The Honorable Heir (11 page)

“What do I do, Lord?” she cried out the prayer that had been in her heart for years.

And as had happened for years, she received no response. Worse, when she closed the window and faced the room, she met Tristram’s eyes, and her knees nearly buckled beneath her.

This, then, was her answer—she could have peace and friendship with Georgette, which would benefit her entire family, or she could explore a future with Tristram and convince him of her innocence along the way, which would also benefit her family.

And potentially give her a broken heart, if he were merely wooing her to gain a measure of his father’s respect.

She owed Georgette too much to risk hurting her again. She had already cost her friend Lord Bisterne, who might not have been a terrible husband to Georgette. Perhaps her lively effervescence was what he needed to hold his interest. Perhaps Georgette could have kept him at home and thus kept him alive.

Heart pounding against the painful tightness in her chest, Catherine headed for the steps without looking at the others.

Tristram caught her hand as she passed. “You aren’t going to join us, my lady?”

“No.” She drew her hand free before the contact sent her heart racing even harder. “I must work on the charity ball.”

She turned her back on him and left the room.

Chapter 11

A young man walking with a young woman should be careful that his manner in no way draws attention to her or to himself. Too devoted a manner is always conspicuous, and so is loud talking. Under no circumstances should he take her arm, or grasp her by or above the elbow, and shove her here and there, unless, of course, to save her from being run over!

Emily Price Post

T
ristram had not seen her alone since his return to the Selkirks. He had called on her—twice. Both times, she was not at home, though he knew perfectly well that she was.

He never should have told her about the court-martial. At the time, once she recovered from her initial shock, she seemed sympathetic, completely understanding of his actions. But perhaps he’d misread her. She had walked out of the conservatory without talking to him again. And she had stayed away from him until Dr. Rushmore freed him to go home the following day.

She was fully occupied helping ladies plan their charity events. One even took her into the city for a few days. Yet when she returned, she spent her time with Georgette. Georgette had called on Catherine three times in the intervening days.

“It’s so wonderful to have her friendship again. I have missed her.” It was all Georgette said to him about Catherine.

“I don’t know if Georgie can trust her,” Pierce confided in Tristram. “Even if the man turned out to be a scoundrel, Georgie still broke her heart over Lord Bisterne.”

Georgette was going to break her heart over him, too, Tristram feared. He didn’t love her. He didn’t even think he could love her in a mutually beneficial arrangement, at least as nothing more than the deep affection one feels for a friend. Yet he was surrounded by her brother and father and his own compatriots, who told him at least once a day he should offer for the pretty heiress.

The problem, of course, was Catherine. He had kissed her, and the very memory of it shocked him, that he had kissed her and she responded in a favorable manner. After contact like that, he should be able to trust her, but he didn’t. She had broken her word. Not giving him an opportunity to call on her once he arranged matters with Georgette renewed his assurance that she was not being honest about the jewels.

Yet having kissed Catherine, he found no interest in a deep relationship with Georgette.

What message God was trying to give him escaped his comprehension. To give up on the jewel hunt? Surely not. To marry Georgette, who had all the right qualities for his wife, though he couldn’t bring himself to have the right sort of feelings for her? Also unlikely. To seek elsewhere for the jewel thief? He didn’t know where to look.

“If you married an heiress,” Ambrose pointed out one day when he, Florian and Tristram were alone in one of the Selkirks’ parlors, you could pay the Baston-Wards for the jewels and appease your father.”

“Even if that would make my father happy, which I doubt, I’d rather find other reasons for marrying a lady, heiress or not.” Catherine’s lovely face haunted his mind’s eye. He shoved the image away.

He couldn’t make an offer for Catherine.

Then you shouldn’t have kissed her,
the reprimand sounded in his head.

“I’d marry an heiress if I had a title or even a fine house in England to exchange for her dowry.” Ambrose sounded anguished. The father of his textile heiress in New York refused him calling privileges. Two steps from a title was two steps too far for even a minor millionaire to find acceptable. “These Americans are such odd sticklers.”

Florian’s mouth curled in a smile. “I will marry an heiress without my own fine house or title.”

“You won’t, if her parents don’t approve.” A gleam entered Ambrose’s eyes, as though he relished Florian being as unhappy as he was. “You wouldn’t get her fine dowry.”

“Then we shall live on our wits and music.” Florian’s calm assurance was naive and rather refreshing in this world driven by a man’s bank account.

