"If I hadn't, you'd still be running off to the slums whenever you liked. This isn't the first time you've done this, is it?"
Blythe looked at him, shocked, and he read his answer in her suddenly fearful face.
"Dear God. Blythe, what have you done?"
She started to say something about charity and good works. She was so shaken, however, that it sounded even more like a lie than it was.
Tristan shook his head in disgust. "Your pious little missionary act. You had us all fooled, didn't you? Me, Ned, my father. You were making fools of us all."
"Tristan, it's not like that."
"All those ladies’ aid meetings, all of those nights out doing good works. Do I even want to know what you were doing? Were you meeting a lover? Christ, were you stealing?"
"Of course not! Tristan, don't you dare say these things about me!"
"When I catch you sneaking out to the slums and not returning until close to dawn, I will damn well say what I want! Blythe, I don't care what you've done or what you've gotten away with in the past. This is over. By God, you will behave, or I swear I will lock you in your room and throw away the key."
Blythe's first instinct was to stand up and rail at him. She wanted to scream at him and to shout, to make him see what it was like to live in a world as restricted as hers, where the only adventure to be had was running out to buy ribbons. Instead, she let the tears that had been gathering in a hot lump behind her eyes spill.
Tristan stared at her as she started crying. They weren't crocodile tears, really. She was exhausted, she felt as if she were being flayed alive by Tristan's words, and she felt as if the sword that had been hanging over her head for years was finally crashing down on her.
"Blythe..."
She could sense him standing in front of her. She thought for a moment that everything was going to be all right, that perhaps now, finally, they could talk, and she could explain what she had been doing and why. Perhaps she could tell him about some of the work she had been doing, maybe he would even help her with getting those girls into homes.
Her hopes, fragile as shards of glass, were crushed entirely when he turned.
"For the love of God, stop your sniveling. Go to your room. You're not leaving until I'm with you. Whatever you were doing, Blythe, it's over."
He might as well have slapped her. Blythe knew once and for all that the cousin she had loved and grown up with was gone, and this implacable and unforgiving man was left in his place.
She stood and walked out the door with as much dignity as she could. Back in her own room, Blythe undressed and climbed into bed, but even with the exhaustion closing over her, she couldn't sleep. Instead, she rolled over on her stomach, burying her face in the pillow.
She had no idea what was going to happen next. None at all.
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12
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CHAPTER
TWELVE
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As it turned out, what happened next were parties. Blythe felt there was something cosmically unfair about the fact that she wasn't allowed out of the house without her cousin playing watchdog, but she also couldn't avoid the galas and balls ramping up into full swing as the London Season got underway.
Things remained chilly between her and Tristan, to the point where they passed the coach rides to and from the parties in silence, and even when they were at the events themselves, they tended to stay away from each other. After Tristan kept introducing her to marriage prospect after marriage prospect, Blythe started to slip away as soon as she could, spending her time off to the sidelines and waiting to leave.
More than once, she wondered if there was something she could do that would end her prospects once and for all. Unfortunately, things she could do in that regard were all so extreme that it would probably have disastrous consequences for the entire Carrow family, and even if she and Tristan were barely on speaking terms anymore, there were other relatives who might be terribly impacted by any scandal she might become involved in.
For the moment, she bided her time, she tried to avoid making Tristan angrier than he was, and when she could, she feigned illness to get out of going to the events Tristan picked out as appropriate. It rankled, being a full-grown woman who had to play sick, as if she were a girl getting out of her lessons, but at this point, she was taking whatever kind of reprieve she could.
One night, some two weeks after that disastrous meeting with Tristan, Blythe pleaded a fearsome headache and stayed home from the Galways' crush. Since her life had shrunk down to the balls and the house off Grosvenor Square, she had learned to take a certain kind of joy in simply wearing her old gray dresses and leaving the silk gowns in the closet.
Blythe had the insane urge to go find Thomas. Of course, there had been no way to communicate with him after they had returned from Seven Dials. At most, she had glimpsed him at the crushes, but Tristan was alarmingly good at keeping clear of Thomas and his sister.
Blythe sat down at her desk, and after a moment, she started to write.
I wanted to say thank you for everything you did when we saw each other last. I don't know if I really thanked you at all in the heat of the moment, and now, I am unable to do it in person...
She crossed out the passage in irritation, and tried again, and then again. In the end, Blythe gave up, because everything that came out sounded utterly ridiculous or pompous.
I suppose the price for doing the unconventional thing is that there is no template to use.
She crumpled the paper up in a ball and dropped it into the ash bin, and then she heard an unfamiliar step in the hallway.
When she had still lived with her parents in the north, they had taken her to a talk by a big game hunter who'd stalked his prey on three different continents. It was likely too frightening a presentation for even as adventurous a girl as she had been, but she could still remember the way he had described being in the jungle and hearing the tread of a tiger when he'd only brought ammunition enough for small roe deer.
