by Nikki Poppen
“Gentlemen, I give you all a good evening.” Alain nodded to the group, all of whom he knew on familiar terms. “I must beg your pardon and steal Isabella away from you for a few moments”
“What is it?” Isabella asked, slightly cross, as Alain steered her away from the group. “It had better be important, we were talking about Hellion.”
Alain gave her a stern glance at the mention of the temperamental horse. “It’s Tristan. He needs a break from the gentlemen. They’re all sniffing around for another bit of scandal. Take a turn around the salon with him and cheer him up. Introduce him to a few young ladies. See if you can drag the truth out of him,” Alain asked sotto voice as they reached their group of friends.
“Ah, Isabella, you look spectacular tonight!” Giles said effusively as the circle expanded to include the new arrivals.
“Thank you for noticing, Giles. It’s new.” Isabella looked down at the gown and fingered the sea green crepe of her overskirt appreciatively. “I had worried the round bodice would be too much, especially since it’s not modish to wear much jewelry this Season. But my modiste insisted it would look quite the thing. I think she was right. I love the back.” Isabella gave a small pirouette to show Giles the deep V in back.
“You’re always beautiful, Isabella. The gown does you justice. I approve with your modiste’s suggestions,” Giles complimented.
Isabella gave a light trill of laughter and turned to Tristan. “Gresham, come take a turn around the room with me.” Isabella extended a long white-gloved arm accentuated by a simple diamond bracelet fastened around her wrist. She placed it on his arm with all the correctness of an etiquette book. No onlooker would find fault with her request. No one would guess the rapid beating of her heart, that even such simple contact with Tristan affected her so acutely.
“How are you, Tristan? We’ve missed you this week.” She kept her voice low to give them privacy as they strolled the perimeter of the room. She didn’t look at him as she talked but rather to either side of her, nodding to those she knew as they passed.
“I am fine, Isabella. I’ve been busy.”
“Alain said you’ve been at the gaming hells.” Her tone accused.
“As I said, I’ve had business to look after.”
His terseness stung. Couldn’t he see that she didn’t want to be shut out? Hurt, Isabella retaliated with a sharpness of her own. “We can try another topic of conversation if you don’t like the current one. Shall we talk about Beatrix Smallwood and her performance at Lady Hampstead’s? Perhaps you’d like to talk about your secret admirer or the atrocious stories circulating pertaining to your profligate habits on the Continent. We certainly don’t have to talk about your work. Apparently, there are plenty of other titillating conversations we can have about any number of topics.”
Tristan stopped walking. He gripped her arm and leaned close. “Stop it, Isabella. A shrewish tongue does not become you”
“I suppose it becomes me to be subjected to the indignities of scandal?” Isabella was outraged. How dare he scold her when he’d managed in one night to besmirch the pristine reputation she’d so diligently guarded since her debut? “Did you not realize how I would be implicated?”
The tic jumping in his cheek was proof enough that he’d known. He’d known. Had he cared one whit?
“I did my best to protect you, you have to believe that. I did not presume to introduce you.” The grip on her arm tightened.
“And yet, it was not enough. I am implicated in something I know nothing about. I have a right to demand an explanation.” She glared at the hand that held her fast as if noticing it for the first time. “Unhand me at once, you mannerless cad”
Isabella regretted her words immediately. Her momentary contempt was nothing in the wake of Tristan’s provoked ire. He refused to let her go. Instead of freeing her, he ushered her through a set of French doors leading out onto a deserted balcony. The area was shrouded in complete darkness except where it was broken by an occasional spill of light from the main salon.
Tristan’s manner was rough as he pressed her against the stone railing. “Unhand you at once? I think you mean `undress me at once,’ which I’d be glad to do”
Isabella shoved at his chest. “Tristan! What is the meaning of this? You’ve gone daft”
“It’s what you expect of me, isn’t it?” Tristan growled, stepping back from her, giving her room to breathe. His own breath came in pants. “You and Alain, Giles and Chatham, all of you believe the lies. That’s what you really want to discuss, isn’t it?”
