.

"I definitely don't need Tristan," she grumbled to Jiesha as Browne opened the carriage door onto the spotless street near Grosvenor Square. "Thank you," she smiled at the footman as he eyed Jiesha suspiciously.

Head high and carrying her new rabbit, Savannah walked toward her family's townhouse and had no idea what she might say to them Dealing with a nameless dead man and a possible attempt on her life was one thing. But dealing with her returned fiancé?

Former fiancé. There was a definite difference there.

Semantics aside, Savannah had no idea what to do about that.

Tristan hadn't sent word of his arrival in London.

He could've traveled to Nelda Hall, where his eldest brother and his family lived. Or Regent's Park, where his oldest sister and her husband resided. At the moment, Tristan had no idea where his parents lived. After they'd handed over Nelda Hall and control of Conrad Shipping to Grayson, they liked to travel around the country, visiting their grandchildren.

The last he knew of his other sister, she and her husband lived on a vast estate with more animals than blades of grass. As for Philip, as far as Tristan knew, he had planned on sailing for Egypt, but Tristan didn't know if he had returned or where he might live now.

Three years at sea, visiting a dozen ports and expanding the Conrad Shipping domain, had left him richer and more experienced with the world. Wiser, he hoped, in what truly mattered. He'd seen places he'd only ever imagined, and he wouldn't change those experiences for anything. However, the price was higher than he'd expected.

Losing Savannah. Losing touch with his siblings and their families. Not even knowing where his parents currently lived.

Which now left him in the unenviable position of knocking on his aunt's door with a single bag of his belongings, a charming grin, and the hope she wouldn't turn him away. As he waited for the door to open, Tristan let his gaze wander five houses down the street to the Shaw's home.

No one stood on the street, no carriages or horses or foot traffic. Tristan glanced at the neighbor's house, but Mrs. Hawthorne, the gossipy neighbor who knew everything and everyone on the street, had died years ago. The new occupants barely spent any time here, or hadn't when he left, and were certainly not the gossip Mrs. Hawthorne had been.

"Ah, Mr. Tristan."

"Hello, Alans." Tristan quickly faced the butler and stepped into his aunt's foyer. "Is Aunt Nadia home?"

"I'll let Mrs. St. Clair know you're here," Alans said with a nearly imperceptible side-eye. He'd taken over from Martin, Aunt Nadia's previous butler, only a few years before Tristan left. Now, as Alans watched him with far more scrutiny than Tristan was used to, he wondered how Martin fared. Alans gestured for the front parlor, and silently disappeared.

Unsettled, Tristan paced the room where he used to spy on the street on a child. He couldn't have said what he expected upon his return. He'd thought about it for three years, almost from the instant he set sail. Tristan should have guessed Savannah's reaction—he'd hurt her badly, all for a chance at adventure.

When he arrived in port well before dawn, all he'd thought of was finding Savannah. Tristan had no idea how to overcome any of it, and he hadn't any more answers by the time Aunt Nadia entered the room.

"Tristan." Arms wide open, she hugged him tight and kissed both cheeks. "I heard you'd returned."

Pulling back, he blinked at her. "Already?" He shook his head before her look, which told him obviously she had, translated into words. "Never mind. Of course."

Savannah's mother, Sophia, was Nadia's closest friend. Of course she'd heard. Of course, word of his return had spread faster than wildfire. His aunt, not by blood but by the unwavering friendship Nadia shared with his own parents, didn't even bother to answer him.

"Are you passing through on your way to Nelda Hall?" Nadia asked in such a sincere yet somehow offhand manner, Tristan didn't wonder how she'd survived the Russian Tsarina's court for so long. She never asked a question unless she already knew the answer.

"Did you know someone tried to kill Savanah?" he asked rather than answer his aunt's obvious question.

Just then, Alans wheeled in the tea tray, piled with biscuits, marzipan, and coffee cups. Behind him came a second tray with already warm kanakas for their coffee. Tristan waited while Aunt Nadia thanked the butler and poured the coffee.

"I know Hugh and Sophia believe someone did," Nadia said as she sat on the settee. Her dark eyes held his as she watched him over her cup. "And that Savannah doesn't believe so."

Tristan snorted and paced the parlor, ignoring his own coffee. Savannah's words haunted his every step. He'd chosen adventure over their engagement and hadn't any right to get involved. But right had no control over worry, and Tristan worried. He loved Savannah, always had. He'd mistakenly believed sailing was the adventure he craved, but he'd been wrong. Savannah was what mattered. Worry for her gnawed at his gut, taunting him to act.

