Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,111

her brother was going to find himself in a perpetual state of red.

Good.

Faye, however, wasn’t done with him.

“And Mother and Claire and I?” she continued. “We went on to our estates in Dartmoor. Our circumstances were changed, but we always had a grand home with a roof over our heads. We had food and security and every material comfort imaginable.” Yes, the fires hadn’t burned as bright, and the garments had been older, but they’d never gone without. Unlike Tynan, who’d never had anything. Faye jabbed a finger at him. “So don’t you dare presume to cast judgment on him when you cannot even imagine the life he’s lived.”

A life and past he’d shared with her. As a man shrouded in secrets, who kept up such fortified walls, he’d not even been able to admit to himself the true reasons he helped Finn and Jack and John and other children—because he wanted to help.

“I love him, Tristan,” she said, needing him to understand that his disapproval would not make her feelings for Tynan Wylie go away.

“You don’t even know him,” he said with a gentleness that grated as much as his earlier moral superiority.

She briefly pressed her eyes shut. He’d not heard a blasted word she’d said. When she opened them once more, she strove for a calm at odds with the torrent of fury and outrage gripping her. “Why?” she asked calmly, keeping her temper in check this time. Because even as it was wrong that women were unfairly judged for being emotional creatures, she’d not have her brother ease his worrying by thinking this was just an emotional Faye. “Because you say I don’t? Because it’s easier to believe there was nothing of meaning I shared with Tynan, and it was simply sex?”

If a blush could set a man on fire, the color that climbed to her brother’s now brightly splotched crimson face would decidedly do that. “Because there can be no future with him.”

With every fiber of her being, she hated that she belonged to a world where even people like her brother, whom she’d always believed was open-minded, should be so closed when it came to her loving and living outside of their station.

The fight drained out of her. “Either way, you needn’t worry.” She was unable to keep the trace of bitterness from creeping in. “He does not wish to wed me.”

He spoke with an instantaneousness she would forever resent him for. “If I were a better brother, I would say I’m sorry, Faye. But I cannot be. He is a man who deceived to find his way into this household. A man who stole your…” Tristan firmed his lips and gave a tight, almost imperceptible flick of his head. He came over and collected her hands in his. Raising them to his chest, he squeezed them lightly as he spoke. “Someday, Faye, you are going to meet—”

“Just stop,” Faye cut him off, ripping her hands from his. “Don’t do that. Don’t give me the ‘someday you’ll find love’ talk.” She lifted her chin and glared up at him. “What you really mean is someday I’ll find a gentleman you approve of.”

A sad smile formed on her brother’s mouth, and he ever so briefly cupped her cheek. “That is where you are wrong, Faye. I won’t approve of any man where you are concerned, because none will be worthy of you. But this one? This one is worse, because he is dangerous for you.”

She despised that his words tangled with Tynan’s fears.

Her brother would never see. He’d never know. It was futile trying to make him. Nor did it matter what he thought. Not really.

Faye jerked her gaze over to the window.

With a sigh, her brother stepped away.

Tristan hovered there.

Please, just go. She silently tried to will him to leave. Because in this moment, as much as she had come to love Tynan Wylie so hopelessly and deeply, she resented her brother just as much for passing judgment on the man she loved.

There were to be small deliverances this day, after all, for her brother headed for the door, bringing an end to this fraught exchange at last.

Except, he stopped, turning reluctantly back.

“I would be remiss if I did not ask what you are intending that you required the assistance of a prison warden.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said tiredly. She’d already come to an arrangement with the Duchess of Somerset that would allow Faye to carry through with precisely what she had always intended, though