“Are they lies, then?” Isabella said, hope inflecting her voice.
“You know me better than any of them, Bella. What do you think?” Tristan’s voice was a whispered caress. It was the first time he’d called her by the old name since his return. Isabella thrilled to it.
“I have always known you to be an honorable man. In all your dealings with me, you’ve been nothing less. Let me help you. Tell me who Beatrix Smallwood is and why she’d want to disgrace you.” She more felt than saw Tristan smile in the darkness. He stepped towards her, covering the small space between them again and gathered her in his arms. She reveled in the contact against his warm body even though she sensed his gesture conveyed only a great regard for their friendship.
Suddenly, his body tensed. He whispered an urgent warning in her ear. “Bella, we are not alone.” He spun her away from the exposed railing and bore her backwards. A crash resounded on the concrete where they had stood moments ago. Straining her eyes in the darkness, Isabella could make out the shards of a large, pottery barrel, the kind used for planting flowers outside. At the speed it had been traveling, they could have been severely injured or worse.
“Are you all right?” Tristan ran his hands up and down her arms, trying to subdue the goose pimples. “You’re shivering, Bella.”
“I’m fine, just shaken a little. We could have been killed. What a terrible accident.” She looked hard at Tristan. “It was an accident wasn’t it?” Her eyes widened when Tristan didn’t answer. “Tristan, what’s going on?”
People flooded out of the salon, brought out by the crash. Tristan had only enough time to whisper, “I cannot tell you, but trust me, Bella. Please,” before they were engulfed.
Isabella was silent the entire way home. She answered Alain’s questions about the incident with perfunctory answers. She was still trying to ingest the whole situation herself. It was difficult to give Alain answers when she didn’t have any. One moment she was in Tristan’s arms, albeit benignly, and the next she was being wrenched out of the way of a potentially fatal falling pottery urn.
The evening had been a failure. She was no closer to understanding Tristan than she’d been before the soiree. She had not gotten the answers she’d been looking for regarding Tristan. Instead, she’d gotten more questions. Tristan had confessed he could not tell her what was going on in the seconds before they’d been surrounded by the crowd from the salon. Tristan wouldn’t tell her, but surely someone must know? Beatrix Smallwood? The secret admirer? With the scandal of Beatrix still swirling around London, there was no way she could approach Beatrix for the answers. But the admirer? She didn’t know who the admirer was, but she knew who it wasn’t. By Tristan’s own admission to Briarton, the admirer was not Beatrix. The admirer had announced her presence a mere week or two ago, by Isabella’s count. That was definitely too early to show oneself. It was possible Tristan didn’t know who the admirer was and that the admirer hadn’t shown herself.
A brilliant idea started to form and by the time she arrived at Westbrooke House, it had taken root. Isabella bid Alain a hasty good night and practically leapt from the carriage. In her bedchamber, Betty was waiting to help her out of the gown and assist her into her favorite silk nightgown and dressing robe in a soft pale rose. Isabella impatiently sat at her vanity as Betty took out the pins to her elaborate evening coiffure and proceeded to brush out her hair. Isabella’s mind whirled, full of plots and plans f
or uncovering Tristan’s secrets.
When Betty left, Isabella sat at her small white and gilt writing desk flipping through her engagements for the upcoming week until she found the one she sought. The Briartons’ winter ball was in four days. Perfect.
The following afternoon
ccYou’re going to do what?” Amy asked in disbelief, nearly dropping the porcelain watering can she’d been using to sprinkle the geraniums in her conservatory.
Isabella looked up serenely from the potting table where she stood organizing seed packets. “You heard me, I am going to pose as Gresham’s secret admirer. I have it on good authority from Alain yesterday over tea that Tristan has no idea who it is and he isn’t interested in finding out. You’ve already told me Tristan told Briarton the same thing. I know he’s not interested, but the admirer doesn’t know that, so she’ll be sitting around for ages thinking that if he’s interested he’ll track her down. If I intervene quickly enough, no one will be the wiser. The admirer, whoever she is, will think he wasn’t interested and just fade away, not guessing that someone took her place.”