“There is a moment separating what came before and what came after. What came before was that I was the master of the jungle, self-important with my knowledge and firepower. What came after... well, it was the knowledge that suddenly, there was something much more powerful than me nearby, and it saw me as prey.”
The words had always stuck with her, but now, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what it felt like. A few moments before, she had been angry with Tristan, missing Thomas, and wondering exactly what life in a cage would be like. With the sound of that footfall in the hall, everything had changed and, suddenly, she felt as if she were in imminent danger.
If she was someone else, if she was really a good pious girl who never wandered around Seven Dials after dark, she might have told herself that it was nothing. Perhaps it was a maid or a footman, hurrying after some forgotten chore before the eagle-eyed housekeeper noticed.
She didn't question the sudden nearly queasy feeling in her stomach. She was dressed in her nightgown, she was barefoot, and suddenly, she felt as if she would throw herself out the window if there hadn't been a three-story drop.
Walking as quietly and as quickly as she could, Blythe crossed the room and slid under the bed. The space was narrow enough that anyone much bigger than she was wouldn't have been able to squeeze their way in, but right now, she was grateful for the closeness. The bed was low enough that someone might not think it was possible for a person to squeeze underneath. At least, she hoped that's what they might believe.
She could hear the clock on her mantle ticking away, the loudest sound in the room as she tried to breathe more quietly.
Blythe was just beginning to think she was going slightly mad from the confinement when she heard the unmistakable sound of her doorknob turning. There was no knock of a servant announcing herself. Instead, there was a subtle turn, a
s if someone was checking for resistance before opening it all the way. She might have missed it herself if she hadn't been breathing so lightly.
To her shock, the door opened and closed, and now there was a man in her room, treading softly on the carpet in dull black shoes. From underneath the bed, she could see the shoes were of a cheap variety and much worn, and the trousers the man wore were of the same quality. A heaviness to his step suggested a very large man, and she shivered as he paced from her door to her desk.
Blythe froze with fear. In her mad dash to slide under the bed, she had left her candle lit and her quill laid to one side. Someone who was gone would not have left things like that. Someone wouldn't leave things like that unless they were still somewhere very close by.
The man stood at her desk for a moment, and Blythe imagined him inspecting the candle, perhaps even touching the tip of her quill. Then he started to circle the room, opening her wardrobe and rifling through the dresses as if looking for someone hiding inside. She could see his feet pacing back and forth as he inspected the room.
Blythe had no idea what she was going to do if he found her. Every plan that flashed through her head seemed more ridiculous and more unlikely than the next. She held her breath as the blanket draping over the edge of the bed twitched.
Please, please, please...
"Miss Blythe, are you in there?"
Agnes, the young upstairs maid, cut through the tension like a knife. Blythe almost felt dizzy at how normal Agnes sounded, as if it were just a normal night. Of course, except for the intruder in her bedroom, it was just a normal night.
The man dropped the blanket immediately, and stepping impressively lightly, he went to stand in the darkened shadow behind the door, right between the wall and the wardrobe.
"Miss? Do you mind if I come in?"
To Blythe's horror, the door cracked open, and from the doorway, she could imagine Agnes looking around.
Agnes, stay out, stay out, please...
Of course, the maid couldn't hear her fiercely thought pleas, and because it was just a normal might, Agnes came in, tutting a little at the burning candle and the ink left out. From where Blythe lay on the floor, she could see Agnes’ shoes, and beyond, in shadow and half-hidden by the wardrobe, the shoes of the man who had entered the house as well.
What could she do if Agnes saw the man, if the man attacked Agnes? Should she explode from under the bed and, together, she and Agnes could subdue the intruder? She knew at once that they couldn't. Blythe herself was small, and Agnes not older than fourteen. At least one of them would likely get seriously hurt, and in the end, the intruder might get away after all.
After what felt like forever, but which in reality was probably closer to a few minutes, Agnes found Blythe's desk to be tidy enough. She blew out the candle, leaving the coals in the hearth as the only source of illumination, and left.
Blythe wanted to heave a sigh of relief, but she didn't dare. The intruder seemed to wait a terribly long time before he too started to move. Apparently unnerved by almost being caught, he didn't return to the bed, but instead, made his way to the door. When it shut behind him and the footsteps moved away, Blythe could finally breathe again. The first breath she took was more like a sob, and for several moments, she simply lay under the bed, shaking.
Who in the world was that? What was he doing in my room?
By the time she had her emotions under control, Blythe realized with some dismay that it was too late to raise the alarm after him. He was probably long gone, and that meant he was out there somewhere, with access to the house and some kind of intention toward Blythe that she couldn't understand.
