Page 23 of The Lord’s Reluctant Lady (Sisters of Ember Hall #2)

“Nay.” His mother and Mirrie spoke as one, both of them looking up at him in concern.

“What is it?”

To Tristan, it was very simple. The physician should be dismissed. The man should count himself fortunate he received no worse consequences.

Mirrie spoke first. “’Twould be most unwise, Tris, to invite guests to Wolvesley with no physician here to treat them should they fall sick.”

“Or fall at all,” his mother added.

He could see the logic of this. “Very well.” He reached for Mirrie’s hand and drew her up beside him. “But immediately after the ball, I shall appoint a new physician.”

It was the first time he had expressed such a strong opinion on the running of the castle. Tristan half expected a reprimand, but his father only nodded.

“I will leave that with you, my boy.”

Tristan and Mirrie took their leave and withdrew from the chamber, both exhaling with relief as the panel closed behind them. He put a finger to his lips and led her to a wide window seat at the far end of the gallery before speaking.

“That was a triumph.” He lowered himself onto the cushioned seat and tugged at her arm until she followed suit.

“A triumph of deception.” She shook her head, smoothing her skirts with hands that still trembled. “My conscience does not grow any easier about this.”

He crossed his long legs in a show of nonchalance. “Do you know what surprised me most of all?”

She tilted her head up at him. “What?”

Tristan kept his eyes trained on her face, which was beautifully illuminated by the window behind them. “My parents seem gloriously unconcerned about me marrying an heiress.”

She opened and closed her mouth, looking at first wary and then displeased. “’Tis because they are kind, decent people. But that does not mean it is not in your interest to marry well.”

“It is in my interest to be happy.”

Mirrie blinked at him. “I want you to be happy, Tris,”

“And I want you to be happy.” He meant it.

His parents had always enjoyed a happy marriage. He had long taken for granted the genuine smiles each bestowed upon the other, and the many, casual gestures of affection which passed between them. Now he realized, for the first time, how lucky they were.

“I cannot deny that I long for this ruse to be over.” Mirrie looked down at her knees, her shoulders hunched.

Once this ruse was over, Mirrie would return to Ember Hall. It might be some time before he saw her again. The thought was not at all pleasing.

Seized by impulse, he again took her hand. “Come with me. There’s something I want to show you.”

She made a sound of complaint, but once Tristan had set upon a course of action, he was not easily deterred. They made their way to a low door in the northern tower.

A door that was rarely opened now.

“The school room?” Mirrie arched her eyebrows.

“The room which saw so much of our childhood.” He twisted the handle and the door swung open with a creak. “After you.” He stood to one side to allow her to pass, but Mirrie still looked uncertain.

“It’s dark up there.” She craned her neck around the corner, to where an old stone staircase twisted up to the tower room.

Tristan threw her a smile. “I never had you pegged as afraid of the dark.”

She shook her head in exasperation. “Must you frustrate me with every word you utter? I would like to see you ascend narrow steps in long skirts without the ability to see where you should next place your foot.”

He feigned penitence. “I see the problem. Allow me to go first. I shall open the shutters and all will be well.”

He bounded up the narrow steps, remembering how steep the staircase had seemed when he was a small boy. Lessons had come easily to Tristan, as they had to all his siblings, and he had happy memories of the hours spent within these stone walls.

Though he also recalled hot summer days when he gazed out of the window and longed to be outside. And those long hours before luncheon, when he daydreamed of sneaking out to the kitchens.

The school room had not been used for years.

Dust sheets covered the wooden desks and small chairs the six of them had once perched upon.

A dim, grimy light filtered in through gaps in the shutters and the air smelled stale.

It was a relief to throw open the long shutters, even though the dust this disturbed fell about him and made him cough.

He waved it away and shouted down to Mirrie.

“You can come up now.”

For a moment, he feared she had left him up here all alone. But then tentative footsteps sounded on the stair treads. He strode over to help her up the final steps.

“You wanted to show me an empty school room?” It looked as if Mirrie was aiming for a sceptical expression, but then a sneeze took her by surprise.

“I’m sorry,” he said, quickly. “’Tis the dust. Here, come and stand by the window.”

Whilst Mirrie recovered her composure, Tristan threw open the next of the shutters so the square-shaped room was bathed in light. This had once been a cosy, welcoming space. In winter days, a fire had flickered in the grate and their kindly tutor had read them stories from a rocking chair.

The rocking chair had since been claimed by the Seneschal for his own private chamber. Tristan couldn’t blame him. As a child, he had longed for a turn in the rocking chair.

He was lost in nostalgia until Mirrie spoke up. “What was it that you wanted me to see?”

“Do you remember the rocking chair?” he asked.

She nodded. “I remember it all, Tris.” Slowly, she swivelled around, dust motes dancing around her. “You would sit here by the window. And you would stare outside daydreaming when you should have been learning Latin.”

“But you were the perfect student,” he teased.

“Hardly. Your father would oft help me in the evenings. Otherwise I never could have kept up with you all.” She bit down on her lip as if embarrassed at the memory.

