“But this isn’t your world.”
“Unfortunately it is.” Some emotion that she couldn’t identify flickered in his eyes. Loss, grief, sorrow. “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced. Allow me.” He tipped his head slightly. “Lord Tristan Easton.”
Lord? Impossible. He was untethered, did as he pleased. He grew up on the sea, he—
Then the name he’d spoken registered at the back of her mind.
“Easton?” The word came out on a choked breath. “Your brother is—”
“The Duke of Keswick.”
She fought to remember everything her brothers had told her, what she’d heard over the years. She’d been a child when they went missing, yet she could remember the nightmares that had visited her, the fear that she, too, would suddenly disappear. “One of the lost lords. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m a lord by birth and blood, but not by life. I don’t fit comfortably here as you can well imagine, since you know something of my life beyond London. To be honest, I had no particular interest in claiming my place in Society until I realized that it would provide me with much easier access to you.”
“But you’re a ship captain.”
“Must a man be only one thing?”
She had shared her body, her soul, perhaps even a portion of her heart with this man, and yet she knew so little about him. It made her feel tainted in some way, less than she should be. “It was your uncle you were running away from, the one who wished you harm.”
The glimmer of teasing dimmed. “Yes.”
“Was he really going to kill you?”
“We had evidence to indicate so. But that was long ago. I’m much more interested in claiming a dance than talking of the past.”
How like him to avoid revealing the mysteries behind the myriad of stories that surrounded him.
“A dance?” she squeaked, irritated that she could not appear as composed as he.
“Yes, it’s an activity where one—”
“I know what a dance is. I’m simply having a difficult time comprehending your being here. I thought never to see you again.”
Which had made it so much easier to be with him on the ship. What they had shared would sail away with him. But he hadn’t sailed away. He was here. And if he told—
“Anne?”
She jerked around to find Jameson studying her while managing to glare at Tristan at the same time. “Jameson, allow me to introduce Lord Tristan—”
“Easton. Yes, I know. Unfortunately, I saw him arrive with his brother.”
The duke was here? That must have set tongues to wagging. How had she managed to miss it? Was she so wrapped up in her own worries that she wasn’t paying attention to everything else happening around her?
“Lord Tristan, my brother. Viscount Jameson.”
“M’lord,” Tristan said with a slight bow. “A pleasure. I was about to ask your sister for a dance.”
“I fear you’ll find her dance card filled.”
Shock at his rudeness rippled through her, and she couldn’t help but blurt, “Pardon?”
“I believe the next dance is mine,” Jameson said, wrapping his hand possessively around her upper arm. He never danced with her, and she certainly didn’t appreciate his interference now.
“On the contrary. It belongs to Lord Tristan.”
“Anne.”
The warning in his voice was unmistakable but she had to speak with Tristan, and on a crowded dance floor was the perfect place because if she sought a tryst in the garden, he would no doubt use the darkness to advantage and she would find her back up against a rose-covered trellis with his mouth devouring hers. She’d be so absorbed by the kiss that she’d not notice the prickle of thorns.
“Release her,” Tristan snarled, his voice low, but his threat evident.
“Or what?” Jameson challenged.
Tristan grinned, but there was nothing pleasant in it. Rather it reminded her of a predatory cat anticipating its next meal. “You’ll discover that I am the barbarian you and your brothers whisper me to be.”
“Jameson, please. It’s only a dance. If you don’t release me I shall be forced to kick you. And such unladylike behavior will no doubt make it much more difficult for me to secure a husband. Don’t make a scene and ruin my entrance back into Society.”
He released his hold, but not before saying, “One dance and then you leave her be.”
The very worst words he could have said. Tristan wouldn’t stand down. She knew him well enough to know that.
“Oh my word. Lord Tristan, I thought it was you.”
As Anne turned to the newest intruder, out of the corner of her eye she saw some emotion she couldn’t quite identify wash over her brother’s face. Longing, followed by stoicism? She couldn’t be sure. Then she was staring at a gorgeous lady with blond hair. The largest green eyes that Anne had ever seen were fastened on Tristan as though he were her favorite sweet.
