“I see. And do any of those prayer groups really exist?”
“At least one does. Thomas, please. We can't talk about such things here.”
“So, tell me when we can discuss them. Set a time and a place where we can meet.”
She nearly burst out laughing, but instead, stuffed it back with a frown. “Are you serious? Do you want me to make some... some sort of assignation with you?”
“Why not? You've shown that you are quite adept at getting out of the house without Parrington's notice. I mean, I can't imagine it's hard, given how your cousin takes his nose out of the air long enough to say hello.”
“Don't talk about Tristan like that,” Blythe said with a frown. “He doesn't deserve it.”
“Well, I may still be irritated about our fight. My lip broke open a few times in the weeks after. I'm glad his face is still marked up.”
“Honestly, you're like children,” Blythe said.
“Blythe, the dance is almost over. Tell me when I can meet you?”
“And I ask you again, why would I?”
“Because I met a contradictory young lady in the stews three weeks ago, and then I met her again among the gleaming London elite. I want to know what in the world you are doing.”
“Just for your curiosity's sake? I'm not sure I care to satisfy your curiosity, really.”
“And also, because I think you want to be seen.”
Blythe nearly missed a step. “What are you talking about?”
“It didn't escape my notice that you were all alone the night we met. I thought at first that you and Honey were a pair, and then it turned out that even the Quaker family you left her with doesn't really help you in whatever it is you do. You get waifs to them, but then you go your own way, don't you? Who really sees you, Blythe?”
No one.
The answer rang in her head like a bell, and for a moment, she was horrified to feel a thick lump come up her throat. She wondered wildly for a moment what it would do to her reputation if she simply started weeping like a ninny in front of the crush at Almack's.
“And you want to see me?” she asked as they faced each other for the final bow.
“More than anything, I think,” he replied, and then there was no time left. Tristan would never allow Thomas to get close to the house, and they didn't really have any social circles in common. She could tell him yes now, or simply let him slip away.
With an ache in her heart that she didn't understand, Blythe made a decision. “Three nights from now. Two in the morning, meet me at Seven Dials.”
Thomas didn't give her an answer. Instead, he offered her his arm and escorted her back to the sidelines where Tristan was waiting for her.
“Thank you for the dance,” he said softly, and then he was gone. In his place was Lord Cottering, smiling and taking her hand, but even as they took their places for Marchese, she couldn't help looking for Thomas in the crowd.
* * *
Blythe was getting damned tired of being summoned, she decided. She was still feeling bleary and tired from being in fancy clothes and scrutinized by what felt like all of Society from the night before when the maid appeared telling her that Tristan wanted to see her.
The house is not that big. Surely, it would not strain him to come and just... see me.
She reminded herself that no matter how they had grown up together, Tristan was now the duke, and she was just his father's charity case. Only that wasn't really true anymore, was it? Thinking about her inheritance gave Blythe a headache. She would go hours without thinking about it, but then suddenly, it would pop up in front of her again, reminding her that no matter what she wanted, everything was different now.
She glared balefully at the colorful wardrobe that Tristan had ordered for her, everything she would need to take the city by storm in her first season. They were beautiful clothes, and even if she sighed a little at how she looked in silk, the fact of their existence made her want to take some scissors to them. Blythe pushed back to the drab gray dresses she favored, pulling one on and heading to the library, where Tristan waited for her.
It occurred to her upon entering that Tristan was in far worse shape than she was. He was dressed in fresh clothes, and he was as closely shaved as ever, but despite all that, there was something frayed about the way he looked. When she looked a little closer, she could see dark circles under his eyes and a hard set to his jaw.
Becoming the duke had changed him, she thought with a pang, and she wondered if she would ever be really at ease with her cousin again.
“Good morning, Tristan,” she said.
He looked up at her. “Blythe. Come here and have a seat. We need to talk.”
I don't suppose it's going to be about how you are going to give up this attempt to parade me in front of London Society and let me live my life, is it?
Instead of saying any of that, she nodded briefly and came to sit at one of the chairs close to his desk, her hands folded in her lap. She expected him to say something about Thomas, but he surprised her.
“I have not asked you this before, because I assumed that you were as clueless as I was, but it occurs to me that perhaps you know more than you ever mentioned to me.”
“Tristan?”
“Why did my father leave you Gallowglass?”
“Tristan, believe me, if I knew, I would tell you. As it is, I have no idea.”
He gave her a long look, and she was startled by how cool it was. Tristan had a reputation for a certain amount of viciousness in the ton. He had always been more serious than Ned, and he'd never been one for making friends or sport. However, he had always been like a brother to her, and to have him looking at her like that sent a strange chill down her spine.
“I don't know what you expect me to say,” Blythe said softly. “You know as much as I do. You said yourself that you thought your father did not do well by me. Maybe at the end, he thought the same thing.”
