her a better florist. Why would I care about finding a florist?”
“Girls like flowers. Marguerite must like flowers. That’s what I was asking. I want her to like me. She used to, you know. She let me show her the gardens once, so she must like flowers.” Moreland let his head drop to rest on the table. He smiled at Tristan sideways. “Now, I think she only likes you. You’ll have to tell me how to make her like me again. I’d do anything for a girl like her, even share my whiskey.” He reached towards the bottle, but the effort was too great and he let his hand rest beside his head.
Tristan picked up the whiskey bottle and placed it under the table. This was going nowhere. Did he really need to stay out all night to listen to a discussion of posies and watch Moreland drool over Marguerite? Speaking of drool, a large puddle of it was forming in the corner of Moreland’s mouth and running towards the table.
Landon looked at it, pointed, laughed, and promptly turned an interesting shade of green. Puffing out his cheeks and clamping his hands over his mouth he ran from the room.
Tristan resisted the urge to rest his own head on the table. How had he been reduced to this? He knew how to use cunning and trickery to find a man’s secrets. A whiskey bottle was too easy, and unreliable. He glanced at Moreland who had closed his eyes and begun to snore.
Had he really considered using Marguerite as a lure for – that? A cold knot formed in the base of his gut. He had set his target and been prepared to use any means to achieve it. He hadn’t cared in the slightest who was hurt.
And this was the price. He was saddled with a wife who didn’t want to be married to him. How had he managed to accomplish that? All the girls wanted to be married to him, they always had. In his younger, more respectable, days he’d had to step on many a window ledge or balcony to avoid all the traps that had been set for him by sweet young things and their scheming mothers. So how did he end up with a wife who didn’t want to be married? Who didn’t want him?
How could she not want him?
He sure as hell wanted her.
It was damn well time they worked this out.
He stood, ignoring the slumped figure beside him. It surely wasn’t the first time Moreland would wake in the morning alone in an unsavory establishment.
The carriage ride was quick, the walk to the door and up the steps even more so. He strode across the hallway and aimed directly for her room. He opened the door gently, not wanting to startle her. A woman must be gently wooed.
He slipped across the chamber and came to stand beside the bed, the remains of a candle still flickering in a pool of wax. Marguerite was swathed in the blankets, more a mummy than a princess, a gift waiting to be unwrapped.
Then as if sensing his presence she stirred in her sleep and turned towards him. Glistening tracks of tears marked her cheeks, even as he watched another tear seeped from beneath her sleeping lids, beginning its journey down her cheek.
She hated this marriage, hated the trap he had sprung around her so much that she cried even in her sleep. He had taken something beautiful and free and pinned it to a board.
Desire leached from his body. He turned and walked from the room. He would pay the price for the injustice he had wrought. He would do all he could to give her the freedom she needed. He might not be able to undo the marriage, but he would do everything he could short of that.
He would talk to her, explain the matter – or at least most of it. It would only hurt her further to know the full truth of why he had married her. Together they would reach a new solution. She could live in his house, continue as the mistress of all his establishments, and live her own life as he lived his. She had expressed a desire for independence when she came to him for help. That was a gift he could give her. He would not trouble her with the realities of marriage.
It was not such a bad solution. Their lives need only intersect when she required escort to