Page 39 of A Desperate Proposal

Blackwell helped her change into a simple lavender satin gown and was just tying a deeper purple ribbon around the high waist when someone knocked on the door. She hesitated, but Elinor took hold of the ribbon and nodded at her to open the door. Standing straighter, she took a deep breath and attempted to steel herself as she tied the ribbon off.

Her determination to remain aloof lasted until she saw him in the looking glass. Her knees quivered with the instinct to run toward him. And God help her, she was just happy to see him healthy and well-dressed. His boots and the tight pants showed off his athletic legs, and his expertly cut jacket highlighted his broad shoulders and narrow waist. He didn’t even look like he’d missed any sleep. That sparked her temper back to life.

“Lord Asherton,” she said softly, bowing her head. She remembered then that she’d not yet put on her shoes, and she’d taken her hair down to have Blackwell redo the braids. “I … I apologize for my state of dress. We were not expecting you home so soon.”

“The fault is mine. I should’ve sent word ahead, but I was too intent on reaching here as soon as I could.” He nodded toward Blackwell, who took the gesture as release and all but bounded out of the doorway as though the devil himself was present. Looking into Tristan’s golden eyes, Elinor wondered if her maid hadn’t taken the safer approach.

Stubble and an off-kilter cravat didn’t quite hide the tension in Tristan’s jaw, and he crossed the room with his usual silent steps until he stood so close that she had to tilt her head up to see his face. His hands cupped her cheeks, and she almost jumped at the heat of his flesh. He isn’t wearing gloves. He had never touched her without them, save those dizzy moments he’d freed Henry’s necklace. He had callouses on his palms she’d not expected from a nobleman, and she glimpsed scars along his knuckles and wrists as his hands moved lower.

“I hope I always come home to you half-dressed, with your hair down,” he whispered, his voice rough, his breath hot against her lips. “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.” Then her hands were on his collar, pulling him down as she lifted herself onto her toes, her mouth crushing against his. The last two days no longer mattered.

Chapter Twelve

Ruthven Townhouse, London. June 18, 1814

He meant to be gentle. He’d rehearsed this moment a hundred times in his mind, but the second Elinor reached for him, his baser instincts won. Her lips parted, and his hand slid into her tousled hair, keeping her still as he took his time with her mouth, as thoroughly as he intended to take the rest of her. Elinor was a delightfully quick study, and evidently too passionate to hold back. Her sweet tongue mimicked his movements, teasing into his mouth before he could get a hold of himself. He almost tore the damn dress from her shoulders before his mind flickered back to reality.

“Elinor, darling… Slower.” He drew back, keeping hold of her hair because he couldn’t force himself to let go of her. He’d been reaching for phantoms every night for months, only to lose his first rightful night beside her to yet another goddamned crisis with the upcoming Treaty and the secret articles regarding Belgium. Not to mention Princess Charlotte’s blasted hijinks. He’d been half a step from resigning his commission last night. Only Lord Hill’s quiet reminders had kept his head on the matter of peace.

He had a vested interest in peace now, as never before. A war would see Cav come of age in the military for certain, and his own experience would no doubt be needed again. And for the first time, the games of intrigue, chicanery, and sleight-of-hand he’d lived by in the Peninsula did not call to him. He found no relish in a race across the mountains, or matching wits with an encoded message. He wanted to tease Elinor’s clothes off, not draw intelligence from an unwilling witness.

He stared into Elinor’s passion-clouded sapphire eyes and pressed gentler kisses on her reddened lips. “I will not forgive myself if I hurt you tonight. It’s so easily done when a man is as desperate to claim his lady as I am. Talk to me, sweetheart. I’ve missed your voice,” he admitted in a pained whisper against her temple. “Is London as bad as you feared?”

“Worse,” she said, her voice a touch lower than usual.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’ll take you north again.” He held her tighter, and she made a soft, amused sound.

“No, it’s… I have come to see, with Cecilia’s help, that there is much to be enjoyed here. Yet, I could not. Not when I spent every waking moment missing you and every moment asleep dreaming of you.” Her gaze drifted down, and though he couldn’t quite read her expression, it pained him. “So long as London keeps taking you from me, I shall hate it.” Her hand dropped from his collar to the pearls at her throat.

“It isn’t London.” Tristan breathed in her scent, his hands sliding down her slender throat and shoulders before he cupped her chin to make her look at him. “My time is not my own, love. Not ‘til the Allies go home, at least. And then I will be answering to Wellington until he chooses to release me.” He sighed. “I told you I was selfish in pursuing you.”

“I have been selfish, too.” She laid a hand over his heart. “I have wanted you here this whole time even knowing that you are doing your duty. But… Cecilia tells me that you are so rarely home. Even when you were in England, you never came here. The staff have no idea of you. Please tell me this is not to be our future.”

“Elinor…”

“At least say that you will come home when you are able.” She sounded so close to tears, he winced. “I know Wellington needs you, Tristan, but you are needed here, too. Cavendish needs his brother to show him how a man of honor behaves. Cecilia needs her brother because so many others have abandoned her. And … and I need you, my lord. Because I love you.”

He answered her with his lips brushing hers, soft as he could. “Sit, darling.” He urged her toward the chairs by the window. “If I keep holding you, I’m going to forget how to speak, and there are things you should know before we … before we cannot go back.”

Tristan let her go regretfully, and waited until she took a seat, looking rather like he’d asked her to sit for a firing squad. He knelt before her. “I was not welcome here, love. My father would have disinherited or disowned me at fifteen if he could’ve got away with it. Or he’d ever considered my brothers would die first. I had no path back through that front door until this year.”

“Why?” She looked so lost. So innocent.

He took Elinor’s unresisting hands in his, painfully aware this might be his last moments with her if she demanded an annulment or a permanent separation. “Arthur and Lance did their best not to return under his rule, though he’d have let them. Arthur only came back once, to convince him to send Cecilia to school. We all of us knew that living with him was a bad bet.”

“He was cruel, wasn’t he?” Elinor’s question surprised him into meeting her eyes. “I’m not so naïve, Tristan. Cecilia’s shyness, and the way the servants jump like whipped dogs? I didn’t think it was all because you’re a stranger to them. It’s part of why Cav acts out so much, too, isn’t it?”

He gave her a smile, suddenly proud of her. Whatever came after, he’d always known her instincts were sharp, like her father’s. “I … suspect so. Yes.” Tristan swallowed, forcing himself back to the distasteful topic at hand. “When Liza became Lady Asherton, we hoped—prayed, even—that his rages would he tempered.”

“Were they?” Elinor asked gently when he hesitated.

He took a moment to sort out how to explain a brutal truth to someone who had no idea such things happened. In the end, he knew he must be vague. “My stepmother is not abroad entirely for fancy, sweetheart. I’ve had word from her, finally. It seems his oppression wore on her, worse than Mother in the end. As Portuguese grandees, my mother’s family controlled a vast fortune, with many connections, and Grandfather was very thorough in the terms of their marriage settlements. Liza’s father did not care what became of her.”

She sat still, her gaze locked on her knees, her lips curved into a pensive frown. Then her hands reached for his. He obliged her, watching her thumbs stroke across his scarred knuckles. “That explains why the servants act like rabbits. They think—”

“That I am my father.” The words were heavy on his tongue.

“They’ll learn you’re not.” She squeezed his fingers. “He is gone. You are Lord Asherton now. If you can help Lord Wellington and Lord Hill win a war, then surely you can fix whatever your father broke. And I will do everything I can to help you.”