Amy shook her head disapprovingly. “Won’t it be obvious that the admirer is you? How could he not recognize you?”
Isabella grinned. “I am way ahead of you on that. It would work in the dark. With heavy veiling and gloves, it could be anyone”
Amy looked squarely at her friend, who was suddenly overly absorbed in sorting seeds. “Why are you doing this?”
“Tristan is in danger and he won’t confide in anyone.” Isabella lowered her voice to a whisper. “The crashing pottery was not an accident, Amy. Someone wanted to send a message of a very deadly nature. I am sure of it.”
“I think you might be reading more into the situation than it warrants. One falling pot does not an assassination make,” Amy said skeptically. “I am more interested in why you were out on the balcony alone with him.”
“What a nosy parker you are!” Isabella scolded her friend. “If you must know, we were quarreling about the rumors” She set a clay pot down with such force that the seeds jumped from their carefully appointed places and mixed together. “He says the rumors about his decadence are lies. If that’s true, then he’s definitely hiding something. If it’s not true, then a jealous husband is probably hunting him down. Either way, Tristan is in trouble and I intend to find out why.”
“If you’re set on posing as the admirer, when do you plan to make your appearance?”
“Soon” Isabella answered vaguely, recognizing too late that the ambiguous answer would set off warning bells for Amy.
“When?”
“The night of your winter ball.” Isabella admitted.
Amy groaned. “I was afraid of that”
Isabella smiled reassuringly at her friend. “Don’t worry, I have everything under control.”
The Sail and Anchor
“You nearly killed him last night with your pottery urn stunt!” The strikingly attractive woman managed to keep her anger to a polite whisper at the sight of her accomplice entering the private parlor.
The man was impeccably dressed and in high spirits. He was undaunted by his partner’s outburst. He merely smiled in the wake of her ire. “I knew what I was doing. You want him to feel hunted, no? Now he’s got to watch out for himself and the dowager. You know, the marchioness complicates matters”
The woman began to pace. “He’s besotted with her. In the end, she will prove a useful distraction. She will blind him to the realities around him until it is too late. The irony is that he’s asked her to find him a wife. She hasn’t any clue he’s already found one and it’s her.” She gave a cold laugh.
“Do I detect jealously?” The man asked with an edge to his voice.
“I finished with Moreland the night he killed my brother on the Paris docks”
“Does he guess the real informant is dead?”
“No. He thinks we, or rather you, are the genuine article. So does Halsey,” she said with grim satisfaction.
“Should I take that as comforting?”
“As long as it assures our success,” she gave a sly look. “You aren’t the only tall, blond-haired man amongst the ton. We could get lucky and keep Moreland looking in the wrong places. He may even point the finger at the wrong person, all for the sake of patriotism. You know how honorable Moreland is.”
Four nights later at the Briartons’ Winter Ball
Tristan cultivated an air of negligence, lounging against one of the columns lining the Briartons’ tasteful Greek styled ballroom. He took in the room, blazing with candles and swathed in elegant yards of navy blue fabric studded with brilliants to resemble a clear winter sky. No one watching him would suspect from his indolent posturing that his mind was speeding through the evening’s possibilities. In his waistcoat pocket was a well-thumbed card. The little intrigue to catch the informant had taken an unforeseen turn that afternoon with the arrival of the waistcoat he now wore.
The “secret admirer” wanted to meet with him tonight. How curious, when he knew there wasn’t really an admirer at all. Someone dared to play the imposter. He wondered whom? Could it be the double agent himself arranging this rendezvous? That made little sense since the agent already knew whom Tristan was and what Tristan possessed-the supposed information. In any case, the informant knew an admirer didn’t exist. Perhaps the agent had figured out the information was false? In that case, the agent would want to seek him out for the sole purpose of killing him. He wouldn’t need to go to such elaborate efforts. Most likely, it was some daring woman of the ton who thought to amuse herself by posing as the admirer.
