The Honorable Heir (6 page)

“She can’t be friends to anyone after what she did to our George—”

“Grandmother, please.” Georgette’s hands flew to her cheeks, which were once again the color of the peonies in the gardens back at Cothbridge.

Tristram devoted himself to his soup and pretended not to notice.

After the pause for servants to deliver plates of fish and vegetables, Pierce began a discussion of when they should take the train to New York and what they should see there. That got them through the meal without more remarks about the VanDorn family. But Mrs. Selkirk turned her ire on Pierce for not taking the train into the city every day to work with his father.

Pierce, losing his good humor for once, flashed his grandmother an annoyed glance. “I do go into the city every day and work. I even do so on many Saturdays. But right now, I have a visit from a friend I haven’t seen in eight years and am taking a holiday.”

They agreed to take their dessert in the drawing room, knowing well that the old lady never ate away from a table and would go to her room to nap after the meal. Georgette’s mother murmured something about counting linens and left her children and Tristram alone.

“I apologize for Grandmother,” Georgette said the instant her mother departed. “She never used to be so bitter.”

“Which may be the worst crime Catherine committed.” Pierce stretched his legs toward the fire. “Grandmother grew up the daughter of a Pennsylvania coal miner, pretty enough to marry the boss but ended up owning the mine. She has never forgiven how Catherine kept our family from climbing even higher than invitations to Mrs. Astor’s annual ball.”

“If rumors are true,” Georgette said in her honey-sweet voice, “Catherine saved me from a difficult life. Still...” She shook her head. “Enough of that. Would you like to see the Statue of Liberty?”

“I would.”

He had caught a glimpse of it as his ship entered the harbor at New York, but he would enjoy seeing the gift from France close-up. For some reason, he pictured Lady Liberty with Catherine’s elegant bones and proud—nearly haughty—carriage, and he smiled with more warmth than he should feel at any thought of her ladyship.

* * *

They left for New York the next day. Mrs. Selkirk would join them for some shopping, and Ambrose and Florian, coming in late in the afternoon, thought they would also enjoy the tour, as well. They’d stay in the city for three days, residing in the Selkirks’ brownstone overlooking Central Park.

New York wasn’t London. Nonetheless, Tristram enjoyed the sights and fine restaurants, the entertainments and dancing with Georgette at an impromptu party at the Selkirks’ house. The only flaw in the excursion was the discovery of a pearl-and-ruby pendant that matched the description and drawing of one of the Bisterne baubles, sold to a jeweler on Fifth Avenue.

“Surely she wouldn’t be so foolish as to sell something in her own back garden,” Florian said.

“She was scarcely in town long enough to do so,” Ambrose pointed out.

But the proof lay on Tristram’s palm, bright and cold, and Catherine’s words regarding her unfortunate marriage rang in his ears, dark and cold and full of pain.

“Sometimes, I wonder if I should marry Georgette Selkirk and forget trying to prove that Lady Bisterne is a thief,” Tristram said.

Florian choked on his tea. “What about your father? What about your inheritance?”

“Neither would matter if I married an heiress. Perhaps it’s the kinder option.” Tristram could spare the VanDorns humiliation or worse, and he’d acquire a lovely wife who made no secret of her Christian faith going deeper than church on Sundays with the other fashionables.

He began to contemplate the notion of marriage on the way back to Tuxedo Park. He and Georgette shared a seat and conversed with the ease of long-standing friends. After another month, if this camaraderie continued, he would probably be foolish not to make Georgette an offer.

But something about the idea simply didn’t sit right with Tristram, something having nothing to do with Georgette herself. For reasons he couldn’t entirely explain, his mind traveled once again to Lady Bisterne, and the jewel he’d found in the city.

One of the footmen knocked on Tristram’s bedroom door as he was dressing for dinner that evening. “You have several messages and some mail, sir. I beg your pardon—Lord Wolfe—”

“‘Sir’ is quite all right.” Tristram took the correspondences off the footman’s tray. “‘Lord’ is merely courtesy and holds very little meaning. Thank you.”

He took the messages and letters to the desk and sorted through them. Missives from his father he set aside for later, along with two letters from former army friends. He read the handwritten notations from telephone calls—invitations to dinners, a shooting party and a musical evening.

The last message left him standing, lips compressed, until the dinner bell rang.

