by Tracy Sumner
Ridley looked up into Tristan’s face, searching. At times like these, Tristan was glad for his height. “Ah, hmm, I think I’ll stay for the tree cutting at least. A new tradition started in Germany, the countess told me, even though I think it’s dangerous. Fire hazard and all. Don’t need to rush back to London just yet. Mother will understand a slight delay.”
“Your mother likes Lady Camille I assume? Excited about the marriage?”
Ridley’s cheeks paled. “She’ll be thrilled. Absolutely.” He coughed into his cupped fist and did a nervous sidestep that said he wasn’t as sure as he sounded. “When I tell her. Which I will. By January first, no later. Thrilling news for a new year. I’m her only son, you know. One must wade into these topics gently.”
Tristan tilted his head as steps sounded on the floor above, signaling the rest of the group was marching downstairs. “For you, I hope so.”
Ridley raised a brow. “Why wouldn’t Mother be excited?”
Tristan snatched his greatcoat from the hall stand and shrugged into it. “Oh, no reason.” Working bottom to top, he buttoned while hiding his mirth behind a look of concern. “Lady Camille’s a bit of a hoyden. Independent. A handful, if you must know. Always has been. Didn’t you listen to the swan story? And her talk about botany? A fierce intellect housed inside a comely package. A sharp blade wrapped in rose petals, as it were.” Smoothing his lapels, he rolled his shoulders into the coat’s excellent fit. “I hope you’re prepared to manage her and your mother as men must when they marry. You’ve stepped high, my man, with your selection.”
Ridley snorted and reached for his own coat. “Mistresses more your passion, aren’t they, Mercer? Talk about low stepping. What was the last one, an actress?”
Tristan frowned and gave Ridley credit for getting in a verbal nick. Then he turned at the sound of laughter and grasped he should have been worrying about his festering attraction to Camille, not trading barbs with her idiot husband-to-be.
Because she was exquisite. And he was in trouble.
Seemingly lost in thought, Camille trailed behind her aunt and Countess Milburn as they descended the circular staircase, her fingers stroking the banister as she floated along.
She wore another patched gown that looked like it should be given to the rag-and-bone man when he came to collect clothing, but the faded muslin, once canary yellow, he guessed and now somewhere closer to the color of wheat, molded to her delicate curves. As his hands had been starting to in her stale conservatory the morning prior. Her hair was collected in a loose chignon, wisps escaping to dust her cheek and temple. It looked like a hairstyle she’d adopted after crawling from bed, a consideration which didn’t help his state of arousal. At all.
He couldn’t keep his gaze from dropping to the curve of her breast, slight but utterly adequate, jiggling with each step she took. Yesterday, he had stopped himself before he set his broad palm there, over the delectable nipple stabbing through her bodice.
He’d stopped himself because that was going too far with a naïve, young woman. When he’d wanted to roll the hard nub beneath his thumb more than he’d wanted his next breath. In the dream still haunting him, he’d taken it between his teeth and made her cry out until she was breathless, taken a handful of her thick, golden-brown hair and gathered it in his fist as he slid into her welcoming body.
With an oath, Tristan snatched his beaver hat from the hall stand and placed it over his erection before anyone, God, please, not Ridley, noticed his dilemma.
Camille ignored him on her journey across the foyer when he knew she knew he was there. She graced Ridley with a smile as he assisted with her fur-lined pelisse, and he returned it with a genuineness that gave Tristan’s gut a firm twist. He sighed and tapped the hat against his thigh. The viscount, dullard that he was, was besotted. Who could blame him? Wearing a years-old frock, her hair a fright, her smile on this side of devious, she was lovely. And interesting. Clever. Tristan had never been involved with a clever woman. Shrewd ones. Beautiful ones. One here and there rather vile.
But not clever.
With a wicked gleam in her eye that said she was as unpredictable as he was. As sure of herself. As certain of who she was.
He’d never encountered such a woman.
“There are two types, old chap,” Ridley whispered as if he’d read Tristan’s mind. “Those you shag and those you read headlines from the Times to over tea and crumpets. Didn’t think it was possible to want both with the same woman.”