“There was no telling what went on in my father's head. He was an older man when Ned and I were born, and we were never close. Toward the end, it seemed as if he grew even more secretive and difficult to know. Did you know him any better?”
Blythe stiffened at the tone in Tristan's voice. It made a low heat creep into her face, and she hoped that he wasn't implying what she thought he was implying. “I should have,” she said at last. “He was... bad-tempered toward the end. I wanted to help him, but I was so often put off by his moods. I should have tried harder. That's something that I will continue to regret, I think.”
She had never noticed before how dark and cold Tristan's gaze could be. It felt as if he were watching her, waiting for her to reveal some kind of stain or evil in front of his very eyes.
“If you have something to say, Tristan, please, just say it.”
She braced herself to hear Tristan call her a seductress who had taken advantage of his father, but finally, in the end, he was the one who looked away. He didn't apologize or tell her he was wrong to think that of her. Instead, he tapped one finger on the desk. “You danced with Amory last night.”
It was hard to fit Thomas into the world of the ton when she had first met him on the front steps of a terrible gambling hell. “You mean Thomas Martin. Well, yes.”
“Blythe, is there something going on between the two of you?”
This was more like the Tristan she knew, but at the moment, she was too riled to appreciate it.
She drew inward, pulling up that terribly prim facade that served her so very well. “You have seen our interactions. There's nothing else to say. I tried to help him a few weeks ago, when you two had that altercation in the alley. Then, last night, he asked me to dance, and I accepted.”
“Why him? Out of all of the people who asked you to dance, why did you accept his offer?”
“I was not going to dance at all,” Blythe said frostily. “You were the one who dragged me to Almack's last night. I would have been just as happy at home.”
Tristan slammed his ha
nd down on the desk, making her jump. For a moment, the facade that she wore shifted, and she could feel the very real fear and shock on her face. She had never been afraid of Tristan before. However, it felt as if the Tristan that she knew was long gone, and the stranger who glared her from across his desk didn't care about her in the least. “I told you before. Stay the hell away from the Martins.”
She took a deep breath. “Tristan. I do not know why you are acting like this. No matter what you have implied or what you are suggesting, I have not done anything that would shame the Carrow name. I have done nothing that I am ashamed about, and I am certainly not so weak-willed that simply being in close proximity to a Martin is going to make me act in some unsuitable way.”
“You don't understand.”
“Explain it to me, please! You have been acting strange lately, ever since the day when we found out about Gallowglass. Do you want the property? Would you like me to sign it over to you? I will if you will simply leave me alone to live my life the way you are allowed to live yours!”
Tristan looked stricken by her words. He pulled back as if she had slapped him. “No. That's... that's not what this is about. God, Blythe.”
“Then whenever you figure out what it is really about, you should come to tell me. Because I want to know, Tristan. I really do.”
Without a single look back, she stood up from the chair and started to walk away. To her shock, Tristan was out from behind the desk, wrapping his fingers around her wrist and drawing her to a stop.
Blythe's startled cry shocked them both. He hadn't hurt her, but she had never imagined that Tristan would lay hands on her at all. He dropped her wrist as if it were hot, and Blythe had had enough. If she didn't get out of the room, she was going to hit him, and then what would happen?
Instead, she took to her heels, running out of the library and not stopping until she gained the safety of her own room. She bolted the door behind her, and by then, she was shaking hard enough that she ended up on the floor, teeth chattering and knees too wobbly to support her.
When she calmed down, Blythe realized she might have ruined everything. A good girl wouldn't scream at the master of the house like a fishwife, and she shouldn't have defied Tristan at all. She should have sweetly gone along with whatever he said and found her own way around it later on. Instead, she had gotten carried away by her own emotions, and now who knew what might happen? Tristan might just marry her to a shepherd in Dumfries simply to be rid of her.
There was no use crying over spilled milk though. She hoped the situation was not beyond salvaging. Tomorrow, maybe the day after, she would go to Tristan and apologize. She would show him that she was still his sweet biddable cousin and that nothing had changed at all. She could tell him that the shock of learning about the inheritance had left her feeling as unsettled as he had felt when he'd become the Duke of Parrington.
Tristan was reasonable. He would understand. Blythe forcibly pushed aside the thought that the old Tristan would have understood. She had no idea what the new Tristan might think or do, what he might think was good enough.
Blythe shook her head and suddenly wondered what Thomas would make of this. Would he care about the fact that Tristan seemed to be slowly changing into a monster, or would he simply dismiss it as Carrow nonsense?
Abruptly, Blythe wanted to see Thomas more than anything. She could still remember how close they had stood in the alley just three weeks ago, and last night, the warmth of his body as they had danced. The need to be close to him, to touch him, was as strong as hunger or thirst, and if she had been feeling more herself, she might have been shocked. However, sitting at the base of her bolted door, unsure what the future might hold, all she wanted was Thomas.
