“Shall I have the Duchess try them all on?” she asked innocently.
Damn the woman,Tristan thought wearily, and was not entirely sure whether he meant Madame Tishell or Madeline.
Tristan didn’t bother hiding his stares on the way home. He could still see Madeline in his mind’s eye, resplendent in that glorious green-gold dress. He hoped she would wear it soon. His skin prickled at the thought. All those decorative laces at the back, begging to be undone… he would find himself thinking of those at inopportune moments, he was sure.
She sat opposite him in the carriage, tucked into the corner. There was a bandbox on her knee, carrying gloves or something like that. Dorothea had chosen to take her own carriage home, professing tiredness and hinting strongly that Madeline and Tristan should spend a little more time together.
It’s sweet,he thought, the corner of his lips curling up.My mother, the matchmaker.
“You are smiling, Your Grace,” Madeline murmured, glancing at him and lifting her eyebrows. “It unnerves me.”
“Why, how cruel,” he laughed. “Can’t a man smile because he is happy?”
“Areyou happy?”
“I am amused, at least. My mother is trying to make us fall in love, apparently.”
That seemed to surprise her, at least at first. Madeline gave a huff of laughter and shook her head.
“I am not exactly surprised,” she confessed. “Dorothea is so fond of you. I know she wants you to be in love. Tell me, because I do not understand—if you are such a decent man and Dorothea is so sweet, how did it come about that Anthony was cut off from his family?”
Tristan’s smile faded. He swallowed, glancing away.
“My father was alive,” he stated. “He cut Anthony off at once. As the younger son, Anthony would not inherit the estate or the dukedom. Anthony was afraid that Father might make his life difficult if he found out where he lived. Dukes can do that, you know, and my father was particularly petty. He would not let Mother have any contact, though sometimes she managed to smuggle out a letter. If she’d been found out, the consequences would have been dire. As for me, my father told me that if I exchanged one word with my brother or his wife, I would be cut off. He could not stop my becoming duke, of course, or inheriting the estate, but no doubt there would have beensomething he could have done. I intended to defy him, but Anthony did not want me to, not for him.”
“Anthony was always self-sacrificing.”
Tristan nodded, tight-lipped. “We argued about it. Anthony accused me of running roughshod overhiswishes, which I suppose I was. After our father died, we wrote more frequently to each other, but the relationship was strained. I imagine that had Anthony and Betty lived a little longer, we would have begun to mend our bonds, sooner or later.”
Madeline was quiet for a long moment. Tristan glanced at her, but the fading sunlight glinted off her spectacles and made her expression hard to read.
“What a tragedy,” she murmured. “You know, Anthony never spoke a bad word about any of you. Betty was the one who resented you all for abandoning him.”
“I should have worked harder to stay in their lives,” Tristan whispered, finding that a lump had lodged in his throat. “I should have insisted. I should not have let Anthony hold me at arm’s length. That old beast of a father could only have done so much, hey? He could not have killed us. Notme, at least. The man was infamous for shady dealings, but not even he…” He broke off abruptly, swiping the pad of his thumb over his cheekbone. “It is nonsensical to talk of it. I cannot change the past, no matter how much I would like to. My brother is gone. I shall never see him again, and I shall never properly meet the woman who captured his heart.”
“Betty? Oh, she was wonderful. Clever and determined, and with not a shred of nonsense about her,” Madeline told him, a misty look crossing her face. “She was such a dear friend to me. I am… I am not good at making friends, you know, but she was my friend.”
He snorted. “Not good at making friends? Nor am I. It’s a tricky art, isn’t it? Others around me collect bosom friends and comrades like they are picking fruit from a tree, but not I. I collect only hangers-on, vague admirers, and far too many enemies for a man of my age.”
Madeline giggled at that, some of the sadness leaving her face. Tristan smiled, watching her. He liked the look of happiness on her face, replacing that wary, uncertain look she so often wore. He likedher.
I want to make her smile every day of our lives,he realized, and a shudder of panic followed that understanding.
At that moment, the smooth pavement underneath the carriage wheels turned to gravel. They were home then, or at least nearly. Movement caught Tristan’s eye at the front of the house, and he tore his gaze away from Madeline. He expected to see the usual pair of footmen striding out to greet the carriage and open its doors.
However, he saw a woman running toward them. He leaned forward, frowning.
“Madeline, is that Joan?”
She glanced once and paled.
“She looks distraught,” Madeline stated, with an edge in her voice. A sensation of worry curled in Tristan’s stomach. This could not be good, then.
They flung open the doors themselves before the footmen could even reach them. Joan stood and waited, breathing hard as if she had been running.
“I saw you from the upstairs window, Your Graces, and hurried down at once,” she said breathlessly.
“What happened?” Tristan asked grimly.
