The Honorable Heir (12 page)

It struck just high enough to knock back her hood and send snow sliding beneath her collar. She shrieked, grabbed snow from the top of a drift and shot it back.

And the battle was on. To Tristram’s chagrin, Catherine was a better shot than he was. What he lacked in accuracy, he made up for in speed. He kept her darting from tree to tree.

Finally she collapsed against one, her hands on her knees, where snow encrusted her gown, her breaths rushing in and out of her lungs. “Uncle. Uncle.”

He’d never heard the expression, but got the message. Out of breath himself, he closed the distance between them and took her hands to lift her upright. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“Only my pride that I had to surrender.” She tilted her head back. Her face glowed in the starlight, and her eyes danced with laughter.

He wanted to kiss her. Oh, how he wanted to enjoy a second embrace there in that quiet clearing. No one would interrupt them there.

Which was precisely why he had to let her go. He had no right to touch her, to disrespect her, because they were alone and had already enjoyed a quarter hour of play.

“Let me take you home.” His voice was a mere rasp.

She nodded and tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow all on her own this time. They headed out in silence save for the rhythmic crunching of their footfalls, yet the lack of conversation felt comfortable, companionable. Shared laughter was a powerful bond—so powerful a bond, he feared he could too easily love her.

Perhaps he already did.

That thought made him feel colder than the night air. He dared not love her. Caring for her even a little had already clouded his perspective where her guilt was concerned. Loving her would destroy his will to learn the truth at all.

He marshaled the words he must speak to her before bidding her good-night, and was ready with them when they reached her front door. “You will be at home the next time I call.” He delivered the sentence without the hint of a query in his pitch. It was a statement, almost a command.

She drew her hand from his arm. “I cannot. Even tonight was disloyal to Georgette.”

Her loyalty to her friend pushed him a little closer to the edge of falling in love. “I have made no promises to Georgette. I made a promise to you in exchange for you making yourself available when I call. Monday, she and her mother are going to some debutante’s tea party.” They reached her front steps. “You’re safely home. And you will be here at two o’clock on Monday.”

She sighed. “All right.”

“Thank you.” He indulged himself with the merest brush of his lips on her cheek, then waited for the butler to let her into the house before he strode off down the drive, whistling with happiness, certain all would work out somehow.

He retired for the night with the same sort of optimism and woke with it warming him against the coldest morning he ever remembered, with high winds blasting sheets of ice against the windows.

It was the kind of morning that drove everyone to the dining room to be warmed by a blazing fire and drink hot coffee. None wanted to leave the cozy room to so much as retrieve a book from the library. They indulged in idle chitchat about what they would do for Christmas, and who would brave the chill in the hall to fetch them a game or something to read, as no one wanted to force the servants away from the warmth of the kitchen.

“I will go.” Tristram rose and stepped into the foyer. Frigid drafts swirled around him. On his way across the marble tiles to the library, he passed a refectory table. A pile of mail rested on a silver tray, waiting for one of the Selkirks to collect and sort. Tristram picked it up, thinking he would carry it to Pierce, and noted his name on a small parcel that had come by courier.

Reading the handwriting on the paper, he thought the draft had found its way to his heart, chilling it. With clumsy fingers, he tore off the plain wrapping and opened the box within.

One of the New York jewelers he had contacted had borne him fruit by collecting and sending one of the Baston-Ward pieces. A scrawled note at the bottom of the bill said:

Sold to me by a lady of average height and excellent form wearing black and a thick veil. Tried to follow, but she disappeared into a waiting cab.

Tristram crushed the note in his fist, then he dropped the jewel to the floor and stomped on it, hoping it would shatter as had the hair comb the night he met Catherine.

The setting bent, but the jewels remained intact—unlike Tristram’s heart.

