Lords of Honor-The Collection

by Christi Caldwell

  “Was I shown to the wrong suite?”

  “No.” There was a slight pause. “You have, however, arrived earlier than you were scheduled to,” she said tartly.

  He smiled. A real, honest grin of mirth, which the minx had always managed to ring from him since he’d nearly run her down in Hyde Park six years earlier.

  “Are you laughing out there, Poplar?”

  Either she knew him too well, or had developed an uncanny ability to peer through heavy silk fabrics. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  She snorted. Then, with that article draped over her frame that gave her the look of that mythical creature of Dartmoor his sisters were all too hopeful about running into, Poppy struggled to her feet. “Now, that I don’t believe.”

  Tristan did a sweep of his apartments. They were his, were they not? “Have I entered the wrong rooms?”

  “You’ve not.”

  After seven muffled ticks of a clock from somewhere in the chambers, when it became apparent the lady had nothing more to say on it, he added, “Uh…is there a reason you are in here?”

  “There is,” she said simply, still hidden by her fabrics.

  He crossed his arms, and waited. And waited.

  Alas, she intended to make him ask for it. Which was, of course, the absolute last thing he should do. What he should do was send her on her way. If they were discovered here, alone, it would usher in a scandal that would see Poppy Tidemore ruined. In Tristan’s case? Well, Tristan could not fall any further than his present level of descent. Proper gentleman that he still prided himself on being, he’d do well to send her quickly on her way…or take his leave.

  Only, the rogue who’d missed what it felt like to laugh and enjoy himself these past weeks selfishly preferred her just where she was.

  “Dare I even ask what you were doing?” he drawled, as she made no move to emerge from her makeshift cloak.

  At last, she popped her head through an opening. “Oh, this?” She stretched her arms out, revealing that makeshift cloak. “This is quite innocent, I assure you.”

  An indirect nod to the fact that, with her feats, she could not always claim to be “quite innocent”.

  Setting his ancient infantry gear down near the door, he ventured over. “I’m intrigued.”

  “I like you, Poplar,” she said matter-of-factly, her hands on her hips, displaying that silk like a cape.

  “Oh?” At that abrupt shift, he blinked several times. “And here I thought I was more insufferable than your mother with a respectable match for her unwed daughter ripped asunder.”

  “You remember that?”

  “An insult that likened me to your propriety-driven mama?” he returned dryly. “Indeed, I recall that.” Along with any number of clever ones Poppy Tidemore had hurled his way through the years.

  The young lady wrinkled her—he squinted, and peered hard—paint-smudged nose.

  “If you expect an apology for that, Tristan, I shan’t.”

  “Because apologies are hard to give?” he asked, surveying the tattered bedding behind her.

  Good God, he couldn’t even begin to fathom what the lady had been up to.

  “Hardly, you’ve been insufferable more times than I can count.” She gave a toss of her midnight curls, which hung in a tangle down her back. “However, it is entirely possible to be insufferable some moments, and redeem yourself in others.”

  Tristan should be thinking about his kin making the long trek to Dartmoor while he attempted to put his future in some way to rights. Only, he found himself hopelessly curious—as Poppy no doubt intended—by that idea.

  Settling into his new residence, Tristan rested a hip on the ornate nightstand. “And just how have I redeemed myself?”

  Poppy’s features softened. “You didn’t rush to help me,” she said, with a wistful air to her words.

  His eyebrows drew together. “I didn’t…”

  Sighing, the lady gave another shake of her head. “Help me like I’m some fragile flower to be protected.”

  He stared on a moment, measuring her sincerity. Alas, any other lady would have found fault in his not rushing over the moment she’d come crashing down. “I redeemed myself by not helping you?” he asked slowly.

  Two dimples appeared in her cheeks. “Precisely.”

  With that, Poppy shrugged free of the silver silk, divesting herself of the elegant fabric. And as always, he’d been spun in circles by the spitfire.

  “If only society were as forgiving,” he muttered, loosening his cravat.