The caller was Sims, the VanDorns’ butler, on behalf of Mrs. VanDorn and had come through a mere quarter hour before the Selkirk party returned from the city. She was terribly sorry to be calling so tardily, but would he be willing to even up her table at a dinner party the following evening? The husband of one of her guests had been called away at the last minute and she didn’t wish for his wife to have to cry off, as well.

And there it was, the frisson of energy he experienced when near Lady Bisterne went whipping through him at the mere suggestion he might see her again.

It was a good reason to refuse.

But the pearl-and-ruby pendant tucked into his handkerchief drawer was a good reason to say yes.

He settled himself at the desk, drew out stationery and pen, and wrote a note accepting the invitation.

Chapter 6

People always talk to their neighbors at table whether introduced or not. It would be a breach of etiquette not to!

Emily Price Post

“Y
ou did what, Mama?”

Seated on a sofa in the drawing room, Catherine looked up from her needlework to stare at her mother with horror.

Estelle glanced up from the music score she was studying. “You could at least have invited Mr. Baston-Ward or Mr. Wolfe.”

“Or someone else altogether.” Catherine’s stomach performed a few somersaults, not enough, alas, for her to claim illness and absent herself from the party. If she did, Mama might be unwise enough to invite Georgette.

Surely Mama wasn’t trying to match Catherine with another Englishman. The very idea sent her stomach into backflips.

“And so I would have invited one of the other gentlemen, had Lord Tristram declined.” Mama stood at a refectory table at one end of the room, arranging flowers in a crystal bowl, chrysanthemums in shades of orange, gold and yellow sent up fresh from the city. The arrangement would grace the center of the table. Other smaller bowls already stood on tables throughout the public rooms.

If only she could wear her gold gown from Paris. Catherine lamented being unable to show at her best if she had to help play hostess to Tristram. It would show well with the color theme Mama had chosen for the dinner party decor. Instead, she would behave herself and wear a velvet gown of such deep purple it looked black away from direct lighting. Perhaps a little gold jewelry would set it off nicely. Just a little and, with Tristram coming, only pieces she owned before or since her time in England.

“I don’t know why you two are objecting to his lordship,” Mama said.

“He’s not truly a lord, you know.” Catherine had spent months learning how the English peerage worked. “He’s still a commoner.”

“Unless his sister-in-law produces a girl.” Estelle made the comment without looking up from her scribbling on the musical score.

Catherine startled. “What do you mean? He has an older brother.”

Estelle glanced up. “You didn’t know? His brother died seven months ago.”

Long enough for him to be out of mourning for a sibling.

“I didn’t know.” Catherine shook her head. “I left England a year ago August and had as little as possible to do with anyone from the English aristocracy.”

“You need to rid your heart of this bitterness, Catherine.” Mama’s dark eyes clouded with sadness. “I’m certain they aren’t all like your husband.”

Catherine grimaced. “Lord Tristram’s older brother was.”

“He’d been drinking heavily and fell from his horse,” Estelle confirmed. “Mr. Wolfe told me so I’d know that he’s only third in line to the title if Lady, um—what’s her name?”

“Her husband’s courtesy title was Harriford.”

In one of the two times she’d been able to go to London, Catherine had seen the lady in a dressmaker’s shop. She was a pretty, petite blonde with a sweet-faced daughter in tow. She had been apologizing to a shopgirl for how badly the young woman’s employer had been treating her for some imagined slight to her ladyship, a genuine kindness from a lady who deserved better than the current heir to the Marquess of Cothbridge.

“I hope for her sake,” Catherine mused aloud, “she has a girl. That will free her to marry someone more of her choosing. But if she has a boy, she’ll be stranded at Cothbridge and under the marquess’s thumb.”

“If she has a girl,” Estelle pointed out, “Lord Tristram will inherit the title.”

“Which is likely why he’s here in America.” Mama took a half dozen steps back from her flower arrangement. “He’s looking to find an American heiress.”

“He doesn’t need an heiress if he inherits,” Catherine said. “The Wolfes are quite wealthy. Why would he need a separate income?”

“Apparently,” Estelle explained, “his father is so angry with him for resigning his army commission he has cut him off unless he does something important.”

Catherine’s finger slipped, and she jabbed her embroidery needle into her finger.

“How romantic.” Mama returned to her flowers and began to tuck greenery around the edges of the bowl. “What sort of important thing must he do?”

