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“Women do sometimes decide against a gentleman, you know, even one everyone else considers suitable.”
“I know that.”
“Then allow me a little credit.”
She settled the bread on her plate. “I can still choose someone else.”
She meant it as a plain fact, and it reached him as a warning. Then she lowered her voice.
“You need not worry quite so much about my future. You have your own to consider.”
She turned back to the sisters before he could reply. When Henry approached, she spoke to him and inclined her head toward Harrington, and her brother followed the glance. Then Henry looked past her at Tristan, and his brows rose a fraction. Tristan rose and returned to his mother.
CHAPTER SIX
Julian waited until they had passed the stable yard before bringing up the ball. He had the patience of a man who had already decided the answer would be entertaining. The morning smelled of wet leaves and horse, and the track was still dark with last night’s rain. Tristan welcomed the coolness against his face, though it did little to dispel the weariness of a sleepless night. Every time he closed his eyes, he had seen Lydia walking away from him on the ballroom floor, followed, rather more inconveniently, by the memory of her hand resting on his arm as they returned from the orchard. He had spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to forget both. He would have preferred to discuss horses, weather, ammunition, or any other subject incapable of looking back at him. Julian, regrettably, had known him too long to be useful in that way.
“Do I owe you an apology?”
Tristan glanced at him. “For what?”
“I have been trying to establish that since last night.”
Their horses moved abreast along the track. Ahead, one of the guests had stopped to adjust a stirrup. Behind them, a groom was explaining to another gentleman where the rest of the party would meet them.
“You owe me nothing,” Tristan said.
“And Lady Lydia?”
“We spoke. We made peace.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
“We agreed to be friends.”
The word still sounded reassuringly sensible. Tristan had repeated it often enough to himself since the previous evening. Julian allowed several strides to pass.
“Was that your suggestion?”
“Yes.”
“And you believe it will suit you?”
“It is a perfectly ordinary arrangement.”
“You have never worked so hard at anything ordinary.”
Tristan fixed his attention on the track ahead. The man adjusting his stirrup had begun moving again. The track widened beyond the gate, and Tristan urged his horse forward to join him. Julian kept pace without difficulty. “I shall remember to ask your permission next time I dance with her.”
“You need not ask my permission.”
“I know.”
They reached the gate. Tristan waited while the groom opened it, then rode through before Julian could find anything further to say.
Lydia had expected the ladies’ walk to be a less complicated undertaking than the departure of the men. By the time they reached the lawn’s end, one woman had returned for another shawl, another had discovered that her basket belonged to someone else, and the sisters from breakfast were disputing yesterday’s path. Lydia began to suspect that the men had achieved the simpler departure by bringing guns.
The Dowager Duchess settled the question by choosing a third path. “This way. We shall have shade along the woodland.”
