Courting Poppy Tidemore (Lords of Honor Book 5)

by Christi Caldwell

“You’re not the first man I’ve seen with too many drinks in him, Tristan.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Is there someone ahh will need to call out?”

  A smile tugged at her lips. That had become the protectiveness she’d grown used to: a slightly brotherly caring. “Only if you’re intending to off my brother.”

  “Pass. Ahv never had a problem with yourrr brother. Quite an upstanding fellow.”

  “Then you haven’t spent enough time with him,” she said dryly.

  Tristan cupped a hand around his ear. “What was thatttt?” he asked, entirely too loud, his voice carrying.

  Poppy slapped a hand over his mouth, silencing any further words. “Hush, unless you wish for us to be caught.”

  He snorted. “Someexplainingdo,” She made out most of that muffled reply.

  “Where is your key?”

  Again, he said something into her hand, and then lifted his shoulders in a clear message: he didn’t know.

  Sighing, Poppy released her hold on his mouth, and reaching inside his jacket, she felt around for the tiny article.

  “Whyy, Poppy,” he whispered devilishly. “IIII never knew you felt that way.”

  Of course he hadn’t. That had always been the problem between them. “Hush.” Her fingers brushed over a thick packet of notes, and she paused. What in blazes?

  “Have we lost it?” he asked again, entirely too loud.

  Poppy jumped and resumed her search…at last finding it. “Here,” she exclaimed triumphantly. Inserting the key, she opened the door. “Now, in you go.”

  Mistaking that cue, or mayhap simply doing as he wished, Sir Faithful bounded forward.

  “Whyy, thank you. Myyy knight in shiny armor.”

  “It’s shining,” Poppy whispered. “Now, go.” It was one thing to casually converse openly in the smoke room or restaurant as they’d done today. There’d been nothing clandestine in those public encounters. They’d simply been two friends meeting. Being alone in his rooms, at this hour, in her night shift? That was altogether different.

  “Verrra well. I bid you…” Tristan swept his hand in an elaborate flourish as he sketched a low bow—and promptly fell on his face. “Oomph.”

  Poppy pressed her hands briefly to her face and shook her head. “You are hopeless.”

  “No truer words have been spoke,” he replied, his mouth buried in the carpet.

  Her chest tightened. As charming and teasing as he’d been these past days, it had been too easy to dismiss the real threat Tristan faced. With their every exchange, he’d seemed…unchanged. Or mayhap it was simply she’d been too much of a coward and hadn’t wanted to fully confront the perilousness of his scandal. “Here,” she said, this time more gently. “We need to get you inside.” Offering him a hand, Poppy helped him struggle to his feet. She staggered under his added weight, as she led him inside his rooms. Kicking the door closed with her heel, she urged Tristan forward. Gasping lightly from her exertions, she steered him to the bed.

  He fell onto the edge; the mattress dipped under his weight.

  Falling to a knee, she proceeded to tug at his boot.

  “Used to have a valet, youuuu know.”

  “I do.” Poppy didn’t lift her head from her efforts to remove his footwear. “He knotted your cravats too tightly,” she said, battling the slightly scuffed boot. And here she’d spent her life admiring the ease and functionality of a man’s attire. Straddling his leg, she set to work on easing the stubborn article off.

  “Did youuu think so about my valet? Always thought ahh was quite presentable.”

  “Oh, you were. Just presentable in a ‘his-cravat-is-too-tight’ sort of way.” At last, the boot gave way and she went sprawling on her buttocks. She grunted as pain radiated up her tailbone. “I will say, I have new appreciation for the work they do,” she muttered, rubbing at her injured flesh as she made to relieve Tristan of the other article.

  “You’d say I’m better off without immm then? Because I lost himmm. Lost all of them.”

  There it was again. The reminder of his circumstances. They were no doubt the reason he now found himself three sheets to the wind.

  “It might help to talk about it,” she offered as she divested him of his next boot. This time, when it loosened, she braced herself, and kept upright.

  “Nothing willl help,” he said matter-of-factly, even in his drunkenness. He battled with the task of removing his jacket. “And yet, just beinnng around you had always brought some peace.”

