Cainewood Castle, seven years later
June 1815
"NOT ALL OF IT!" Alexandra Chase made a mad grab for her youngest sister's arm. "We're instructed to add a little more sugar than almonds."
Corinna stopped grating and frowned. "I like sugar."
"You won't like these ratafia puffs if they're all sugar," their middle sister, Juliana, said as she took the cone-shaped sugar loaf and set it on the scarred wooden table in the center of Cainewood Castle's cavernous kitchen.
"Here, my arm is tired." Alexandra handed Corinna the bowl of egg whites she'd been beating, then scooped a proper amount of the sugar and poured it into another bowl that held the ground almonds. Stirring them together, she shook her head at Corinna. "You really are quite hopeless with recipes. If you didn't look so much like Mama, I'd wonder if you're truly her child."
A sudden sheen of tears brightened Corinna's brilliant blue eyes. She quickly blinked them away. "She always made good sweets, didn't she?"
"Excellent sweets," Juliana said in a sympathetic tone, shooting a warning glance to her older sister.
Alexandra felt abashed and maybe a little teary herself. She looked away, her gaze wandering the whitewashed stone walls of the kitchen. Heaven knew Corinna was the most talented of the three of them. She'd meant only to tease her sister about her lack of their family's renowned skills for making sweets, not remind her of their mother. Memories could still be painful, since Mama had been gone less than two years.
But the time for sadness was over…following years of mourning various family members one after another, Alexandra and her sisters were finally wearing cheerful colors and ready to face the world. In Alexandra's case, she was more than ready to put the sorrow behind her and get on with her life.
During her first and only season four long years ago, she'd entertained many excellent offers of marriage. But when her grandmother died shortly thereafter, all thoughts of a wedding had been postponed, and she'd missed the 1812 season while mourning her. Then her father had died, and she'd missed the 1813 season while mourning him. Then her mother had died, and she'd missed the 1814 season while mourning her. Then her oldest brother had died, making 1815's season yet another one of solitude here in the countryside.
All of the marriage-minded men who'd courted her had long since found available brides. But Alexandra wasn't sure she wanted to face another season, with all the attending games and frivolity. She just wanted to be a wife. She wanted to put her old life behind her and start over in a new place and a new situation.
As for her younger sisters, they'd yet to be presented at court and were beside themselves at the thought of finally having a season. It seemed all Juliana and Corinna could talk of were the many parties, balls, breakfasts, dances, and soirees they were looking forward to attending.
"I can hardly wait for next spring," Corinna said, echoing Alexandra's musings.
Juliana added a few drops of almond extract to the egg whites. "If Griffin has his way, we'll all be married long before spring. We'll never have a season."
"He cannot get us all married off so quickly." Alexandra idly stirred the almonds and sugar. "Never mind that he's been inviting his friends here to meet us since before we were out of mourning. You two will have your seasons. He'll have to be content with my marriage for now."
"If the 'magical' ratafia puffs do their job." Corinna handed the bowl of eggs back to Alexandra. "Here, now my arm is tired. This is hard work." Mopping her forehead with a towel, she looked pointedly through an archway to where a scullery maid stood drying a towering stack of dishes. "I cannot understand why you won't ask her—"
"If the magic is to work," Juliana interrupted patiently, "Alexandra must make the ratafia puffs herself, not relegate the task to a servant."
"Holy Hannah!" Corinna tossed her mane of long, wavy brown hair, which she insisted on wearing down even though she had long since become old enough to put it up. "It's blazing hot in here with the coal burning all the day long. Ladies don't work in the kitchen."
Still beating the eggs, Alexandra glanced at the ancient, stained journal that lay open on the long table. "Chase ladies do. Our foremothers have been making sweets forever." The heirloom volume was filled with recipes penned by Chase females going all the way back to the seventeenth century. "It's a tradition," she added, looking back up at her sister. "Will you be the first to break it?"
"Perhaps. Unlike you, I don't put much stock in tradition."
