An Unexpected Passion (Unexpected Series Book 2)

by Leighann Dobbs

  Aye, he would re-create this moment as a wedding gift—for Phoebe, for within seconds, a lady had emerged, stepping from the shadows as shock reverberated through the room like a bolt of lightning.

  Gracefully, she made her way into the center of the chamber, stopping neither before the magistrate, nor to pause beside Tony. Instead, she strolled directly forward to face the accused man in the chair who was staring at her now as if he had seen a ghost. A shaky, almost rueful half-smile lifted one corner of her lips.

  “Hello, Tristan.”

  15

  The better part of a London morning had disappeared hours ago and there was still no word or sign from either Lucien or Tristan. The wait was slowly driving Phoebe out of her mind.

  Watching in tense silence from the windows of the front parlor of Rothwyn Manor, an unholy fear icing her veins, Phoebe struggled to stand upright as she waited along with her grandmother, her sisters, and both Lady Claire and Lady Melisande to hear the dreaded news of Tristan's sentencing.

  Although surrounded by family whom she knew loved her dearly, Phoebe suddenly realized she wished Edward were here. She needed him. In this terrible moment when she must soon learn that her brother was truly going to die, that there was nothing more which could be done in an attempt to save him, she desperately needed for Edward to be there beside her. She needed to feel the comforting strength of his arms around her, sheltering her, holding her upright. Protecting her.

  “Phoebe, come away from the window, dear. Watching will neither hasten their arrival nor soften our reaction to whatever news they bear, be it pleasant or ill,” Amelia gently admonished, and Phoebe allowed the heavy drapes to fall though she did not step away from her self-appointed post.

  Claire came up beside her to offer a cup of tea.

  Phoebe accepted it with a quiet murmur of thanks but she did not drink. Instead, she turned back toward the window, peering through a thin crack in the curtains as her thoughts wandered, pausing briefly at this memory or that as she reminisced with a wistful smile of times long past.

  Happier times.

  Peaceful times.

  Times wherein her legs did not turn to jelly as they did the precise moment she first perceived the distant crunch of stone beneath wheels once the carriages began to roll slowly up the drive.

  Fingers shaking badly enough to rattle the fine bone China cup against the saucer upon which it sat in her hand, Phoebe moved to set her tea aside and pull back the drapes once more.

  “They are here,” she announced quietly, her words almost a whisper, but not one person waiting with her in the front parlor needed to strain to hear. It was as if they each drew a collective breath and then dared not breathe out again lest doing so disturb the fragile thread of hope to which they had somehow managed to cling. Even Alaina was duly subdued by the sheer gravity of the moment.

  Trembling to the point of notice now, Phoebe closed her eyes against the threat of oncoming tears and whispered one last silent prayer for her brother's deliverance from the cruel hand Fate had dealt him.

  Claire was the first to break the silence. She had come up beside Phoebe once again to draw the shivering girl into her embrace. Giving her a little squeeze, she said, “Phoebe? I know the news your brothers bear may not be the best, but they both will need our strength at this moment more than any other.”

  “I fear I have none,” Phoebe choked out around the knot of emotion which seemed a permanent fixture lodged in her throat, causing Claire to hug her a bit more tightly.

  Still, as she drew away, patting her soon-to-be sister-in-law consolingly as she did so, Claire urged, “Try. For Lucien, as well as Tristan.”

  A moment later, three carriages came into view.

  In front was the Rothwyn family carriage, followed closely by the Duke of Kelsing's private coach. A third, this one belonging to the Duke of Ambray trailed a bit behind the first two, but it was the family carriage which held every ounce of Phoebe's concentration for it was the one bearing both her brothers and, she hoped, her betrothed.

  The first two carriages rolled to a halt in front of the manor and Phoebe's knees threatened to buckle, forcing her legs to give way beneath her. To hold herself upright, she gripped the drapes tightly in both hands, her ears keenly attuned to the low hum of conversation beginning in the foyer now that the butler had opened the door to admit the duke and his entourage.