He bowed slightly. “Lady Hermione.”
“Why ever did you not let me know you’d returned to London?”
“Yes, my lord,” her brother stated succinctly, “pray tell, why ever did you not inform the lovely lady of your return?”
“I’ve had other serious matters that required my attention.”
Anne felt herself floundering. What did this young woman mean to Tristan?
“It truly doesn’t matter,” Lady Hermione said. “You’re here now. I daresay that I’m free for the dance that’s just starting.”
“I’ve already promised to partner with Lady Anne,” Tristan said, a gentleness in his voice that reminded Anne of lying beneath him and hearing murmurings in the same tender tone. Had he bedded this girl? She certainly seemed to have cause to believe she meant something to him.
“Oh.” Lady Hermione looked at Anne. “Lady Anne, my apologies. I didn’t notice you standing there. You’re out of mourning, I see. Such a tragedy. To lose your love at such a young age. I daresay, the man can never be replaced. It is so kind of Lord Tristan to take pity and dance with you.”
Before Anne could respond to her assumption that it was pity he bestowed on her, the girl turned to Tristan. “But I must claim the next dance, my lord. Please.”
“It will be my pleasure. Perhaps Lord Jameson will partner with you for this dance.”
“I don’t take another man’s leavings,” Jameson said before turning on his heel and striding away.
Anne gasped at her brother’s callousness but Lady Hermione didn’t seem at all bothered. Anne was fairly certain the girl heard nothing that was not uttered by Lord Tristan.
“If you’ll excuse us?” Tristan said to Lady Hermione, while offering Anne his arm.
She wasn’t certain she should take it. She felt as though she’d stepped into the middle of some sort of drama.
“Yes, of course,” Lady Hermione answered brightly. “I shall wait here with bated breath for your return.”
He arched a brow at Anne, and in spite of her reservations, suddenly well aware that they were capturing the attention of others standing nearby, she placed her hand on his arm.
“What is she to you?” she heard herself ask as he escorted her toward the dance floor.
“An annoyance.”
“She seemed incredibly smitten.”
He stopped. “I promise you, Anne, I never gave her reason to believe she was anything more than a dance partner—twice. Two years ago.”
He took her in his arms and swept her over the floor, and God help her—if he had danced with such skill two years ago, if he had gazed on the girl with the intensity that he now gazed at Anne, she could well understand how Lady Hermione might have fallen under his spell. He was so very masculine, so very earthy. She had succumbed to his charms easily enough. Why shouldn’t every other lady in the room?
“You should have told me who you were,” she said, her words clipped because she had to shore her resolve that things between them were over.
“Why?”
“Because you made a fool of me.”
“That was never my intention. Nor did I ever intend to return to this madness. Your brother is not the only one here tonight who has expressed dissatisfaction over my presence.”
“Then why are you here?”
His jaw tightened. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I wanted to make sure that you were all right. That your family didn’t ship you off to a convent or something.”
She laughed lightly. “Why ever would they do that?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders without missing a step. “I’ve heard of it being done.”
“I was given a scolding but nothing worse than that. But they wouldn’t send me away when they are quite desperate for me to marry.”
“The chap you were dancing with earlier . . . is he whom they wish you to marry?”
She almost stumbled with the realization that he hadn’t just arrived at this affair. He’d been here for a while. He’d been watching her.
“The Marquess of Chetwyn. Walter’s brother. And yes, he has apparently expressed interest. But I haven’t settled on him.” She didn’t know why she felt compelled to say the last. Perhaps because she feared he might get into a row with Chetwyn. Seek to stake his claim. A claim he didn’t truly have.
As her hand rested in his, as his other hand cupped her waist, she tried not to think about how marvelous it had been to have those hands roaming over her flesh. To have him rising above her. To have him bring her pleasure. She was fairly certain, though, that her cheeks were flaming red, because she saw satisfaction in his gaze and feared he knew what paths her thoughts traveled.
“I found your gift. The starfish. Thank you. Where did you find it?”