Alexandra beat the eggs harder. "You should—"
"Girls." Always the peacemaker, Juliana took the bowl of stiffened eggs and dumped the almond and sugar mixture into it. "Why is there no ratafia in ratafia puffs?" she asked, adeptly changing the subject.
"Perhaps we're supposed to serve ratafia with them," Corinna suggested.
Alexandra laughed. "Griffin invited Lord Shelton to take tea, not to drink spirits. I expect they're called ratafia puffs because they taste of almonds like ratafia does."
Corinna dipped a finger into the sweet mixture and licked it off. "Do you think Lord Shelton will really propose?"
Juliana rolled her lovely hazel eyes. "Alexandra could feed him dirt and he'd propose. Have you not seen the way he looks at her?"
"Like he'd rather eat her than the sweets?"
"Oh, do hold your tongues." Alexandra had noticed the way Lord Shelton looked at her, and although she couldn't figure out why he looked at her that way—she knew she had a pretty face, but her boring brown eyes and impossible-to-control brown hair left a lot to be desired—she had to confess it was gratifying. She only wished she felt the same way about him.
But even though he didn't make her heart race, he was handsome and kind. He possessed a fortune of his own, so she knew he wasn't after her sizable dowry. And he lived nearby, so she would see her sisters often.
He really was quite perfect.
Once, at fifteen, she'd basked in the illusion of love. But now she suspected love to be an unrealistic, childish expectation. Years of sadness and disappointment had taught her to expect less than she used to of life.
With any luck, the ratafia puffs would work their magic, she thought as she dropped shiny dollops of the batter onto a paper-lined tin baking sheet.
The Chase sisters were long overdue for some luck.
TWO
FOR THE FIRST time in seven years, Tristan rode over Cainewood Castle's drawbridge and into its quadrangle. As a groom hurried from the stables, he swung down from his black gelding, his gaze skimming the clipped lawn and the four stories of living quarters that formed a U around it.
Cainewood didn't look any different, although there was no reason it should. If he remembered right, the castle had been in Chase hands—save during the Commonwealth—for close to six hundred years. He shouldn't have expected it to change in the last seven.
But he'd changed, so it felt odd that this place hadn't.
Seven years ago, he'd been a young man of one-and-twenty on his way to Jamaica to begin a promising career working with his generous Uncle Harold. He'd had a new degree from the University of Oxford, a soon-to-be-healed broken heart, and nary a serious care in the world.
Four years ago, Uncle Harold had died, and Tristan had taken his place as the Marquess of Hawkridge.
These days, he was anything but carefree.
The young groom tipped his cap. "Take your horse, my lord?"
"Yes, thank you." Tristan handed over the reins. As his mount was led away, his gaze wandered the ancient keep—still as tumbledown as he remembered it—and past it to the old tilting yard that lay beyond. He smiled, recalling games played there as a youth, he and Griffin—and often, Griffin's charming little sisters—running through the untamed, ankle-high vegetation. Those summers spent here during his school years were memories to be treasured. Griffin's family had been a jolly substitute for the lack of his own.
"Tristan. Or I suppose I should call you Hawkridge. Whichever, it's been entirely too long."
Lost in his thoughts,
he hadn't heard Griffin approach, but now he turned to see his old friend holding out a hand. He reached his own to grasp it.
"Ah, hell," Griffin said and pulled him into a rough embrace instead.
Tristan tensed for a stunned moment. Other than the impersonal attentions of his valet or a perfunctory handshake now and then, it was the first human touch he had felt in…entirely too long to remember.
He clapped his friend on the back. "Yes. Entirely too long," he echoed as he drew away. "Am I supposed to call you Cainewood?"
"Strikes the ear wrong after all these years, doesn't it?" Like the castle, Griffin's slightly crooked smile was familiar. "Griffin will do. I didn't expect you until tomorrow at the earliest."
Tristan walked with him toward the entrance. "Your note sounded urgent."
Before they reached the front steps, the double oak doors opened. Cainewood's longtime butler stood between them. "Welcome back, my lord," he said with a little bow.