Chapter 12

Therefore, it is of the utmost importance always to leave directions at the door such as, “Mrs. Jones is not at home,” “Miss Jones will be home at five o’clock,” “Mrs. Jones will be home at 5:30,” or Mrs. Jones “is at home” in the library to intimate friends, but “not at home” in the drawing room to acquaintances. It is a nuisance to be obliged to remember either to turn an “in” and “out” card in the hall, or to ring a bell and say, “I am going out,” and again, “I have come in.” But whatever plan or arrangement you choose, no one at your front door should be left in doubt and then repulsed. It is not only bad manners, it is bad housekeeping.

Emily Price Post

T
ristram trudged up the drive of Lake House and reached the door feeling as though the pearl-and-diamond earrings in his pocket weighed what they were worth in British pounds. He could scarcely raise his hand to press the doorbell.

The supercilious butler opened the portal. To the strains of a cello in the distance, he swept his faded blue gaze up and down, and shook his head. “I am sorry you came out in this weather, my lord. Lady Bisterne is not at home.”

“I believe you must be mistaken. She told me last week she would be.”

And not being at home was as good as a confession, was it not? He had agonized for three days waiting for this afternoon. Seeing her in church, he nearly shook Georgette off his arm in order to plow through the crowd to Catherine.

“She did not inform me as such.”

The butler began to shut the door in his face, and Tristram put his foot on the threshold and leaned his shoulder against the massive oak panel to stop him. “Do, please, take her my card.” He extracted one from his pocket and pressed it into the butler’s gloved hand. “I can wait inside here.” He stepped over the threshold.

The butler could either stand there with the door open, or close it and seek out Catherine.

He chose the latter, stalking off like a thwarted three-year-old. A moment later, the cello ceased, replaced by his low rumble of a voice.

“Of course she’s at home.” Miss Estelle’s voice rose loud and clear. “This subterfuge is completely poor management and such bad form.” She arrived in the foyer still carrying her bow. “Lord Tristram, I’m sorry you’ve been kept standing here in the cold of the corridor. Do come into the library, where you can get some warmth. Catherine’s edict to not be disturbed doesn’t apply to you.” She swept around in an arc and strode off down the hall, her skirt flounces bobbing.

Tristram glanced the butler’s way and smiled before following Estelle to the library door.

Estelle didn’t deign to knock. She twisted the handle and flung the portal wide. “You are at home to Lord Tristram, are you not?” She gestured for him to precede her into the chamber without giving her sister a chance to answer.

The mere sight of her warmed him inside.

Until she looked up from a sheaf of mail before her and her face went dark. “I said not to be disturbed under any circumstances. The vocalist for Mrs. Henry’s charity soiree has come down with some ailment and cannot perform. Now I have three days to find a replacement.”

“You need look no further,” Estelle said, and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Catherine sighed and fixed her gaze on Tristram. “Mama takes a day to rest and the household staff forgets its direction. In other words, why were you let in?”

“Your butler had no choice.” He closed the distance between them and stood gazing down at her, his heart aching. “Catherine, you cannot avoid me.”

She rose. “I must. I will not hurt Georgette again.”

“If Georgette cannot work out for herself that I have no interest in her, she is deluding herself. But my call today has to do with this, not us.” He drew the box from his pocket, flipped off the lid and set it on the desk between them.

She glanced down at the earrings, and her face paled. “Where did they come from?”

“A jeweler in New York, two days after you were in the city.”

Something like a groan escaped her lips, and she closed her eyes. “And you think I am so foolish I would sell them this close to home knowing you are looking for them?”

“No, I don’t. It’s too much of a coincidence, but you’re the only person who can help me learn the truth.”

Her eyes widened. “You believe I’m innocent at last?”

“Yes.” He hesitated, then held out his hand. “You will help me.”

“I told you everything I know. Except—” She drew one of the earrings from the box and rubbed one of the pearls against a tooth, then held the bauble in front of her, brows knit. “The pearls are real enough.”

“How do you know?”

“If you scrape one against your teeth, a real pearl will feel gritty. But the diamonds... The light is too poor today to see inclusions or those little light refractions that distinguish real diamonds. I never would have questioned it except for those...combs.” Her voice faltered on the word, the reminder of her husband’s false wedding gift.