“I’ve seen them along many a shore, but that particular one I found in Yorkshire.”
Her laugh, though light, sounded as though it was on the edge of hysteria. “I imagined it came from the Far East or somewhere equally exotic.”
His gaze darkened, and she saw secrets hidden there.
“No, it came from my youth. The morning I left England.”
“Why give it to me?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps because of your fanciful tale of stars falling into the sea. Just something to remember me by.”
As if she could ever forget him.
“The oranges. You sent those.”
“Yes. I can’t eat one without thinking of you. I hoped the same could be said of you regarding me.”
As much as she wished it wasn’t so, she did very little that didn’t remind her of him.
“Don’t you have journeys that await you? Obligations that must be met? You transport goods, do you not?”
“The advantage of owning my own ship is that no one commands me.”
Even if he didn’t own his own ship, she suspected no one would command him.
“But you must earn a living, you must . . .” She felt as though she had so much to learn about him.
“All I must do, Anne, is dance with you.”
Each time he called her Anne, it spoke of intimacies. She wished he’d revert to calling her Princess. It kept her hackles up, made it easier to deal with him, to keep her distance. He was a lord and it gave a new meaning to everything they’d shared.
“The duke, your brother, I’ve never seen him. Is he about?”
“He’s dancing with his wife, Mary. To your left.”
As unobtrusively as possible, she glanced over her shoulder and nearly lost her footing. The left side of his face was heavily scarred and he wore an eye patch.
“He’s my twin,” Tristan said quietly.
“I can see a bit of resemblance.” The dark hair, the jawline—
“Most people don’t look beyond the scars.”
She studied the duchess. She had vibrant red hair and was smiling up at her husband as though she adored him, as though he had no hideous countenance to look upon.
“She doesn’t seem bothered by them.”
“But then she loves him.”
That much was obvious. She returned her attention to Tristan. “Do all of you bear scars?”
“None we can’t live with.”
Why could others not see what these brothers had endured to reclaim what they’d lost? Why were they not welcomed? Because they’d not grown up within the familiar confines, because they stood out as different.
She realized the music had drifted into silence as their movements came to a halt.
“Will you keep your promise to Lady Hermione?” she asked.
“If would be cruel of me not to, don’t you think? But I want another dance with you.”
“That would be most unwise.”
She hated the words even as she spoke them. He didn’t argue. He simply began to lead her from the dance floor. Tense and bristling, Jameson was standing at its edge. She was surprised he didn’t charge into the fray and snatch her away.
Just before they reached her brother, Tristan said, “The last dance of the evening is mine.”
Before she could object to his possessive tone—or admit how it thrilled her—he released her and strode away.
For the first time that night she was truly looking forward to something, and that filled her with a certain amount of dread. Nothing could exist between them beyond what they’d already shared. In spite of his being a lord, his life was the sea. Hers was here.
“T
he ladies are all atwitter,” Sarah said as she cornered Anne in the ladies retiring room.
“Ladies are always atwitter,” Anne responded coolly. She’d needed a moment alone to regain her composure. Lie, lie, lie. She’d needed to be away from the dance floor so she wasn’t watching Tristan waltzing about with Lady Hermione. He smiled at her; he spoke with her; he was holding her in his arms only moments after doing the same with Anne. She wasn’t jealous. That would be ridiculous. But she didn’t much like seeing him with another lady. Especially as he seemed to be enjoying himself so much.
“You danced with Lord Tristan,” Sarah said.
“I’m well aware with whom I danced. He wasn’t in disguise, for goodness’ sake.”
“He’s dangerous, Anne.”
I’m well aware of that, and in ways you can’t even imagine
. “It was merely a dance.”
“You weren’t here when he and his brothers returned two years ago. They were savages.”
“Because they reclaimed what was stolen from them?”
“It was the manner in which they did it. They burst in, uninvited, to Lord David’s ball and ordered him to leave the residence.”
“It was their residence, was it not? It was Easton House, wasn’t it, which belonged to their father and thus his son, the next duke?”
“Well, yes, I suppose if one were to be literal about—”
“I don’t see how one could be anything else.”
