Leslie Lafoy (18 page)

But if the man was a bit more rational, only going so far as to point a gun at him and demand an immediate marriage … Well, marrying Simone wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to a man. Not by a long shot. But Simone having to marry
him
was another matter entirely.

If the duke expected a marriage before noon, the only decent thing to do was lay all the cards on the table. He’d marry Simone as long as no one knew about their relationship until
after
he’d rendered Lucinda harmless. Surely if he and the duke could agree on anything, it would be the necessity of protecting Simone from unnecessary risk.

“Drayton!” Simone cried cheerily, abruptly bringing his attention back to the moment just as she strode across the last of the foyer and entered through the wide-open doorway of what looked like a study. “Congratulations! I hear you have a son and that Caroline’s fine.”

“I do and she is,” replied a man leaning back against the desk, his arms folded across his chest. A man, Tristan noted, fairly close to his own age. A man who—thankfully—wasn’t enraged. Not that he was at all happy. And his obvious displeasure wasn’t the least bit softened by either Simone’s casual manner or the kiss she quickly pressed to his cheek.

“Where have you been for at least the last four hours, Simone?”

“With me,” Tristan answered from the doorway.

The Duke of Ryland stood and squarely met Tristan’s gaze. Simone looked back and forth between them as they studied each other, then drew a long breath and opened her mouth. Her guardian cut her off, saying, “I presume that you are the infamous Lord Lockwood?”

Tristan nodded and stepped into the room. “Lord Tristan Townsend, the Marquis of Lockwood. I’d offer to shake your hand, but I think perhaps it would be better to save the gesture for a more harmonious time.”

“Should there ever be one. My ward has been in your company tonight?”

“She has, Your Grace. All night.”

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Simone said testily. “If I might say something?”

“No,” he and the Duke of Ryland replied in unison.

The duke cocked a brow. “Go to your room, Simone,” he instructed without looking at her. “I’ll be up shortly to speak with you privately.”

“Save the trip and your breath,” she hotly countered, her arms akimbo. “I’m not ten years old, Drayton. This was all my—”

“Simone,” Tristan interrupted crisply. She turned her head to meet his gaze. “Please,” he said as gently, as firmly, as he could, “don’t embarrass me any more than you already have. Go as you’ve been asked.”

Her chin came up with an almost audible snap. She didn’t say another word, didn’t look at either one of them as she stormed out of the room. Tristan expelled a long, slow breath at her departure and resisted the urge to drag his fingers through his hair.

“You’ll rue the day for that.”

Was that just a touch of amusement he heard in the duke’s voice? “I’m sure I will. But it did get her out of the room.”

The duke nodded slowly and leaned back against his desk. “Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

And with that, they were to the dance. “No,” Tristan answered. “I wanted her. I seduced her. I’ll marry her.”

The duke nodded and folded his arms across his chest. “Am I expected to believe that Simone resisted your efforts at every turn, that you, in essence, had to all but rape her and managed—somehow—to come out of the scuffle without so much as a mark on you?”

Oh, this wasn’t going to go well. “Yes, Your Grace.”

“Really? Simone was forced to do something against her will? Either pigs are flying or you think I’m stupid.”

“Neither, Your Grace.”

The duke took his measure for a moment and then ever so slightly tilted his head to the side to observe, “In case you haven’t heard, Simone is renowned for being impetuous and headstrong.”

“Headstrong I’ll allow. But impetuous?” He shook his head. “Not to the degree that she’d like everyone to think.”

The duke smiled. “We are talking about the same woman, aren’t we? Simone? Lady Outrage and Disaster Waiting to Happen?”

And to think that Simone always spoke so highly of her brother-in-law. How dare he characterize her so—The course came in a sudden flash of realization, full and complete, the perfect solution to the dilemma. Yes, perfect. And so very, very simple. Tristan cleared his throat and answered, saying, “Simone is the most intelligent, levelheaded woman I’ve ever known. She deliberately creates outrageous situations simply because doing so is the most entertaining aspect of her life.”

The duke seemed to consider that pronouncement for a moment and cocked a brow. “You’re suggesting that she planned this evening’s debacle for the thrill of it?”

