The Duke's Hellion Read online

  “I don't know. I just found myself thinking about it. It feels so long ago…”

  “But almost as if it just happened yesterday. I know what you mean. It's... not a memory I revisit frequently.”

  Before Georgiana could feel the hurt from that sentiment strike her, Tristan pulled her a little closer.

  “Sometimes, it hurts too much to remember that and to be without you.”

  Georgiana's eyes fluttered closed, and it was too simple to remember being that nineteen-year-old girl, reckless and wild and utterly enchanted by the man she had seen inspecting the horses. It would have come to nothing, if she hadn't looked up and seen him looking at her with something in his black eyes that cut her right to the heart.

  They had passed so quickly from an innocent flirtation to something far less innocent, to Tristan meeting her on the dark roads of Devon, to their first kiss under a bright round winter moon. Thinking of those days was like drinking a heady Spanish wine, dangerous in many ways.

  “And thinking of how that ended... it's not something I care to revisit, Georgiana, and you shouldn't either.”

  Tristan tossed back the rest of his cider and quietly left the room. There was a common room in the inn, a place where he could sit and stare out the window at the rain if that's what he wished. For a moment, Georgiana wanted to follow him, but common sense prevailed. It would be one thing if someone saw Tristan, but seeing the both of them would be a scandal she couldn't contain. That thought brought another memory piggybacking on it, and she shook it away with a shudder.

  Maybe he is right. It does not do to live only in the past. After all, it is the past and nothing else that has risen up to strike at us both.

  The letter Tristan had written to her, one of a dozen, had frightened her badly when she saw it. Now she drew it from her pocket almost guiltily to read it again. Letting her eyes drift along the lines, it was almost impossible to reconcile the tender man she'd known with the man Tristan had grown into.

  It was an early letter, full of sweet words and tender promises. When she read it, she could still recall how that flutter in her heart, the wild wonder at love and how much she needed Tristan. She remembered when she thought love might be the answer to everything.

  She remembered how he had asked her to marry him.

  She remembered how she had said no, too afraid of losing her family's esteem and driving her father into a rage.

  She remembered what came after that.

  After a moment of hesitation, Georgiana folded up the love letter and carefully fed it into the hearth. Tristan had said that was what she should have done in the beginning, and at this point, she did not doubt him. Still, it was too hard to watch the paper smolder to ashes, so she turned away.

  Georgiana waited for Tristan to return, but he didn't, even as the clock on the mantle crept to midnight. Finally, she gave up, dropping a blanket and a pillow ungraciously to the floor and crawling into the bed. She had thought she would toss and turn for ages, but instead, she dropped straight into a deep sleep, unaware she was reaching for someone who was not there.

  * * *

  Georgiana was in that filthy coach again, staring out the window at the hellish landscape passing by. The ground outside was black and charred, and the sky was lit up with flashes of sickly lightning.

  “Tristan, it looks terrible outside. Can't we just go home?”

  Tristan was turned away from her, staring contemplatively out of the window on his own side.

  Georgiana had never enjoyed being ignored, no matter what the circumstances, and she touched Tristan's arm gently.

  “Tristan...”

  “The Duke of Parrington won't save you, bitch. He doesn't even want you.”

  Georgiana's heart squeezed tight in her chest, and she stumbled back as far as the carriage would allow her. She knew that voice even before the man sitting next to her turned around. It wasn't Tristan at all.

  It was John Watersley, and from the look of his deteriorating face, he had been dead and in the ground for some months.

  “No, it can't be you, it can't, the recruiting sergeant told us you were dead!”

  “Well, he was right on that account, the miserable old sod. I died in a damned swamp in Spain, but I couldn't forget how sweet you were. I came all this way back for you, you know. Be grateful.”

  He leaned closer for a kiss, and Georgiana shoved him back, trying not to be sick to her stomach. She could smell him now, the foul stench of a dead man, and she shook her head.

  “This can't be happening. Tristan! Tristan, please!”

  “You think he wants you now, after you've fallen for a common soldier? You think he'll take you back after what you did? Look at how filthy you are.”

  Georgiana looked down to see that she was wearing a white wedding gown, and as she did so, the corpse that had been Private John Watersley reached out and smacked a handful of filth down the front.

  “There, now you look as dirty as you are.”

  Georgiana felt a wave of such horror come over her that she could barely stand it, and then she started shouting for a help she knew would never come.

  “Georgiana! Georgiana, wake up, damn it!”

  For a moment, she thought that she was in John's grasp again, but then she realized that in fact, it was Tristan, one knee pressed into her bed, and holding her steady by the shoulders. She could smell his cologne and the cold rain on him still, as well as the wood smoke of the fire, and she had never smelled anything so good.

  “Are you all right? You were shouting so terribly—”

  Tristan's words cut off when she threw herself into his arms. “Don't let me go. Please, don't let me go, Tristan.”

  “I never will.”

  The words were fast and low and sure, and they comforted something in Georgiana that had been pained for a long time. By degrees, she relaxed against him.

  He came to sit in the bed with her, back against the headboard, and he cradled her against his side.