“I never knew that,” he said, softly.

“Well, I have never been one for flaunting my failings,” she quipped. “Especially those that were not clearly apparent.”

“You mean your skills on horseback?” he suggested, greatly daring.

To his relief, Mirrie smiled. “I do.”

“Sometimes I would coax you onto the back of my pony when we were small. Do you remember that?” He chuckled at the memory. “We would all go riding in the woods and I hated to leave you behind. You told me you couldn’t manage it, but I knew you could, if only you would put faith in yourself.”

Mirrie turned away so he could not see her expression. “Aye. None of the others even tried to get me to join in. Perchance only you had the necessary powers of persuasion.”

“Perchance only I suspected the true depths of your courage.” She turned back to him at this, her eyes wondering, and he nodded in confirmation. “Yours is a quiet, steady sort of courage. It may not always be obvious to others, but ’tis all the stronger for it.”

“Do you really think so?” The question was almost a whisper.

“I have long believed it,” he said staunchly, determined to make her smile again. “I am accustomed to assessing courage in those who serve me. But skills on horseback do not count for everything. You oft would beat the rest of us in a running race. As you did again, this morn.”

“That is my strength.” She nodded firmly. “Running…and perchance dancing.”

“We shall dance together at the midsummer ball.” He closed the gap between them and offered her a small bow. “Shall we?”

“You mean dance? Now?” Mirrie put a hand to her heart. “I couldn’t.”

Tristan made a show of looking about him. “There is no one here to see.” Before she could protest further, he took hold of her hands and raised them high, twisting his body so he stood sideways with his face angled toward her. “Pretend we are part of a Quadrille,” he urged.

He thought she might refuse, so rigid was her body, but after a moment’s hesitation, she mirrored his stance. Slowly, he began to walk her around in a tight circle, their bodies moving in unison even as her eyes were fixed firmly on a point somewhere north of his shoulder.

He came to a halt. “Why won’t you look at me?”

“I am not in the mood for dancing,” came her reluctant reply.

“We should practice before the ball.” Tristan was not one to give up easily.

“There is time enough for that.” She forced him to a standstill and met his teasing gaze with a sharp one of her own. “Why did you bring me up here? Not to dance, I am sure.”

He regretfully released her. “Nay, you are right. Come, look at this.” He beckoned her over to the covered desk nearest the wall and lifted up the edge of the dust sheet. “There.” He pointed to an engraving on the rounded leg of the desk. “Do you know what that is?”

Mirrie bent beside him, her hands on her knees. She peered for a few seconds, before uttering a strangled sort of sound. “I think that you know the answer as well as I do.”

He bent down beside her, elaborately tracing the initials that had been roughly carved into the wood. “M and T,” he mused. “Could that stand for Mirrie and Tristan?”

He was teasing, aye, and it was a little unfair. But he did not expect her cheeks to flush quite so pink, nor for her to stand and reel away from him quite so quickly.

“You know very well that it does.”

“I didn’t.” His voice still carried a trace of amusement, for his mind had not yet managed to join the dots of Mirrie’s displeasure. “I only found it last winter.” He put his hands on his hips and watched as she made a pretence of gazing from the window. “Did you carve our initials into your desk?”

She shook her head, so vigorously he thought he must be true.

“Who could have done it then?” He walked closer to her and leaned with elaborate casualness against the plastered wall.

“Jonah.” She refused to meet his eye.

“Jonah?” This he had not expected. “Why?” He frowned with confusion.

Mirrie made another sound of exasperation. “Because he was teasing me, much as you are now. Both of you should know better. Especially you, Tristan, given we left the school room many summers since.”

“Teasing you about what?” He was genuinely perplexed.

Mirrie stared at the floor until he began to think that she would not answer. But when she finally looked up, her eyes flashed with a new determination.

“Do you really not know?”

“I really don’t.” But oh, how he wanted to. He’d thought the initials might have been carved by Mirrie in some fit of childish fancy. But this seemed far more interesting.

Mirrie took a breath. “When I was younger, I held you in…some high esteem.” Her eyes darted to his. “For a brief time.”

“Held me in high esteem?” A smile curved about his lips. “Why Mirrie, do you mean—?”

“I might have believed myself a little bit in love with you.” She stood with her arms and back straight, as if facing the dock.

The smile almost split his face in two. “Well, I never.” He chuckled. “And Jonah knew this?”

She nodded grimly, her face resolute. “Frida too.”

Tristan was enjoying himself immensely. “How come I never knew?”

Mirrie sighed, an unreadable emotion passing behind her eyes. “Because you rarely see what is right in front of you.”

Far below them, an outer door slammed and a servant whistled as he went about his work. Mirrie and Tristan stood silently in the slanting sunlight, their eyes fixed on one another.

For a moment, Tristan felt unsteady on his feet, as if he stood on board a ship which rolled precariously upon the waves. Then the ship steadied, and ’twas as if the clouds parted and he basked in warmth, able to plot an onward course after so long wandering in the mists.

“Well, I see you now, Mirrie,” he whispered.