"Why are you concerned?" Aunt Nadia's voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Of course I'm concerned," he snapped, drinking his hot coffee as if it were cool carob juice instead. It burned his mouth, but he only set the cup in the saucer with a decisive click. "Why aren't you?"

"I am." She glared at him, that haughty look he so admired but couldn't quite emulate. "We all are, but—and I shouldn't need to remind you—you left her."

"I know," he snapped again. She merely raised an eyebrow. This was not the welcome he'd hoped for. His cheek still stung from Savannah's slap. "I know," he said again, in a quieter, but not calmer, voice.

Before he snapped the fine porcelain, he set the cup and saucer on the tray and once more paced to the windows overlooking the street. He'd spent so much time in this house, growing up beside Nadia's children, walking down to the Shaw household whenever he wished and spending time with Savannah.

Standing here, in a room he'd spent so much time in—or, rather, racing through—Tristan felt more like an outsider than he had those first months on his ship.

"Why have you returned, Tristan?" His aunt stood beside him and watched him with a look that once again said she already knew the answers. She held up a hand before he gathered his thoughts. "I don't mean I'm not thrilled to see you, malenkoye solnysh ."

Little sun . Tristan smiled at the endearment. "I'm thrilled to see you, too, Tetya Nadia."

She returned his smile and leaned her head on his shoulder, squeezing his arm as they both looked onto the street below. "I'm happy you've returned safely. I simply wish to know what you expected from Savannah."

"I don't know," he admitted. It was the first time he'd voiced that. For three years, he'd wondered if he could have done something differently. A simple question would have changed everything. But adventure called, the tempting what-if he and Philip, his elder brother, had talked of so often.

"Perhaps you should reason that out before you try talking with Savannah."

"What—" He cut himself off. He'd ask Savannah what happened, though at this point he doubted she'd answer.

She'd be right to stay silent. Strictly speaking, he hadn't broken their engagement, but of course that was what the scandals would whisper. What right did he have to anything? Her time, her answers, her forgiveness? That last, no matter what, he needed. Though Tristan doubted he deserved it.

"Can I stay here, Tetya ?" He kissed the top of her head.

"Will you stay away from Savannah?"

"No."

"Tristan," she sighed, clearly annoyed. She muttered several uncomplimentary names in Russian beneath her breath. "She's been through a lot. You left her."

He did not need that persistent reminder, thank you. He needed—her. And while Tristan had no idea how to go about getting her, he'd at least keep her safe.

"I'm not trying to win her back." A bald-faced lie if ever he'd uttered one. Clearly, Aunt Nadia didn't believe him. "I'm trying to keep her safe."

Nadia snorted. "Safe?" She laughed. "You think she can't do that?"

He offered a weak, rueful smile. "I know she can."

His mother believed everyone had the right to defend themselves—man, woman, child, it didn't matter. So she'd taken it upon herself to train half the County, and anyone else who wished to learn. It was a dangerous world, she always said. Best be prepared.

"Her choice is hers, malenkoye solnysh ." Nadia kissed Tristan's cheek and turned from the window. "Abide by it."

"Yes, Tetya ." He didn't roll his eyes in exasperation. He would respect her choice. He'd hurt her enough. Still, he wanted a chance to apologize—preferably without the slap. A chance to talk. She owed him nothing, but he owed her that.

He'd missed her these last three years, with an ache that haunted him. Was he a fool for leaving the way he had? More than. Would he do it again? Only if she accompanied him. Right now, all he wanted was the chance to make things right.

"Come into the study, and you can tell me of your travels while I read over the manifests." She eyed him again but softened. "I'll send word to James. He's at the taverns, overseeing the shipments."

"You have people for that." Tristan shook his head. "You always do too much yourselves."

"There are still rumors about uprisings and turmoil that might affect us. He likes to keep abreast of such things." She grinned now. "He likes to be involved. Keeps him busy."

Laughing, Tristan offered his arm and escorted her from the parlor. "And out of your hair?"

"We share a great many interests, malenkoye solnysh . Now that's he's retired from the army, he needs a diversion." Nadia sighed again but grinned. "Your uncle is many things; idle isn't one of them."

"I'll wait until he arrives, then. I've heard rumors of unrest in Flanders."