“And when do we begin my sculpting lessons?” she asked, craning her head back as he came to his feet.
“I’m done with your lessons, princess.”
Her lips parted. “You’re leaving.”
Of course, it had been inevitable. He was an artist on tour, and not an instructor here solely for her pursuits. And yet, when he left there’d be another loss. This one different from Tristan’s but painful in its own way.
Caleb ruffled the top of her head like she was a favorite sister. “Don’t look so glum. I’m not the one leaving. Not yet.”
She puzzled her brow. Then…
“You’re leaving,” he corrected.
“What?”
He reached inside his jacket and tossed a paper at her. It fluttered between her fingers but she caught it before the scrap hit the floor. Poppy unfolded the page and quickly worked her gaze over the words. “What is this?” she breathed.
“Houdon was impressed by you. Said you have talent and promise. I’ve secured your lessons with Houdon when you’re ready to go.”
Lessons with Houdon… Académie des Beaux Arts … And truly for the first time since Tristan had gone, her heart soared. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because you deserve to go. Nothing says art belongs to men or that the art created by women should be hung in a parlor and forgotten.”
If it was just a pastime, Poppy, you’d be happily sketching fruit bowls and floral arrangements like most every other lady in Polite Society. You wouldn’t have taken on the responsibility of redecorating your sister’s hotel…
Tristan’s words pinged around her memory.
Tristan…whom she’d made an arrangement with. One that required her to fulfill a request he’d put to her. Reluctantly, she folded the page. “I… There is the Season. My sisters-in-law.”
“And?”
“And I have promised to see them through the Season. After they are wed, perhaps…” If they wed. She’d not force them just so she might see her own future settled.
Caleb’s disappointment was so palpable it stung.
“Think on it, princess. Because something tells me if you don’t take this for you, someday you’ll be having a whole host of regrets other than that husband you married.”
“I don’t…”
Except, her protestations died on her lips. And she hated that deep in her heart this man who’d known her a short time had gathered that truth she had hidden even from herself—all the regrets she carried for trapping her and Tristan in a marriage that wasn’t.
Chapter 23
Tristan,
Some days it feels as though you’ve just left…and then other days, it is as though you were never even here…
Poppy
Tristan was too late.
Or if one wished to be truly precise—too early.
Nearly six o’clock in the morn, and hours after Poppy’s event had concluded. Dismounting from his horse, Tristan doffed his hat, and scanned the empty streets.
The windows of his townhouse revealed the darkness within. Traveling nearly two days straight, the last leg of his journey had been delayed—by a broken carriage axle. First by ship and then a carriage ride, he’d abandoned for a mount, he’d ridden like the devil, traveling for the better part of twenty-hours to get there.
To get to her.
Eyes bloodshot, Florence opened the door to greet him. “My lord,” he said, his bushy white eyebrows skyrocketing. “Wasn’t expecting you back.” To the man’s credit, he gave no outward display to the beard covering Tristan’s face, or the stench of horse and sweat on him.
“Florence, so very good to see you,” he greeted, as he entered. For it signaled that Tristan had returned.
He was home.
Home. How had he not seen that, until now? He’d railed at the idea of forcing Poppy to reside in the ramshackle residence. All the while failing to see that home was wherever he was with Poppy.
Tristan shrugged out of his cloak. “My wife?” he asked, turning over the dusty garment.
The older man took the garment. “Her Ladyship is in the ballroom.” Even his butler had changed. His previous unkempt white hair had been neatly cropped. His slurred speech from too much drink had given way to more practiced, proper tones of one putting forth an effort with his words. “As she is most days, my lord.” He said it as though Tristan should know. “Arises early, she does.”
Poppy.
She was here.
So close.
And he was already striding through the townhouse, a townhouse that she’d since transformed; the covered portraits of his youth had since been uncovered and dusted. The floors and mahogany all gleamed from coats of varnish. Of course, everything she touched, she altered into a thing of beauty.
God, how he’d missed her.
He’d missed being with her.
And having her in his arms and in his bed.
And like a damned fool he was, until he’d left, he’d failed to realize how much he loved her.
Tristan staggered to a stop, skidding, off-balance upon the smooth flooring. He shot a hand out, catching himself at the wall. His pulse slowed, and then hammered away in his ears.
He loved her.
Since the moment he’d nearly trampled her, then a young girl, pressing him about his dogs, and reproaching him for hunting, he’d cared for her. But somewhere along the way, with all the times life had thrown them together, she’d matured, and he’d become hopelessly enraptured of Poppy Tidemore in all her spirited glory.
He didn’t want a marriage of convenience with her—he wanted all that marriage entailed, with her at his side, battling every challenge, and damning whatever society said because as long as they had one another…it would be enough.
It was enough.
Tristan found his legs once more, and took off running.
The sound of her laughter reached him first: perfectly Poppy in its clarity and abandon. It called. Beckoned. The light within him and source of all his joy; the only joy he’d known these past three months.
He reached the ballroom.
Wholly engrossed in her task, her fingers flew over her page as she sketched. Unchanged in their time apart, absorbed by the work she loved. And he drank in the sight of her as she’d only previously existed in his dreams and waking thoughts.