The wonder in Ridley’s voice had Tristan furiously shoving his hat on his head, opening the front door, and stalking through it. The air was crisp when it hit his lungs, scented with woodsmoke and frost, the hills and dales of Yorkshire. It smelled like home. He gazed into the distance, over the fallow fields, guessing snow would be upon them by lunch. He loved winter, loved this section of England, wanted no part of London anymore. His estate, Tierney Hall, needed attention, care his father had not given it in years. Backbreaking work Tristan was looking forward to accomplishing. He should leave Longleat as planned, right this minute, before tromping through the forest with Camille for a tree to place inside the house, an outrageous tradition that had made its cozy way to England.
But instead he stood there on the veranda of Lady Fontaine’s modest country manor, a home Camille was trading her future to save, while marveling that he, duke, soldier, rake, scoundrel, not in any particular order, was possibly, maybe, perhaps developing feelings for his best friend’s little sister. Viscount Ridley’s intended. Yes, that one, he thought and blew out an agitated breath.
Under normal circumstances, a duke beat a viscount any day of the week, but Camille was not—and this was part of his fasciation, he understood—a woman who took the sure bet.
What scared him the most?
The notion of leaving her in his bed and waiting for her to arrive at his breakfast table for tea, crumpets, and the Times.
It felt right, a circumstance he thought he’d rather enjoy.
Something, he could tell Ridley but wouldn’t dare, he’d never desired with the same woman, either.
Tristan had misbuttoned his greatcoat. Near the top, leaving a bulge of wool she couldn’t take her eyes off. Her fingertips tingled with the urge to repair.
So Camille did what she knew she shouldn’t. Stopped the duke with a touch to his elbow as they entered the woodlands bordering Longleat Manor, letting the countess, her aunt, and Ridley move deeper into the pine thicket, her aunt giving her a playful wink that correctly assessed Camille’s folly as she passed.
Tristan’s cheeks, beneath the wide brim of his hat, were rosy, his breath fogging the air where it exited his lips. He carried the ax because they’d all quietly agreed he was highly capable, and he stood there gazing at her with a flat, undecipherable expression.
She gazed back, recording the changes. Faint lines streaking from his mouth, broader of face and body. A pale scar on his temple she assumed was from the war. Another beneath the line of his jaw. He shifted the ax from hand to hand, allowing the perusal, after a moment doing his own, his gaze scorching where it touched. Neck, waist, knees. A gradual slide to the tips of her boots, a gradual rise back. When his eyes returned to hers, the heat banked inside moss-green was marked.
“Are we going to stand here mentally stripping each other of clothing, or are you going to tell me what you want?”
She blinked, her stomach knotting as heat flooded her body. “I wasn’t mentally stripping you of anything.”
He dug the tip of the ax’s blade into the moist earth. “Just me then. Apologies.”
“Your coat,” she said stupidly and gestured to the missed button.
He glanced down, a smile flexing the edges of his lips. “Ah,” he said as if this wasn’t a real reason. As if she’d done it to gain a private audience with him.
As if she’d done it so she could touch him.
“Never mind.” She brushed past, the recognizable brand of embarrassment Tristan dished out
as vexing as a hard pinch. “I simply wanted to correct a mistake, so you didn’t look foolish in front of the others.”
“My sartorial angel,” he murmured and easily caught up to her. Taking her wrist in hand, insistent, he halted her step. “Come now, would you leave me thus, with my rig-out requiring emergency, in-field adjustment? I can’t chop down some poor, helpless tree for your holiday pleasure with my buttons mismatched.”
“Rascal,” she whispered, but mirth undermined the word.
“Urchin,” he returned with his own delight.
Oh, to hell with it she decided and put her hands on the Duke of Mercer.
As she’d been dying to all morning. All her life.
She didn’t touch him any more than necessary, however, as she set about repairing the closure of his coat. Also, she kept her gaze focused on his chest while she worked and not a speck higher. Or lower. They didn’t speak. She tried to ignore how his body had warmed the thick wool, and the way his minty breath brushed her temple in tepid bursts. Ignore how wonderful he smelled—of soap and nutmeg and oolong tea. Ignore the scrape of starched linen against his skin as he shifted to allow her better access.