"Why, thank you, Boniface," Tristan returned, pleased to see him again. The man was aptly named, for he had a bonnie face—a youthful countenance that belied his forty-odd years. No matter how hard he tried to look stiff and serious, he never quite succeeded. And other than a touch of gray gracing his temples, the years hadn't changed him a bit.
Tristan couldn't say the same for Griffin. "You look older," he said as they climbed the steps. Griffin's jaw looked firmer; his green eyes looked somewhat world-weary. "But I expect one could say the same of me."
Griffin nodded. "We're both shouldering responsibilities we never thought to have."
"Feeling overburdened, are you?" Tristan was surprised. "Surely the marquessate is less stressful than plotting war strategy."
"You have no idea." They stepped inside. "I have three sisters to marry off, and that's only the beginning—"
"They cannot already be old enough to wed!"
Griffin's laugh boomed through the three-story-high entrance hall, all the way up to its stone-vaulted ceiling. "You expect we aged while time stood still for them?" He led Tristan up the carved stone staircase. "Corinna—the baby—is nearly twenty. Plenty old enough to find a husband."
Tristan frowned. "And Juliana and Alexandra?" he asked, deliberately mentioning her last.
Maybe she would seem less important that way.
"Twenty-one and twenty-two." They turned on the landing and went up a second level to the family's private apartments. "Four deaths in the family have kept them from the marriage mart, but I mean to see them all settled now—and soon."
Griffin ushered Tristan into a dark wood study. Waving him into a leather wing chair, he went to open a cabinet.
Tristan sat warily. "Look, old man, I sympathize with your problem, but your letter indicated you were in dire straits and needed my expertise—"
"Yes." Rather than sitting behind the massive mahogany desk, Griffin chose the chair beside Tristan's. "I appreciate your response." He set two crystal glasses on the small table between them, unstoppered a matching decanter, and began pouring. "Regardless of the fact that you've hidden yourself away in the countryside all these years, you are known far and wide—"
"I'm not in search of a wife!"
"—for your advances in scientific agriculture and land management." In the midst of handing Tristan a glass, Griffin blinked. "Wife? Do you imagine I asked you here to marry one of my sisters? Perish the thought!"
Tristan breathed deep of the brandy as he wavered between relief and annoyance. Never mind that he had no interest in wedding any of Griffin's sisters—or anyone else, for that matter—he wasn't sure he appreciated having his unsuitability thrown directly into his face. "Why did you summon me, then?"
"I need your help. I've heard you've worked miracles with Hawkridge's vineyard."
"I've managed to revive it, yes. We've had two excellent harvests—the wine from last year's is particularly good." Relaxing back, Tristan took a bracing sip of the fine spirits. "You're in need of wine?"
Griffin's sip was more like a gulp. "Charles," he said, referring to his late older brother, "had taken up growing grapes, with an eye to making wine. He planted vines some three years ago—"
"Charles wanted to make wine?"
"It's the latest thing; haven't you heard? What with the prices soaring during the war against France, I suspect he thought to make a killing. But regardless, Charles always was a swell of the first stare."
"Yes," Tristan said dryly. "He was." He well remembered Charles, a tall, dark man with an air of superiority and an eye to owning the best. "Go on, then."
"I've been told not to expect a yield suited for production for another year at the least. But the vines should be bearing fruit by now, shouldn't they? They're not producing anything."
"Three years with nothing at all? Not even the odd bloom?"
"Nothing beyond leaves. I fear they may be dying. And I haven't the foggiest idea what to do." Griffin's fingers tightened on his glass. "I'm trained to lead men into battle, not manage land and livestock."
"Not to mention make wine, which is another enterprise entirely." Tristan sipped thoughtfully. "With more than thirteen thousand acres, a good percentage of that productive, you cannot stand to lose the vineyard? This is your emergency?"
Griffin colored. "I apologize if my letter made it sound dire. But…this was Charles's pet project. He invested a fair amount of funds, and I wish to make a success of it." After hesitating a moment, he met Tristan's eyes. "I hate to think I might fail where my brother would have succeeded. I'm not comfortable with these responsibilities—they were meant to be his, and I wasn't raised to the task. But I mean to make the best of it."