  “They aren’t,” she informed him. Poppy wouldn’t be content to allow him any self-pity about his circumstances. “They’re cruel vipers who’d happily spin their offspring in a silken snare and feed on the gossip they could ring from their lifeless bodies, if they were so absent of a proper scandal.”

  “You speak as one who knows.”

  “Of course I know.” Did he imagine the faint hint of pride underlining that pronouncement?

  “Firsthand?” Tristan, however, may as well have spoken inside his head. The young lady had already climbed atop his bed and all thoughts fled, as Tristan became aware of a handful of details all at once:

  One, attired in close-fitting breeches and a paint-stained lawn shirt that hugged her every curve, Poppy Tidemore was no longer the young girl he’d first met.

  He swallowed painfully. And two…was there a two? As she stretched her arms up, the fabric pulled across her chest, and the garment strained, highlighting the dusky hue of her nipples. Lust bolted through him.

  And what is more, she is in my chambers.

  It was a detail previously noted but one that, with her body on display like a lithe Aphrodite, now took on a whole new meaning…and peril.

  Only one course remained.

  “You should leave,” he blurted, his voice hoarse to his own ears. Nay, it was the wrong word choice. She needed to leave. Tristan opened his mouth to correct himself.

  Poppy drew her attention away from whatever task so occupied her. “When did you become stuffy, Poplar?” Her plump lips formed a perfect Cupid’s bow, and the desire winding its way through his veins blazed all the hotter, and made a mockery of that very charge she now leveled at his roguish being. And pointedly rejecting his suggestion that she leave, Poppy resumed…

  He cocked his head. “What are you doing?”

  “Decorating.”

  “Decorating,” he repeated.

  “Hmm. Mmm.” Catching one corner of the silver fabric in her teeth, Poppy stretched the other out until it was drawn straight, and then lifting up on tiptoes, wound one corner around one of the bedposts.

  “And…uh…does your sister know you are re-decorating her suites?”

  There was another of those “Poppy Pauses”, as he’d come to think of them. Her tell. It was one of her only ones. Having played games of whist and hazard with the lady at various points over the last six years, he’d come to know as much. “Poppy?” he prodded.

  She jumped. “She…knows. Enough.”

  “And your mother.”

  “Is probably trying not to think about what I might be up to,” she said with her usual candidness…and accuracy.

  He felt another grin form on his lips; pulling his facial muscles up. “Yes, I suspect that much is true.”

  “Will you hand me that?” She jabbed a finger toward the floor.

  Tristan looked around.

  “The silver bed curtains?”

  “No, the Aubusson carpet, Tristan,” she said drolly. “Yes! I mean the bed curtains.” Poppy sank down on her heels. “And I’ll have you know, they’re grey.”

  Feeling like he’d stepped upon a Drury Lane stage and was the only one without the benefit of his lines, Tristan slowly picked up the bed curtains.

  “Splendid. Now, if you’ll walk that to the end of the frame. No, no, the other way,” she chided when he took several steps toward her. “I already have one end of it so how would that even work? You’re not very good at thi
s, are you?”

  As he didn’t have a damned inkling what “this” in fact was, he did the only thing that made sense—he followed her directives.

  And here, he’d believed earlier that morn he found himself headed to the unlikeliest of places…only to find himself there now…on a bed with his best friend in the world’s sister-in-law…hanging bed curtains. Poppy continued twining the netting until it spiraled along the front poster.

  Retreating to the middle of the bed—his bed—she dropped her stained palms on her waist, bringing his gaze inadvertently lower to her rounded hips. Hips that begged a man to sink his fingertips into them. Only, they weren’t simply a woman’s hips. They were this woman’s hips. Poppy. Poppy Tidemore. St. Cyr’s sister-in-law.

  That enumeration of all the reasons it was only caddish to ogle her figure didn’t help. He gulped.

  It was simply that she was in pants that clung to her person when he’d never before seen a lady in such a state. That was all that compelled his attention. Liar…

  “They’re lovely, are they not?”