Well, yes. In a manner of speaking. But he wasn’t about to regale her guardian with the details of their private conversations and most certainly not with those of their frolicking. “I’m responsible for convincing her to meet me this evening,” Tristan said firmly. “We both went into it fully knowing the possible consequences.”

“And is she willing to pay them?”

He recalled the way she’d stormed past him at the back of the house. “She assured me that she was. How she feels on the matter at this point, though, I can’t say. You’ll have to ask her when you speak privately. I’m sure she won’t mince any words on the matter.”

The duke looked both slightly pained at and amused by the prospect. “And are you still willing to pay them as well?”

“Yes, Your Grace. I am.” What the duke found in the assertion worth knitting his brows over Tristan didn’t know and couldn’t guess.

“If I might make an observation?”

“Of course.”

“Most men who want to marry a woman just come to the front door, knock, and simply ask for her.”

Several possible explanations flashed through Tristan’s mind. He offered the duke the easiest of the bunch. “Perhaps I’m not like most men.”

“That’s occurred to me. Several times in the last few minutes, actually.” He unfolded his arms, stood, and walked off, asking, “Would you care for a brandy?”

This was an unexpected turn. In light of the situation, he should decline. And it wasn’t as though he and the duke had the slightest chance of ever becoming amiable drinking companions. Still, the duke wasn’t finished with him—or he with him—and if the man wanted to conduct the rest of the exchange over a drink … Good brandy was good brandy. “Yes, thank you.”

“So tell me about yourself, Lockwood,” the other man said, bringing him a generously filled snifter.

“What is it you’d like to know?”

“The usual things,” the duke replied, shrugging and walking back over to his desk. “How old are you? What are the conditions of your estate? Do you have a stable income? Are you a Liberal or a Conservative?”

“I’m thirty,” Tristan replied, swirling his drink and knowing full well that the duke didn’t care one whit what the answers were. “The estate is solvent, but only because I’ve poured my personal fortune into it. My money comes from shipping, and while the amount of it varies by the seasons, the seas, and the weather, I want for nothing. I don’t give a damn about politics.”

The duke nodded and looked at the sunrise through his brandy while asking, “Do you give a damn about my sister-in-law? Beyond the obvious physical interest, of course.”

Ah, this was what the duke really wanted to know. “I enjoy Simone’s company,” Tristan answered with easy honesty. “She’s beautiful and bright, witty and spirited. She’s also refreshingly honest and delightfully straightforward. I can’t help but think that if all the women in the world were more like her, life would be considerably more cheerful and a lot less complicated.”

A smile ever so slowly lifted the corners of the man’s mouth. “Were it not for you having compromised my sister-in-law, I could like you. You’re honest and certainly don’t lack for confidence. Actually…”

Whatever else the man had been about to say faded away as he swirled his drink. His smile faded as one brow inched upward.

Tristan took a sip while he waited. It was very fine brandy. He took another and swirled his drink in the glass again. The silence growing a bit awkward, he finally asked, “Do I want to know what you’re thinking, Your Grace?”

The duke looked up, a curious mixture of amusement and concern in Tristan’s gaze. “Simone is almost twenty-one,” he said, once again taking Tristan’s measure. “She was fourteen when she came into my care. In the years between then and now, she’s been considerably more cloistered than in her early years. Still, men have crossed her path with great regularity. You’re the first to have turned her head and I’m wondering what it is about you that she finds so irresistibly attractive.”

There was a good question. Not that he had an answer for it. “I’m reasonably good-looking and wealthy?” he guessed.

“You enjoy personally taking the helm during storms, don’t you?” He didn’t give him a chance to reply before nodding and going on, saying, “What Simone sees in you is a kindred spirit. Which, of course, means there are only two ways this affair can go. Either it will turn into a perfect matching or it will be a spectacularly ugly train wreck.”

Tristan would bet on a perfect matching. Physically, at least. Their bodies fit together so well that it was not only breathtaking but also almost magical. Beyond the physical, though … He wouldn’t put money on that. There hadn’t been a woman yet he couldn’t walk away from with a shrug. Invariably boredom set in and his attention wandered. Simone would undoubtedly intrigue him longer than any others had, but eventually …

“Understand something very clearly,” the duke said. “Simone’s early years were far more difficult to survive than either of us can ever imagine. She doesn’t wound easily. But when she is hurt, the pain goes deep. This family has been formed by circumstances none of us expected, and our bonds are stronger for it. I will not allow you to hurt Simone and walk away unscathed.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

“Neither will you be allowed to ruin her public reputation,” her brother-in-law went on. “You will marry her.”