Sarah glared at her. “The residence aside, they made quite the spectacle of themselves. Why the eldest brother almost choked his uncle to death.”
Anne wasn’t certain she could blame him for such an action.
“And poor Lady Lucretia has been in seclusion ever since,” Sarah continued.
Their uncle’s wife. “She’s a widow now, isn’t she?”
“Quite. After her husband’s mysterious death. Slipped from a tower, in the rain. Supposedly.”
“What do you think happened?”
“I think they killed him.”
She didn’t want to admit that she could quite easily see Tristan killing someone. But not without very good reason.
T
ristan stood in a darkened corner of the terrace and smoked on a cheroot. Dancing with Lady Hermione had been an exercise in frustration. The silly chit talked incessantly. She invited him to ride with her in the park, to have dinner with her family, to dance with her again. He’d made up one excuse after another. Perhaps it would have been kinder in the long run not to have danced with her, not to give her any hope at all that more could be between them.
Two years ago, he had wanted nothing more from her than a bit of innocent flirtation. He’d certainly never considered wooing her into his bed. She was a child. She didn’t have Anne’s allure.
Now, Anne . . . damnation, but he was obsessed with thoughts of her. She invaded his waking hours as much as she did his sleeping ones. He would be studying charts or discussing with merchants the possibility of carrying their cargo—and there she would appear. He thought he should be envisioning her hair draped over her nude body or her slender form writhing beneath him. And he did visit those images from time to time. But more often than not, he thought of her smile or her laughter or the way it had felt to have her standing near him on the deck, listening to the whales. Or sharing meals with her. Verbally sparring with her, the challenging glint in her eyes when she gave no quarter.
He should be back at sea, yet here he was in a place that he loathed. He thought one more sighting of her would have satisfied him, but he’d seen her and wanted more. To speak with her.
He’d spoken with her, and it wasn’t enough. He wanted a dance.
He’d had his dance, and now he wanted one more.
He wondered if he could lure her into the garden for a kiss. Just one more—
“Lord Tristan.”
At the sound of Lord Jameson’s commanding voice, Tristan took a last drag on his cheroot, dropped it to the ground as he exhaled, and snuffed out the sparks with his boot. He turned to find four fair-haired gents blocking his way. “Ah, Lord Blackwood’s sons, I take it.”
“You are never to go near our sister again,” Jameson said.
“Your sister strikes me as a lady with a mind of her own. If the words come from her, I’ll heed them. From you, no, m’lord.”
“How do you know our sister?” one of the others asked. He appeared to be the youngest. A year, maybe two older than Anne.
“How does any gentleman know any lady?”
“The problem there, Lord Tristan, is that none of us consider you a gentleman,” Jameson snapped. “We watched as you cut your swath through London’s ladies two years ago. Our sister will not succumb to your charms.”
She already has, m’lord,
hung at the edge of his tongue like some poor blighter forced to walk the plank in shark-infested waters. Those words would earn him a sound beating from the gents who stood before him. But more, they would anger Anne and he wasn’t quite done with her yet. Of course, neither was he done taunting Lord Jameson. He had decided that he didn’t much like the fellow. He could hardly signify that this man was Anne’s brother.
“Lady Hermione didn’t succumb, my lord. We never shared more than a dance.”
Even though they were in shadows, enough light filtered in from the garden path for Tristan to see the fury ignite Jameson’s eyes. He’d noticed the way the man looked at Lady Hermione, and Tristan was fairly satisfied to see that he’d guessed correctly at some of what might lie beneath the man’s animosity toward him.
You’re welcome to her, old man.
“Why the devil would I care about that?” Jameson asked.
“Because you fancy her, my lord.”
“You know nothing. Stay clear of our sister or you’ll know the weight of our fists.” The man charged toward the doors leading back into the ballroom.
His brothers weren’t so quick to leave. They each took a moment to glare at Tristan, issuing their silent challenges, before sauntering away.
