Valentine had never seen Tristan look so unsure. Not since the night he’d kissed her in the conservatory. But this was different, somehow. He wasn’t melancholy. And he certainly hadn’t been drinking.
He cleared his throat. “But before you decide our destination, answer me this. Yesterday…in London…”
“Yes?”
A muscle worked in his jaw. “Why did you release me from our engagement?”
It wasn’t the question she’d expected. Indeed, she’d thought he would ask something about her mother or the Caddingtons or even Val Rutherford, the man she now understood to be her natural father. The breaking of their engagement, an incident which, at the time, had seemed to affect him so little, could hardly be of concern to him now, could it?
“There was no need for us to remain engaged,” she said. “Not when I’m settled with Lady Hermione and you’re making such a success of things in Northumberland. Neither of us particularly needs the other anymore, do we? My reputation is safe. And you needn’t fear being cut off from your father’s money. There’s no longer any purpose—”
“Is that how you feel?” he demanded.
She looked away from him. Her fingers plucked nervously at one of her gloves. “I’d never forgive myself if I let you act out of obligation. And you’d never forgive me either. In time, you may even come to hate me for allowing you to make such a sacrifice.”
“A sacrifice,” he repeated. “Is that what you think? That I would sacrifice myself in marriage because I’ve compromised you?”
“I know that you would.”
“With my reputation?” he scoffed. “Any number of people have warned you about me. If you think I’d behave in such a noble fashion, you clearly haven’t been listening to them.”
“I know what your reputation was before, my lord. But you were at a crossroads the day I met you. You have ever since tried to do the right and honorable thing. Even if it made you uncomfortable. It’s why you went to Northumberland.”
He regarded her for a long moment, an expression in his eyes hard to read. “What of your heart, Miss March? In Yorkshire you said it was mine.”
A deep, mortified blush rose in Valentine’s cheeks. She wished she’d never said it. But there was no taking it back. Not now. It was the truth, after all. “So it is.”
“And what about my heart?”
“Your heart?” Her brows lifted in surprise. “That’s never been a concern, surely.”
“The hell it hasn’t,” he growled. “Why the devil do you think I’ve done all of this? Attempting to become independent. Tracking down the origins of your real father. Staying away from you when I might have written or visited or—”
“Because it was the right thing to do. The honorable thing to do.”
“Curse the honorable thing,” he said. “I did it because I’m in love with you.”
Valentine’s mouth fell open. She felt, for one frozen second, as if he’d spoken to her in Ancient Greek or Swahili. The words were so foreign. So shockingly unexpected. She could only reckon that she’d misheard them. “What did you say?” she whispered.
Tristan looked down at her, a vulnerability in his gaze that she’d never seen before. “I said that I’m in love with you. And I’ve come to Kent with this blasted carriage and four to ask you to come away with me, my fair one. To Gretna Green. To India, or China, or St. George’s Hanover Square. To anywhere you please.” He brought his hand to her cheek. It was large and warm, cradling her face like a delicate treasure. “I’ve come to ask you to marry me, Valentine. Not because I compromised you. Not because of my father’s money or because I must do the honorable thing, but because I love you. More than I’ve ever loved anyone or anything in this world.”
She blinked rapidly against a sudden swell of tears. “Do you?”
“Yes, you little fool.” His deep voice made the words a caress. “I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you in the folly. Since you quoted that Bible verse at me. It was the most damnable thing. But you were right. The winter was over the day I met you.”
“Oh, Tristan,” she said. “This is…” Her voice broke. “This is all quite unexpected.”
The pad of his thumb brushed along the delicate bones of her cheek with infinite tenderness, wiping away the first spill of tears. And then, with a muttered oath, he took her in his arms and kissed her.
Valentine wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him as his lips moved on hers. He wasn’t gentle. Nor was he careful. He employed none of his rakish arts. He kissed her as if he were a starving man, made insensible from want. As if she were as essential to him as light and air.
“Obligation,” he muttered when they paused for breath. “Is that what you thought I felt for you?” He pressed a kiss to her cheek as he held her. “You mad, beautiful creature. How little you know of men.”
Her fingers twined through the thick black hair at the nape of his neck. Her bosom was pressed tight to his chest. She could feel his heart hammering against her own. “I wanted to believe you cared for me,” she said softly. “But I dared not hope.”
“If I cared for you any more, I would be a candidate for bedlam.”
“You never said anything.”
“No.” His expression sobered. “My words haven’t ever counted for much with women. They came too easily. All the compliments, flattery, and broken promises. I wanted to give you something better. Deeds, not words. I wanted to show you that your faith in me wasn’t misplaced.”
“Of course it wasn’t. I knew that. I’ve always known that. Still…” Her lips tilted briefly in a rueful half-smile. “I wish you’d shown your feelings on occasion. It would’ve saved me many a sleepless night.”
“I would if I hadn’t stayed away. There would have been no hiding it. And then the whole world would have known.”
“Known what?”
“That I love you. That I adore you beyond reason.”
She felt his hands move on her back. He squeezed her corseted waist and brushed kisses over her tightly pinned hair. He couldn’t seem to stop touching her. “That’s not truly why you did all of those things, is it?” she asked. “Going to Northumberland and trying to be responsible. It wasn’t all for me, was it?”