“Of course,” Tristan agreed. “Under certain conditions.”

It took the duke a very long second to recover from his shock. “Excuse me?”

“There are some family matters that I must deal with before there’s any public announcement of our betrothal.”

“What sort of family matters?”

Since there was no point in wasting time with family history, he cut to the quick of it, saying, “My stepmother murders for profit.” The duke stared at him, clearly stunned speechless, and so Tristan went on, explaining, “She took out insurance policies on my father and both my brothers shortly before they met their ends. I think she killed them in order to collect on the policies.”

The duke swallowed twice before he managed to ask, “Can you prove it?”

“No, Your Grace, I can’t.”

“But you’re convinced she did.”

Tristan nodded and sipped his brandy. “And I’m just as convinced that she’ll try to kill me before I marry so that she doesn’t have to share my personal estate with my wife and any child.”

“Dear God.”

“Yes, well,” Tristan allowed on a sigh. “We’re not called the Lunatic Lockwoods without reason.”

“And you’ve involved Simone in this mess.”

A statement. Unflattering and, despite the complex reasoning and groundless hopes that had brought him to this moment, basically true. “Actually, my plan when we left here this evening was to not get caught. If that had gone well, there wouldn’t be a wedding looming on the horizon and she wouldn’t be involved at all. But since we were caught out … I’m fully prepared to do the right thing and marry her. All that I ask is that you give me a bit of time to deal with my stepmother so that Simone isn’t caught in any web she might spin for me.”

“And how long do you think justice might take?”

He could lie. It would be easy to pull a time from thin air and placate the man. “I have no idea, Your Grace.”

“A week?” the duke pressed. “Two? A month?”

“I honestly don’t know, Your Grace.”

The duke stared down at the carpet between his feet for several long moments. Finally, he looked up and asked, “Who outside this family knows what happened tonight?”

“No one.”

“Here’s what we’re going to do, Lockwood. You’re going to stay well away from Simone. You’re going to forget that you know who she is. Is that clear?”

Clear, yes, but not particularly honorable. “I asked for time, Your Grace, not an out.”

The duke shrugged and, knowing that the decision had been made, Tristan took a healthy sip of the brandy, hoping the liquid searing his throat would make everything else pale. Later, he promised himself, he’d drink enough to make everything disappear entirely.

The duke drained his snifter and set it down on his desk. “Now that we’re concluded…,” he said, moving toward the door. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go hold my wife and son.”

Tristan stepped aside, offering as the other passed, “Congratulations on his birth, Your Grace.”

The duke paused in the foyer and looked over his shoulder. “Do you have any children, Lockwood?”

“Not that I’m aware of. I’ve taken every precaution to see that I don’t.”

“That’s good to know. Do you want children?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Eventually?”

Tristan summoned a smile of sorts. “When my stepmother’s no longer a threat. I do have an obligation to produce an heir to the title.”

The duke snorted. “You have no idea what obligations are until you have a child.” With that pronouncement, he resumed his course, saying, “I trust that you can see yourself out once you’ve finished your brandy.”

“Good night, Your Grace.”

“It’s morning,” the man called back from the foot of the stairway.

Tristan looked down at the dark liquid in his glass, feeling an odd sort of numbness. Not that it affected his brain at all. No, that part of him was whipping right along, congratulating him on how well he’d handled the situation, how honorably—albeit belatedly—he’d conducted himself. Ending the affair with Simone was the right thing to do. For every single reason.

But knowing all that … Well, numb wasn’t all that bad. At least he wasn’t angry at the moment. And the sense of melancholy wasn’t welling up anymore. He drained his glass and carried it over to the desk. He had brandy at the town house, brandy every bit as good as the duke’s. And he had enough of it that he could turn agreeably numb into wonderfully oblivious within the hour. Which sounded like a damn fine idea to him.