  “Were you dreaming of Watersley?”

  Georgiana stared at him, a shiver of superstitious dread working its way down her spine.

  “How in the world did you know?”

  “I didn't know. I guessed. If I were in your situation, I would have bad dreams about the blighter myself.”

  They sat in silence for some immeasurable time. Georgiana did not want to break the fragile peace that had fallen between them, but the words she wanted to speak crowded the back of her throat, demanding release.

  “Tristan... I'm sorry.”

  “What for?”

  “For... for turning you down and then...”

  “And then needing a rescue? Think nothing of it.”

  Georgiana flinched at his words, tears welling up in her eyes.

  Tristan looked down at her, and when he pulled her close, there was a kind of regret and apology in his touch.

  “I'm sorry. I feel like pure poison tonight.”

  “Usually that's my job.”

  Tristan chuckled, but there was a pensive sound to it. When he spoke, his voice sounded like it had been dragged through gravel. “Why did you do it? I know why you turned me down, but why in the name of all that was holy did you run off with Watersley?”

  Georgiana uttered a soft sigh. “Because he told me what I wanted to hear. Because he said he loved me, cared for me, would take me away from all of this. I thought that being with him meant escaping my father's eye.”

  “But it didn't.”

  “No. He revealed that he wanted a title and a good living all his own, and he intended to use me to get it. I was lucky he revealed himself so quickly. That way, I was able to get a message to you. And you came.”

  “Of course, I came. I couldn't do anything else.”

  And that is why I will always love you. Forever. Until my dying day.

  The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she could not speak them. The wounds she and Tristan had given each other all that time ago were a long way from b
eing healed. After he had rescued her from that terrible run to Gretna Green, he had left her at Fox Hall early in the morning.

  “We have nothing more to do with one another. All debts are paid. Return to your life, and I will return to mine. This is over now.”

  The words were branded in her heart forever, and she knew that on her darkest days, she would always hear them.

  Instead of listening to them replay one more time, or worse, forcing Tristan to say them again, she simply leaned against him. Outside the window, the rain came pattering down, and at that moment, there was nothing more to the world than the two of them, their breath, their heartbeats, and the warmth they shared.

  * * *

  Chapter 25

  Fox Hall loomed in front of them like a spider crouching down for a pounce. Tristan wasn't sure why the hall had become so threatening. It was a modern building, elegant and gracious in all respects, but there was something distinctly menacing about it.

  Georgiana seemed to pick up his displeasure and nodded, looking as if she were steeling herself.

  “There was a time when I loved coming home after time away. That's a long time gone now.”

  Tristan pulled his gelding up into the shade of a nearby tree, beckoning Georgiana along beside him.

  “Before we go back, I think we should talk.”

  She shot him a faintly exasperated look. “My favorite thing in the world. All right, what do you want to say?”

  Tristan hesitated for a moment, and then shrugged. “We need to remember that we are going back into some kind of contested territory. The blackmailer has access to your house—”

  “Believe me, I wasn't going to forget that.”

  “And that means he has access to us. Hell, it's not as if our rooms are kept locked when we're not in them. There are at least a dozen people who likely have business in our rooms, for cleaning and the like.”

  Georgiana nodded reluctantly. “You are right. And the blackmailer is likely a servant, someone who was here five years ago, and is still here now. It feels like it won't narrow the field down too far, but I will look into the servants' records. It might at least give us a place to start.”

  “Yes, it's a good thing that we got the original of the letter back. That at least means that he does not have access to that piece of blackmail anymore.”

  “No, but I have no idea how that letter went astray in the first place. It could mean it was the only one left, or it could mean there are more like it.” Georgiana hesitated. “I am sorry about that. I never wanted to be careless with you or with those letters.”

  Tristan shrugged. “What's done is done, and today, all we can do is to move forward.”

  “Philosophical of you.”

  “Because if we move forward, we will sooner find the bastard who is doing this to us and beat him to the ground.”

  “Well, that is less philosophical but entirely understandable.”

  “We should stop visiting each other's bedrooms. As tempting as it is, it is altogether too likely that we will be caught or that the blackmailer will find out something. If we need to talk about this, perhaps it is best done outside in the garden, where eavesdroppers at least will not have the benefit of hiding in odd corners of Fox Hall to help them.”

  Georgiana looked momentarily lost in thought. When she looked up at him again, her eyes were sparkling. “So, you are tempted by me?”

  The first thought that occurred to Tristan was to sputter with indignation. If he did, however, it would be an indignation that he did not feel, and he was not a man who lied easily. Instead, he slouched back into the saddle, giving her a lazy, insouciant look. “Well, of course, I am. However, I am enough of a man to admit it, and enough of a man to resist you, fortunately enough.”

  For a moment, he thought that after her difficult night that Georgiana would shy away from such talk. However, he had underestimated her again, as she swayed closer in the saddle, her eyes half-lidded and a smoky smile on her face. “Are you, now?”

  Tristan kept a neutral expression on his face, but deep down, he was wondering if he had made a grave tactical error. “I am.”

