Beside him, Felicity kept close, not touching, but he could feel her presence. The sight of her in the green dress that hugged her slender frame and highlighted her womanly curves had melted his mind. The gold mask brought out the amber flecks in her eyes. He’d forgotten everything he’d meant to say the moment he saw her. The list of gentlemen he was to subtly point out to her was crinkling in his coat pocket, an annoying reminder that not only was he there to protect her from some unknown foe but watch as she considered other gentlemen worthy of her hand.
His stomach hollowed.
Bloody hell. He wanted her. Physically. This night would be torture. Not only for the time spent on the gambling floor—the noise unbearable—but because... because he wanted her for himself. It was that simple. He was in the worst position to want a woman. No money, no free time, and certainly not eligible enough for her to marry. Once upon a time, it could have been different. Perhaps that was what galled him. He was the second son of landed gentry. Their wealth was not comparable to the offensive sums thrown about the club, but they had been well off enough to be respectable, in his mind. Their house and farm had been in the family for generations and turned a comfortable profit. His great-grandfather, grandfather, and father had worked the land themselves, aided by tenants, teaching their sons the value of a day’s hard labor. It was his grandfather’s complicated past that made him cherish the simple joys of working his own land. But it had only taken Colin two years to destroy it all. He hadn’t wanted to farm land with his bare hands. Work was beneath them, he’d claimed. He didn’t want to continue the traditions of their forebears. He wanted to drink and gamble, pretending he was something they weren’t: English nobility. Better than all of them. Tristan could admit he hadn’t been enamored of the idea of farming either, not then, when youth and arrogance had colored his vision. Tristan had wanted excitement and danger. Now... perhaps there was something to living a simple life, waking to the crow of a rooster, working the land with one’s own hands. How beautiful the hills of Inverness would be this time of year—bursting with color, the coos chomping the grass, the bleating of new lambs.
What was once too banal for Tristan now sounded like a life one could only dream of. If he ever saw his home again.
“What are you thinking about?”
Tristan blinked to awareness. “I beg yer pardon.” He cleared his throat. His burr had slipped in there for a moment. “Nothing. Simply reviewing my responsibilities for the coming days.”
“One of them being me,” she murmured.
“Watching over you is a far cry better than most of the things I must do. I’d rather spend an evening with you than my other tasks.”
She blushed. “What sort of tasks?”
“Secret tasks.”
“To do with the Den?”
“Mostly.”
She softly smiled. “Secretly?”
“That is mostly what I do. Hold secrets for people and use them when the time is right.”
“Use them for whom?”
“Mrs. Dove-Lyon.”
Her fingers fluttered on his arm. “And you enjoy this?”
“No,” he confessed. He never admitted how much this work grated on him. Intrigue, lies, betrayal—that was a young man’s game, the boy he used to be. Tristan could admit now he’d been a stupid young man. “I have a bargain with the widow. I have my own secrets leveraged against me.”
Her silence was like the snap of a twig in a quiet forest. He couldn’t bear to look at her.
“You’re different tonight. You’ve been different since you learned my name. Different from the person who took me back and forth to Alston House, who exchanged banter with Lord Alston and Lady Amelia.”
He slowed their progress. They were in the ladies’ area, where generally he hadn’t been allowed. It was not nearly as busy as the main floor, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone to overhear them. He steered her toward the ladies’ gallery, away from the ladies’ gaming tables.
“One might say that my charm is a mask I use effectively.”
Her eyes dimmed. Or perhaps it was an effect of the wall sconce behind her that cast her face in shadow. Or the gold mask that hidmost of her face.
“So, you’re not charming? You weren’t genuine with me?”
He gestured for her to sit and took the chair across from her. “I was working, Flick. I’m always working.”
She turned her head away, looking out over the floor. “I thought...”
“That doesn’t mean I lied to you. I did not feign my enjoyment of your company.”
“Then what is different?”
Everything.
“Your name. Your station. Your circumstances.”