* * *
8
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CHAPTER
EIGHT
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Seven Dials was notorious in London. Thomas heard it referred to as a neighborhood out of hell thrust up into the city, a place where the constables feared to go and where all manner of lawlessness occurred.
Thomas had been exploring its dark alleys, gambling hells, and cat houses since he was sixteen. It was a dangerous place, and it was true that there were plenty of ways for an unwary person to get themselves in trouble, but overall, it didn't bother him. Mostly, he had found the people to be poor and desperate, but also eager to leave him alone if he would return that favor.
Of course, at two in the morning, waiting in the sheltered doorway close to the seven sundials that gave the area its name, Thomas felt an unaccustomed pang of fear, not for himself, but for Blythe. It was a little strange to feel something so strongly for a woman he’d had fewer than a dozen conversations with, but there it was.
What do I do if she doesn't show up? I can't very well go to her house to find out if she was laid up with a cold. And Christ, what would happen if she were attacked or even kidnapped? She would just disappear into the stews, and no one would ever know what had happened to her. Hell, before she gained that inheritance, no one would care, either. Now she'd be the missing heiress, some terrible curiosity for the papers or a cautionary moral tale...
He was so worried that he almost missed her at first. Suddenly, there was a small figure next to his elbow, so anonymously dressed in gray that she blended in with the cold winter fog.
"If you can't stay any more alert than that, you should never leave the paths of Vauxhall." Blythe's tone was light, almost playful.
Thomas jumped before composing himself and turning to her with a scowl. "You're late. I was afraid that someone had popped you in a sack and spirited you away to France as stolen goods."
"You're wrong. I'm not late at all; I just heard the clocks chime. But you're here. I didn't think you would come."
Thomas might have replied that there was no way in the world he was going to leave her to wander around Seven Dials on her own, but somehow, he didn't want to confess how very worried he had been. It sounded like something a Carrow would say.
"Well, I suppose when I told you I wanted to meet again, it was your right to set the terms."
"Like a duel? That seems rather adversarial."
"You're a Martin, and my father was the former Duke of Parrington's first cousin. I think being adversaries runs in our veins. But if we're going to talk, we should start walking. There is a fair amount I want to accomplish before I need to be back at home."
Thomas offered her his arm again, and she took it easily. Something about walking arm in arm with Blythe Dennings just felt right, even if it was happening in one of London's most notorious slums.
"So, I don't know if you know this, but I do have something of a reputation for scandalous meetings with ladies living in repressive situations."
She shot him an amused look. "You mean seductions and trysts carried out at the better hotels?"
"Well, yes, but I wasn't going to be so blunt."
"Then let me be the first to tell you that when people talk about your exploits, they are far blunter than that."
"I will endeavor to take that in a flattering way. But what I am saying is that if we wanted to meet, it didn't have to be in the Dials. There are plenty of luxurious hotels in the better part of town that promise utter discretion."
To Thomas’ surprise, she tugged her arm away from him, looking up at him with shock.
"Thomas, did you sincerely think that I asked you out here to... to start an affair with you?"
"Well... not immediately. I suppose I guessed. Or hoped, maybe."
When he thought about it, however, Thomas wondered. He had liked Blythe almost immediately upon laying eyes on her, even if she wasn't really the type of woman he sought out. She was attractive in her gamine way, and once she was out of that plain gray gown and dressed up, there were few women in the ton who could compare to her. Yes, he wanted to sleep with her, but if he were honest
with himself, that hadn't been the first thing on his mind when she’d told him she would see him again.
The first thing he had thought was, Thank God, I have missed you so.
Blythe, of course, knew none of this, and her look of shock changed to one of stubbornness. "No. I am not letting you seduce me."
A pair of passing women in bright glad rags stumbled by, arm in arm. One of them reached out to slap Blythe on the shoulder companionably in passing. "That's right, love, you make him work for that! Posh bastard like him, he can afford to put some effort in."
Thomas choked back a laugh because if he had actually expected anything out of the evening, it wasn't Blythe receiving love advice from a passing prostitute. "All right."
She looked at him suspiciously. "That's it? All right?"
"Are you disappointed?"
"No, but maybe I am a little suspicious. If you didn't come all the way out tonight to seduce me, then why did you come?"
Thomas gave her a look of exaggerated patience. "Well, I was rather hoping you would tell me. After all, you're the one who told me to come out here. If it were up to me, we'd be at a good hotel right now."
"Oh! Um, I suppose I did." For the first time, Blythe looked flustered.
It occurred to Thomas that for all of her strength and determination he had witnessed, she wasn't really comfortable with people, as if she had spent long stretches of time alone. "So?"
"In all fairness, you put me on the spot. We were at Almack's, and I may not have been at my best."
"So, you decided that we would go for a pleasant stroll in the most dangerous part of the city? Blythe, I say this with the utmost respect possible, but are you sure you're related to the Carrows? That sounds a great deal like Martin thinking."
The Marquess' Angel_Hart and Arrow_A Regency Romance Book Page 6