The admission sounded pained, but Tristan could sympathize. He didn't imagine that military officers sat around at night baring their souls. And as for himself, it had been a long time since he'd had anyone to confide in.
"I understand," he said. He hadn't been raised with expectations of inheriting a title, either. Quite the contrary, he'd been born the son of a second son, a mere mister who'd attended the right schools only on the largesse of his uncle. "I'm trying to make the best of my life, too."
Griffin nodded, looking uneasy.
These days, most everyone was uneasy around Tristan.
"Shall I have a look at your vineyard?" He drained his glass, set it down, and began to rise.
"It will have to wait until tomorrow." Waving him back down, Griffin refilled their glasses. "It's a good hour each way by horseback, and I'm expecting another caller shortly. A very acceptable suitor for Alexandra's hand."
Alexandra. Tristan pictured long dark curls and innocent young eyes. He wondered how she'd look all grown up.
He wondered if she'd have the same effect on him she used to.
"We'll ride over in the morning," Griffin added. "You'll stay, won't you? At least long enough to evaluate the situation?"
"I'll stay as long as I'm needed." Though Griffin's problem wasn't as pressing as Tristan had imagined, it had been a long time since he'd felt needed.
And a long time since he'd seen Lady Alexandra Chase.
THREE
"YOU LOOK lovely, Alexandra." Standing in the high gallery, Juliana tweaked her sister's low, ruffle-edged neckline. "Lord Shelton won't be able to resist you."
"Especially after he tries your magical ratafia puffs." Corinna grabbed one of the small sweets from the tray on a marble side table and popped it into her mouth. She sighed as it dissolved on her tongue. "François said they turned out perfect."
"Lord Shelton won't be able to try one if you eat them all first." Alexandra lifted the silver tray, smiling at the little golden puffs, which had been beautifully arranged by François, their French cook. "Come along, now. Lord Shelton is surely waiting." She hurried through the gallery, lifting her blue sprigged muslin skirts with one hand while carrying the fancy tray with the other.
Her sisters flanked her going down the wide stone staircase. "Gentlemen expect to wait for ladies," Juliana said. "It's
not the thing to appear too eager."
"I don't care to play those silly feminine games," Alexandra said, gazing down at her sister.
Juliana was exceedingly short—so short she made Alexandra feel tall, although she and Corinna were rather average in height. Juliana, Alexandra had noticed in the brief time Griffin had been inviting his friends to pay calls, attracted men like bees to honey—most especially the shorter men.
Thankfully, Lord Shelton was tall.
On the first floor, Alexandra paused in the picture gallery outside the drawing room's door. Masculine voices drifted out. Griffin must have been entertaining her guest—or, more likely, trying to talk him into a proposal.
With any luck, his efforts would pay off.
She schooled her expression into a welcoming one and rounded the corner into the room. "Lord Shelton," she said pleasantly, "please excuse my tardiness. I hope these sweet confections will make up for the wait."
Lord Shelton turned and smiled, walking toward her. But her gaze shifted past him, to where another man stood beside her brother. As he turned slightly and she met his eyes—intense gray eyes she recalled from years before—her heart gave a little skip.
Tristan Nesbitt.
He still had the same strong jaw, the same long nose, the same heavy, straight brows. His skin was unfashionably bronzed, as though he'd spent much time outdoors, and his streaky brown-blond hair still looked tousled, as it used to—and still made her wish to run her fingers through it.
The mere sight of him robbed her of breath.
"Good afternoon, my dear," Lord Shelton said. "I was more than pleased to receive your invitation to take tea."
She tore her gaze from Tris. Lord Shelton looked pale in comparison, his skin a pasty white, his hair the lightest blond, his eyes an innocuous blue. Odd, his paleness had never made an impression on her before. It seemed almost as though he'd faded.
And he wasn't as tall as she'd thought. At least not when he was standing in the same room with Tris.
"Thank you for accepting the invitation," she murmured, struggling to remember her manners.
Lost in Temptation (Regency Chase Family Series, Book 1) Page 2