“I do,” he replied at length. “No one but my brother uses that name for me.”
“Because you won’t allow them to?”
“Of course I don’t allow them to use my Christian name.”
This time, she did cross to him. With one hand, she carefully reached out to touch his, fearful that he might snatch it back from her touch—but he didn’t. “And you give orders instead of requests. And everyone in your life leaves.”
“Are you going to leave me, too?” Almost as soon as he’d asked, he spun around, turning his back to her so she could not search his eyes. “Of course you’ll leave me. Your sister made it very clear that I should have asked you and not just assumed. I’ve been a despotic fool, telling you what to do and never asking—”
“I’m not leaving.” Calista put a hand on his elbow, trying gently to turn him—but it was no use. He was as intractable physically as he was impenetrable emotionally. She tugged again—a futile attempt, because of his sheer strength and stubbornness of will—and then continued. “Miranda was right in telling you that you ought to ask. Any lady deserves to be asked. But she never said that I would refuse, and even if she thinks I will, she is wrong.”
“Why?” His question strangled in his throat, leaving him sounding tortured and wounded. “Why would you agree to marry me after you’ve seen what I am?”
“You’re right. I have seen what you are.”
He still wouldn’t face her, so Calista decided it was time to take a different tack. She moved around so she stood before him again, and reached up to remove the beaver hat from his head so she could see his eyes. They were green—a rich, deep green with gold in some places, blue in others. Even as she stood there staring at them, they changed. In moments, they were almost brown and filled with dismay.
She loved that at last she could see his eyes, but hated the pain and self-loathing she found within them. He tried to take his hat from her, but she pulled it behind her back and held it out of his reach.
Fordingham let out a bedraggled sigh. “You deserve so much better—”
“I deserve a gentleman who will carry me through the rain so my gown and slippers aren’t ruined,” she interrupted him. “I deserve a husband who will do whatever is necessary to make me feel safe and cared for and protected. I deserve a man in my life who will do what I ask of him when he can, even if he goes about it in a way I never would have expected. I deserve to be kissed senseless on occasion, and continually surprised—and you give me all of those things and more.”
“But I’ve ruined every good thing that has ever happened in my life,” he countered, repeating his earlier argument.
That was something she couldn’t possibly deny. She’d seen enough of his relationship with Mr. Cavendish to remove any possibility of doubt on that score. “That is likely true,” she said. When he started to interrupt her, she pressed on. “But it is also true that this has been in the past, and that I’ve seen you making attempts to change.”
“Some things can’t be changed.”
Calista nodded and took his hand in hers. He trembled slightly. Not from fear, though. There was fear in his eyes, but also a deep, intense yearning.
“The past can’t,” she murmured. “But the future is not yet written.”
He shook his head and pulled his hand away, then took a step back. “What if I can’t change?”
An excellent question. What if he couldn’t? Calista wanted a man who would not be like Lord Ellis, and Lord Fordingham was almost an exact opposite of Ellis. True, he did not often think to ask her opinion on things—but he always acted in a manner which made her feel loved and protected, despite his lack of asking. Could that be enough?
“Lord Fordingham,” she began after a moment, cautiously renewing a previous discussion point, “why will you not tell me your Christian name?”
He blinked at her, and his jaw dropped and then closed. “My fa—” Then he shook his head, as though he couldn’t go on.
Calista didn’t step in to rescue him from answering. She waited.
At long last, he started again. “My father beat me if I ever answered to it. ‘You are Wentworth,’ he would say as he took a switch to me, ‘and someday you will be the Earl of Fordingham. You are not Tristan Cavendish. You do not answer to anyone but the king. You do now bow down before anyone in your life. Never forget it.’ He beat me so often that the messages he delivered with the blows seemed to imprint themselves upon my person.”
She sniffled, and only then did she realize that she’d been crying. “Tristan. May I call you that, my lord?”
He reached over and brushed the pad of his thumb over her cheek, drying away the tears before they could fall to her gown. “I like the sound of it on your tongue.”