She crawled out from under the bed, dusty and her heart still pounding like a drum. Hurriedly, she went to the door to lock it, but that didn't help. The man had probably only been in her room for a matter of minutes, but there was something in her brain that insisted he was still there, that she wasn't safe yet.
Tristan, I have to tell Tristan about this...
Somewhere in the back of her head, she knew she was behaving irrationally. The smart thing to do was to wait in her room with the door locked, or better yet, to run and tell the servants what was going on so they could secure the house.
Instead, the only thing that seemed to reduce the way she was shivering was to take off her nightgown, put on her stays and then one of her gray dresses, and then throw her wrap over all of it. Her hair was still in a long braid down her back, and she didn't even take the time to pin it up before she dashed out of the room.
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13
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CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
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For the first time, venturing into the streets of London on her own didn't feel like an adventure. It felt terrifying, and even in the confines of the hired hack, Blythe had to curl her hands into fists to stop herself from shaking.
Stop being such a little coward. You've been in much worse situations than this. You weren't hurt. Everything is fine.
Still, she couldn't get away from the skin-crawling feeling of having someone in her private space, a space that no one had ever come into unwelcome. The driver of the hack had given her a strange look when he'd helped her in. He knew the address he was picking her up from and the one where she was going were expensive ones, and she imagined that in her drabs, she hardly looked like a Society girl out for a night on the town. There was one hairy moment when she thought the majordomo would deny her entry entirely, but then he recognized her, looking over her outfit with ill-disguised shock.
"It has been a rather terrible night," she said, trying to smile. "Perhaps I should not be announced?"
He agreed and tactfully suggested that she go to one of the smaller drawing rooms to compose herself, but she shook her head. She was still buoyed up by the need to find Tristan and tell him what had happened. In a way, it was the pattern of a lifetime. He had always been protective of her, and she knew he would know what to do.
She weaved her way through the crowd, ignoring the looks she was getting and searching out her cousin. It shouldn't have been so difficult. Tristan was a tall man and handsome as well. He had a title and one of the greatest fortunes in London, and he should have been in one of the knots of people who congregated around the edge of the dancers. Instead, every time she thought she saw him, it turned out she was mistaken, and she started to feel a little desperate.
Just as she was afraid that she had somehow gotten the wrong party, or that he had left while she was arriving, she saw him at the rear of the party, close to the musicians' balcony.
"Tristan!"
Blythe was so overwrought that Tristan's name came out much louder than she thought it would. Several heads turned as she started to make her way to him. To her relief, he heard her as well and started to walk toward her.
Blythe thought she was going to collapse in relief when he reached her, but then two things happened at once. The first was that Tristan absolutely reeked of champagne, and the second was feeling his iron-hard hand clamping over her elbow.
"You told me that you had a headache."
She stared at him because, in her current state, she could barely remember the fib she had told him to get out of coming to this very event.
Tristan looked her up and down in confusion. "Why are you dressed like that? What do you mean to do by coming here?"
"Tristan, I—"
"Unbelievable," he growled, shaking his head. "Are you seriously so deranged that you are trying to defy me and destroy your chances of making a match here? Is that your plan?"
Blythe was unable to stop the words from popping past her lips. "Is it working?"
For a moment, she genuinely thought that Tristan was going to slap her. Instead, he looked at her grimly, shaking his head. "We are going to speak about this when we are back at the house. Right n
ow, we are leaving."
He turned for the door, apparently prepared to drag her off, but then a rotund man in formal dress clapped him on the shoulder. "Parrington! It's about time I've found you. Trust that Martin girl to make a scene, eh? But now that I've found you, I must have a few words with you about steel in the New World. Hope you'll excuse me, miss, this is dashed important talk. I'll only keep him for a short amount of time."
"Oh, it's fine," Blythe said even as Tristan shot her a look.
"Wait for me at the front of the house," he said. "I'll be back as soon as I can."
Tristan was swept away by the man with the steel questions, and honestly, Blythe could not tell if she was upset or grateful. She was surprised by Tristan's temper and lack of concern. It was hard to give up the habit of a lifetime of love and familiarity, but she grimly thought she had better learn to do it soon.
Abruptly, Blythe realized that she was alone in the middle of the gala and that everyone was looking at her. Some of them kept it subtler than others, but there were at least a few Society women who were outright staring at her and speaking to their friends, their eyes still trained on her undressed hair, her gray gown, and her rather tattered brown wrap. She looked like a pigeon among the peacocks, and Blythe wanted to fall through a hole in the floor.
This is ridiculous. None of this matters a whit. You've stood up to bullymen, you've walked through Seven Dials past midnight... you cannot be afraid and upset by this!
However, could and should were two very different things. Head and shoulders drooping, Blythe started for the front of the house. She wasn't looking where she was going, and almost as if the evening was designed to be utterly humiliating, she ran flat into Lord Cottering.
The Marquess' Angel_Hart and Arrow_A Regency Romance Book Page 9