Like an unexpected blow to his midsection, her simple statement stole his breath. Her unquestioning belief in him was a force all its own, a sort of acceptance he'd never experienced or expected. Though he couldn't see her in the dark, her hand squeezing his told him all he needed to know.
She had more faith in him than he had in himself.
"You don't believe that," she insisted. "Tell me you don't."
"Sometimes, in the dark of the night, when I wonder what I did to deserve my life going so dreadfully wrong…"
He'd never told anyone this. Not even, he suddenly realized, himself.
He wasn't the sort to brood over life's inequities, and until recently—very recently—he hadn't felt particularly deprived. Even taking his isolation into consideration, he had so much more than so many other people in this world. A magnificent ancestral home that he enjoyed updating and improving, several estates to occupy his time and challenge his talents and ingenuity, and more money than he knew what to do with. Considering the misery most people endured on a day-to-day basis, he knew he had no right to complain.
It was only lately that he'd realized he was lonely. But that shouldn't be so much to bear.
"My uncle died in the middle of the night," he said. "I had recently arrived from Jamaica to find my own father had passed on. Uncle Harold hadn't been himself since the deaths of his wife and sons, and I was staying with him at his request." He knew he'd told her some of this before, but he needed to put it in context. "As I was now his heir, he wished to instruct me, and I wished to cheer him. Truly, I did. He was only in his early fifties; I expected him to live a long, long time. I had no wish for his death."
"I'm sure you hadn't," she said quietly.
"But can't you see? I was there, sleeping in his house, that morning when he failed to awaken. And I'd been sleepwalking—after three years of peaceful nights in Jamaica, I'd come home to find my father dead and my financial life in a shambles, and I'd begun sleepwalking again. I don't remember murdering my uncle, and I felt nothing but love for him, I assure you. I don't consider myself capable of killing anyone, let alone the man who had fathered me more than my own father. But the fact remains that I was under great pressure at the time, and I'd already sleepwalked once or twice…so a part of me has always wondered."
"A very small part of you, I'm sure."
He wasn't sure it wasn't a large part. It was something he tried not to think about.
"That's what's kept you from digging too deeply to clear your name," she said. "You're afraid you might discover the opposite, that you were responsible for your uncle's death."
His first reaction was knee-jerk denial, but she sounded so reasonable he felt obligated to mull it over a moment. "Perhaps," he finally conceded. He'd never clarified that in his mind; he'd always thought of it as putting the past behind him and getting on with his life. But he had to admit that what she said might be true.
And that she must understand him very well to surmise it.
"That's ridiculous." She pulled her hand from his, leaving him feeling very alone in the dark. "There's absolutely no way you could have murdered your uncle."
He recoiled from the certainty in her voice, the anger she so very rarely displayed. "It's a possibility," he disagreed tersely. "Only a possibility, but—"
"It's not." He felt her fingers brush his face, and her voice gentled, but not much. "You're a good man, Tris. And I'm positively certain that, as such, you would never do anything while asleep that you didn't wish to do while awake."
It was an interesting theory, but he couldn't quite buy it. "How about this?" he returned, reaching to skim a hand over her bare hip, still horrified that he'd all but ruined her.
She hesitated rather than answering, releasing a little moan before she closed the distance between them. Her arms went around him and held him snug. Damning his own weakness, he reveled in her embrace, wrapping his arms around her to hold her close.
"You wanted to do this, too," she whispered into the night.
He couldn't argue with that. He'd been craving her for weeks, months…years, if he were to be honest. Just having her so near was a torture he could barely endure. She felt too warm, too giving, too damn sweet in his arms. And even though he couldn't remember so much as a moment of their earlier encounter, she somehow felt familiar in his arms, too.
As though she belonged here. But she didn't.
No one belonged in his arms.
Her insistence that he was innocent had done nothing to ease his worry. God only knew what he might do next in his sleep. Though he'd hesitated to wed before, now he was absolutely determined never to subject a good woman to his menace.