“You’re a fool for not taking advantage of Georgette’s adoration of you,” Ambrose declared to Tristram.

“Perhaps I—” A knock on the parlor door interrupted Tristram.

A footman entered bearing a silver tray containing a yellow envelope. “Telegram for you, my lord.”

Tristram felt as though he had swallowed a snowball whole, as he took the telegram and pulled the flimsy sheet of paper from the envelope.

You are wasting your time stop Thought you could at least succeed in this simple task stop Home by first of year regardless stop

Tristram didn’t want to be a failure. He wanted to prove his father wrong about him, if just once. He doubted going home with an heiress wife would improve his father’s opinion of him. And the marquess would consider that cheating.

So he tried to find other ways to see Catherine and glean information from her, catching her where she could not avoid him. Unfortunately, she attended few of the same social gatherings to which the Selkirks accepted invitations. Even then she stayed with her own circle of friends. But one day, needing a view outside the fence, he walked into the village. It was small and efficiently built—thoroughly built despite having been put up in mere months some fifteen years earlier, which gave it a homogeneous feel. Still, the change of scenery and the sight of ordinary people going about their work refreshed his spirits.

Then, wanting some peppermints, he entered the chemist—or rather, the drugstore, as the Americans called it—and saw Estelle.

He bowed to her and murmured a greeting.

“Good day, Lord Tristram.” She wrapped her arm around her collected shopping as though hiding the intended purchases. “Odd to see you in the village.”

“And you. I didn’t know young ladies from the Park purchased their own ordinary things.”

“Some of us do. Catherine has always—” She stopped and narrowed her eyes.

“Catherine would.” With nothing to lose except perhaps some pride, he asked, “Where has she been of late? She’s never home to me.”

Estelle shrugged. “She’s good at keeping herself occupied from dawn to dusk. Shall I pass a message along for you?”

“No, thank you.” Tristram hesitated, then added, “Actually, if you wouldn’t mind, just tell her I will see her at the tea, if not sooner.”

* * *

To everyone’s shock, all the Selkirk ladies had decided to attend the charitable event. Ambrose and Florian were part of the genteel entertainment, and Pierce and Tristram intended to accompany the ladies. But though Tristram felt that the tea was not a good prospect for private conversation with Catherine, and he was anxious to speak with her as soon as possible, he didn’t see her again until the evening of Thanksgiving Day.

He, like many of the Tuxedo Park residents, had made his way to the clubhouse to recover from an abundant dinner. Half dozing from the heat of the fire on the great hearth, he started upright at a blast of cold swirling from the front door opening. He glanced that way and saw a lady’s skirt flouncing through the opening. A moment later, she flitted past the window, tall and graceful even tramping through the snow.

Catherine.

He excused himself to the gentlemen with whom he had been engaged in desultory conversation, snatched up his coat, hat and gloves, and strode after the lady.

* * *

Finding her path proved simple. Her small feet had left deep impressions in the snow, blurred from where her skirt swirled around her. The lady had foolishly chosen to cut a trail through the untouched snow along the woodland path rather than take the road. Tuxedo Park might be as safe as one’s own garden, but she still shouldn’t be out alone at night. Of course, she might have caught a glimpse of him on her way out of the clubhouse and was trying to avoid him by cutting a trail of her own.

“No such fortune, my lady,” Tristram said. His mouth set, he followed the footprints, making no effort to quiet the crunch of his bootheels on the snow’s glazed surface or fallen branches. He wanted to talk to her, not sneak up behind her and terrify her.

His strides longer than hers, he soon caught a glimpse of her, a graceful figure in dark wraps taking measured steps in the as yet untouched whiteness. She had to have heard him, but she neither sped up nor slowed.

At last, he closed the distance between them and slipped his hand beneath her elbow. “Did you think you could avoid me forever in a closed community like this one?”

“I intended to give it a valiant attempt.” She removed her arm from his hold. “I still do.”

“Even though that means breaking your word?”

She said nothing. Starlight blazing through the bare tree branches sparkled on the frosty breath that issued from between her pursed lips. Temperatures ranged well below freezing, bringing to mind how warm her lips could be, had been, should be.

He jerked his gaze away to the dim path before them. “You told me you would be at home to me if I persuaded Georgette to mend fences. Now the whole family is coming to your charity tea. I more than upheld my end of the bargain. Now it is your turn.”

“I can’t see you.” She recommenced walking. “I made that promise before I knew that Georgette...” She raised her hands to draw the fur-edged hood of her coat around her face. Tristram took her elbow again.