  Lucien, Sebastian, Adrien, Nick, Tony... she marked each voice through the near-blinding haze of her grief as the men made their way into the manor, but Tristan's was not among them. A wave of panic-induced dizziness assailed her, making her sway forward, and she gripped her fingers ever tighter into the fabric swathing the large window.

  Dear God, please no. Please.

  Sucking in a breath, she turned to face the door. Edward came first into the parlor and hastened directly to her side. He was smiling. Her brother was going to die and he was smiling! In that moment, she thought she hated him.

  Where was Tristan?

  One by one, the others came into the foyer. Lucien went immediately to Claire and bent low to whisper something into her ear. Her eyes widened, but she said nothing, merely nodded. Sebastian and Nick joined the twins on the pair of matching sofas facing the fire, both equally closed-mouthed and clearly uncomfortable, while Tony, after one sweeping glance of the room, drew up short just inside the doorway.

  Somewhere in the deepest recesses of her mind, Phoebe knew his sudden hesitation must be due to having caught sight of Melisande, but she could not seem to recall why his behavior should be significant. She frowned. Why had Tony been in one of the other carriages when his own was at this very moment drawing to a halt in front of the manor?

  Turning to Edward, her anxious gaze questioning, she opened her mouth to ask him that exact question, but he shook his head and motioned for her to be patient.

  “Ambray gave up his carriage for your guests,” he explained in a whisper near her ear, which he followed with a quick kiss upon her temple.

  “Guests?” The mere thought of having to attempt to entertain at this crucial moment was petrifying. “We cannot possibly be expected to accept—who would dare to be so crass as to pay a visit today when—”

  Edward's smile became a grin. “Shush, Phoebe. It is merely Viscount Greeding and his wife and I believe that would be the happy couple coming into the manor now.”

  The official story was that although the Marquess of Glenwood's granddaughter had received a near-fatal wound from a stray gunshot aboard the pirate ship Valkyrie, Tristan St. Daine, the newly vested Viscount Greeding, had not been responsible.

  Instead, it was being bandied about by all and sundry to whomever chose to hear that it was Tristan who had saved the girl; he had put her wounded and bloodied body in a rowboat and swiftly taken her to safety while the King's men continued to search the pirate's ship for the gunman responsible for her injury.

  Tristan was being lauded as a hero—but he noticed none of it. He was still in a state of shock, still far too furious for having been told not only that he now had a wife, he'd had one for months—one his nightmares had tortured him over for weeks on end, forcing him to relive the moments of her death every night in his dreams—only she wasn't dead.

  She was alive and well, and by all that was holy, she was his wife. His much beloved wife, if the propaganda Tony had stirred up in the courtroom was to be believed, and yet she was sitting as quiet as death next to him.

  Her body rigidly upright, Lady Chelsea Hastings St. Daine, now also Viscountess Greeding, perched uneasily upon the seat at his side as stiff and still as a pillar of salt. The pallid color of her skin, made even more wan in contrast with her silvery blond hair, gave her a ghostly appearance and Tristan wondered once more if perhaps he were not simply dreaming.

  When he had seen her emerge from the magistrate's antechamber he had first thought he was seeing a ghost. As she had drawn closer, he realized at last that she was indeed alive and he had wanted to stand up
and rejoice with gladness and relief.

  He had been so torn between his need to crush her to him and hold her so closely she could never leave him again and a terrible fear that his nightmares had come upon him during his waking hours to taunt him anew that he had been unable to do more than sit and stare as she made her way across the floor in front of him. But when she had spoken...

  The carriage rocked to a halt before Rothwyn Manor but Tristan did not bother to move to open the door. When a footman took care of it for him, he shook his head and waved the fellow away, turning instead to peer cautiously at his wife, still somewhat stupefied by the idea of it altogether.

  Wife. He had a wife!

  Seeking answers only she could give, his eyes searched hers, but there was no time to ask anything of her. Not yet.

  Chelsea's questioning gaze met his. “I am sure your family are anxiously awaiting our entrance, Tristan. Should we not make haste to join them?”

