“Well,” Tristan murmured, quietly enough so that only Stephen could hear, “I didn’t expect you to give up your privacy so soon.”
“I told you I was doing this, did I not?”
“You did,” Tristan acknowledged. “And Madeline believed that you’d act quickly. I was the one who thought you might delay. After all, I understand the reasons that drove you into hiding. I assume those reasons no longer have a hold over you?”
Stephen clenched his jaw, scratching behind Tiny’s ears. The dog closed his eyes in canine bliss, back leg thumping at the ground.
“I have a plan,” he answered coolly. “I know what I am doing.”
“Don’t you always?”
Nancy returned, carrying Dust in her arms. The cat’s legs swung freely, and his eyes held a distinct glimmer of fury. However, he did not use his claws or teeth to try to get free.
Curious.
“Tiny!” Nancy called, and the dog at once abandoned the terrace, bounding toward her.
Thus left behind, Tristan chuckled, wiped his palms on his breeches, and rose to his feet. Stephen rose with him, and the two men watched Nancy set Dust down beside the dog, seemingly encouraging them to play.
“I’m amazed the child carried that cat of yours so far without losing her eyes,” Tristan remarked. “I remember trying to pat his head once and getting scratched for my troubles.”
“Miss Nancy has a way with animals, it seems. Her sister has a knack for writing and coaxing out the truth. She’d discovered that I was Orion, can you believe it?”
Tristan gave a low whistle and cast a quick, impressed look at the teenage girl, still deep in conversation with Letitia.
“And the eldest?” he asked casually. “What does she have a knack for?”
Stephen shot him a glare. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It can mean whatever you want it to. You can say what you like, and I’ll draw my own inferences. Like now, for instance,” Tristan added with a bright grin. “Your defensiveness confirms what I’ve already guessed.”
Stephen said nothing. Instead, he took Tristan’s elbow and steered him a few steps away from where Letitia and Marjory were talking. He kept an eye on Nancy, who was playing on the lawn. There were ponds and such nearby, and he had heard horror stories of children wandering off and drowning in such ponds. Did Nancy even know how to swim?
“Miss Holt is my grandmother’s companion,” he said tightly.
“I never said that she wasn’t,” Tristan shot back.
He nodded ahead, to where the figures of Amelia and Madeline, arm in arm, were slowly advancing toward the orangery. It was a straight walk from here to there, along a broad, well-paved path that should pose no problems for Madeline and her current unsteady gait.
Stephen noticed that Amelia had thought to offer Madeline her arm. Perhaps they’d become friends.
No,he reminded himself,friends require permanence. Amelia will not be here permanently, nor does she want to be.
Oh, she’d made that clear. There was no doubt in his mind that she’d wanted it, wantedhimlast night, but it hadn’t lasted, had it? No, when the exhilaration and glow wore off, the panic set in. There’d been no talk of making her his mistress, but she was no fool. She knew what that life had done to her mother.
A lifetime of uncertainty and fear, mingled with stolen moments of joy and happiness. And at the end, an ignominious death in poverty, once her protector had died.
The worst of it all was that Mrs. Holt—she might have taken her lover’s name, just like her daughters, though that felt too disrespectful for words—died believing the man she loved did not care for her. She died thinking he’d left them unprovided for. That he’d lied.
Stephen had meant what he said to Amelia. He believed the old Viscount had intended them to be provided for, but something had gone wrong along the way. It hardly mattered now, of course. Not for Mrs. Holt, at least.
“Let me guess. You suspect that I have brought her here as my mistress,” Stephen murmured, once they were sufficiently far away from the others.
Tristan shrugged. “It would be out of character for you to do such a thing, but you wouldn’t be the first man to givein to temptation. She’s a pretty thing, and seems clever and interesting. It was kind of you to bring her sisters along.”
“Let me assure you now, Tristan, that Miss Holt is not my mistress, and that won’t change anytime soon.”
It won’t change because she won’t have me. She doesn’t trust me, and frankly, I am not sure I blame her.