  He strangled on a cough, choking. “Th-they?” he managed to gasp out.

  Poppy gave him a peculiar look. “The…bed curtains.”

  The bed curtains? He swiftly jerked his gaze up and made a show of considering her work.

  “It is marginally better; would you not say?”

  Gone. He needed her gone. Now. “Absolutely,” he said quickly.

  In the end, intervention came with a slight scratch upon the heavy oak panel.

  Oh, bloody hell. Pulse hammering, Tristan dropped to the floor. He caught himself on his palms. Pain radiated from his wrists up his arms from the force of that fall.

  Pain that would be a minor sting compared to the beating the lady’s brother-in-law would dole out were she to be discovered.

  Another muffled scratch split the quiet, followed by the slight squeak of the mattress as Poppy climbed off…and…

  What in hell?

  Peeking over the top, he batted at the bed curtains, and stared across the opening made by Poppy’s work.

  Poppy, who was even now striding purposefully across the room—toward the door.

  His stomach muscles clenched. Dead. His fall from societal grace would be a polite stroll through Hyde Park compared with what would follow if she opened that door. “Poppy,” he whispered furiously. “Poppy,” he repeated, his hushed voice slightly pitched.

  The minx glanced back; her high brow wrinkled in consternation.

  He gave his head a shake, and then tapped a finger against his mouth. “No,” he mouthed.

  It was the absolute wrong word ever to utter in any form to Poppy Tidemore.

  The young lady resumed her previous course.

  He dove back down and, lying on his back, he edged himself under the mahogany bedframe. The door opened and Tristan lay motionless. His pulse hammering in his ears, he stared up at the wood slats.

  In the course of his roguish existence, he’d found himself in this situation any number of times, always when a tryst had been untimely interrupted by interlopers. Never had he been caught with an innocent lady, because no matter the reputation he’d earned himself, Tristan hadn’t been one to dally with debutantes.

  The irony, that he would now be facing pistols at dawn for a misunderstanding…with his best friend’s sister-in-law, was not lost on him.

  Except…he strained his ears for some hint of discourse.

  A faint staccato click-clack reached him.

  What…?

  Tristan turned his head, and peered at the light filtering under his hiding place, just as a large canine head ducked under the bedframe.

  Thumping his paws playfully on the gleaming hardwood floor, Sir Faithful panted wildly; calling forth a painful reminder of Tristan’s own dogs.

  Tristan had lost everything.

  And as such, he should certainly be mourning the luxurious townhouse he’d forfeited or the sprawling country properties he’d thrilled in visiting each summer. Or the endless supply of fine French spirits.

  As it turned out, as he let himself in his new—and temporary—chambers, chambers given him solely as an act of charity, he found himself missing his dogs.

  The pair of hounds, Valor and Honor, now in a carriage bound for Dartmoor with his likely still sobbing mother.

  As if sensing that melancholy, Sir Faithful whined and proceeded to inch his way closer. When the dog was within reach, Tristan stroked that place between Sir Faithful’s eyes, and the creature’s tongue lolled out the side of his mouth.

  He sighed.

  Yes, he missed his dogs.

  Dreadfully.

  “I assure you, it is safe to come out,” Poppy teased, her voice heavy with her amusement. “Sir Faithful won’t harm you.”

  “Minx,” he muttered. He grunted as the mattress dipped, the article hitting him in the nose.

  “I heard that, Poplar.”

  How did she always do that? Tristan gave the enormous dog one more pat before inching his larger frame out from under the bedframe. His gaze promptly collided with Poppy’s, which stared down at him. “I swear you are part owl, Poppy Tidemore.”

  A faint scowl marred her heart-shaped face. “I’ll have you know my ears aren’t crooked.”

  As if to accentuate that very point, Poppy pushed her midnight curls back, revealing perfectly delicate shells.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You likened me to an owl. The entire reason they hear as well as they do is because one is positioned at the front of their head and the other higher up.”

  He stared bemusedly up. “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve observed them in the country so that I might sketch them.”