Estelle furrowed her brow, wrote something on her score, then glanced up long enough to say, “I don’t know. Mr. Wolfe wouldn’t tell me, if he even knows.”

Oh, he knew, as did Catherine. He needed to prove she was a thief and procure the rest of the jewelry she did not have. Probably even recover the money made on selling the other pieces in Europe, which she, of course, didn’t have because she had never obtained it.

And now Mama had invited him to dinner and he had accepted. Of course he had accepted.

An absurd image flashed through her mind—Lord Tristram Wolfe slipping up the servants’ steps to her bedchamber, rifling through her jewel box.

“Could you not invite Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Baston-Ward to the party, as well?” Estelle was asking.

“I’d have had to find two more single ladies in that event.” Mama swept across the room to the bell. “Mr. Harold Padget already accepted my invitation, so when Mr. Rutlidge couldn’t come, I had to scramble for another bachelor to make the table even.”

Estelle heaved a sigh strong enough to have fanned the flames on the hearth had she sat closer to the fire. “I suppose Mr. Loring is for me?”

Which meant Tristram would escort Catherine into dinner instead of her brother.

“He is quite unexceptionable as a suitor, Estelle.” Mama directed her attention to the footman who had responded to her ring, directing him to carry the crystal bowl of flowers out of the room. Mama followed, no doubt to supervise its placement on the table.

Estelle covered her eyes with her hand. “Mr. Loring is nearly twice my age and doesn’t know an A from an F. I’ve heard him try to sing in church.”

Catherine examined her finger for blood and resumed her embroidery. “Well, Lord Tristram doesn’t like me.”

“Ha.” Estelle flashed Catherine a grin. “That’s not how it looked in the music room the other day. He couldn’t take his eyes off of you.”

“Probably afraid I’d steal his tiepin,” Catherine muttered.

“What did you say?”

“Never mind.” Catherine set her needlework into its basket and lifted the handle. “I’m going for a walk. Do you want to join me?”

Estelle glanced out the window at the pale blue sky free of clouds. “I don’t wish to risk chapping my hands. I’m going to go practice before Mama returns and finds something for me to do for this party. It is going to be so very dull if I have to entertain Mr. Loring.”

“Unless you attach yourself to the ladies planning the charity tea.”

“It’s a good notion.” Estelle slipped through the narrow door leading to the music room.

Catherine climbed to her room to fetch a hat and coat for a brisk walk along the lakeshore. She had grown fond of walking during her years in England. It got her away from the never-ending hammering and sawing as her money repaired the manor. Only the rainiest days kept her inside, and she had kept up the practice once back in New York.

She set off down the path leading to the lake. Though the sun blazed across the sky, ice still rimmed the lake, shiny on top where the surface had thawed. In no time, they would be able to ice-skate or toboggan. She gave a little hop of excitement at the prospect. Ice and snow were as foreign to Romney Marsh as she had been. Soon, perhaps, if she could make her peace with Georgette, Tuxedo Park would be home again. But Georgette hadn’t responded to any of her notes. Between that and Lord Tristram being determined to ruin her, she was beginning to doubt that anywhere could be home.

“Lord Jesus, feeling settled somewhere isn’t too much to ask, is it?” she said aloud.

Catherine didn’t pray a great deal. Perhaps she should, yet now, when her heart ached over the unfair accusation and the not-so-subtle messages that Georgette still wished for nothing to do with her, seemed wrong. If she wasn’t going to keep in contact with the Lord in good times, then she shouldn’t ask Him for help during the bad.

Guilt and cold air constricted her breathing. Even Estelle, who would disobey their parents with the first opportunity to become a professional musician, could write a song called “Praise.” Perhaps the best alternative was a combination of prayer and request? “Hallowed be Thy name” and “Give us this day our daily bread” in equal measure?

Contemplations on prayer needed to wait. If she didn’t head home, only a miracle would get her ready for the party on time.

And tonight, preparing for the party meant more than donning an evening gown and choosing appropriate jewelry that would not bring the wrong kind of attention.

It meant working out exactly how to manage Lord Tristram Wolfe.

* * *

Tristram’s mouth went dry at the sight of Lady Bisterne. In a purple gown that emphasized her long neck surrounded by a necklace of flat gold and enamel plaques, she looked like a queen.

If Edwin Bisterne had married her only for her fortune, then he had been a bigger fool than Tristram believed. If he’d married her only for her money, then perhaps he owed her those jewels after all.