  Her heart did a series of wild leaps in her breast. Which was the height of foolishness. Tristan merely spoke from a place of too many spirits.

  Tristan managed to wrest himself free of his jacket. “Always so easssy talking to you.”

  That she could understand. It had always been that way with him, too.

  Poppy sat beside him, and waited.

  “I have nothing,” he said hoarsely. “Along with the title ahhhve lost and the properties and fortune, I’m being expected to pay for debts incurred in making the fortunes that now belong to another.”

  She puzzled her brow. “Well, that doesn’t make any sense.”

  He released a tired sigh. “And yet, it does. I borrowed monies that weren’t mine to make investments that also weren’t mine.”

  “Which you were, at the time, unaware of.”

  Tristan dug around his jacket and withdrew a cheroot. “How confident you are in my honor. When all of society believes myyy hands are fully in Percival Northrop’s kidnapping.” There it was: the first time he’d uttered aloud before Poppy the ugliest parts of his own scandal.

  “Here,” she said softly. Taking his cheroot, she lit it on the candlestick at his bedside and handed it over.

  “Mannny thanks,” he said, with the scrap of tobacco stuck between his teeth.

  “I know you. Furthermore,” she went on. “Even if I wasn’t certain in your character, you would have been a mere child yourself at the time the boy went missing.”

  He stared wistfully at her. “If onllly society were as logical in their reasoning.” Taking a long pull of his cheroot, he exhaled slowly. “Either way, I’m now left with two unmarried sisters and a mother to care for. Yet all of it belongs to him.” All of it. “And there is no way out.”

  “Of course there is,” she said.

  “Thatttt speaks to the contrary,” he drawled, his slurred words rolling together. He pointed his cheroot and Poppy searched around for the “that” in question.

  “Your jacket?”

  He chuckled. “Annnnd even when my life is in the gutter, you manage to make me smile.” His laughter abated, and even in his inebriated state, he held her gaze with clarity and focus and seriousness.

  Those butterflies danced in her belly.

  She made herself reach for the rumpled garment, and fished inside. She withdrew the stack of notes. “This?

  “Preccciisely.”

  Assuming permission to read had been granted when he’d motioned to the packet on the floor, Poppy unfolded the ivory sheets, and began to read.

  She paused mid-sentence. “Tristan,” she exclaimed.

  “Precisssely. Again.” He fell back on the mattress and lay there silent, puffing away at his cheroot. Occasionally stubbing the ashes onto the crystal tray beside his bed. More often than not, missing.

  Poppy resumed her reading.

  Lord Bolingbroke,

  Per our most recent discussion, you are well aware of the circumstances in which you now find yourself. Lord Maxwell is determined to see that you pay your—

  “Debts,” she whispered into the quiet.

  I am in the process of compiling a list of the outstanding debt owed to the current Lord Maxwell.

  “Your faithful servant?” she squawked.

  “Ahm not the only one who found that closing a bit in irony?” Tristan called with that scrap of tobacco still clenched between his teeth.

  She slapped the pages closed. “What a bootlicker.” It was one thing to
take up employment elsewhere, but to do so with the current earl? “You’ve a problem with servants and loyalty.”

  “Hadd,” he mumbled, as he exhaled a perfect smoke ring. “Past tense. I don’t have any servants.”

  Poppy hopped up, and removed the cheroot from his fingers. “All right,” she said determinedly, stamping out his smoke on the crystal dish. “You must address that unfair debt.” And care for his sisters and mother. “What is the amount?”

  He shrugged. “Sanders is sending that ’round soon. Though in truth, I sussspect he had the information when he was here but was scared to mention it with me seated before him.”

  “There’s always a way out.”

  Tristan edged himself higher on the bed, toward the pillow. “That is what IIII said. And never tell me, you have the answer because you always have the answerrrs.” He chuckled. “To questions I didn’t even know most times I had.”

  Actually, she didn’t. Not this time. Not any time, really. If she did, she’d have known how to get herself unscathed from her own scandal.

