Page 23 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses
Lady Fontaine held up a slim tallow candle. “Not a good idea to place these on the tree, do you agree? Lady Markem tried tapers on hers. Gorgeous, those sparks of light. Until the wood caught fire. Torched her parlorandthe library.” She sighed and set the candle atop the hearth mantle. “Lord Markem is most displeased.”
“You could have stopped her.” He slapped his hat against his thigh, then jammed it back on his head, entirely willing to be impolite in the presence of a lady. He’d dressed for London, known he was likely heading there. Oswald was in the carriage, stewing, annoyed to be running back to Town before his promised holiday was complete. Now, he had a furious woman and valet to soothe. “You’ve been dangling your niece before me like a tasty biscuit since I arrived in Yorkshire, and now that I’ve taken a bite, you let her leave?”
“Certainly, I could have kept her here.” She hung a length of crimson yarn and stepped back to review her display. “But where’s the fun in making things too easy, darling?”
“I’m going to make her my duchess, so there’s nothing scandalous about my intentions, should you be wondering. There was no need to introduce competition into the proceedings when there’s always been too much.”
“Oh, you foolish boy, I know that. I knowyou. Tristan Tierney, honorable to his bones. I never expected less.” She closed the distance between them and tilted his head from his study of the Aubusson rug—until he had nowhere to look but into her wise, knowing gaze. “At least she didn’t want to leave.”
Tristan perked up at this. “She didn’t?”
Lady Fontaine patted his cheek. “You must have been impressive, aside from your rather amateurish wooing. I had to practically push her out the door while she was listing the many reasons to flee.”
“Where, Bel?”
“She decided to spend the holiday with Edward if you must know. In that filthy city. Leaving me to water the plants in the conservatory on a dreadfully regimented schedule. I’ll be running out there three times a day, thanks to your abysmal courting skills.”
“I have no idea how to court anyone. I’ve neverbeenin love before.”
Lady Fontaine’s eyes pooled with tears. Sniffing, she leaned in to hug him. He hugged her back, the woman who’d been more of a mother to him than his own. “Chase your duchess, my darling. Prove to her you will.”
So chase he would.
CHAPTER7
WHERE A FUTURE DUCHESS RECEIVES AN INVITATION
Tristan stepped through the doorway of White’s two days later and into a world he’d left behind. Before the war, he’d been a part of this, he recalled as he gazed around the candlelit room, holly and mistletoe hung here and there to provide a whiff of the season. Murmured conversation over brandy and gin, knowing laughter, ribald jokes, cards, dice, a fresh copy ofTheTimeson every table.
The solid fragrance of wealth and promise, and at times, despair.
He gave his coat, hat, and cane to an attendant and moved to the salon he’d been directed to, the last on the left. Not a private room; Edward Bellington, the Marquess of Rutherford, couldn’t afford private lodgings, not if his ancestral estate was in financial distress. Tristan suspected he was even having trouble paying his dues, but some things in society were compulsory.
Or seemed it.
Tristan shook off the dispiriting thought and crossed into the dimly-lit salon. His childhood friend sat in a tufted armchair, book in hand, tumbler by his side, firelight rolling over him in tawny waves. He had Camille’s nose, or she his. The shape of the eyes the same but not the coloring. The hair, no, not quite. Camille’s was thicker, lush, silky, as you desired when you were tunneling your hands through it.
“Are you coming in, Tris, or are you going to stand there deliberating about the wallpaper?”
Tristan pushed off his doorjamb perch and strolled inside, his heart seizing at what he needed to say, the speech he’d practiced on the carriage ride over. Camille’s father was deceased, so this left Edward as head of the Bellington family. It was this man, his closest friend, he’d have to open his heart to.
I’m in love with your sister. The one who battled the angry swan, the termagant. Yes, that’s her.
Instead, he held his composure, pouring brandy from the decanter on the sideboard, then crossing to sprawl in the seat opposite Edward. Kicking one polished Hessian atop the other, he released a modest yawn. “How is she?” he asked, charging in right off, ruining his strategy to discuss London’s foul weather before diving into therealreason he was in town.
To chase down the man’s hellion of a sister.
Edward dipped his head, his laughter so familiar, so welcome, Tristan’s gut clenched. Affection poured over him like a drenching rain, washing away any fear he’d had that they’d misplaced their friendship.
“I’m not sure what you find so amusing,” Tristan mumbled into his glass.
Edward propped his chin on his fist and grinned. It was Camille’s maddening smile, to be sure, slapped across her brother’s handsome face. “I’m sure you don’t. The ones stuck in it never do. I’m going to wring every ounce of joy from this. London is boring as hell during the winter, don’t you know? This, you and Camille, is more than I’d hoped for, more than I’d dreamed of. God knows, she worked for it, the tenacious sprite, hanging in there until the end. Imagine, the two people, aside from my wife, I love most in the world finding each other. Unbelievable.” He sipped slowly, his smile positively luminous. “I wondered how long it’d be before you arrived. Less than three days, I said to myself, means the man is besotted. And you made it intwo. That’s blind love, which Camille deserves, of course, referring back to all the work she put into getting you. Although she’s a challenge, shall we say, a bit fractious. Likes to get her way.” He raised his glass in a toast. “Good luck to you, my dearest friend. You have my blessing and my sympathy in advance for the nights you get booted from your home by your loving duchess and are forced to sleep on my settee.”
Well, Tristan reasoned, with relief and a surge of irritation. “I sprinted to town like a feral dog, worried about what she might do, owing to that”—he grimaced—“fractiousnature. I already know what I’m getting, and no matter the complexity, I want it. I wanther. And ifyouwant Ridley to continue breathing, you’d better make damn sure he doesn’t put one polished patent pump in my way.”
“I’d never have stood by while she married Ridley, Tris. I’d only heard about the arrangement myself. The chit made an impulsive decision, the bills at Longleat piling up even worse than I’d imagined. My fault completely. Love took my eye off the ball, my race to the altar being about as tricky as yours is proving to be. I would have found a way to prop the estate up. Iwill. I’m not expecting you to step in.”
“Longleat is as much my home as hers, in my heart anyway. I want to save it. You can’t help what your father did. His gambling ruined the family. You were a boy, nothing you could have done to stop him.” He cut a sharp glance from the corner of his eye. “However, I’m not the only prideful one, although Camille tops me by miles. I don’t want her to marry me for the Mercer fortune, which is substantial, I admit. Even if she turns me down, you and I will figure this out. My solicitors are researching a new business venture, which will mean going into trade, a blasphemy to theton, I know. You’d be cut because of it, marquess or no, but you’ll never have to worry about blunt again.” Coughing lightly to cover his discomfiture, Tristan shrugged. “We’re partners is what I’m trying to say, even if Camille breaks my bloody heart.”