by Cheryl Bolen
There. He’d said it out loud. He prepared for her shock and immediate departure, but she didn’t run screaming from the room.
Instead, she reached across the mattress, rooting around until she found one of his hands and took it in hers. “You don’t really believe that.”
His chest suddenly felt tight. Her unquestioning belief in him was…a gift. The most gorgeous surprise. A sort of acceptance he’d never experienced or expected. Though he couldn’t see her in the dark, her hand squeezing his spoke volumes.
She had more faith in him than he had in himself.
“You don’t believe that,” she insisted. “Tell me you don’t.”
He found himself stretching out on the bed, moving closer to her voice. “I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve my life going so dreadfully wrong…”
He’d never told anyone this. Not even himself, he realized.
He wasn’t the sort to brood over life’s inequities, and until recently—very recently—he hadn’t felt particularly deprived. Even taking circumstances into consideration, he had so much more than so many others in this world. A beautiful and comfortable home, vast and diverse holdings to engage his talents and excite his ingenuity, and more wealth than he knew how to spend. Considering the hardship most people endured on a day-to-day basis, he would be absurd to complain.
It was only recently that he’d realized he was lonely. But that should be bearable. It had been bearable, until…until when?
The answer was obvious: until he’d seen Alexandra again.
“My uncle died in the middle of the night,” he told her, scooting even closer, still holding her hand. “I had recently arrived from Jamaica to find my own father had passed. Uncle Harold hadn’t been himself since the loss of his family—his wife and sons in the shipwreck—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 did my best to lift his spirits. 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 know you didn’t,” she said quietly.
“But, you see, I was there. I was residing in his house that morning when he failed to awaken. And I’d been sleepwalking—after 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 swear it. I didn’t believe myself capable of killing anyone, let alone the man who’d fathered me more than my own father. But the fact remains that I was under great financial strain—strain that my uncle’s demise would certainly have resolved—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. He tried to think about the affair as little as possible.
“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 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 have guessed it.
“That’s ridiculous.” She pulled her hand from his, leaving him alone in the dark. “Tris, you did not murder your uncle.”
He recoiled from the temper she so rarely displayed. “It’s a possibility,” he disagreed. “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 person. 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 retorted. “Coming to your bed in the middle of the night and nearly ruining you?”
She released a sigh, then probed until she found his hand again. He slid his other hand up her arm until he found her shoulder, then rested his fingers lightly on the skin just above her collar.
“Are you claiming you didn’t want this?” she whispered.
He could hardly deny it. She felt more than good in his arms—she felt right. As though she belonged there.
But she didn’t. No one belonged in his arms.
If he’d been resolved against marriage before, this evening’s events had only served to reinforce his conviction. Quite apart from the woes of public disgrace, how could he subject a lady to the menace of his unpredictable disorder?
And Alexandra’s faith in him, though touching, was hardly convincing. How was she to know what he was capable of?
“I must go,” he said, trying to pull away.
She gripped his hand tighter. “Stay. Please. A few minutes longer.”
She didn’t have to say why—they both knew that they would never be together like this again.
So he stayed. Her skin was so silky beneath his fingertips, her loose, long hair so fragrant. He closed the gap between their bodies and buried his face against her neck. He could feel her pulse, rapid and unsteady like his.
And when she fell asleep in his arms, he couldn’t imagine a more tender moment.
He wouldn’t succumb to sleep himself. He’d just lay with her a little longer. Soon, he would be gone.
He wouldn’t sleep.
Chapter 32
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 gentleman 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 susp
ect he has yet to come back down.”
“Why in blazes 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, and after last night’s close call, she wouldn’t risk another blow to her reputation for anything.
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 Griffin had seen the fellow in 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 explained 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.”
“Hang 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 son of a gun into her bed, but of all the accursed, 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 beneath 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 maddening? “As a matter of fact, I can should I choose to do so. And I can certainly solicit her opinion.” Drawing a calming breath, Griffin 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 gentleman. 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 gentlemen 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. Not even 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. 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.”
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 anything. 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.
Hang it. 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 infam
y. Not and live with himself, anyway.
With a sigh, he surrendered to the inevitable, marching back to face his old friend 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.”
Chapter 33
Alexandra felt queasy 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 shaky, Alexandra lowered herself to one of the walnut hall chairs. “No one wants to associate with us. Dear heavens. 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 outrage 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’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 quivering 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. She was more than disgusted with her failure to keep her resolution for even a single night. And she was humiliated beyond belief—absolutely mortified that half of society had seen a man come out of her bedroom.