But it was for naught. Awareness, hot and dazzling, traveled from her fingertips to her toes and back like it was on a track with no exit.
This was no kiss.
It was better. It was worse. It was maddening.
“Are you quite finished?” he asked in an uneven tone.
Her hands had fallen still, pressed into his woolen lapels. Snow was drifting in fat chunks around them. The air was thick, charged, molten. It felt like they were the only two people in the world. “Why did you decide to stay?” she asked and finally, finally, found the courage to look into his face, to note the thin black border circling his irises, specks of amber mixed in. His eyes were truly spectacular, and if he didn’t have so many excellent features, she’d have said they were his best.
He swallowed hard and reached up to pull her hands down by her side though he didn’t release her. “You may not know what we’re doing, but I do. Where we’re going with this.” Glancing into the distance, he struggled to compose himself, then glanced back, his fierce gaze igniting a blaze in her belly. He tightened his hold, and his frantic pulse filtered into her consciousness. “Either I kiss you now like we both desperately want and you find it in yourself to tell Ridley something is happening between us, or we agree, right here in a snowy Yorkshire field, to take the safe bet and stop this. Back to being distant family friends, if we can, ending this before it gets away from us.” He pulled her close, into his body, swore, laughed roughly, and released her. “Your confounded expression added to my confusion speaks volumes. And I know it’s a surprise, trust me. I’m shocked, too, but it appears I’m not the cuckolding type. There’s also my best friend to consider, a man I respect above all others, your protective older brother. While you…” He yanked his beaver hat from his head, threading his fingers through his dark strands in a show of pure frustration. “You’re caught in a childish infatuation you don’t know how to back out of. I’m not even sure your attraction is real. When mine is astonishingly genuine.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then realized what she’d been about to say and stumbled back, out of his reach. “I have to save Longleat Manor, and my piddling botany efforts are no longer enough to do it. It’s my home, my aunt’s home, and she’s too old to leave. I owe her, and she’d hate me saying it, for taking me in after my parent’s carriage accident. I’m not fleeing to London to be a burden on Edward should that be your suggestion. In any case, I’d have nowhere in the city to house my plants, do my experiments. My notes, my books. Ridley will allow me to keep my work here, although I may have to insist he do so. You see, he’s offering a solution to my problem, a solution a thousand women in the ton have taken before me, and I’m offering a solution to his.”
“A loveless solution. On your side, at least. Why you’re choosing him. He doesn’t make you feel anything.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “It’s an admirable strategy. I’m not trying to suggest it isn’t.”
She laughed, shocked he would mention this. “What has love to do with marriage?”
Tristan bounced the ax on his boot, his face a study in bewilderment. “Nothing in my experience. My parents could barely stand to be on the same continent. And when they were, it was wretched. Why I was hiding out here so often if you must know.”
Camille looked away before he witnessed sympathy crossing her face. He wouldn’t welcome the emotion, and she didn’t want to share it. Her heart was open like a tea rose in the spring, and she needed to distance herself until the petals closed.
Countess Milburn’s laughter filtered by on a frigid gust, deciding for them.
Camille stepped around him and started across the field, sure, for some reason absolutely sure, the Duke of Mercer would follow.
“He left? Just up and left? Before dinner even?”
Camille made a note in her text on plant anatomy and lifted her gaze to her aunt, who stood in the doorway of Longleat’s modest library with a scowl marring her patrician features. “Ridley had to get back to his mother, Aunt Bel. The dowager viscountess isn’t comfortable being alone in the family townhome, although Grosvenor Square is the safest address in the city. And they employ a large staff as well. But who am I to judge? He is her only child.”
“Men with too close a relationship to their mother are a disaster, love. The reason I turned down my fifth proposal. Lord Birley, I think it was. His mother was a fright. They slept in the same bed until he was twenty-one.”
Camille laid her book and quill aside, realizing this conversation was going to occur, whether she wanted it to or not. Whether her aunt understood what she was talking about or not. Isabel Merchant, Lady Fontaine, daughter of a marquess and a steadfast bluestocking before they were titled as such, had never married, therefore had little practical experience with mother-in-laws.