“In the beginning,” he admitted. “But as time passed…Good God, Valentine, you wouldn’t believe it, but I actually like the Priory. If you discount the mud and the weather and the lack of society—”
“You were born to run a great estate,” she said. “It’s what you’ve been raised for all your life.”
“Yes, but I never thought I would enjoy it. I never once believed it could make me happy.”
“Has it?”
“It has,” he said. “As much as I could be happy without you by my side. That I kept away from you a month is nothing short of a miracle.”
Her eyes welled up. “When you didn’t come with us on the journey from Yorkshire, I feared I would never see you again.”
“Foolish of you.”
“Yes, it was rather, when I always knew that you would keep your promise.”
Tristan found her mouth again in a swift, hard kiss before drawing back to look at her tearstained face. “Still weeping, are we?”
“A little.”
“I trust they are tears of happiness.”
She gave a choked laugh and brought her hands to her face to wipe her cheeks. “They must be,” she said. “For I’m so dreadfully happy.”
“You’re forever without a handkerchief, Miss March. It’s a good thing I’m here to look after you.” Tristan released her just long enough to retrieve a clean, square of linen from an interior pocket of his coat. He pressed it into her hand. “Come now. Dry your eyes and say that you’ll marry me. Say that you love me just a little.”
Valentine dabbed at her face with his handkerchief. “Haven’t I said so?”
“No,” he said grimly. “You most certainly have not.”
She met his eyes. The raw emotion she saw there made
her heart turn over. “Of course I love you. And more than just a little.”
Tristan’s gaze held hers. “How much more?”
“So much more that, when you left Lady Hermione’s yesterday, I thought my heart would break into a million pieces. And now that you’re here, I think you must marry me straightaway, Tristan. For I never want to be apart from you again for as long as I live. No matter how much you might vex me.”
He bent his head and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to her temple. “To the train station, then. And on to Gretna Green.”
She nodded. “Yes, please.”
“And after that?” he asked. “Where shall we go? London? Northumberland? On a mission to some foreign land?”
“Anywhere,” she told him. “Everywhere. All of those places. It doesn’t matter as long as I’m with you.”
Tristan settled her in his arms. “My own precious love. The feeling is entirely mutual.”
Tristan Sinclair, Viscount St. Ashton married Valentine March at Gretna Green, Scotland on the sixth of December 1861. The newly wed couple honeymooned at Blackburn Priory, their estate in Northumberland, before travelling to Sinclair House in Devonshire for the Christmas Holidays.
Their scandalous union was the subject of the gossip columns for well over a year, with many speculating that the notorious viscount had ruined the equally notorious daughter of the late Lady Sara Caddington and been forced into marriage by his disapproving father, the Earl of Lynden. In time, however, it became clear to all that St. Ashton was deeply and irrevocably in love with his wife and she with him. This was never more apparent than when, in their second year of marriage, Lord St. Ashton accompanied his wife on a lengthy tour of the British missions in India.
Lord and Lady St. Ashton would go on to welcome their first child in 1863. They christened her Sara Eleonore Sinclair, after their respective mothers.
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North Devon, England
October, 1859
Helena Reynolds crossed the floor of the crowded taproom, her carpetbag clutched in her trembling hands. The King’s Arms was only a small coaching inn on the North Devon coast road, but it seemed to her as if every man in Christendom had gathered there to have a pint. She could feel their eyes on her as she navigated carefully through their midst. Some stares were merely curious. Others were openly assessing.
She suppressed a shiver. She was hardly dressed for seduction in her gray, striped-silk travelling gown, though she’d certainly made an effort to look presentable. After all, it was not every day that one met one’s future husband.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” the innkeeper called to her from behind the crowded bar.
“Yes. If you please, sir.” Tightening her hands on her carpetbag, she approached the high counter. There was a very tall man leaning against the end of it, nursing his drink. His lean, muscular frame was shrouded in a dark wool greatcoat, his face partially hidden by his upturned collar and a tall beaver hat that tipped low over his brow. She squeezed into the empty space beside him, her heavy petticoats and crinoline rustling loudly as they pressed against his leg.
She lowered her voice to address the innkeeper directly. “I’m here to see—”
“Blevins!” a man across the room shouted. “Give us another round!”
Before Helena could object, the innkeeper darted off to oblige his customers. She stared after him in helpless frustration. She had been expected at one o’clock precisely. And now, after the mix-up at the train station and the delay with the accommodation coach—she cast an anxious glance at the small watch she wore pinned to the front of her bodice—it was already a quarter past two!
“Sir!” she called to the innkeeper. She stood up on the toes of her half-boots, trying to catch his eye. “Sir!”
He did not acknowledge her. He was exchanging words with the coachman at the other end of the counter as he filled five tankards with ale. The two of them were laughing together with the ease of old friends.
Helena gave a soft huff of annoyance. She was accustomed to being ignored, but this was the outside of enough. Her whole life hinged on the next few moments!
She looked around for someone who might assist her. Her eyes fell at once on the gentleman at her side. He didn’t appear to be a particularly friendly sort of fellow, but his height was truly commanding and surely he must have a voice to match his size.
