Page 77 of The Wolf Duke's Wife
He moved on as though the aside were nothing of any concern. Christine stared at his back, mouth open until Flora found her hand, tugging her on to some item of interest impatiently.
He offered Jane a job here. He reached into my mind and plucked out a thought, delivering it to me as if it were an arrangement of flowers.
By late afternoon, the scent of roasting meat and cinnamon drifted from the kitchens. Elizabeth shepherded the girls to the nursery to be made presentable for dinner. Ernald proposed a tour of the library with the air of a man who had discovered a new vintage. Tristan demurred, murmuring something to Rollins and excusing himself to the steward’s room.
“He has lists,” Elizabeth said fondly to Christine, “he likes to make war upon lists.”
“And wins?” Christine asked.
“Always,” Elizabeth said, “except against Flora’s. She defies order.”
They dined early to accommodate small stomachs and large appetites. The dining room was paneled in oak that drankthe light. Candles multiplied themselves in the glass of the sideboard. Louisa performed conversation as if it were a minuet.
Flora performed chaos as if it were a calling. Ernald told a story about a horse with pretensions to Parliament. Elizabeth corrected the dates. Tristan watched as that faint, private smile appeared and dissolved like a ripple in a deep pool.
“Uncle,” Flora asked suddenly, chin shiny with gravy, “when you marry, will we be allowed to ride the duchess?”
“Flora!” Elizabeth’s hand shot out as though to catch the words.
“Ride with the duchess,” Louisa corrected, mortified and longing to vanish under the tablecloth.
“Either would be an adventure,” Tristan said gravely, passing the bread to Christine.
“Tristan,” Elizabeth murmured, half reproach, half laughter.
“Do not encourage her,” Ernald begged. “She will saddle the furniture.”
When the sweets came, Christine tasted a rich syllabub. She watched Tristan through candlelight that took liberties with his face, evening the severity, softening the jaw. He glanced up then, as if he felt the weight of her gaze. His eyes met hers, and for the briefest moment, a look passed between them that had no witnesses and acknowledged no one else in the world but them.
After dinner, the drawing room absorbed them. Ernald thumped at the pianoforte as if extracting confession while Elizabeth sang in a mellow contralto that made the dark wood seem kind. Louisa’s voice, bright and true, threaded harmony through her mother’s line. Flora contributed drumbeats on her knees and a shrieked refrain that might, with charitable ears, have been a chorus.
“Come, child,” Elizabeth said, offering Christine a sheet, “can you manage‘Drink to Me Only’without making the Dowager arrive by force of tradition alone?”
Christine laughed and sang, at first too softly, then with heart. She had been taught accomplishments before she fell under Lady Gillray’s tyranny, but singing here did not feel like a test.
It felt like being given a chair near a hearth she had not realized she sought. When she faltered, Tristan’s baritone, low, unused, slightly rough at the edges, slipped under hers like a supporting shoulder.
He was an Uncle then, not a Duke, receiving Flora’s solemn bracelet of ribbon with more ceremony than some men managed at a diplomatic reception. He allowed Louisa to comb his hair into an arrangement that would have made London faint before losing, very seriously, at a game of spillikins because Flora cheated and he pretended not to know.
It should have been a perfect evening, yet beneath it ran the faintest discordant note, the knowledge of notices printed, and hunts beginning. When the girls kissed everyoneindiscriminately and were borne away, when Ernald yawned and Elizabeth kissed Christine’s cheek, the note grew louder.
Tristan excused himself early with a word to Rollins about some account or other. He bowed over Christine’s hand, a simple pressure, a look that said more than it dared to, and left the room.
Later, when the house had folded itself into its creaks and sighs, Christine climbed to the chamber that had been prepared for her. It was a long room with a high ceiling, an attached dressing room, and a sitting room. The tall windows looked over the lawn to the edge of brooding woods. A fire burned low. The bed was grand and the coverlet snow white.
She set aside her gown, drew on a robe, and sat upon the window seat with her brush. Each stroke tugged her scalp and quieted her thoughts. Moonlight smudged the glass. Beyond it, the lawn lay in sheets of pewter, and the woods huddled. A figure crossed the grass below. She stilled, brush mid-air.
Tristan moved without hurry, wearing no coat or waistcoat, head bare. He did not look up, but forward, toward the black line of trees.
He moves with a grace I have not seen in him before. It is utter relaxation. As though here he does not need to maintain any sort of mask.
She watched for his reappearance, certain he could not wander the woods for long without coat or hat. The clock on the mantelchimed the quarter, then the half. Finally, the hour sounded, and still Tristan did not appear.
Christine rose and went to the small hearth, laid on another log, and stirred the coals like a woman pretending she was not worrying. She returned to the window, palms pressed against the cool glass. The woods did not give him back.
What business could he have in trees at night?
She could not think of a single honest reason.