Tristram rounded the desk to stand beside her—he could not stand to see the pain in her eyes when she spoke of her husband. He needed to be near her, inhaling her spring flower scent, and he wanted to lend her comfort with his nearness. “Surely a jeweler would inspect the jewels before buying the piece.”

“Still, they might have inspected the pearls and not gone further when they learned they were real. Pearls, after all, are difficult to falsify. And not all jewelers and pawnbrokers are good at their craft.”

“Or they count on the buyer to be ignorant enough to accept the false for true.”

“And charge the buyer as though they were real?” She shook her head. “I’d rather not think people are that untrustworthy, but if I could be an untrustworthy friend, I don’t see why someone couldn’t be an untrustworthy businessman.”

“Catherine.” He brushed his thumb along her cheek to turn her face toward him. “Georgette holds nothing against you. What is done is done. You won’t do it again.”

“Does Georgette believe I won’t hurt her again?”

“She should.”

But Catherine would give him up for Georgette’s sake. He wanted to pound his fist against something until his frustration burned itself out.

Chest tight, he turned his attention to the task at hand. “I suppose there’s one way to find out if this is a real diamond. Do you have a penknife?”

She handed him the earring and drew out the center drawer of the desk. A moment later, she located the sort of small knife, its hilt shiny from the patina of age and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. It looked old enough to have been in the family for a hundred years, but the blade was honed to razor sharpness. Tristram applied the point to the edge of the setting and popped one of the diamonds into his palm. Then he glanced up. “Do you have a bit of glass you don’t care if you ruin?”

She went to the mantel and took down a framed photograph of two ladies too-wrapped in mufflers to identify.

“This should do.” She gave him the picture. “An impromptu race with skating chairs when I was seventeen. Georgette and I won.”

“A skating chair?”

“Once the lake freezes solid, we’ll have skating parties and I’ll show you what a skating chair is.”

“When does that happen?”

“Near Christmas.”

It hurt him to think that he might not be here to see Catherine demonstrate a skating chair, or do anything else, for that matter.

He turned his attention to the diamond. “I could damage it. The picture, that is, not the diamond—if it is a diamond.”

She shrugged. “This is more important than a picture of youthful silliness. You can’t even see our faces.”

“But your parents know it’s you.”

“They’ll understand—if they ever have to know.” She took the photograph from him and laid it on the desk. “Go ahead.”

Cringing at the idea of marring a picture of Catherine, he picked up the diamond and ran one of the faceted edges along the glass plate. Nothing happened beyond the merest hint of a scratch. He pressed harder. Still nothing.

He looked at Catherine and shook his head. “It’s false.”

“I see that.” Her eyes were wet. “Did I cause all this trouble for false coin?”

“All this trouble?” Tristram’s hand flattened on the desk, the artificial diamond tumbling from his fingers to skitter across the surface. “What do you mean by that?”

Surely she wasn’t going to confess she had taken the jewels after all. As much as he wanted to cable home just to prove his father wrong, he did not want Catherine to be the culprit.

She dabbed at her eyes with one of those black-bordered handkerchiefs that he hated to see her use. “I thought Edwin might have held me in some regard if he was willing to marry me, but I learned that wasn’t true. I thought having a title would make me important, but it didn’t. It’s all false coin, like the jewels. The real ones have vanished like my belief that I could have anything I wanted proved false.” A sob escaped her and fresh tears dampened her handkerchief. “Now I don’t know what to believe in.”

His heart breaking for her pain, Tristram wrapped his arms around her and cradled her head against his shoulder. “Not everything is false. Jesus’s love for us isn’t. That’s the most important thing to remember, even if perhaps it’s most difficult to do so when those on earth who should love us, fail.”

“I know. I know. And my family loves me. Or so I like to think. But perhaps they put up with me because they want to make a show of their faithfulness in front of my detractors for the sake of family pride. Perhaps God only tolerates me because He made promises.” She clung to his shoulders, quiet and still in his arms. If she still wept, she did so in silence.