  She sounded weary. His eyes moved over her then, seeking, searching for any sign of distress from the injury—an injury he himself had given her. When his gaze returned to hers, he noted a rise in color upon her cheeks and her eyes sparkled brilliantly, just as they had done during much of their time upon the Valkyrie. His eyes narrowed. “The St. Daine's can be rather exuberant en masse. Are you certain you are recovered enough for this?”

  Musical laughter spilled from her lips and into the air, surrounding him. “Tristan, I have been convalescing at Chateau Ambray for weeks. The doctor Anthony insisted upon having come by the manor daily assures me the wound is healed and despite fears to the contrary, I have made a complete return to my normal state of good health.”

  Her gaze faltered at the word complete. She glanced away, but not before he saw something disturbing in her gaze—a slight caution of sorts which he did not understand but meant to know before he introduced her to his family. “There is more. What are you not telling me?”

  He noted her fingers had curled into the material of the ivory gown she wore—to still their trembling? He wondered. It was the type of thing Phoebe would have done. Though his fingers itched to curl around hers, forcing them to relax within his grasp, he merely held her gaze and waited.

  She drew in a breath before meeting his eyes again. Her nose twitched, curling upward in the way it often did when she was mildly vexed or irritated, and she waved a hand in the air as if to brush away his concern. “There is a scar. Though the doctors aboard Tony's ship did the best they could to patch me up proper, there was apparently quite a mess of torn flesh to repair. It was not a clean shot, I believe I heard someone say.”

  So he had left her disfigured?

  The mere thought of any mark upon her otherwise flawless body—especially one so terrible as a gunshot wound must have been for the ship's physician to say it had not been a clean shot—tortured him.

  Tristan squeezed his eyes shut in an agony of shame but before he could open his mouth to apologize for the terrible pain he had put her through, she said, “In any case, it was repaired and I assure you I am fine. Can we go inside now, Tristan? Please?”

  Though a note of pleading had entered her tone, her voice still sounded as drained and wearied as he felt. Her attempt to assure him all was well with her health no longer felt convincing. He suspected she was not as fully recovered as she wanted him to believe, and if she was not...

  She could still die.

  A sudden jolt of fear shot through him as both anguish and dread squeezed tight in his chest. Turning toward the window to hide any evidence of the unholy sense of fear choking him now that might display upon his face, a stream of blistering curses fell from his lips.

  What a cruel trick Fate had played this day, he thought, to deliver to him again the woman he loved more than life itself at a moment when he was fully prepared to give up his own life to end the agony her death had caused … only to then remind him he was still entirely vulnerable. Still susceptible. Still in the hellish position where he might someday be forced to relive the moment of her death all over again.

  “Tristan?”

  There was caution in her tone. Uncertainty. Perhaps even a tiny bit of fear. But he could offer her no ease. Desperately needing immediate distance from the source of his continued agony, Tristan rose, opened the door and left the carriage. For a moment, he paused outside to take in several deep, cleansing breaths before lifting a hand to assist her from the conveyance as well.

  Framed in the doorway of Tony's carriage, he saw her not as she was now but as she had been the night he had held her in his arms while she gasped in pain, struggling to draw breath. She had tried to be brave, but there had been fear and a terrible world of agony in her eyes. It was the same look he saw within their depths before she quickly averted her gaze from his.

  She was every bit as terrified as he was.

  Aye, he thought, and well she should be, for the many months of hell thoughts of her death had put him through—while she had been tucked safely away in the bosom of the Duke of Ambray, blithely recovering without a care as to the insanity his life had become.

  Of course he knew, somewhere deep down, that his silent accusations weren't true. Tony had mentioned complications with the wound—Chelsea had lost a great deal of blood and then she'd taken a fever. He had mentioned other concerns, as well, though Tristan could not remember precisely what those had been other than that they all were reasons which had delayed his visit with the Regent and furthering the clearing of his name.

