The Dowager's Wager (12 page)

“You’re always beautiful, Isabella. The gown does you
justice. I approve with your modiste’s suggestions,” Giles
complimented.

Isabella gave a light trill of laughter and turned to Tristan.
“Gresham, come take a turn around the room with me.”
Isabella extended a long white-gloved arm accentuated by a
simple diamond bracelet fastened around her wrist. She
placed it on his arm with all the correctness of an etiquette
book. No onlooker would find fault with her request. No one
would guess the rapid beating of her heart, that even such
simple contact with Tristan affected her so acutely.

“How are you, Tristan? We’ve missed you this week.” She
kept her voice low to give them privacy as they strolled the
perimeter of the room. She didn’t look at him as she talked
but rather to either side of her, nodding to those she knew as
they passed.

“I am fine, Isabella. I’ve been busy.”

“Alain said you’ve been at the gaming hells.” Her tone
accused.

“As I said, I’ve had business to look after.”

His terseness stung. Couldn’t he see that she didn’t want
to be shut out? Hurt, Isabella retaliated with a sharpness of her own. “We can try another topic of conversation if you
don’t like the current one. Shall we talk about Beatrix
Smallwood and her performance at Lady Hampstead’s?
Perhaps you’d like to talk about your secret admirer or the
atrocious stories circulating pertaining to your profligate
habits on the Continent. We certainly don’t have to talk about
your work. Apparently, there are plenty of other titillating
conversations we can have about any number of topics.”

Tristan stopped walking. He gripped her arm and leaned
close. “Stop it, Isabella. A shrewish tongue does not become
you”

“I suppose it becomes me to be subjected to the indignities of scandal?” Isabella was outraged. How dare he scold
her when he’d managed in one night to besmirch the pristine
reputation she’d so diligently guarded since her debut? “Did
you not realize how I would be implicated?”

The tic jumping in his cheek was proof enough that he’d
known. He’d known. Had he cared one whit?

“I did my best to protect you, you have to believe that. I
did not presume to introduce you.” The grip on her arm
tightened.

“And yet, it was not enough. I am implicated in something
I know nothing about. I have a right to demand an explanation.” She glared at the hand that held her fast as if noticing it
for the first time. “Unhand me at once, you mannerless cad”

Isabella regretted her words immediately. Her momentary
contempt was nothing in the wake of Tristan’s provoked ire.
He refused to let her go. Instead of freeing her, he ushered
her through a set of French doors leading out onto a deserted balcony. The area was shrouded in complete darkness
except where it was broken by an occasional spill of light
from the main salon.

Tristan’s manner was rough as he pressed her against the
stone railing. “Unhand you at once? I think you mean
`undress me at once,’ which I’d be glad to do”

Isabella shoved at his chest. “Tristan! What is the meaning of this? You’ve gone daft”

“It’s what you expect of me, isn’t it?” Tristan growled,
stepping back from her, giving her room to breathe. His own
breath came in pants. “You and Alain, Giles and Chatham,
all of you believe the lies. That’s what you really want to discuss, isn’t it?”

“Are they lies, then?” Isabella said, hope inflecting her
voice.

“You know me better than any of them, Bella. What do
you think?” Tristan’s voice was a whispered caress. It was
the first time he’d called her by the old name since his
return. Isabella thrilled to it.

“I have always known you to be an honorable man. In all
your dealings with me, you’ve been nothing less. Let me
help you. Tell me who Beatrix Smallwood is and why she’d
want to disgrace you.” She more felt than saw Tristan smile
in the darkness. He stepped towards her, covering the small
space between them again and gathered her in his arms. She
reveled in the contact against his warm body even though
she sensed his gesture conveyed only a great regard for their
friendship.

Suddenly, his body tensed. He whispered an urgent warning in her ear. “Bella, we are not alone.” He spun her away
from the exposed railing and bore her backwards. A crash
resounded on the concrete where they had stood moments
ago. Straining her eyes in the darkness, Isabella could make
out the shards of a large, pottery barrel, the kind used for
planting flowers outside. At the speed it had been traveling,
they could have been severely injured or worse.

“Are you all right?” Tristan ran his hands up and down her
arms, trying to subdue the goose pimples. “You’re shivering,
Bella.”

“I’m fine, just shaken a little. We could have been killed.
What a terrible accident.” She looked hard at Tristan. “It was
an accident wasn’t it?” Her eyes widened when Tristan didn’t
answer. “Tristan, what’s going on?”

People flooded out of the salon, brought out by the crash. Tristan had only enough time to whisper, “I cannot tell you,
but trust me, Bella. Please,” before they were engulfed.

Isabella was silent the entire way home. She answered
Alain’s questions about the incident with perfunctory
answers. She was still trying to ingest the whole situation herself. It was difficult to give Alain answers when she didn’t
have any. One moment she was in Tristan’s arms, albeit
benignly, and the next she was being wrenched out of the way
of a potentially fatal falling pottery urn.

The evening had been a failure. She was no closer to
understanding Tristan than she’d been before the soiree. She
had not gotten the answers she’d been looking for regarding
Tristan. Instead, she’d gotten more questions. Tristan had
confessed he could not tell her what was going on in the seconds before they’d been surrounded by the crowd from the
salon. Tristan wouldn’t tell her, but surely someone must
know? Beatrix Smallwood? The secret admirer? With the
scandal of Beatrix still swirling around London, there was
no way she could approach Beatrix for the answers. But the
admirer? She didn’t know who the admirer was, but she
knew who it wasn’t. By Tristan’s own admission to Briarton,
the admirer was not Beatrix. The admirer had announced her
presence a mere week or two ago, by Isabella’s count. That
was definitely too early to show oneself. It was possible
Tristan didn’t know who the admirer was and that the admirer hadn’t shown herself.