The feel of her in his arms needing his comfort felt so much like love, he was overwhelmed.

No, he chastised himself, he couldn’t love her until he trusted her completely. But oh, how her nearness made his heart sing.

He touched her smoothly upswept hair. If only—

The library door burst open. “Catherine, Lord Tristram, do come join the rest and listen to my new composition. We can— Oh.” Estelle’s voice broke off.

Catherine jerked back. Her face paled, and the hand gripping the handkerchief flew to her lips as though she were about to be sick.

Tristram turned more slowly to face a veritable throng in the doorway—Estelle, Florian, Pierce, Ambrose...and Georgette.

* * *

Catherine had a strange moment of reflection as she stood there and time seemed to come to a halt. She realized she was rather good at organizing everyone’s life but her own. In the month since she’d returned to Tuxedo Park, she had planned three charity events, taken over much of the household management from Mama and ensured Estelle attended at least half of the social events to which she was invited. The busier she was, the less she thought about how Edwin had hurt her, how Tristram still half believed she was guilty...and of Tristram himself—the kiss, the snowball fight, the way the mere sight of him could melt her.

But for all her ability to keep a half dozen juggler’s balls in the air without hitting the floor, she could not control her love for Tristram, her wish to cling to his strength or her urge to cling to him even when she’d heard others coming.

Her head had told her to let go. Her heart had said to hang on. And there stood Georgette, staring at her as though she’d kicked a puppy.

She made herself laugh as though she were tossing off something unimportant. “I am overtired from all these events I’m planning. Imagine me crying over something as nonsensical as a broken earring.” She scooped up the bauble denuded of one of its false diamonds and dropped it into the box. “I expect a jeweler can repair it. Lord Tristram, why don’t you go hear the performance. I have two days until this tea party and some of the details are not yet set. Georgette, will you stay and help me?”

“I think I’d like that.” Georgette took a tentative step through the doorway.

“You don’t want to go home, Georgie?” Pierce asked.

“No, I’ll stay.” She moved more quickly to the desk.

Tristram moved in the opposite direction, heading toward the others. “I’d like to go back with you, Pierce.”

“Stay and listen to one piece,” Estelle urged. “I call this one ‘Joy.’”

The men departed with Estelle. Catherine swept the earrings into a desk drawer and drew the lists for the tea to the center of the desk.

“Wait.” Georgette leaned forward and picked up the artificial diamond. “You don’t want to lose this.”

Oh, but she wished she could.

“I suppose not.” Catherine placed the cut crystal in with the earrings. When she looked up, Georgette was gazing at the picture.

“We had so much fun together as girls, didn’t we? When did we start finding our social prestige was more important than our friendship?”

Catherine sank onto her chair. She should offer coffee or tea, but didn’t possess the energy to rise and ring the bell. “Perhaps when we started listening to others tell us what was expected of us.”

“Marry well. If not money, then rank and family.” Georgette perched on another chair, still holding the picture. “We don’t have money like some have, but my mother’s side has family back to the
Mayflower.
But you VanDorns have the income and the name. It’s always eaten up my mother and grandmother with envy. They were convinced you would steal everything from me.”

“And I did.” Catherine reached across the desk, though couldn’t reach Georgette. “I won’t do it again, Georgette. Lord Tristram is a kind-hearted man, and he was giving me comfort. That is all.”

Georgette pursed her lips and flicked her gaze to a point above Catherine’s head, then inclined her head. “Of course.” She sounded anything but convinced.

“Georgie—”

“Now,” Georgette hastened to speak over Catherine, “you need my assistance with something for the tea?”

Understanding that the subject of Tristram was closed between her and Georgette, Catherine turned the conversation fully to the charity event. “I have no idea which is the best way to set up the ballroom.” Catherine prattled on about table placement, the sort of beverages that would be served, the finger sandwiches and cookies and cakes. Then they moved on to a discussion of the first skating party of the year. They did not mention Tristram again or answer the question surely at the top of Georgette’s mind—why was Tristram alone with Catherine to begin with?