And every fiber of his being was aware of her against him. Dangerously aware. "I must leave," he said, trying to pull away.
She held him tighter, her curves melding to match his contours, the soft pillows of her breasts crushed against his chest. "Stay. Please. A few minutes longer."
She didn't say why. She didn't need to say they would never be together like this again.
"Just hold me," she begged. "Just hold me for a little while."
So he just held her. It was, perhaps, the most difficult thing he'd ever done. His entire body was rock hard. Her skin was so silky beneath his hands, her loose, long hair so fragrant. He buried his face against her neck, and he could feel the pulse in the slim column of her throat, rapid and unsteady like his.
And when she fell asleep in his arms, he knew he'd never known a sweeter moment.
He wouldn't succumb to sleep. He'd just lie here a little longer, imprinting this moment in his brain so he could relive it in the long, lonely years ahead.
He wouldn't sleep.
TWENTY-SEVEN
THERE WAS AN empty space at the breakfast table.
True, it had taken a good half hour for the family and all their guests to make their bleary-eyed way to the dining room. But now it was nearly noon. And Alexandra—normally the earliest riser of them all—had yet to appear.
"Do you expect she's had a relapse?" Lord Shelton asked, his pale brow wrinkled in concern. "Could the evening have been too much for her in her current, fragile state?"
Griffin shrugged, secretly pleased. "Perhaps." With any luck, this would provide an excuse to put the poor man off another month or so.
"Alexandra is the veriest picture of health," Juliana declared, to his annoyance. "I shall go fetch her." She began to rise.
"I expect Lady Alexandra is still sleeping," Lady St. Quentin said in her superior, all-knowing way. "I do believe she had a late night."
The low buzz of conversation ceased as all eyes in the room looked to her.
"We all had a late night," Griffin said into the sudden silence.
Lady St. Quentin blithely buttered a slice of toast. "Do you know," she continued conversationally, "I was rather restless during the night. All the excitement, I expect."
Juliana reseated herself. Griffin narrowed his gaze. "Go on," he said. She would in any case, the old gossip.
"Well, I took a little stroll down the corridor, and what do you suppose I saw?" Enjoying her rapt audience, she paused to take a delicate bite, chew it leisurely, and swallow. "None other than the Marquess of Hawkridge, coming out of one of the bedrooms."
"Mother," her son interjected halfheartedly.
She waved him off, turning to Griffin. "I thought the marquess had departed after learning he wasn't welcome."
"You were mistaken," Griffin said with a forced smile.
"I'll go fetch Alexandra." Juliana rose again.
Lady St. Quentin raised her cup of chocolate to her lips, watching Griffin over the rim. "You'll want to go with your sister," she said pointedly.
He barely resisted huffing out a sigh. "And why is that?"
"Because when the marquess left his room, he went upstairs." She paused to let the significance of that sink in. "And he left his door open, and it still isn't closed, and he isn't inside. So I suspect he has yet to co
me back down."
"Why the hell would you surmise that?" Rachael snapped.
Lady St. Quentin raised one of her overly arched brows. "My dear, you must learn to watch your language."
"Mother," her son repeated hopelessly.
She didn't even bother waving him off this time, ignoring him as she focused on Rachael. "I do believe Hawkridge is the man I saw in the minstrel's gallery with your cousin last night."
Several gasps were heard around the table.
"I'm going to fetch Alexandra," Juliana stated and headed from the room.
"I'm going with you." Corinna pushed back her chair and ran after her.
"So am I," Griffin added through clenched teeth.
Several more chairs rasped along the carpet as various guests rose to trail them. Griffin hurried after his sisters, refusing to look back. Gobble-grinders, all of them. Let the whole world follow, he thought as he took the stairs three at a time, passing Corinna and then Juliana handily. The St. Quentin woman would be red-faced before this was over. Alexandra was the most proper girl he knew.
Long-legged strides carried him rapidly through the upper gallery and down the corridor past Corinna's and Juliana's rooms. The two of them had to run—decorously, of course—to keep up. Reaching Alexandra's door before them, he twisted the knob and pushed it open.