  She froze. Then her mind picked up speed as the plan took root and grew. Of course. It was the answer. For both of them. In fact, she was really quite disappointed in herself for not thinking of it earlier. In a way, she already had. The contract.

  “That is it,” she whispered. Tristan’s situation was dire and Poppy had already given up on marriage, and that had been before she’d gone and been ruined.

  “What is it?” he asked, half-asleep.

  Climbing onto the bed, Poppy waved the damning packet sent by his feckless former man-of-affairs. “Why, we need to marry, of course.”

  Tristan opened and closed his mouth continuously like the bass he’d plucked from the river the last time they’d gone fishing. Struggling up onto his elbows, he managed to get himself upright. “I beg your pardon. I know I’ve had sahm drinks. Did you just…?”

  “Propose marriage?” She nodded. “I do believe I did. Though, in fairness, it’s not quite me proposing to you but rather us entering into that agreement we reached.”

  “We did?”

  She nodded.

  “You and I?” he repeated.

  “Which is really just another way of saying ‘we’, Tristan.”

  He collapsed back into the pillows. “When in God’s name did we do anything like that?”

  A pang struck, even though it shouldn’t. Even though she should be very well accustomed to his not recalling that particular day. There had been all number of “particular days” he’d forgotten. This one, however, had been different.

  “Our Marriage Pact.” That paper she’d meticulously written down following Lord Smith’s ball…and saved all these years.

  “Our Marriage Pact.” His mouth moved, but his words came out inaudibly. “Doesn soun’ familiar.”

  “It really is the answer. We’re both trapped here, mired in scandal, wanting out of our circumstances.”

  “Shh,” he whispered, stealing a glance about.

  Poppy rolled her eyes. “First, we’re alone in your rooms. Secondly, I’m not making you an indecent offer.”

  “No, you’re offering me marriage,” he said on a frantic whisper. “Which is realllly just the same thing.”

  She bristled. “Actually it is quite the opposite.”

  “Not when a lady does it.”

  Poppy pinched his arm. He grunted. “Careful, Poplar. It is not too late for me to renege on the agreement. Who says a lady cannot propose to a gentleman?”

  “What agreement?” he sounded so pained she almost took pity on him. Almost.

  “If we were unmarried, we’d both be one another’s plus one in life. Lord Smith’s? Is that familiar?” He shook his head. “My lemonade stained dress?”

  Understanding at last sparked in his gaze, and then… His eyes bulged. “Surely you were not seriousss?”

  “I was.” Poppy thinned her eyes on his face. “Deadly.”

  Tristan sighed, that faintly condescending whisper of air that sent her fingers darting out once more. “Oomph. Would you please stop pinching me?”

  “I will when you cease patronizing me.”

  “I’m not.” Color splotched his cheeks. “At least, I wasn’t intentionally doing so. Poppy,” he began again, and this time had the speed and sense to draw his arm out of reach. “You were involved in a scandallll, Poppy,” he said placatingly. “One that will eventually be forgotten, and then there will be some gentleman there who’ll make you a proper husbannnnd.”

  “What exactly is a proper husband?” This she’d dearly love to hear from Tristan Poplar.

  And even for as drunk as he was, there was a clarity in the gaze that met hers. “One who will love you and make you happy, in a marriage that didn’t begin as a business arrangement. I want more for you than that, Poppy.”

  Warmth tingled in her heart. In Tristan Poplar, the world saw a detached rogue, but heartless rogues didn’t speak of love and they certainly didn’t put a young lady’s happiness before their own need for self-preservation. “And I want a husband who doesn’t get to decide what I want.”

  He folded his arms across his broad chest, and waved his fingers, urging her on. “I’m listening. I’m not saying I’m going to agree to this madnesss, but tell me what would you possibly gain from marriage to me?”

  A man who was honorable. A man who loved his sisters and mother enough to worry about their happiness and futures before his own. Her heart fluttered, that butterfly effect he’d always had upon her senses. He’d never gathered that she’d carried a tendre for him as a young girl. Which was all the better, as they’d likely never have entered into the pact they had. “We’ve already gone through that, Tristan.”