Poppy.
He knew the moment she felt him there.
Her body, expressive like her eyes, revealed her every emotion. She went completely still. Her gaze locked on her book. Her fingers trembled.
His did, too. His entire body thrummed from the force of a jumble of emotions ricocheting inside.
Her shoulders tensed, and then ever so slowly, she picked her head up. Of course she did. She’d always been braver and bolder than he. Braver and bolder than anyone.
Time stood still and for the first time since he’d raced to her, having thought of everything he would say, he came up devoid of any words, making a mockery of the previous image of rogue he’d attained. For with this woman, there was only real emotion.
“Hello, Poppy,” he said quietly, taking a step forward.
Poppy didn’t blink. Those enormous hazel eyes. “Tristan.”
He tried to make sense of that whisper; his name not quite a question, with shades of shock and confusion. Regardless, it pulled him forward, that soft contralto a song even when she spoke. Until he stopped on the opposite side of her art table, a slab of stone all that stood between them.
“I’ve found it, sweetheart.”
Tristan’s gaze slid to find the owner of the flat American accent…a man now approaching Tristan’s wife. A man casually rolling forth endearments that should only fall from Tristan’s lips.
Tristan’s entire body coiled a primal reaction that came from the threat he’d not known was lurking.
And learned how wrong he’d been. There was something greater than mere stone between he and Poppy.
Nearly seven feet tall and all heavy muscle,
the man who took up a spot beside Poppy would never be considered handsome. In fact, with a broad-hooked nose and large jaw he leaned on the side of ugly. But Poppy, Tristan’s wife, the girl he’d known and the woman he’d fallen in love with, was never one who’d care about what a man looked like.
“Hello,” Tristan said coolly, when no introductions or greetings were forthcoming from the pair. He started forward; sizing up the stranger as he walked, this unexpected competition for Poppy.
Why should it be so very unexpected? You left your wife alone, lonely…you yourself know what becomes of lonely wives.
And never had he despised himself more for having bedded such women, in good conscience. Without a thought to what had brought about that loneliness, or separation in those marriages.
At last, Poppy stood, her stool scraped along the marble floor. “Tristan, may I introduce you to Caleb Gray.” She gestured to the towering figure at her side…as if there might be another man present, and therefore the matter required clarification.
“And should I know Mr. Gray?”
Either she failed to hear or note the deliberate emphasis he placed on that correct form of address for the man. Wagering man that he’d always been, he’d bet his very life it was the latter.
“He’s an artist.”
Tristan scraped his gaze over the long, black hair drawn back in a queue and the scruff on his face. A memory traipsed in of he and Poppy when life had been less complicated between them. Your hair is long. You’ve scruff on your cheeks…and you’re rumpled… Are you an artist…? “Of course he is,” he said, letting all the loathing and disdain he felt for the other man drip from his words.
Poppy frowned and moved closer to Gray: Gray, who looked mildly amused by Tristan’s response and by his very presence alone.
And it was when Tristan knew…he was going to take the other man apart with his bare hands. Tristan was several inches shorter, and two stone lighter, but he’d defeated far bigger men in battle and those battles had never been over Tristan’s wife. “Gray.”
He’d give credit where credit was due. Gray didn’t so much as acknowledge him with a greeting.
In the end, the only thing that spared Poppy’s artist from a thrashing was being interrupted by a clamor of barking dogs. The sharp click of nails striking the hardwood floor announced Sir Faithful and Valor and Honor, and Tristan found himself surrounded by a swell of noisy dogs. The trio danced and circled Tristan, yapping excitedly, lapping his feet.
At least there was someone excited to see him.
Falling to a knee, Tristan stroked each dog, lavishing them with the attention they craved. All the while, his gaze remained fixated on his wife. She stared at him with stricken eyes that he could not make sense of. Just like any of this damned day. In the brief time they’d been apart, his wife had become an enigma. No longer transparent, her secrets only hers. The irony was not lost on Tristan. Before he’d gone, she’d wanted him to share his secrets with her; now he was the one searching for answers to hers.
His gaze slid to the man hovering close at her shoulder, a primitive claim that the American intended to stake.
Over my dead body.
That brought Tristan back to his feet. He slapped his leg twice and the dogs immediately fell quiet.
“I should leave you, princess.”
Princess.
The bastard had affixed an endearment to Tristan’s wife. This one somehow different from the previous, for now he’d tailored it to Poppy, a secret that they two shared. A mark of their familiarity. Nay, worse—their intimacy.
Narrowing his eyes, Tristan followed the other man’s unhurried exit until he’d gone, and all that lingered in his wake was awkwardness.
Between Tristan and Poppy, when there never had been.
“Why does it not seem as though you’re happy to see me, wife?” His question came faintly goading, even as he knew he was a bastard for it. Even as he knew he was the one who’d left and the mistakes his own.
“Stop it, Tristan,” she chided, the adult of their pair, and it sent a guilty flush up his neck. “Of course I’m happy to see you. I…” Her voice faltered and her features, those delicate features, softened, in the first hint of tenderness since he’d entered. “I was not expecting you.”