“I know about Georgette’s plans.” He tucked her arm against his side. The action warmed him, though he hesitated to examine why.

She tensed as though intending to pull away again, but did not. “Do you not mean her feelings for you?”

“I say what I mean. You should know that by now.”

“Touché.” She let out a laugh. “You keep your word while I do not. But surely you don’t hold that against me.”

“Dishonest in one thing, likely dishonest in others.”

She tried to pull her arm away but he would not let her.

The trees broke at a meadow, and he turned to face her. “I want to believe you, Catherine, but you are not helping me as you said you would.”

“I cannot.” Frustration tinged her voice. “I can’t risk Georgette thinking I am trying to take you away from her.”

“You cannot take from her what she does not have.”

“She doesn’t know that she does not have you. She believes you—” She shook her head. “I can’t betray a confidence more than I already have.”

“It’s no confidence.” He tilted his head back and sighed, forming a cloud between himself and the heavens. “She thinks I’m hers for the asking. She looks at me like I will turn up wrapped in shiny paper and tucked under the Christmas tree. And if I disillusion her, I will no longer be welcome at Tuxedo Park, where the trail of the missing jewels led me.”

“And you’re convinced it’s not a false trail?”

“The jewels are real enough.”

“I expect the ones sold to jewelers are real enough. Perhaps only the ones given to
me
were artificial.” She sighed. “I should have noticed. I never suspected Edwin to be so...so stingy.”

“If he even knew.”

She gave him a quick, sharp glance. “What do you mean?”

“How much did he interact with the jewels?”

Her shoulders moved, pressing her arm into his side in a way that thrilled through him. “I never saw him take them out of the safe. He only went into the safe on one of the quarter days to safeguard the rents until the next time he went to the bank.”

“Which was when?”

“Michaelmas last year.”

“And the jewels were there then?”

“I saw them. He opened all the cases and looked at them as usual. He asked me—” A noise somewhere between a gasp and a sob caught at her voice. “He asked me if I had any parties to which I wanted to wear any of them. Then he laughed and closed up the safe. Later that day, he took the train up to London, and the next day, Ambrose took it down to Bisterne to tell me Edwin was...gone.”

“I’m sorry.” Tristram freed her arm from where he’d tucked it against his side, and took her hand. He curled his fingers around hers as securely as he could with both of them wearing gloves. “I knew Edwin was neglectful of you. I didn’t know he was cruel.”

“God is working on my heart to forgive him. And myself.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper, but the woods lay in such stillness Tristram heard her.

“Forgiving isn’t always easy.”

“No, but Georgette forgave me for how I hurt her. That has helped me see my way clear to not hanging on to my bitterness against my husband.” Her fingers moved restlessly in his hand, though she made no attempt to draw away. “I owe her for that on top of everything else.”

“You owe her nothing, Catherine. Forgiveness is her responsibility. And as for the fiancé, Bisterne is the one who broke a promise, not you.”

“Then why doesn’t society see it that way?” Suddenly, she stooped, and came up with both hands full of snow. She formed the snow into a ball and threw it against the nearest tree as hard as she could. The snow missile exploded in a puff of white, and she quickly followed it with another and another to emphasize her words. “My family has been shunned by several hostesses. I have to endure old Mrs. Selkirk telling me with whom I can and cannot associate. And I dare not disobey for all I’m twenty-four.” She was throwing the balls of snow so rapidly now that Tristram began to laugh, in awe of her. “And a widow. And my trust fund can buy and sell the Selkirks twice over. And if you don’t stop laughing, I will—”

The final snowball struck him squarely on the chin. Snow filled his mouth, shot up his nose and managed to slip between his muffler and neck. Shock of the impact knocked him back a step. He slipped in the white stuff and ended up sitting in the snow, still laughing.

“Are you all right?” Catherine dropped to her knees beside him. “I didn’t mean to— I never should have—” She raised her hand to his face and brushed away the snow.

He caught hold of her fingers and held them to his cheek, as warm inside as the snow was cold outside. “It’s quite all right, my dear. But if it’s a snowball fight you want, give me the opportunity to arm myself and make it fair.”

She backed away. “I don’t think that would be proper for a dowager countess.”

“Nor is walking through the woods alone at night, but you were doing it.” He gathered snow as he scrambled to his feet. “Nor do they throw snowballs at the sons of peers, yet you did.” On the last word, he lobbed the packed snow at her, aiming for her shoulder.