He glanced up at the hazy sky. Damn but he hated London, Society, the rules. He needed the wind around him and the sea beneath him. He’d been residing at Sebastian’s residence, but tonight, he decided, he’d sleep on his ship, just to have the rocking motion that had so often lulled him.
“T
ell me that barbarian is not the sea captain you hired.”
Anne was grateful for the dark confines of the carriage because she was relatively certain based on the heat searing her face that she was now scarlet. Jameson had just delivered their aunt to her residence and was now escorting Anne home. Her other brothers had departed from the ball at various times to head to their clubs. It seemed Jameson, however, was taking his role of oldest brother to the extreme.
“Good God, he is, isn’t he?” he asked.
“I knew him only as Captain Crimson Jack,” she admitted rather reluctantly, but she couldn’t see lying about it. She didn’t need him making inquiries along the docks. Sooner or later he was bound to uncover the truth anyway. Better to control the discovery and subsequent consequences.
“What a colorful moniker.”
“He came highly recommended and he was a perfect gentleman on the ship.”
“He is not a gentleman. He gave Lady Hermione cause to believe he would ask for her hand and he did not. He left with nary a word and she has been pining for him ever since. Now he is back and he didn’t even bother to call on her.”
Now Anne wished for some light so she could study her brother’s face in the shadows. His voice held such distaste that she was surprised he wasn’t spitting. “You seem more concerned with his treatment of her than my acquaintance with him.”
“I’m only telling you of his behavior so you understand he is a blackguard of the lowest order. Not to be trusted. I forbid you to speak with him again.”
Forbid her? She almost snapped that it wasn’t his place to forbid her anything. Instead she stared out the window. Tristan had claimed her for the final dance of the evening. She wasn’t certain where he’d been all night. After his dance with Lady Hermione he had disappeared. She’d feared that he’d left. A silly thing to worry over but she had wanted another dance with him.
But then he’d appeared, as though out of thin air. Perhaps he’d been playing cards. It didn’t matter. She was back in his arms, and while she knew it was a very dangerous place to be, she couldn’t help but feel glad to be there. They didn’t speak this time. Not a single word. Yet there had been so much communication. She’d recognized the appreciation in his light blue gaze, and the longing that mirrored hers. She’d fallen into the welcoming depths of his eyes and found herself yearning for dark forbidden corners where their bodies could share secrets.
It was all so wrong. Yet the knowledge did little to curb her desire.
She didn’t want to contemplate that he might have taken advantage of Lady Hermione, that he might be the sort who left broken hearts in his wake. Surely he understood how vulnerable hers was. Although she had no intention of giving it to him. What they shared was the physical only. She couldn’t allow it to be more. She couldn’t risk being hurt again. Love led to unparalleled pain that couldn’t be assuaged so easily. Always there would be a final separation.
Much better to live one’s life with a man whom she could like, but in whom she would not invest her heart and soul. Chetwyn came to mind. He would be such a man. No passion. No risk to her heart. No worries.
Proper. It would all be very proper. She suspected even his lovemaking would be proper. No sweating bodies, cries of pleasure. No torrid breathless moments.
The carriage came to a halt and she realized that they’d arrived home, her wayward thoughts careening into oblivion.
“Do we have an understanding?” Jameson asked. “Regarding Lord Tristan.”
“Yes, Brother. I understand perfectly what you said.”
Doesn’t mean I’ll heed your orders.
But she did understand them.
She retired to her bedchamber, rang for Martha, and an hour later was prepared for bed, though her emotions were in such a swirl that she knew she’d be unable to sleep. She considered going to the library to fetch a book, but she doubted she’d be able to concentrate.
“Will there be anything else, m’lady?”
From her bench in front of the vanity, she peered over at Martha. “No. Thank you. Sleep well.”
When the door had clicked shut behind her maid, she turned her attention back to her reflection in the mirror. Her first ball after so many years away had not gone so terribly badly. She supposed she would survive the Season.
Leaning toward the mirror, she watched as a boot-clad foot and tight britches appeared through the window. Coming to her feet, she spun around and stared as Tristan made his way ever so calmly into her room.
He grinned. “I thought she’d never leave.”