His words were hardly more than a whispered confession, but they warmed Calista through to her very soul.
She lifted herself up upon her toes to place a kiss upon his cheek, but he turned his head slightly before she made contact, kissing her in return. This was unlike their previous kisses. It was not heated, but tender and inviting. Soothing, almost.
When he pulled away, Calista gave him a watery smile.
“I suppose there is only one more thing we must do, then,” she said.
Tristan furrowed his brow in thought, and then a moment later shook his head.
“You’re supposed to ask her to marry you now,” Miranda shouted from the doorway. “Good lord, you must be the most obstinate—”
“That’s enough, Miranda,” Calista said through a chuckle.
“Of course,” Tristan said sheepishly. He bent to his knee, took her hand in his, and looked up at her adoringly. “Miss Bartlett—I mean, Calista—would you do me the great honor of becoming my countess?”
Now that she was getting to know him as she was, she knew that this was a man greatly in need of some teasing in his life. With all of her siblings, Calista had become quite practiced in the art of teasing over the years. Fighting back her smile, she pursed her lips together and said, “On one condition.”
His eyes widened, and a bit of the indignation she’d expected forced its way into his gaze. “But you said you wouldn’t leave me.”
Calista raised a single brow. “I will only agree to be your countess if I might also be your wife.”
The fight left him and he visibly relaxed, his shoulders lowering to a more natural, comfortable position. “Calista Bartlett, will you be my wife?”
“Forever,” she promised.
“Excellent,” Miranda put in. “Now that that’s settled, can we do something about the Duke of Danby? He’s insisting he must see you both in the drawing room again.”
Calista could absolutely kiss the Duke of Danby. She wouldn’t even care if anyone saw her do it. Well, not overmuch at least. Indeed, as her husband’s carriage rolled along the drive of Danby Castle with a blanket of snow beneath the carriage wheels, she thought she very well might do just that once she saw him again.
Over the last several months since that day in Devlin’s drawing room, the duke had been forcing Tristan and his brother, Wesley Cavendish, to come to terms with one another—to sort out their vast array of differences.
“You are married to my granddaughter, Cavendish, and you to a woman who is as good as my granddaughter, Fordingham. I will not have you sulking about and not speaking, and I certainly will not stand for either of you throwing blows at the other.”
Never mind the fact that they were brothers. Danby didn’t seem overly fussed about that aspect of their relationship.
Throughout the remainder of the Little Season, Danby had invited (if his summonses could be termed as such) both couples to take supper at his townhouse at least once a week. During those visits, he’d insisted the two men air their grievances, and he’d browbeaten them both into actually listening to what the other had to say. It had been a long process—and an increasingly pained one—but in time, they’d begun to forge a new sort of brotherly relationship.
&nbs
p; Perhaps not quite like the relationship Calista would have expected, given the closeness between herself and her siblings, but far more civil than what she’d first witnessed between the two men to that point.
Another benefit for Calista had come from those visits, as well. Wesley always brought his dear wife Abby with him. It was not uncommon for Danby to send Abby and Calista to the drawing room so he could berate their husbands without hurting their feminine sensibilities, and so the two women had become bosom beaus.
Calista hadn’t had a friend apart from her sisters since Valetta Norton had run off to Gretna Green to become Lady Ellis. Until she and Abby were thrust into one another’s company in such a way, she hadn’t realized how dearly she missed such a thing.
After the political season had ended, Wesley and Abby had returned to Yorkshire to the estate Danby had provided them, and Calista had gone with Tristan to Blacknall Manor. Despite the many miles separating them, Calista and Abby had taken up a regular correspondence. For that matter, she was now writing to Devlin and Louisa, and to both Miranda and Penny, who were with their new husbands as well. She had only been at Blacknall for a fortnight, and was still learning her new position within her husband’s home, when Calista had received her first letter from Georgie.
Suddenly, even though the circumstances of her life had changed dramatically, she seemed less alone than she had in a great long time.
