“I’m actually living with the Northwoods, temporarily.” Charles dug in his pocket for a card and penciled the address on the back. Handing it to MacQuarrie, he smiled in relief. “I’m much obliged to you, Mac—I’ve felt at a loose end lately, after running around after Wellesley for the last year. This gives me a sense of purpose.”
“Everyone needs a sense of purpose, lad,” MacQuarrie said soberly. “A man can’t live like a skylark, flitting on the breeze. He needs a reason, or he’s wasted. And we know you hate waste.”
Charles nodded and rose, shaking the man’s hand. “Now,” he said, taking up his book again, “I’ve got to get home—we’re dining out tonight and I need to change. I’ll talk to you in a week or so?”
“My hand on it,” Mac said, and they shook again. “Good day to you, Dr. Mountjoy.”
“Not yet,” Charles said, grinning, “not yet.”
Tristan
was waiting at the foot of the stairs when Charles came down, tugging awkwardly at his new tailcoat. The front was shorter than the military tunics he was used to, exposing the lower edge of his waistcoat, and the back was longer, the tails brushing the backs of his thighs. But if he was going to be a civilian, he needed to start thinking like one—or at least dressing like one. He glanced up to see Tristan staring at him, his face blank. “Does it look that bad?”
His brother-in-law blinked. “No, no, of course not. It’s just—I’d become accustomed to you in your uniform. It seems odd to see you in civilian dress. It looks… quite nice. Weston?”
“At your recommendation,” Charles said. “I could have fed my entire brigade for a week for what it cost me, but Lottie informed me that I would be expected to look my best for this evening.” He cocked his head as he stepped onto the tile of the entry hall. “What makes this evening so special?”
“We’re dining with the Morpeths. Lady Morpeth is a dear friend of Lottie’s. Viscount Morpeth is the Earl of Carlisle’s heir and a prominent politician, but for all that a tolerable fellow. He’s a member of Boodle’s.”
“Did I meet him there? I don’t recall anyone by that name.”
“No, he wasn’t there then.”
“Wait a moment—Carlisle’s heir? Then his wife would be Georgie Howard?” At Tristan’s nod, Charles grinned. “Of course. Lottie wrote me about her frequently. Usually when she’s just been brought to bed of another hopeful Howard.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Tristan laughed. “They have nine.
Their
Charles is just about six months younger than Jamie. Their mothers are already planning on them becoming the best of friends.”
“Good luck to that,” Charles said. “I admit my experience with children is limited, but all the attempts like that I’ve seen have engendered mutual antipathy in the victims.”
“No doubt,” Tristan said. “Fortunately, I was never forced into that position.”
“No cousins your age your parents expected you to automatically be fond of?” Charles remembered a few disasters like that.
“No—I am happily bereft of relatives. Should Jamie and I predecease the baron, the title will pass on to a distant relative I have never met.” Tristan glanced up the stairs. “Ah, Charlotte. You look lovely.”
“I look
fat
,” Charlotte corrected, smiling, “but since it’s the Morpeths we’re dining with, that shan’t signify.”
“Georgie
enceinte
again?” Tristan asked.
“Not that I know of. Good heavens, Tris—little Charles is not even a year old yet!”
“Well, considering they have had nine children in nine years, I wouldn’t think that would be unusual.”
“There’s more than two years between Blanche and Charles,” Lottie said complacently.
“Which only means that there is less than that between several others,” Tristan pointed out.
“Good God,” Charles said faintly.
Lottie chuckled. “They’re a fond couple.”
“So I imagine.” Charles shuddered. He glanced at Tristan, who was frowning. “What is it?”
“Do you dislike children?” he asked.
Charles shook his head. “Not at all. I just think it’s brutal to put your wife—whom one assumes one has
some
affection for—through the trauma of childbirth so often. Not to mention the discomfort of pregnancy.”
“Which one doesn’t,” Lottie said sternly, “in polite company.”
“Sorry,
Liebchen
,” her brother said penitently. “I forget.”
“We’ll civilize you yet,” she retorted.
“I don’t know,” Tristan said abruptly. “I rather like him uncivilized.” Then he seemed to realize what he’d said, and went crimson.
Charles jerked his head around to stare at him. Their eyes met a moment, Tristan’s wide and shocked at his own words. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” he said awkwardly.
“How did you mean it, then?” Charles asked in a low voice.
“Just that—that—that it’s refreshing to hear someone speak honestly and straightforwardly for a change. I didn’t mean to intimate that you’re, you’re… uncivilized. Or barbaric, or anything. You’re not. You’re just not….”
Charles regarded his averted face, then said, “I didn’t take offense.”
