She was marrying a man she’d seen fewer times than she had fingers, and she could barely finish a complete sentence around him. No matter what her dreams, what tingles of anticipation she sometimes felt in his presence, he was a stranger. Whatever had made her turn to him in trust?
Marguerite sagged onto the edge of the bed, her hands resting lightly on her stomach. She had sought freedom, the chance to determine her own future and this is what she’d received. She thought she’d learned from her mother’s lesson. How then could she have ended up here? On the morning she would be a wife, and soon enough a mother. It was all she had dreamed of on that night a year ago when she’d so eagerly followed Tristan into the garden. She should have been more careful of her prayers.
“You know I won’t be back after tomorrow.”
Tristan turned to face Violet as she reclined on the settee. Even now she was careful of the picture she presented – russet curls falling over white watered silk that gave every appearance she was naked beneath her thin gown. No matter the chill Violet dressed for impression.
She’d suited him so perfectly, but now it must be finished.
“I am surprised you called tonight,” she said, her voice husky. “I thought your need already past.”
He walked to the settee and sat beside her, bringing her feet up to rest in his lap.
“You know I can never give you thanks for all you’ve done.”
“No thanks are necessary. It was if anything a pleasure.”
“I do hope there is some truth in that. I know there must have been a cost as well.”
She chuckled deep in her throat. She reached over to the flowers arranged on a nearby table and plucked a single rose from a mass of deep-hued tulips. Crushing the petals so the scent mingled with waxy smell of the candle, she turned until her perfect features were inches from his own.
“Ah Tristan, you were always so good to me. The best lover I never had. If I had not met Westlake first, when you were all just overgrown boys, it might have been so different for us.” She reached up and rubbed a petal along his cheek. “You have been a true friend despite your games. Do not worry about what our relationship has done to me. When I married the second man four times my age, my place in society was set. When I married a third well into his eighties, it was cast in stone. Then, upon his death, I had the effrontery to choose as a lover a man younger than myself. I don’t think anything you have done can set the tongues wagging faster. I will still retain a thin shield of respectability.”
“Don’t pretend it doesn’t cut. Remember I know the truth.”
“Maybe – maybe not. I rather fancy my public image is as real as yours. What I am is a woman who can sit here alone in her home with a man to whom she is not wed and has never dreamed of marrying. That is enough for the gossips and it is the truth. A truth I do not wish to change.”
“But, what they will say when it is known I have cast you off to marry another – a woman ten years your junior, even if I am not old enough to be her father, much less her grandfather?”
“Tris.” Violet brought her hand up and rubbed his cheek. He could feel the rasp of his whiskers along her soft palm. “I do not care about any of that. What matters is that you know what you are doing. Did I make an error in sending Lady Smythe-Burke? I should have thought further, but there are not many respectable enough to rescue the poor girl, who would admit me after dark, and it did seem the answer to your dilemma.
“Don’t worry. The joke of the situation is that I had already asked her to wed. She actually had the impudence to refuse.”
“What – how?”
She pulled her feet off his lap and pulled herself upright. He stood. It was so much easier to think when moving. “I asked her as soon as I understood the situation. You are right. She is suited to my needs precisely. I wondered briefly if I’d regret the words when spoken, but I did not