James stood upon his entrance, running his hand through his golden hair and disrupting the orderly way it had sat. “You’ve just missed Caro. She’s gone out with Dennison.”
“Shall I take offense that you didn’t assume I’ve come here to see you?”
James sat on the sofa, folding the news sheets he’d been reading and setting them on the cushion. “No more than I shall take offense that one of my oldest friends now prefers my sister to me.”
“If only you looked half as good in a gown,” Tristan quipped.
James chuckled. “I understand, my friend.”
“I won’t put on a dress for you.”
James laughed, then sobered.
Tristan looked at him appraisingly. “Do you understand, truly?”
“Not in regard to my sister, but yes, I have developed strong feelings for a woman before. I know how it feels.”
Perhaps Caroline was correct. Tristan relaxed in his seat, resting one ankle over the other knee. “Is this woman someone I know?”
James looked at him shrewdly. “Why do you ask?”
“Caroline suspects you might hold affection for someone, but she did not betray you and tell me who the woman might be. I had thought, since you were making ridiculous schemes to marry women old enough to be your mother, that you must not have fallen in love with anyone yet.”
James hesitated for a moment before responding. “I am not sure if it’s love, exactly.”
“Is the woman unsuitable?”
“She’s perfect.” James leaned back against the sofa, closing his eyes. “In fact, she has everything: money, beauty, a desire to reside in the country for the better part of the year.”
“I fail to see the dilemma.”
James sat up, spearing him with acute frustration. “I cannot ask her to marry me, not when I have nothing. She’ll see me for the blasted fortune seeker I am. My father—no, but I cannot blame him. I’ve long known how he is.” He lowered his voice. “I have set aside a small sum of money, funds I earned while I was in Antigua, but I haven’t any notion what to do with it. If the amount was larger, I could restore my estate lands, but as it stands, I don’t have enough to make a dent in that quarter.”
A wriggling feeling in Tristan’s gut told him he was standing on the edge of an answer. Despite James’s insecurities,if he loved the woman, his financial situation shouldn’t inhibit his ability to court her, not when she had enough for the both of them.
“While I present such a pitiful picture,” James continued, “I know her father would never accept me. It would be wrong of me to expect him to.”
“Wouldsheaccept you?”
“I would like to think it is possible.”
Tristan nodded slowly. “In that case, I have a proposition for you.”
By the timeCaroline neared her house again, her ears had been well and truly stuffed full with the greater details of Mr. Dennison’s recent illness. It appeared the man could wax prosaic on more subjects than horses. Anything regarding himself, naturally, must have been of great interest to Caroline—or so he had apparently assumed.
As he let her down from the high perch phaeton and walked her to the door, she yawned no fewer than three times. It was excessive, but she couldn’t risk further elucidation on his blocked ears or relentless cough.
“Thank you, Mr. Dennison. The park was so lovely.”
He glanced up at the thick, gray clouds in confusion.
“Have a pleasant day,” she said at the door.
Mr. Dennison looked slightly taken aback but he bowed, then watched her enter her house alone. She closed the door and leaned against it, breathing out heavily. A gentleman’s greatcoat was hanging on the stand, lending her a degree of hope that Tristan had come to her house and remained here.
Of course, he could have come for James.
She peeled off her gloves and untied her bonnet, leavingthem on the entry table, and walked past Mr. Dennison’s flowers without so much as a sniff.