  She swayed closer to him from her own mount, coming so close that he could feel the brush of her skirts against his own leg. She rode sidesaddle, of course, as did all the fashionable women of the ton, and for a moment, he pictured how strong her legs must be, to sit curled around the double saddle horns of the sidesaddle itself. The thought sent a shiver through him, and damn it all, Georgiana sensed it.

  “You're like some kind of demon.”

  He hadn't meant to say it, but there was a light in her eyes that told him Georgiana didn't mind.

  “I think you're giving me entirely too much credit, Tristan. How in the world could... I... tempt... you...?”

  Almost as if hypnotized, he found himself staring at her red, red lips. It felt like a kind of sin that they were so very red. He had been with her on the road for a few days now. She had worn no powder or paint, and now, when she leaned close, he could only smell a little bit of the sweet sage soap that had been available at the inn. How in the name of all that was good could she look so very appetizing?

  He started to say something, but then she pushed herself up the saddle, catching his lips with her own. It was a precarious kiss, with both of them on their horses, and her half-falling out of her own saddle. As ridiculous as it was, however, Tristan felt helplessly drawn to her, utterly unable to resist the way she tasted.

  The kiss only ended when his gelding grew tired of standing so still. The animal snorted, taking several steps forward, and Tristan had to come back to himself long enough to rein the animal in. When he looked back at Georgiana, there was a bright and merry light in her eyes.

  “You are a temptation, woman.”

  Her only response was to laugh and to lead the way back to Fox Hall.

  * * *

  Chapter 26

  After spending a few days in the country with Tristan, Georgiana felt a strange sense of foreboding as she returned to Fox Hall. It was strange, she mused, trading her riding clothes for proper attire for home, how unwelcoming the house of her childhood felt.

  It's as if I don't belong here anymore, and the house knows it. It feels all wrong, and as if I cannot really be comfortable here anymore.

  It caused her a pang to think that she might no longer be as completely at her ease at her own ancestral home as she wanted to be, but it was less of a pain that she guessed it might be.

  Perhaps it is only that I have grown up. I was really only a girl when I last spent any amount of time here at all.

  Despite the fact that her blackmailer was likely revealed to be someone who was sleeping in the same building as she was, and despite the very real Sword of Damocles that hung over her head and now Tristan's as well, a part of Georgiana still felt surprisingly lighthearted. They had thwarted the man in his attempt to shame her with the curate, and with that victory under her belt, it felt as if they must assuredly triumph over him again.

  Tristan had taken off somewhere after they returned, and Georgiana found herself in the company of Tabi and Eleanor again, the two leaving off their study of the history of Fox Hall to watch her curiously. The three of them chatted about inconsequential things for a little while, and then, with a glance at Eleanor, Tabi spoke first.

  "You've been gone for a few days. What in the world were you doing, Georgiana?"

  She grinned at them, reading the question they were really asking. "Tristan is friends with Lady Morgan Chesterfield. He wanted to go to see her and assured me she would make a lovely chaperon. He was entirely right, and Ashby was beautiful in the spring."

  "Yes, but is that all you were doing? We found you were gone and with the Duke of Parrington, and we didn't know what to think."

  "Well, what should you be thinking?"

  Tabi and Eleanor looked torn, curious beyond words about what Georgiana was doing, but still too bound by their manners to ask outright.

 
Finally, Georgiana took pity on them.

  "There's nothing going on between me and Tristan, I promise you. He is only a guest who has come to stay with us for a short time, and I find his company perhaps slightly more appealing than I did once upon a time. That is all."

  "But... you have never brought anyone home with you before, Georgiana. You have never spent so much time with someone like that."

  Georgiana shrugged. "As I said, he pleases me more than I thought he would. He is a good man, despite all his Carrow deficiencies. He'll make a fine husband for someone someday."

  Eleanor spoke for the first time, her voice measured and thoughtful. "Do you think he would make a fine husband for me?"

  Georgiana had thought that all her years navigating the murky waters of the ton would leave her immune to statements like that, but apparently, she was wrong. Her head snapped up and she found herself glaring at the younger girl. A dozen arguments leaped to her lips, starting with Eleanor's lower station and ending with her plain looks.

  Then Georgiana realized how much she had given away.

  Tabi laughed with pleasure.

  "So, it's true! You do have feelings for Tristan Carrow!"

  Georgiana sighed, because any denial would surely only make it worse.

  "You two are entirely too clever to be left in the country."

  Eleanor grinned. "I suppose we are, but I never thought you would fall for such plain and obvious bait."

  "Honestly, I'm surprised at myself. I suppose I must have some small feelings for the duke, but you must not think they are so very strong as all that. He has simply helped me out of a tight spot in the past. And I will thank you to keep that between us, girls. I have enough to worry about without having wild rumors of some kind of bond between a Carrow and a Martin flying around."

  Though she would rather not have been caught at all, Georgiana knew it was good luck that the ones who had caught her were Tabi and Eleanor. They were kind girls who cared for her, and they would not want to cause her mischief with the news.