Then slammed it closed.
He turned to his sisters. "Get rid of them," he gritted out, referring to the nosy guests making their leisurely way up the stairs and through the upper gallery. "Now."
"Why?" Corinna asked.
"Just do as I say for once, will you?"
Juliana's hazel eyes were as round as saucers. "They're both in there, aren't they?"
"Brilliant deduction. I'll give you your prize later. Now, go—"
He whirled to face the door as it opened again, from the inside this time, revealing a sleepy-eyed Tristan wearing a dressing gown. An improvement over a moment ago, when all Griffin had seen of the man was a head and bare shoulders peeking from under the blankets.
The blankets on his sister's feminine Chippendale bed.
"Get back in there!" Griffin whispered, reaching to pull the door shut again, quietly this time.
"Aha." Lady St. Quentin's triumphant voice was unmistakable. "I knew it!" Elbowing past the other approaching guests, she made her way to the door and pushed on it.
It reopened with an ominous creak. Inside, Alexandra cowered in her bed.
"You're ruined, girl," Lady St. Quentin crowed. "Ruined!"
"She is not," Corinna protested, throwing Griffin a desperate, apologetic glance.
But it was too late. The crowd rushed to see, forming a loose semicircle in front of the door.
Alexandra was ruined.
"I sleepwalked in here," Tristan said quietly, as though he and Griffin were the only ones there. A nerve jumped in his clenched jaw. "Unaware of my own actions."
"Balderdash!" Lady St. Quentin exclaimed. "I've never heard such a pathetic excuse. It won't save her reputation; that I can promise."
"Stubble it," Griffin said dangerously. All the whispering behind him wasn't helping him think straight. He glared at Tristan. It was some consolation to learn Alexandra hadn't invited the man into her bed, but of all the damned, unexpected… "You still sleepwalk?"
"Infrequently, but yes."
"You didn't have to stay once you got here," he bit out.
"You're right. My sincerest apologies. I'll leave now." Tristan started from the room.
"No, you won't." Griffin stopped him with an outstretched hand flat against his chest. "You stayed the night, you'll stay now. You'll marry my sister. By special license. Tomorrow."
Gasps rose from the onlookers. Tristan glanced down at Griffin's hand, then stepped back. "If that's what you wish."
Griffin's arm dropped to his side. "It's not what I wish, but it's what must be done."
"Nonsense," Lady St. Quentin cut in. "You cannot marry your sister to a murderer." Reaching back into the cluster of spectators, she pulled her son stumbling through to the front. "My Roger will be happy to marry her."
Her Roger looked mortified.
"For her dowry?" Griffin asked Roger's mother pointedly.
"Does it matter?" she returned.
Griffin's gaze flicked to where his white-faced sister sat motionless on the bed, her blue covers clutched under her chin. "Do you wish to marry Sir Rog—"
"You cannot let the chit decide this for herself," Lady St. Quentin scoffed.
Was there another woman in England as irritating? "As a matter of fact, I can should I choose to do so. And I can certainly solicit her opinion." Drawing a calming breath, he turned back to Alexandra. "Do you wish to marry Sir Roger St. Quentin?"
She shook her head infinitesimally.
"No," Juliana said for her. "She most certainly does not."
Griffin and Lady St. Quentin sent her matching glares.
"I'll marry her," came another voice. Lord Shelton stepped out of the clutch of gawkers.
Despite his own distress, Griffin felt sympathy for the man. If he knew Alexandra's mind, Shelton was about to be publicly refused. He looked back to her. "Do you wish to marry Lord Shelton?"
"No," Juliana started at the same time Alexandra said, "I'm sorry."
Thin and shaky, her voice barely carried from the room to the corridor. "My apologies, Lord Shelton. I'm honored by your offer, but I don't think we would be happy together." Suddenly, her eyes flashed—Griffin would swear he saw red in the medium brown. "And Lord Hawkridge is no murderer," she added loudly and perfectly clearly.