“I beg your pardon, sir.” She touched him lightly on the arm with one gloved hand. His muscles tensed beneath her fingers. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but would you mind very much to summon—”
He raised his head from drinking and, very slowly, turned to look at her.
The words died on Helena’s lips.
He was burned. Badly burned.
“Do you require something of me, ma’am?” he asked in an excruciatingly civil undertone.
She stared up at him, her first impression of his appearance revising itself by the second. The burns, though severe, were limited to the bottom right side of his face, tracing a path from his cheek down to the edge of his collar and beyond it, she was sure. The rest of his face—a stern face with a strongly chiseled jaw and hawk-like aquiline nose—was relatively unmarked. Not only unmarked, but with his black hair and smoke gray eyes, actually quite devastatingly handsome.
“Do you require something of me?” he asked again, more sharply this time.
She blinked. “Yes. Do forgive me. Would you mind very much to summon the innkeeper? I cannot seem to—”
“Blevins!” the gentleman bellowed.
The innkeeper broke off his loud conversation and scurried back to their end of the counter. “What’s that, guv?”
“The lady wishes to speak with you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Helena said. But the gentleman had already turned his attention back to his drink, dismissing her without a word.
“Yes, ma’am?” the innkeeper prompted.
Abandoning all thoughts of the handsome—and rather rude—stranger at her side, Helena once again addressed herself to the innkeeper. “I was supposed to meet someone here at one o’clock,” she said. “A Mr. Boothroyd?” She felt the gentleman next to her stiffen, but she did not regard it. “Is he still here?”
“Another one for Boothroyd, are you?” The innkeeper looked her up and down. “Don’t look much like the others.”
Helena’s face fell. “Oh?” she asked faintly. “Have there been others?”
“Aye. Boothroyd’s with the last one now.”
“The last one?” she repeated, stunned. She could not believe it. Mr. Boothroyd had given her the impression that she was the only woman with whom Mr. Thornhill was corresponding. And even if she was not, what sort of man interviewed potential wives for his employer in the same manner one might interview applicants for a position as a maidservant or a cook? It struck her as being in extraordinarily bad taste.
Was Mr. Thornhill aware of what his steward was doing?
She pushed the thought to the back of her mind. It was far too late for doubts.
“As that may be, sir,” she said, “I’ve come a very long way and I’m certain that Mr. Boothroyd will wish to see me.”
In fact, she was not at all certain. She had only ever met Mr. Finchley, the sympathetic young attorney in London. It was he who had encouraged her to come to Devon. While the sole interaction she had had with Mr. Boothroyd and Mr. Thornhill thus far were letters—letters which she currently had safely folded within the contents of her carpetbag.
“Reckon he might at that,” the innkeeper mused.
“Precisely. Now, if you will inform Mr. Boothroyd that I’ve arrived, I would be very much obliged to you.”
The man beside her finished his ale in one swallow and then slammed the tankard down on the counter. “I’ll take her to Boothroyd,” he said.
Helena watched,
wide-eyed, as he stood to his full, towering height. When he glared down at her, she offered him a tentative smile. “I must thank you again, sir. You’ve been very kind.”
He glowered. “This way.” And then, without a backward glance, he strode toward the hall.
Clutching her carpetbag tightly, she trotted after him. Her heart was skittering, her pulse pounding in her ears. She prayed she would not faint before she had even submitted to her interview.
The gentleman rapped once on the door to the private parlor. It was opened by a little gray haired man in spectacles. He peered up at the gentleman, frowned, and then, with furrowed brow, looked past him to stare at Helena herself.
“Mr. Boothroyd?” she queried.
“I am Boothroyd,” he said. “And you, I presume, are Miss Reynolds?”
“Yes, sir. I know I’m dreadfully late for my appointment…” She saw a woman rising from a chair within the private parlor. A woman who regarded Helena with an upraised chin, her face conveying what words could not. “Oh,” Helena whispered. And just like that it seemed that the tiny, flickering flame of hope she had nurtured these last months blinked out. “You have already found someone else.”
“As to that, Miss Reynolds—” Mr. Boothroyd broke off with an expression of dismay as the tall gentleman brushed past him to enter the private parlor. He removed his hat and proceeded to take a seat by the raging fire in the hearth.
The woman gaped at him in dismay. “Mr. Boothroyd!” she hissed, hurrying to the older gentleman’s side. “I thought this was a private parlor.”
“So it is, Mrs. Standish.” Mr. Boothroyd consulted his pocket watch. “Or was, until half an hour ago. Never mind it. Our interview is finished in any case. Now, if you would be so good as to…”
Helena did not hear the rest of their conversation. All she could hear was the sound of her own beating heart. She did not know why she remained. She would have to board the coach and continue to Cornwall. And then what? Fling herself from the cliffs, she supposed. There was no other way. Oh, what a fool she had been to think this would work in the first place! If only Jenny had never seen that advertisement in the paper. Then she would have known months ago that there was but one means of escape from this wretched tangle. She would never have had reason to hope!
The Viscount and the Vicar's Daughter Page 17