Tristan whipped his head up, met his eyes again, then turned away. “Thank you. Well. Shall we go? Lottie, here’s your wrap. Charles, would you see if the carriage is outside? I sent the footman for it a while ago. Oh, here he is. Charles, your coat.” He handed Charles his top coat and took his own from the footman, busying himself to cover his acute embarrassment.
Charles shrugged into his coat and put on his hat and scarf while Tristan fussed over Lottie, then escorted her outside, leaving Charles to follow. He shook his head. This was going to be a long evening.
It was, although the Morpeths were most pleasant company, as were the rest of the guests. They engaged in Tristan’s despised after-dinner port, but Tris gave no sign of his disapproval, acting the gracious guest. He showed unsuspected talent as a raconteur, taking his turn in the story-telling with anecdotes that set the table laughing, though more at his own expense than anyone else’s—a particular favorite was one about him slipping on a patch of ice and nearly taking down an old lady with him, and his frantic efforts to avoid it. Tristan laughed as hard as any of the others in the retelling. It was the first time Charles had had the opportunity to see Tristan in, to coin a phrase, his native habitat; his behavior was as polished and sophisticated as his interactions with Charles had been awkward and uncomfortable. It was almost as if he’d taken on the persona of another person, a Tristan Northwood who was debonair and self-confident and charming.
And he
was
charming; all the ladies brightened when they came into the drawing room after their prescribed half hour with the port, and their attention was focused on Tristan. He obliged them by paying distinct attention to every single lady there, from the youngest debutante to the oldest dowager. He admired needlework, fetched cups of tea, turned pages at the spinet, drew out the shyest so that she bloomed under his regard. Charles more than once glanced at Lottie to see her watching her husband and smiling approvingly. “He does have a way with the ladies,” she murmured to him once when he’d stopped by to take her cup for a refill.
“I see that,” he replied in the same low tone.
She gave him a steady, assessing look, then waved him away as she turned back to Lady Morpeth.
It was foolish, Charles knew, to feel so much for someone who might never return his regard, but he was so sure in his gut that Tristan was not indifferent to him. That must have been why it hurt so much to watch him gently courting each lady, after having to watch him charm his male counterparts. Each person he spoke with had his full attention, even if that person was a bore or an ass; he was patient and just-appropriately-friendly with each. No wonder he was so sought-after socially….
“You’re scowling,” Lottie said when he brought her tea cup back to her.
“Am I? I didn’t sleep well last night,” he said.
“Did they wake you when they brought Tristan up?”
“You know about that?”
“Of course. It’s part of his routine,” she said dryly. “Lurk in the library drinking until two in the morning, then have the footmen and Reston haul him up to bed. You’ll get used to it.”
“That’s appalling,” he said in an undertone.
“If you can stop him, you would have my gratitude,” she replied. “I like Tristan, and his drinking is not healthy.”
“He doesn’t listen to you?”
She snorted. Lady Morpeth leaned over and said, “Is it a joke?”
“Hardly, Georgie,” Lottie said. “We were talking about Tris.”
All three of them looked over at where Tristan was seated beside Lady Morpeth’s mama-in-law. The countess was laughing, and as they watched, she smacked Tristan’s arm sharply with her fan. “Lady Carlisle is entertained,” Georgie said. “Thank God. She’s impossible to deal with when she’s annoyed. And at least no one will accuse Tristan of flirting with her the way Rutland does when he talks to Elizabeth.”
“Does that anger Rutland?” Lottie asked in concern. “Because Tristan flirts with everyone.”
“Oh, once it might have,” Georgie waved her hand dismissively. “But Tristan has become much more circumspect since he married you, Lottie.”
“Did Tristan and
Elizabeth
…?” Lottie asked curiously.
“Lottie!” Charles said sharply.
Georgie laughed. “Oh, good heavens,
I
don’t know. I doubt it, though. Elizabeth’s not the type.”
“But Tristan is,” Lottie said thoughtfully. She glanced at Charles. “And it’s no good scolding me, Charlie. I knew very well what Tristan was when I married him.”
“But he’s not like that anymore,” Charles pointed out. “You said so yourself.”
“It doesn’t change the past, Charlie.”
“But one should give him the benefit of the doubt,” her brother said, frowning. “He deserves to make a fresh start if he can.”
“Tristan has a stalwart defender in your brother, Lottie!” Georgie said. “That’s so nice. So often men just want to drag each other down.”
“It seems to me that that is a fault of both genders,” Lottie shot back.
“True enough,” Georgie admitted. “And Tristan is such a sweet boy, despite the awful things he’s done, that one can’t help but quite forgive him, can one, Lottie?”
“Of course not,” Lottie said. “I am quite fond of Tristan, and count myself quite lucky to be the one who snapped him up.”
“You ladies are entirely too disrespectful of my poor Tristan,” Charles said sternly.