A brilliant idea started to form and by the time she arrived
at Westbrooke House, it had taken root. Isabella bid Alain a
hasty good night and practically leapt from the carriage. In
her bedchamber, Betty was waiting to help her out of the
gown and assist her into her favorite silk nightgown and dressing robe in a soft pale rose. Isabella impatiently sat at her vanity as Betty took out the pins to her elaborate evening coiffure
and proceeded to brush out her hair. Isabella’s mind whirled,
full of plots and plans for uncovering Tristan’s secrets.

When Betty left, Isabella sat at her small white and gilt
writing desk flipping through her engagements for the
upcoming week until she found the one she sought. The
Briartons’ winter ball was in four days. Perfect.

The following afternoon

ccYou’re going to do what?” Amy asked in disbelief, nearly dropping the porcelain watering can she’d been using to
sprinkle the geraniums in her conservatory.

Isabella looked up serenely from the potting table where
she stood organizing seed packets. “You heard me, I am
going to pose as Gresham’s secret admirer. I have it on good
authority from Alain yesterday over tea that Tristan has no
idea who it is and he isn’t interested in finding out. You’ve
already told me Tristan told Briarton the same thing. I know
he’s not interested, but the admirer doesn’t know that, so
she’ll be sitting around for ages thinking that if he’s interested he’ll track her down. If I intervene quickly enough, no
one will be the wiser. The admirer, whoever she is, will think
he wasn’t interested and just fade away, not guessing that
someone took her place.”

Amy shook her head disapprovingly. “Won’t it be obvious that the admirer is you? How could he not recognize
you?”

Isabella grinned. “I am way ahead of you on that. It would
work in the dark. With heavy veiling and gloves, it could be
anyone”

Amy looked squarely at her friend, who was suddenly
overly absorbed in sorting seeds. “Why are you doing this?”

“Tristan is in danger and he won’t confide in anyone.”
Isabella lowered her voice to a whisper. “The crashing pottery was not an accident, Amy. Someone wanted to send a
message of a very deadly nature. I am sure of it.”

“I think you might be reading more into the situation than
it warrants. One falling pot does not an assassination make,”
Amy said skeptically. “I am more interested in why you
were out on the balcony alone with him.”

“What a nosy parker you are!” Isabella scolded her
friend. “If you must know, we were quarreling about the
rumors” She set a clay pot down with such force that the
seeds jumped from their carefully appointed places and
mixed together. “He says the rumors about his decadence
are lies. If that’s true, then he’s definitely hiding something.
If it’s not true, then a jealous husband is probably hunting
him down. Either way, Tristan is in trouble and I intend to
find out why.”

“If you’re set on posing as the admirer, when do you plan
to make your appearance?”

“Soon” Isabella answered vaguely, recognizing too late that
the ambiguous answer would set off warning bells for Amy.

“When?”

“The night of your winter ball.” Isabella admitted.

Amy groaned. “I was afraid of that”

Isabella smiled reassuringly at her friend. “Don’t worry, I
have everything under control.”

The Sail and Anchor

“You nearly killed him last night with your pottery urn
stunt!” The strikingly attractive woman managed to keep her
anger to a polite whisper at the sight of her accomplice
entering the private parlor.

The man was impeccably dressed and in high spirits. He was undaunted by his partner’s outburst. He merely smiled
in the wake of her ire. “I knew what I was doing. You want
him to feel hunted, no? Now he’s got to watch out for himself and the dowager. You know, the marchioness complicates matters”

The woman began to pace. “He’s besotted with her. In the
end, she will prove a useful distraction. She will blind him
to the realities around him until it is too late. The irony is
that he’s asked her to find him a wife. She hasn’t any clue
he’s already found one and it’s her.” She gave a cold laugh.

“Do I detect jealously?” The man asked with an edge to
his voice.

“I finished with Moreland the night he killed my brother
on the Paris docks”

“Does he guess the real informant is dead?”

“No. He thinks we, or rather you, are the genuine article.
So does Halsey,” she said with grim satisfaction.

“Should I take that as comforting?”

“As long as it assures our success,” she gave a sly look.
“You aren’t the only tall, blond-haired man amongst the ton.
We could get lucky and keep Moreland looking in the wrong
places. He may even point the finger at the wrong person, all
for the sake of patriotism. You know how honorable
Moreland is.”

Four nights later at the Briartons’ Winter Ball

Tristan cultivated an air of negligence, lounging against
one of the columns lining the Briartons’ tasteful Greek
styled ballroom. He took in the room, blazing with candles
and swathed in elegant yards of navy blue fabric studded
with brilliants to resemble a clear winter sky. No one watching him would suspect from his indolent posturing that his
mind was speeding through the evening’s possibilities. In his
waistcoat pocket was a well-thumbed card. The little
intrigue to catch the informant had taken an unforeseen turn that afternoon with the arrival of the waistcoat he now wore.

The “secret admirer” wanted to meet with him tonight.
How curious, when he knew there wasn’t really an admirer
at all. Someone dared to play the imposter. He wondered
whom? Could it be the double agent himself arranging this
rendezvous? That made little sense since the agent already
knew whom Tristan was and what Tristan possessed-the
supposed information. In any case, the informant knew an
admirer didn’t exist. Perhaps the agent had figured out the
information was false? In that case, the agent would want to
seek him out for the sole purpose of killing him. He
wouldn’t need to go to such elaborate efforts. Most likely, it
was some daring woman of the ton who thought to amuse
herself by posing as the admirer.

Whoever she was, she had excellent taste in clothing even
if she was interfering in his plans. Tristan looked down at the
elegant celery waistcoat he wore with its placard of silver
buttons. He had been completely taken by surprise when the
package had arrived that afternoon bearing the markings of
an excellent men’s tailor on Bond Street.