  “Ahm afraid you’ll have to refresh my memory.”

  Two and a half years. It had been two years since she and Tristan had agreed to be one another’s spouse if—or as the case turned out—when they proved unsuccessful in finding one. He had no recollection of that night. It shouldn’t matter. It was a chance meeting they’d had long ago. Only, Poppy recalled every detail of that night, and he should remember…none of it. Poppy proceeded to recite the familiar lines, memorized long ago. “If either Tristan Poplar or Poppy Tidemore fail to wed when I, Poppy Tidemore, reach the age of—”

  “Verrry formal language you’ve adopted.”

  “—twenty-six, then we shall marry one another.”

  “Twenty-six!”

  Poppy cocked her head.

  “The contract would only take effect if you were unwed at twenty-six, which you are not.” With that, he fell back on the mattress and reached for a pillow. As he dragged the article over his face, there was a finality to that gesture. “There was a reason we said twenty-six because at twenty, you’re still young and deserving of hope and love.” The pillow garbled those words, and yet, nonetheless, the meaning was clear.

  Poppy frowned at the veiled undertones of what he truly implied: she was a girl, still. She yanked the pillow from his eyes and tossed it aside. “I’m twenty-one.”

  He grabbed his pillow back. “Fine. Then, in five years, if I’m not out of this mess and you’re unwed and still desiring marriage, then we can speeeeak.”

  And then, he proceeded to snore.

  The great lummox.

  Poppy shoved his shoulder until he grunted himself awake.

  “Whaat? What?”

  “Age is arbitrary, Tristan. It was the significance of the terms and what I desire that mattered most in that pact.”

  Tristan slowly removed the pillow. His gaze roved over her face, touching on each place with such an intensity it scorched, as if he could see inside and pluck out the lifetime of secrets she carried. “And what was that?”

  “A say over my own fate.” Poppy turned her palms up, willing him to see. “To marry a man who’ll not stifle my artistic endeavors but who’ll instead allow me the freedom to create what I wish and how I wish.” She looked at him for a long moment. “Would you? Seek to prev
ent me from undertaking any artistic endeavor?”

  “Of course nooot,” he said with such conviction, she feared the weakening of her heart.

  “Then we will still do quite nicely, Tristan.”

  “You never wished to marry for looove?”

  I wished to marry you for love…

  She stilled, stricken by that reminder. Because it had no bearing on any of this. Poppy was a woman grown now, with a mind for what she wanted, and also a mind for what she’d already accepted would never be.

  Tristan offered another sad little smile. “I’m grateful for the offfer, but I cannot allow either of us to do this. At least, not until another five and a half years.” With a teasing wink, he flipped onto his side.

  Teasing. He’d always been teasing.

  Poppy scrambled around the other side of the bed so that they lay close, facing one another. “What of your sisters and mother?”

  That brought his eyes flying open.

  Her heart thudded hard in her chest. Was it her body’s awareness of him? Or the proposition she awaited an answer on? Or both?

  “I am grateful to you for the offfer. But I cannot, Poppy. Not for you. Not even for my family.”

  “Can’t you?” she whispered. “Your sisters would have entry to Polite Society once more.” Some emotion flickered in his eyes. He wanted to say “yes” in that instant. She saw in the silver flecks that glinted. “I have—”

  He blanched. “Please, don’t say it.”

  Her stomach muscles twisted. Countless English lords had married because of their need for funds. Prudence’s husband had been a fortune hunter. Why, even Ryker had married Penny to save his club after he’d been discovered in a compromising position with Penny.

  And here was Tristan. So proud, refusing to enter into an arrangement that would see him as a fortune hunter.

  Drawing in a deep breath, he flung his legs over the side of his bed and sat there a moment. Then coming to his feet, he padded across the room, to the double doors that emptied out onto the balcony. A wave of cool night air spilled into the room.

  Poppy stared at him a long moment, uncertain. And then drawing her wrapper close to ward off the chill, she joined him.

  Breathing deep of the night air, Tristan rested his palms on the smooth stone surface and stared out.