Whoever she was, she had excellent taste in clothing even if she was interfering in his plans. Tristan looked down at the elegant celery waistcoat he wore with its placard of silver buttons. He had been completely taken by surprise when the package had arrived that afternoon bearing the markings of an excellent men’s tailor on Bond Street.
Tristan fingered the silver watch chain with its discreet emeralds placed every fifth link. Although the waistcoat was stunning enough for evening wear, Tristan had been compelled to wear the garment regardless of his personal inclination. The card accompanying it had been succinct in its demands. It had read, “If you are willing to meet, wear the waistcoat. I’ll be among the guests this evening at the Briarton Winter Fete.”
Even so, his own code of honor allowed him no alternative. He had no choice but to meet with her tonight and warn her off. It wouldn’t do to have an innocent accidentally involved in the Home Office’s plots. Tristan was certain a woman had sent it-a daring woman who knew she was not the admirer and who knew him. She knew him very well to order such a tailored waistcoat with the surety that it would fit him. She had to have known the waistcoat’s late arrival would not leave time for alterations before the ball.
His thoughts turned to Beatrix. She had the means, the taste and the knowledge of him to have selected the vest so accurately. But she had no motive. She had public access to him. Already the town buzz gave out that he and Beatrix had resumed their continental affair. Besides, she would not risk any action that would compromise the mission. Beatrix was a professional in all things related to love and war.
He understood the need for Beatrix’s presence in this last game, but he did not welcome it. Beatrix’s appearance had single-handedly wrecked his progress with Isabella. Whatever he’d gained back in terms of her trust the night of the Burtons’ soiree would be sorely hindered by the escalating tattle surrounding him and Beatrix.
Tristan sighed. He was not making progress where Isabella was concerned, unless he counted driving himself mad with the wanting of her. He had not seen her since the incident at Burton House. Since then, he’d been plagued by his growing dilemma. What was the best way to protect Isabella? Should he keep her close so he’d be able to bodily protect her should the double agent attempt to target her as a warning to him? Or should he put her as far from him as possible and protect her through his absence?
At the sound of heightened gaiety, Tristan’s dark gaze turned to survey the entrance to the ballroom. His eyes narrowed at the sight filling the archway. Isabella and her entourage had arrived. Tonight she was accompanied by her brother Alain, Chatham, Giles and the everpresent Avery Driscoll, who was classically dressed in evening black relieved only by a cream satin patterned waistcoat and looking undeservedly elegant.
Giles caught sight of him and Tristan watched him steer the group in his direction. With a stab of envy, he studied Isabella with Driscoll. They made a striking pair with their graceful physiques as they walked in the center of the group. But Isabella was unmistakably the bright, shining core. Driscoll was merely a foil for her brilliance.
For the ball, she was dressed in an oyster-colored gown of ivory crepe over a velvet slip of matching ivory. She was bejeweled simply in pearls. The gown swished luxuriously as she moved. The deep folds of the skirt emphasized the soft, expensive richness of the gown, giving Isabella the look of an ethereal goddess. The only hint of color in the ensemble was the red rose she wore tucked behind one ear, matching the deep red gros grain ribbon that trimmed the high waist and sleeves. For a moment, he was struck by the peculiarity of the rose. It wasn’t like her to wear flowers in her hair. Usually, Isabella preferred to weave strands of pearls through her coiffure.
Tristan bowed as the group approached. He greeted everyone, but he was eager to get Isabella alone. The orchestra began to play again after their short break from the first set. The second set began with a waltz. He could not have asked for a better number. “Isabella, would you care to dance with me?” He asked hastily, aware that Driscoll might try to claim the honor. His instincts were not wrong. A glance at the other man indicated his surprise. Isabella quickly looked between the two men. She murmured something placating to Driscoll before turning her attention to him.
“I would love to dance, Gresham”
Tristan savored the feel of her lithe form in his arms as he swung them through the first turn. He wanted nothing more but to enjoy dancing with her. It had been ages since he’d danced with her at her debut, back when the world was rosy and his path had seemed so clear. But he knew the dance would not last forever. He would not get another chance to have her alone before his unwanted assignation with the “secret admirer.”