This lady whirling to reach for his hand, her glorious red hair a blur, the wind snatching her bubbling laughter. Her, pursing her lips from a wingback chair beside the fire, Milton open in her lap as he argued a point. Her perfectly timed smile in reply to the Queen’s witticism, earning Her Majesty’s nod of approval.
Taking in a deep breath, Tristan turned back to the balustrade overlooking the garden, thoughts racing.
His unknown lady was correct, of course.
He would revel in finding ways to surreptitiously ask about her without alerting his father.
Because Tristanwoulduncover her identity.
He would find a way to court her. To convince her to love him. To somehow, someway, blackmail his father—like sire, like son—into accepting her.
And then, Tristan would make this beautiful, unknown lady his wife.
Over the followingdays, Tristan thought about the mysterious woman with obsessive intent—the trilling cadence of her laughter, the sharp crack of her wit, the sparkling merriment of her gaze.
He felt nearly fevered at times, such was the force of his infatuation.
Questions pummeled him.
Did she think upon him as often as he did of her? How was he to court her? To secure her affections? He had never successfully won a friend or lover, but for her, he would learn. He would try.
Uncovering her identityshouldbe a straight-forward matter—go to White’s, describe her to some acquaintances from Oxford, discover her name.
But that questioning would be reported back to Kendall. And too many years of brutality at his father’s hand rendered Tristan cautious.
It was one of a hundred reasons why he kept his wants so small and few.
Moreover, Tristan rarely attendedtonevents as his father seldom came to London: The duke preferred to avoid the censure of his Peers.
His sire’s sordid history remained a blight upon the family name. As a young man, Kendall had secretly married an unsuitable young woman, Catherine Ross. Then, several years later, he had publicly married the wealthy daughter of a Scottish earl, Lady Elspeth Gordon, despite Catherine Ross being very much alive. Lady Elspeth had given him three children, two boys and a girl.
Thirty years into their marriage, Kendall’s bigamous behavior was uncovered by his second son, Lord Rafe. As the duke was still married to Catherine, his marriage to Lady Elspeth was dissolved and their children declared illegitimate. Kendall himself was censored and ostracized by his Peers, losing all political power.
True to his despotic nature, the duke retaliated swiftly.
He hounded Lord Rafe, wielding the economic and political might of the dukedom like a cudgel to pauper his now illegitimate son. Additionally, Kendall finally divorced his first wife, Catherine, and within a year remarried again, legally this time.
For his third bride, Kendall chose an Italian heiress, Lady Beatrice Barozzi. She quickly proved fruitful, giving birth to twins scarcely a year after their marriage—Tristan and his sister, Allegra.
But Kendall’s actions continued to have weighty repercussions.
Angered over the duke’s cruelty, the wealthy Earl of Hadley—Lord Rafe’s closest friend—marshaled the might of his own financial empire to defend his friend. As much a man-of-business as a Peer, Hadley laid waste to the dukedom’s coffers.
Eventually, funds grew so tight that Kendall did something wildly out of character—
He compromised.
Eager to save himself from financial ruin, Kendall granted Tristan’s mother a divorcea mensa et thoro—a separation of bed and board. And in return, Beatrice surrendered her lucrative salt mines to her husband.
Desperate to escape her brutal marriage, Beatrice had signed the papers, taken Allegra, and absconded to Italy, leaving Tristan alone in his father’s cruel clutches. After all, the duke had been willing to part with “the girl,” but his heir had to remain.
In one fell swoop, Tristan had been separated from the only two people he loved—his mother and his twin. All precipitated by Kendall’s vindictiveness and Hadley’s relentless erosion of the dukedom’s finances.
Having lost his reputation, fortune, wife, and daughter, Kendall tightened his grip on the one thing remaining—his ten-year-old son and heir.
Consequently, Tristan was granted no quarter and obedience was violently enforced. Kendall kept him on a very tight leash, watching his every move. The duke refused to let his heir attend any event where Babcock could not remain at Tristan’s side, overhearing everything. Balls and routes were not permitted.
In short, the chances of Tristan now encountering the unknown beauty from Montacute’s garden were not as statistically high as he would have liked. And a thorough perusal ofDebrett’s Peerage—late at night, in his bedchamber, under cover of darkness—did not narrow down the field of Scottish ladies. There were simply too many options.