“I thought I might surprise you.” Doffing his gloves, he beat the dusty articles against his leg. In the end, however, it had only been Tristan who’d been surprised.
“You’ve returned, then?” she exhaled her words on a single breath. Poised as she was on the balls of her feet, Poppy had the look of one about to take flight. At the thought of his being here?
“For three days.” Now two and a half. “I’ve papers to deliver to the Home Office in London.”
And just like that, she deflated, sinking back on her heels. “Oh.”
He didn’t know what to make of that “oh”. It was the same opaqueness that had met him since he’d stepped into this ballroom. Prior to it, he’d almost believed her happy at the prospect of his being here. Only, she’d since returned to the task that had occupied her when he’d arrived. Back when she’d been smiling and laughing and not this serious, somber shadow of Poppy. Before him.
Tristan stood there, watching her as she organized a series of metal tools, cleaning one, and then setting it down. Reaching for another. An endless routine that she carried out, which heightened this horrible sense of his invisibility.
Then, he asked it: “Is he your lover?” That question that had haunted him the moment the American had come striding up to Poppy, and into Tristan’s marriage. Nay, Tristan had opened that door long ago for the other man, and Poppy’s artist had stepped right through.
Poppy ceased washing off that already gleaming instrument.
He saw the way she tensed and could decipher even less from the way her muscles bunched. “If you have to ask that, Tristan,” she said softly, “you never knew me.”
“You asked for me to give you a pledge of my faithfulness,” he reminded her, as she reached dismissively for another instrument.
This time, Poppy glanced up. “Yes.” She smiled sadly. “But that’s because I did know you.”
“Is that what you thought?” Frustration ripped that question from him. “That I couldn’t be faithful to you? That I’m some manner of scoundrel incapable of honoring my vows to you?” He’d admired her all these years as a woman of character, strength, and spirit, only to be stung with the truth of the low opinion she’d carried for him.
Poppy sighed. “It wasn’t about loyalty.”
“What was it about then, Poppy? Tell me.”
“It was about love.”
Love. His heart thumped harder; that word he wanted from her but spoken as a vow, not as a single word that she left detached from his name.
“Or rather,” she went on, staring at her interlocked fingers, “a lack thereof.” When she lifted her eyes to his, the pain there squeezed the blood from his heart, leaving that organ hollow. “I loved you.”
There it was…the past tense. He’d been expecting it, but even having prepared himself for it, it landed like a blow to the chest. “Loved,” he echoed, in hollow tones, because he needed to say it aloud so that he couldn’t deny to himself that she’d said it.
“Oh, Tristan,” she whispered. “I’ll always love you. Always. You were my first love. You captured my heart the moment we met.”
“You loved the idea of me. The Earl of Maxwell with his dogs, who fished with you.” And who’d fallen in love with her along the way.
“Perhaps,” she conceded and that lance struck worse. “But Tristan…” She walked over, stopping so close they were nearly touching. “It was wrong of me to have expectations for you…or our marriage. I presented you one thing, and secretly expected another. It was wrong of me for so many reasons.”
“Is that supposed to make me somehow feel better?”
She lifted her palms. “You were drunk when I asked you to marry me. How could I have ever hel
d you to more from that beginning? It was wrong to expect you to set aside that which mattered most, your honor and career with the military, for me. I know that now.”
She mattered most. Only, he’d failed to show her that. To let her see that with actions. “And this Gray fellow…” Trying to give some direction to the volatile emotion humming through him, Tristan beat his gloves together. “He makes you happy.”
“Do you think I’m trying to hurt you by Caleb’s being here?” Caleb. Not: Mr. Gray. Nor: My art instructor. “That I’ve set out to lash out at you?”
She had that wounded look again, and he shoved a hand through his hair. “No.” She wasn’t that manner of woman.
“I met Caleb at the Royal Academy for the annual summer exhibit. He offered to instruct me, and I said yes…not to hurt you but rather to do something I wanted. I should think you would be proud of me for not hiding my work away.”
This was because of him. He’d encouraged her to share her work with the world. In that, however, he’d never foreseen a Caleb Gray there. More the fool he.
It took a moment to realize Poppy had started for the door. Sir Faithful and Tristan’s own dogs—also strangers to him—hot at her heels. And as he watched his wife go, there should be some relief in what she’d confirmed: she and Caleb Gray weren’t lovers.
But what was worse…had theirs been a sexual connection it would rip his still beating heart from his chest and destroy him completely, but would still be preferable to the truth…that what she shared with her American was, in fact, more. A relationship born of emotion.
“Do you love him?” There it was. Another question he forcibly made himself ask, not wanting the answer, and yet, needing it, too. It managed to freeze her in her tracks and keep her silent. With her back to him, he was ravaged by the inability to see the honest response, whatever it might be, reflected in her eyes. Forcing a calm he did not feel, he eased his way over toward where his question had frozen her in the middle of the ballroom. “Your American,” he added, as if a clarification was needed, and yet, something was. Something to compel her to speak. To answer. So then he might know.
Lords of Honor-The Collection Page 123