Griffin stood silent, cursing the fates that had put him in charge of his siblings. Two perfectly acceptable men had offered for his disgraced sister. If he forced one of them on her, this scandal would eventually blow over. She'd be miserable all her days, but their sisters would be able to marry well. If he allowed her to wed Tristan…
He felt everyone's eyes on him while his own vision swam. Never in his life had he found it so hard to make a decision. Thank God he wasn't on a battlefield with the enemy bearing down…although, given the antagonistic mood of some of those around him, that analogy wasn't so far off.
Rachael stepped close and laid a hand on his shoulder, drawing him away and down the corridor. The guests all turned to watch as she walked him to the end so they wouldn't be able to overhear.
"Your first instinct was good," she said quietly. "Let her marry the man she loves."
His gaze flicked to the curious onlookers. "But—"
"I, too, once thought this union inadvisable. But now that I've seen them together—"
"What they feel for each other has little bearing on the repercussions of this match."
"Have faith in her. She has faith in him."
Griffin had faith in Tristan, too—but that wasn't the point. "The ton doesn't mirror that faith."
"Will you allow that to influence your decision? That isn't the Griffin I remember. The one I imagined riding into battle with his principles held before him like a shield."
That idealistic youth, Griffin feared, was long gone. He stared at her. "You never thought of me that way. You thought I was a reckless rascal."
"Perhaps. I do recall you once telling me to ask for forgiveness, not for permission. But you were also stubborn as hell. You never let anyone else's opinions stand in the way of your goals."
His gaze swept the assembled guests, landing on the odious Lady St. Quentin. He could see her straining to hear.
Damnation. Rachael was right. He wasn't going to let that despicable, fortune-hunting woman decide his sister's fate. He couldn't consign Alexandra to a life of utter misery, even to save the rest of them from suffering society's disfavor. Not and live with himself, anyway.
With a sigh, he surrendered to the inevitable, marching back to face his old friend—damn the barefoot bastard—in his sister's doorway.
"Get dressed," he said tightly. "The Archbishop of Canterbury is half a day's ride
, and you're in need of a special license."
TWENTY-EIGHT
ALEXANDRA SIGHED as she watched the last of their guests' carriages roll out of the quadrangle. "Why do I think they're all going to gather at the end of the road and have a good gossip?"
"Because they will," Juliana said.
"The repercussions have begun already." Alexandra turned to follow her siblings back inside. "They didn't even stay long enough to finish breakfast."
"That's only because it was stone-cold," Corinna said, sitting on an old, ornate treasure chest.
"No, it wasn't." Tired and demoralized, Alexandra plopped onto one of the walnut hall chairs. "No one wants to associate with us. Dear God in heaven. What am I going to do?"
"You're going to marry Tristan tomorrow." Griffin sat on the third step of the staircase, leaning forward with his elbows on his spread knees, his hands dangling between them. "And you're going to be happy. I demand it."
"How can I be happy when the rest of you will be miserable?" A single tear rolled down her cheek.
An expression of horror stole over his face. He sat up straighter. "You're marrying the man you claim to love. There's no crying allowed. You hear me?"
"She's not crying for herself," Juliana said, moving to pat Alexandra on the shoulder. "She never cries for herself. She's crying for us."
"I'm not crying," Alexandra said, swiping at the rogue tear with a frustrated motion.
In truth, she wasn't sure why she was crying. She was a bundle of emotions. One moment she was elated to be marrying Tris, the next racked with guilt that it meant making pariahs out of her siblings. And she was humiliated beyond belief—absolutely mortified that half of society had seen her naked in her bedroom.
"I'm sorry." She gave a long, wretched sniff. "I've ruined all your lives."
"Good God," Griffin said. "Cheer up, will you? You don't see any of us crying."
"We're thrilled for you," Juliana put in.
Alexandra looked around at all the grim faces. "Indeed."
Lost in Temptation (Regency Chase Family Series, Book 1) Page 17