Page 92 of The Wolf Duke's Wife
“We all do,” Mrs. Fogarty said enigmatically.
He left to the accompaniment of a ladle clapped on a pot and thought, as he climbed the back stairs to the corridor above, that if tomorrow ended with nothing more than one honest conversation and one tolerable pie, it would still be farther than he had come in years.
At the study door, he paused, palm on oak. He could hear, distant and muffled by a floor and the thickness of a life, Christine’s voice and Blanche’s laughter, crossing and recrossing the hall like birds. He shut his eyes and very nearly prayed. Tomorrow, then.
Let the village bring its envy and its petitions and its old, sour memories. Let Reeve count his barrels and Potter his souls. He would go down the hill beside the woman who had decided Duskwood could be lit from the edges inward, and he would stand at the door as she asked. And if he failed, if the old resentments bit as they had before, then he would endure the teeth and not let them touch her.
He opened his eyes, entered the study, and bent once more over the ledger. Numbers steadied. Wax cooled. Outside, the long light of afternoon began its slant toward evening. On the morrow, the village. One pie. Possibly two. He would not concede three. Not yet.
Twenty-Six
Tristan pushed aside the ledgers he had been poring over with a growl of frustration. He could not make the numbers take root in his mind. A face kept appearing. He realized he had been sitting behind his desk, staring into space. Staring into the memory of a pair of eyes. Luscious lips, moist and parted in overwhelming want. The house proclaimed her absence. Even if she had not told him she was going, he could tell.
Tristan stood, slamming closed a statement of account that could not hold his attention any longer. He stormed out of his office, angry at himself, at his weakness. At his need. The house could not contain him. Could not satisfy him. There was something missing from every room; it felt incomplete. Standing in the long gallery, he looked out at the rising sun and knew where he needed to be.
The door leading to the stables swung in the wake of his passage, bouncing open again with the force with which it had been cast aside. His horse tossed its head, coming awake with the instinctof an animal, sensing its master’s need. Tristan did not wait for a stable hand but set about the task of saddling.
The morning broke clear and golden over Duskwood. The rain of the past days had washed the countryside clean. Every leaf glittered with dew. Christine breathed it all in—the smell of damp earth, of wild mint crushed underfoot, of a sky still rinsed with dawn.
She had left the great house early, before the household had quite woken, determined to walk the mile and a half to the village on her own, claiming her freedom while she could.
Before the adventure of being a duchess is over, and I am discarded. To do what? Go where? I know that Selina will take me in without hesitation. But I do not want to be a burden to her, especially when her pregnancy has been so trying.
It seemed wrong to Christine for her to become an additional burden on Selina’s shoulders. Somehow, life as her sister’s companion—beloved, yes, but useless—was no longer the salvation it had once seemed. She thought about Charles as she walked, wanting to know that he was alive and well, hiding, but otherwise wanting to reach out to his sister.
But mostly she thought about Tristan. Images of him returned to her again and again. Memories of their shared bodies. Of the sensations he had inspired in her. Of his eyes, softened by desire.
If I had the choice between never seeing Charles again so that my betrothal and marriage with Tristan can be prolonged? Do I choose to betray family, or my heart?
The path to Duxworth curled downhill through beech and ash, the kind of wood where sunlight dappled and rabbits startled across the verge. She swung her bonnet by its ribbons and felt, for the first time in years, the delicious solitude of being unwatched. At Gillray House, she had not been permitted beyond the square of the garden except to fetch or carry. Even the air there had felt owned. Here, it belonged to her.
She was humming softly, a tune the Thynne girls had sung at Duskwood, when the creak of wheels broke through her thoughts. A cart rattled along the lane behind her, the horse’s hooves clipping steadily. She stepped to the verge, ignoring the long, wet grass, and looked over her shoulder with a bright smile. The cart drew level, then slowed.
“Beg pardon, miss,” called the driver, a thick-set man with a neck like an oak stump, “would you be Lady Christine Davidson, by any chance?”
Christine stopped. The name on his tongue struck oddly, too precise for a stranger. The man’s companion, a wiry fellow with a scar down his cheek, jumped from the cart before she could answer.
“Why do you ask?” she said, drawing herself up.
The first man smiled without warmth. “Got business with you, my lady. Best come quietly.”
Christine stepped back. “I think not.”
Her voice wavered. She felt the scratch of blackthorn branches from the hedge behind her, interwoven tightly, impenetrable as brick. The scarred man moved fast, reaching for her arm. She twisted free, her heart slamming against her ribs.
“Unhand me!”
He grinned, showing yellow teeth, crooked as old gravestones.
“Hear that? She’s spirited.”
The driver climbed down, and for a moment she saw the gleam of something beneath his coat—a cord, or rope. Panic iced her veins. She turned to run, but the lane was narrow and she was hemmed in by the two men and the cart. Then came the thunder of hooves. Tristan’s voice cut through the air like a thunderclap. There were no words, just a roar of rage akin to one of the old gods awakened.
Both men spun round. The Duke of Duskwood bore down on them astride a black hunter, coat flung open, hair wind-tossed. Before the driver could draw breath, Tristan was out of the saddle. His fist caught the man square across the jaw. The sound of impact echoed like a gunshot.
The scarred man lunged, a knife flashing in his hand. Tristan sidestepped adroitly, seized his wrist, twisted, and the weapon clattered to the ground. A second blow to the gut doubled the fellow over, a third sent him sprawling in the mud. The first ruffian scrambled up and bolted up the lane, his companion stumbling after him. Tristan did not follow. He stood breathing hard, his shirt darkened with sweat at the throat, his eyes still on the lane as if daring the men to reappear.
He turned to her then, and the fury in his face was worse than the violence inflicted on the assailants. “You might have been killed.”