Or rules.
Or impossibilities.
Strolling to the mahogany sideboard, Bel pulled the stopper off the brandy decanter, splashed a liberal amount in a tumbler, and took a brooding sip. “I’m not talking about Ridley, and you know it.” Glancing over her shoulder, she gestured to her glass. “Would you like one?”
Camille nodded. She may as well get tipsy as the day had gone from bad to worse. Bad being trying to convince herself she didn’t want to kiss Tristan again. Worse being watching him climb into his carriage and race into the night without a backward glance.
Typical of the way he handled conflict. Run.
Conversely, watching Ridley ride away had been painless.
Bel handed Camille a glass and took a precarious perch on the settee as if she expected to flutter off at any moment. The glow from the hearth rolled over her, an amber glimmer off her bone-gray chignon, her pewter eyes. “Did you see him handle that ax? The dainty English fur you selected for our holiday decor had no chance, two blows of the blade, and done. And he carried it back like it weighed nothing! Imagine a duke having such broad shoulders. Such muscles, no need for padding. His tailor must be impressed.” She fanned her cheeks and blew out a honeyed breath. “My, did he grow up brilliantly. Celestial beauty. Simply celestial. While Ridley, poor devil, nearly chopped his toes off. Rather unfortunate, his masculine skills.”
Camille slumped against the settee and rolled her head toward her aunt. “This is where this conversation is going? Talk of broad shoulders and the lack of muscle tone in my intended’s arms?”
“So, you admit Mercer’s attractive?” Bel laughed, a bawdy, booming laugh Camille associated with happiness and independence. Two things she was considering giving up. “What better topics than those, my darling botanist? Except for Ridley’s lack of strength, that is. More interesting than”—she circled Camille’s book into her line of sight, read the title, and visibility shuddered—“plant anatomy.”
Camille traced her tongue over her teeth and took a healthy si
p. “Of course, Mercer’s attractive. I’m not blind.”
“I wondered if you still thought so, because at one time you had your eye on him. Anytime he was in the same room, you were like a hawk over a mouse. It was quite captivating to watch.”
“I was twelve years old, Bel. It was annoying.”
Her aunt whistled through her teeth, releasing a refined, one-shouldered shrug. “Children are very wise, I’ve found. They see the truth when others can’t. And a girl’s infatuation compares not to a woman’s. He may no longer be annoyed.” She sipped and smiled, gazing about the room as if her next query wasn’t a zinger. “While we’re on this topic, might it have to do with you, his abrupt departure? The duke was extremely stoic during the tree-killing, those smiles he tosses out like tattered socks nowhere to be found. A foul mood, if I had my guess. He usually makes an effort to contain the darkness. And I used to know the boy well, quite well indeed.”
Camille’s mind, soothed by spirits, drifted. “I’m sure you did. He was here often when we were children.”
Bel rotated the strand of pearls anxiously around her neck. They clinked softly, as only pearls can, gleaming in the candlelight. It was the last piece of jewelry left in the family; they’d sold the rest to keep the estate solvent. “Loneliest boy I’ve ever seen. His parents were unfit to be parents. A blessing they only had one child to ruin. Mercer’s father was not a pleasant man. And his mother, ah, I wonder if it’s unkind to say she was worse? Even without your parents, you had me. You had Edward. He had no one.”
Camille glanced out the library window and watched snow stick to the glass pane. Tristan didn’t have far to travel. Tierney Hall was less than five miles away. She hoped the roads were passable. Her parent's carriage had overturned no more than two miles from here on a snowy night twenty years ago. “His last mistress was the most famous actress in England,” she murmured. “He’s not lonely, Bel.”
“You think lovers keep someone from being lonely?” Bel patted her hand and sighed as she dropped her head back to the settee. Her aunt’s favored fragrance, jasmine with the lightest touch of lemon, drifted away from her with the movement. “How sweet, how naïve, when nothing is further from the truth. I should know. Lying next to someone you don’t love can be a dreadfully forlorn experience. I’m trying to make you understand, in my delicate way, before it’s too late.”