Poised in the doorway to the VanDorns’ drawing room for half a minute longer than he should have been, Tristram watched Catherine ministering to the oldest guests. She tucked a pillow behind the back of an aged matron he already knew from experience was more than a little crotchety, then she glided across the floor to move a fire screen to better reflect heat for an old man with twinkling eyes. A middle-aged gentleman caught her hand as she passed. Instead of giving him the set-down he deserved, she offered him a brilliant smile, said something that not only made him release her fingers, but laugh while he let her go.

Tristram’s conscience bit deep. Believing her guilty of revenge theft, especially once he realized how much she disliked her husband, was easy when he wasn’t with her. But this gracious and elegant lady could surely not so much as contemplate stealing her wedding ring on purpose, let alone an entire vault full of jewelry.

And yet...

Deciding he had been the fool this night for accepting the invitation, he entered the drawing room. Mr. VanDorn came toward him, one hand extended in greeting, the other holding a cup from which steam wafted.

“Hot cider after what was surely a cold ride over.” Mr. VanDorn gave Tristram the glass.

“I walked.” Tristram took the cup and wrapped his hands around it. “I enjoy walking, weather permitting.”

“You sound like my daughter.” His gaze flicked across the room toward Catherine. “Which reminds me, she is your dinner partner.”

Of course she was. Social precedent dictated the two of them would be seated either across from or next to one another. No doubt his hostess would be on the other side.

“Allow me to make a few introductions for you.” VanDorn set his hand on Tristram’s shoulder. Then he proceeded to introduce people with names Tristram recognized because they occasionally made news in the English papers.

“Dinner’s about to be announced,” Mr. VanDorn said, “so I’ll leave you with my eldest daughter.”

The circuit of the room had ended in front of Catherine and more windows offering a spectacular view of the lake beneath a full moon. She stood close enough to the window that her breath fogged the glass, blurring her reflection. His was perfectly clear beside hers.

“Good evening, Lord Tristram.” She raised one hand, on which sparkled an amethyst ring the size of a quail egg. The scent of spring swirled around her, violets and lily of the valley.

Tristram found he could think of nothing to say. He watched her reach toward the glass, half expecting her to write in the steam. Instead, she started to use the lace frill at the bottom of her sleeve.

“Allow me.” He reached past her and wiped the glass with his handkerchief.

She faced him. “Why did you come?”

“I can’t ferret out your secrets if I don’t ever see you.”

“All you will learn is that I have no secrets.” Indeed, her brown eyes were wide and as guileless as a child’s.

Too guileless.

He gave her his own limpid gaze. “We shall see. I—”

The dinner bell rang, and couples began to form.

Tristram offered her his arm. For a moment, she remained motionless, as though she were about to refuse his offer. Then, as the last of the other couples left the drawing room, she laid her fingertips on his forearm. Just her fingertips.

She may as well have pressed hard upon the nerves in his forearm. He needed all his self-control not to jerk away a reaction that must be wholly wrong. He was pursuing her, not courting her.

He reached the dining room on feet that felt as though he wore large Wellington boots rather than light evening shoes. To his relief, she released his arm the instant they reached their places.

A footman drew out her chair. She settled into it with fluid grace. As soon as Mr. VanDorn asked the blessing over the meal, Catherine turned to the gentleman on her right, leaving Tristram to his hostess through the soup course. Mrs. VanDorn was practiced at polite dialogue, asking him questions about his family, then his work.

“Though I suppose you don’t work, do you? So different between England and America. Here, even the men in our best families work.”

“Besides some charity work, I’ve been helping my father manage his land holdings since my brother’s passing. That, ma’am, is a great deal of work.”

“Oh, and how much land is that?” Her tone suggested it was no bigger than a farm.

“Twenty thousand acres.”

She choked on her sip of soup.

“It’s a respectable size.” For no good reason, he wanted her to know his branch of the family had enough money that he didn’t need an heiress. “Nothing like what you have out in the west.”

“But more civilized.”

Their rapport after that was quite good. Mrs. VanDorn, Tristram couldn’t help but notice, was a fine image of what Catherine would look like in twenty years—poised and still beautiful with those fine bones.

Catherine would remain beautiful if she didn’t let her anger over her husband etch lines of bitterness into her face. Her mother was a happy woman who glowed whenever she mentioned the name of one of her children.