  He chuckled. When other ladies were painting floral arrangements, she’d gone off into the woods of her family’s properties to paint something different. “Is there anything you do not know?”

  “Actually, there is.” Leaning further down, she peered under the bed.

  He opened his mouth to ask again what she was doing now.

  And then, promptly closed it. Having known Poppy Tidemore since she’d been a girl, he knew enough to know when not to prod her. “Hmm.” Then with an uncharacteristic restraint, she let the remainder of that statement go unfinished. Leaving her meaning veiled, and his intrigue redoubled.

  Poppy started across the room, to where containers of paints and stained brushes lay out, items he’d failed to note until now.

  Drawn to the brightly painted mural, he joined her. “Did you do this?” he asked; awe coated his question.

  “I did,” she said matter-of-factly, as she wiped the tip of a brush upon a multi-colored stained rag.

  That was it: “I did.” When any other woman would have used the opportunity to search for compliments and talk about her work.

  Moving closer, he stood shoulder to shoulder beside her, and continued his perusal up close. “Are you an artist?” she asked, interrupting his examination.

  “An—?”

  Poppy eyed him with a newfound interest in her expressive gaze. “Your hair is long. You’ve scruff on your cheeks”—she brushed her knuckles over his in a touch that was more clinical than caressing—“and you’re rumpled.”

  “Alas, I fear that is where any similarities between me and an artist ends.”

  “Ah.” She eyed him with such abject disappointment that left him feeling wanting, an increasingly familiar and quite despised sentiment. “Well, then you shouldn’t go about looking so rumpled. Artists are rumpled with scruff on their cheeks.”

  “Duly noted, my lady,” he said drolly. With her dismissive pronouncement, Poppy began cleaning her brushes.

  Tristan examined her work once more.

  His heart slowed.

  A pair of hunting dogs remained poised for all time, reaching for the hawk mid-flight. That creature forever from their eager reach. From the arch of their wide stances to the upturned positioning of their noses,
Poppy had masterfully captured the pair of dogs’ excitement.

  Only, they weren’t just…any dogs.

  Tristan leaned close, and his chest constricted with the weight of emotion.

  “They are my dogs,” he whispered.

  Not pausing, she continued to tidy her workstation. “Yes.”

  She’d painted Valor and Honor, as Tristan had always enjoyed their company most—on the hunt. She’d captured the lush green grass of his Kent estates…beloved grounds that had gone and passed to another. And now Valor and Honor would explore anew, elsewhere.

  He glanced over at her. “You despise hunting,” he murmured, as he was swept by a genuine curiosity to make sense of her subject.

  “Yes, but not everyone does. Some love it.”

  He loved it.

  “It is a compromise.” Poppy shrugged. “I’ve created something that anyone might appreciate. The hint of a hunt, with a bird taking its flight to freedom. Anyone might enjoy it, that way.”

  With that she closed up her neat leather case.

  Tristan glanced over at Poppy. “What are you doing?”

  “Cleaning up.”

  “But…” Tristan returned his attention forward. “You’ve not even signed it.”

  At her silence, he looked back. A blush stained her cheeks. “I’m not.”

  “Whyever not? It is your painting.” Hers was magnificent work. “It shouldn’t be anonymous. The world should know it is yours, Poppy.”

  “It is enough that I know it is mine, Tristan,” she said softly.

  He scoffed. “You’ve created something that will be remembered through time and you’d leave everyone who stepped inside this room to wonder at the artist’s identity?”

  “Yes,” she said simply.

  Did she realize that she was afraid to reveal her talent to the world? “I’m disappointed, Poppy…”

  He let that hang on the air; knowing she would not be able to let it remain in silence for long. “About what?” she asked defensively.

  “You, who’d thumb her nose up at society, would hold yourself back from sharing your art.” It fit not at all with the woman he knew her to be. But then, each person had their vulnerabilities.

  “I don’t hold myself back,” she said impatiently. “I’ve created it. As I said, art is to be enjoyed. People will enter this room and do precisely that.”