  Still, in that instant, Tristan decided he would do everything in his power to ensure he never again had reason to experience the awful pain he had felt before, when he'd believed Chelsea to be dead. From this moment forward, he would put a distance between them, one so great not even death could cross it. “We won't be staying, so do not get comfortable with my family. I need to speak with Lucien and we will leave for Greeding soon after.”

  “Greeding? But why? Should we not stay the night? Today has been most eventful for the both of us, I am sure, and—” she asked as he led her up the steps.

  Without pause, Tristan swung his head around to glare at her. “Are you not well, after all?”

  Noticeably stiffening in response to his curtness, a low sigh escaped her pale lips. Confusion mingled with frustration in her eyes. “Aye, I am fine, my lord,” she gritted out. “Let us not tarry through the introductions, then, for I find I am suddenly eager to be home, as well.”

  16

  “Lord and Lady Greeding have arrived, Your Grace,” the butler intoned from the doorway. Phoebe did not know what to expect or to say—until she saw Tristan following slightly behind a beautiful, silvery-blond haired woman in an ivory dress who gracefully glided forward into the room. The lady was exquisite—petite, with delicate, yet finely accented features that placed the look of her somewhere between ghost and goddess, and Phoebe knew in an instant precisely who she was.

  “Chelsea...” The name slipped from her lips in a whisper. She was alive. Lady Chelsea Hastings was alive! And her brother … Her eyes snapped to Tristan's and what strength she had managed to muster at Claire's request immediately faltered.

  Tristan was free, at last.

  The realization swept through her like a tidal wave, followed by an onslaught of reaction so sudden and forceful her knees buckled beneath her. Had it not been for Edward holding her upright, she would have fallen to the floor in a quivering, weeping puddle. She was trembling again, dreadfully so, in fact, but this time from the sheer force of profound relief rather than a horrible fear that bordered on terror.

  Her gaze locked with Edward's—had she turned to him, or had he been the one to pull her into his steady, comforting embrace? She could not recall but somehow she was now facing him, leaning against his solid chest for support, her fingers curled in tight fists around the lapels of his jacket as she struggled to stand aright in the face of the fiercely battering waves of emotion hurtling through her.

  “He is free,” she repeated, almost
dumbstruck, in a hushed but urgent whisper. “Tristan is free!”

  Eyes sparkling with a tangle of emotions Phoebe found she could not name, Edward reached up, capturing her hands within his own. “Aye, he is free, Phoebe. You were right. Your brother is innocent. They will not hang him now.”

  He shook his head, his expression a portrait of bemusement. “Not only that, for his part in rescuing Lady Greeding from the pirates who kidnapped her, he has been recognized by the Prince Regent himself as a hero and awarded the title of viscount.”

  “You were on a pirate ship! I thought you had been kidnapped while staying with family in the country, but I did not know you were taken by pirates!”

  Alaina's sudden outburst spilled into the room, breaking the tense silence of the moment, causing an eruption of nervous laughter. Phoebe could feel Edward's shoulders shaking with it, too, but she saw Chelsea's gaze slant in Tony's direction before her mesmerizing voice spilled into the room, and everyone fell silent once more.

  “That bit of misinformation must be attributed to the duke, I am afraid,” she said. “Had we simply told the truth—that I am a willful grandchild who willingly chose to abscond to the high seas with my father who just also happened to be the captain of a pirate ship—my reputation would have been ruined. Can you imagine the scandal?”

  There was no way one could possibly have misconstrued the wry sarcasm in her tone, but the accompanying flash of amusement in her sparkling green eyes spoke volumes. Lady Greeding, her look said, was not above causing a scandal if the matter warranted.

  Phoebe liked her immediately.

  “Oh, how adventurous that must have been!” Alaina continued. “But you were wounded also, and that must have been horrible—our brother truly shot you?”

  Chelsea's lips twisted wryly in response to Alaina's excited chatter. “Yes, but in all fairness, he was aiming for my father.”

  Alaina's mouth fell open and she narrowed her eyelids to glare at Tristan. “You were going to shoot her father?”