Now she and Tristan were mere minutes away from Danby Castle. Abby and Wesley would be here, as would all of Calista’s siblings and their new spouses—and all of Abby and Louisa’s siblings and cousins.
She’d heard there were more than a fair few of them—the cousins, that was. Danby seemed intent upon gaining even more than there already were, by using his usual tactics to encourage the cousins into marriage.
Having so many people around should ease any lingering tensions between Tristan and Wesley. Or so she hoped. Even if her hopes proved unfounded, there should be plenty of gentlemen present who could prevent the two from causing one another any permanent physical harm.
That was what she’d been reminding herself through their entire journey to Danby Castle.
But now, as it loomed ever larger on the horizon, a churning had started in her stomach and she couldn’t seem to make it stop. Calista fidgeted on the bench, trying to calm herself before their arrival. It was no use, however.
Tristan turned to her. “What’s wrong? You know Danby. There’s nothing to fear.”
The carriage rolled to a stop. She shook her head, not sure how to voice her concerns or even if she should do so at all. Then the driver came around, opened the door, and set down the steps.
With a frown and a crease on his forehead, Tristan exited the carriage and then turned to aid Calista in doing the same. Just as her feet hit the cobbled drive, cacophony descended upon them from every direction.
A man raced down the walk toward them with Abby close behind him. “He can’t make me!” he shouted over his shoulder. “I wouldn’t care if he was the bloody King of England, he can’t force me to get married.”
At the same time, another man who had to be the brother of the first, they looked so similar, mounted a horse and took off in the direction of a forested area to the east. Nearly a dozen other men and women stood off to the side, watching…and holding their hands over their mouths to hide their laughter.
“Really, Robert,” Abby called—and yet the man called Robert did not slow in the slightest. “I promise you, marriage is far from the worst thing that could ever happen to you.”
“You haven’t even met the chit,” he responded, whirling around on Abby with blazing eyes. “How would you know?”
Only moments later, Wesley Cavendish followed his wife out into the courtyard to join the gathered crowd. Even still, it was Tristan who pushed his way forward to join Abby and Robert in the middle.
“I’ll thank you to watch your tongue in the presence of my wife, Goddard,” he said in that tone he always used—the seemingly calm presence hiding a passion few would ever know. “And I would advise you to listen to your sister.”
“But Danby thinks he can force me to marry…well, she’s pretty enough, all right. I’ll give her that.” Robert Goddard drew a hand over his face, as though it would clear his thoughts. “But she’s a lady, my lord. And you know as well as anyone that I am the furthest thing from being a gentleman you’ll ever meet.”
Throughout their conversation, Calista had been moving ever closer to them—as had the others gawking in the courtyard, until they formed a loose circle around Abby, Robert, and Tristan.
Tristan caught Calista’s eye and winked at her. He never winked. He must truly feel comfortable, or he would never be so playful.
“I’ll have you know,” Tristan said to Robert Goddard, though his eyes never left Calista, “that sometimes the unlikeliest of matches are the best.”
“I would second that,” Wesley Cavendish said from behind his brother.
“And I would add,” Abby said firmly, “that it is inadvisable to attempt to thwart Danby. You’ll never manage it. Trying to do so isn’t worth the trouble.”
Calista could only smile to herself. Danby and Tristan were far too alike in that regard. And she couldn’t agree more wholeheartedly if she’d tried. It wasn’t worth the trouble to try to stop those men.
The reward of allowing them to have their way was far too great.
My Lord Hercules ~ by Ava Stone
Thomas ~
You’re my own personal demigod, and I love everything about you.
~ Ava
Gioco Place, London – September 1813
Lord Harrison Casemore tossed his cards to the middle of the table and leaned back in his seat. He glanced at his watch fob and tried to make out the time. Was it 4:25 or 5:20? He opened his eyes wider, willing the whiskey from his foggy mind, trying to focus on the watch hands before him. It felt like 5:20, but it looked like 4:25. Whichever it was, Harry was most assuredly ready to leave and head for Berkswell House.
