Madeline shook her head, passing a hand over her face.
“Are you saying that I cannot trust my husband?”
“You might consider it a warning, I suppose. I am fond of my cousin, but then, he has betrayedmeonce or twice. I have forgiven him, naturally, because he is family. But I should not like to see a woman of my acquaintance marrying him. We have always joked that Tristan would make an abominable husband, and so it was something of a shock to me that hehadmarried. I have tried to hold my peace and keep my counsel to myself, but the plain fact is… is…” He trailed off, frowning down at her. Madeline forced herself to meet his gaze, waiting numbly for him to continue.
“The plain fact is that I can see that you are unhappy,” he said at last. “You seem to be a decent sort of woman. I like you, and I wish that you had been warned before you entered this marriage.”
Silence dragged out between them.
It was not arealsilence, of course, not with all the chatter and laughter from passers-by filling the air, mingling with clashing strains of music coming from here and there. While Madeline groped for a reply, the fiddle player stopped playing a bright, jaunty tune and received cheers and applause in return. She could hear theclinkof coins as they were thrown into his hat in thanks for his performance.
“Well, I was not warned,” she said at last. “Perhaps if I had been warned by a man who knew Tristan as well as you, I might have acted differently. What is the point of telling me now, pray tell?”
James glanced across the square to where Tristan and Dorothea were still at the stall. Swigging back the last of his cider, he turned to face Madeline.
“If you hate this marriage, Madeline, you can still escape it,” he whispered urgently.
She flinched back, eyeing him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that if the marriage has not been, ahem,consummated, an annulment would easily be given. You can escape this marriage; youcan. And frankly, my advice to you would be to do just that. I like you, Madeline, I do. You should request an annulment, take the baby, and go back to your father. Retreat to the countryside. Your father adores you; he’d do whatever was necessary for your happiness.”
“And… and Tristan?”
James sighed. “Tristan would recover from your loss and the baby’s in a matter of days. I hate to paint such a callous picture of my cousin, but after all, blood will out.”
“Blood will out?” Madeline echoed. “Do you mean his father’s blood?”
A muscle twitched in James’s jaw, and he glanced away.
“That is not my story to tell, I think,” he murmured. “Forget I said it.”
As if I could,Madeline thought, furious and bewildered. Her cider was rapidly cooling, the mug growing progressively heavier in her hand. She took a sip, more out of habit than anything else, and found that the sweet liquid now tasted sour in her mouth.
“I… I don’t know what to say,” she stammered. “Tristan was so adamant that he wished to raise his nephew.”
“And at the time, I’m sure he meant it. But now that he’s back in London, with things to occupy his time, he’ll grow tired of the child. You mustn’t leave Adam behind, Madeline, you mustn’t. If Tristan knows that you have the child safe in the countryside, the dukedom can still be left to him. He will lose interest in you both within a week, I can assure you. I have watched it happen before. Miss Juliana Bolt held his attention for longer than any woman I’ve known,” James added, with a contemptuous huff, “and even so, she has to work hard to regain his favor.”
He jerked his chin in the direction of the stall. Madeline followed his gaze, and her blood turned cold.
At some point, the glorious singing had stopped. She had not noticed, wrapped up as she was in her conversation with James.
Miss Juliana Bolt had come pushing through the crowd, closing in on Tristan like a bloodhound following a scent.
Dorothea was chattering away to the stall owner, her back turned to her son. Tristan was staring at Juliana, who was standing very, very close to him.
Madeline watched numbly as Juliana reached out, laying an elegant hand on his arm, her glittering eyes resting on his face. She was saying something, red lips curved into an attractive smile. Tristan stared back at her, no doubt mesmerized by her beauty. What mancouldresist a woman like Juliana, after all?
Madeline’s spectacles began to steam up from the inside, and she realized with a pang that tears had started to gather on her eyelashes.
Crash.
The sound seemed to come from far away, and she stared down at the fragments of her cider mug, scattered at her feet. James was talking, but his voice had a strange, echoey quality. He was trying to get her to step away from the pottery shards, one hand resting on her shoulder.
Almost without thinking, Madeline jerked her shoulder away from his hand. He stared at her momentarily, confused, and she shook her head, turning her back.
I have to get out of here.
She began to walk, oblivious to James calling after her. As she managed to push her way through the crowd, hemmed in all around, Madeline’s nerve broke entirely, and she began to run.