“Casemore.” A hand clapped him on the back and Harry looked over his shoulder to find Percy Bexley-Smythe, the Marquess of Stalbridge, standing behind him. The man’s ever-present frown was fixed firmly on his face.
Harry nodded a greeting to his old acquaintance. “You want my spot, Bridge? I was just leaving.”
“Vingt-et-un?”
Harry nodded once more. “Perhaps you’ll have better luck than I did tonight.” Not that Stalbridge had ever been blessed with luck, but it wasn’t Harry’s responsibility to ensure the man kept what was left of his inheritance, if there was even anything left of it at this point.
“Much obliged.”
Harry pushed his chair back from the table, relinquishing the seat to the marquess. He said his farewell to the other players and started toward the exit, staggering a bit more than he’d like. No wonder he played so terribly tonight; he could barely walk a straight line.
He glanced toward the main door and stopped where he stood. Was that a girl, dressed like a fop? Harry blinked, hoping to clear his vision. And though he was deeper in his cups than he should have been, there was no mistaking the womanly curves of the young man who’d just entered the hell. Young man, his arse. Harry knew a woman when he saw one. And this one possessed pretty olive skin and full lips made for kissing. He couldn’t see her eyes, however, as the overlarge beaver hat on her head shielded everything above her delicate nose.
What the devil?
The girl in gentleman’s clothes breezed past him, and he caught the faint scent of lilacs. No man worth his salt would smell like lilacs. What was the girl up to?
Tired and foxed as he was, Harry couldn’t make himself leave the hell. Not right now, in any event. As his eyes followed the girl, he realized he wasn’t the only one whose notice she’d captured. A bit o’ muslin a few feet from the chit-in-disguise seemed to assess her as though she was a treat to be gobbled up. Harry couldn’t help but laugh. One or both of those wome
n was sure to be in for a surprise.
The girl, so very out of place, looked across the sea of patrons. Her lips pursed, and she heaved a sigh. What she was after, Harry had no idea, but watching her was almost as entertaining as sitting in his brother’s box at Drury Lane. He meandered to the closest wall and leaned against it, folding his arms across his chest, waiting for the evening’s performance to continue.
Seedy. Yes, Miss Miranda Bartlett surmised as she glanced around the gaming hell, seeking her quarry, seedy was most definitely the best word to describe this particular establishment. The blackguard had to be somewhere in this smoky den of iniquity, amongst the litter of brazen light-skirts and other gentlemen of quality. The question was, where?
Miranda tugged her pilfered beaver cap lower on her head to better shield her face as she scanned the hell. After all, Devlin would murder her if he found out she’d sneaked out, if anyone recognized her. But what choice did she have? Someone had to find Tessie. And the best place to start was with the Marquess of Stalbridge, whom Miranda had seen enter the place not five minutes ago. He had to be here somewhere. But there were so many men who fit his lordship’s build. And the room was terribly smoky. How on earth did men breathe this putrid air night after night?
A roar of cheers rose above the din in a far corner, catching Miranda’s attention, as did the colorful language that followed the merriment. Men certainly were odd, boisterous creatures, weren’t they? Peculiar, loud, and odiferous. The sooner she found Stalbridge, the sooner she could demand the villain tell her what he’d done with Tessie, and the sooner Miranda could leave this horrid place, never to return.
To that end, she should probably walk the perimeter of the room for a better view, and perhaps catch a patch of clean air in the process. Doubtful as that was, she chose to be optimistic as it was better than the alternative.
Just as Miranda took a few steps toward the back of the hell, a woman appeared in her path. The doxy’s face was coated so heavily with cosmetics, she looked like a caricature. “Well, aren’t ya a wee thing?” she said, her breath tinted with some odor Miranda couldn’t quite place. “But a man’s stature has nuffin’ to do wif his size.” And then she stuck her hand out and grabbed Miranda’s crotch in her fist.
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