The Honorable Heir Read online

  Catherine sighed on behalf of her friend. “What will change things?”

  “Perhaps if I marry another title?” A half smile played around Georgette’s lips.

  Catherine knew instantly to whom her friend was referring, and her heart sank.

  Surely if she truly wanted to mend fences between the families and stop old Mrs. Selkirk’s vicious tongue, Catherine would be happy for Georgette. She and Tristram seemed to be getting along well. But an elephant seemed to be sitting on her chest.

  “Should I be congratulating you?” she asked.

  Should she scorn him for kissing her while Georgette believed they had an unofficial understanding?

  Across the room, he now held the banjo and Estelle was showing him how to position his fingers.

  “If you played any instrument at all,” she was saying, “this might be easier.”

  “He used to play the piano,” Florian said.

  Just one more thing Catherine didn’t know about him.

  Eyes lowered, Georgette leaned toward Catherine. “It’s a little too soon, but I do have expectations. He is handsome and kind and, most of all, interesting.”

  “Yes, quite,” Catherine murmured.

  “Back in England,” Georgette continued, “he works to help men wounded in those two wars the English have been involved in lately. Something like the Boer War in China?”

  “South Africa. China was the Boxer Rebellion.”

  Georgette shrugged off details. “Lots of men come home wounded and don’t have a way to support themselves other than small pensions. Some don’t even have homes, so he and other former military men raise money to help them learn trades or get back to their old ones.”

  “So I understand.”

  “He won’t say, but I think he’s come over here to raise money for his cause because his father might not give him his inheritance.”

  So Georgette suspected the same of him as Catherine did. Had he kissed Georgette as well, to ensure he caught at least one heiress?

  “I don’t know any details,” Georgette continued, “but there is something about him having incomplete business and his father being angry with him for leaving the military service.”

  So she didn’t know about the court-martial.

  “I should think it’s his duty to his country to serve,” Georgette said, “but he was wounded, so perhaps that makes continuing to serve difficult. It doesn’t matter since if he marries an heiress, he won’t need to concern himself with a bit of money from his father. Marrying to help dozens or hundreds of men recover from the war is so much more noble than merely restoring an old house.”

  “Indeed it is.” Catherine glanced out the windows to where the wind was whipping the tree branches into a fury and clouds quickly replaced the blue sky. The lake lay still and flat beneath its layer of ice as snow began to fall.

  Catherine suddenly longed to be out there chasing those flakes with the wind yanking back her hood and tugging the pins from her hair. She wanted to howl with the elements even though she was getting what she wanted—a renewal of friendship with Georgette, which was the first step to reconciliation between their families. She should be ecstatic. She wanted to weep over how she couldn’t continue a dull existence in Tuxedo Park knowing Georgette was in England with Tristram, working at his side, loving him...

  Catherine moved to the sofa beside Georgette and they began to fill in details of the missing years between them. Georgette wanted to know all about life in an English country house, and in Europe. Catherine acknowledged that her life hadn’t been complete misery. She had acres of garden to restore and running her own household was rewarding. European society was generally dull, but the sights were spectacular.

  Georgette filled her in on details about their school friends. “Susan Lassiter went to college, if you can believe it,” Georgette confided. “Someplace in Ohio. Oberlin, that was it. She is now studying to be a doctor at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.”

  “That’s astounding. Her parents let her?”

  “She inherited money from her grandfather and her parents couldn’t stop her. But they sold their house here in the Park right after she left and spend their summers in Bar Harbor and winters in Boston. I think they’re ashamed of her.”

  “I’d be proud of my daughter for elevating herself above shallow pursuits.”

  Catherine wondered about her own life, spending her days doing nothing more than planning what to wear to the next social gathering, trying to keep Estelle from thinking about running off to join a band or Ambrose or Florian, or sitting by a fire with her needlework while others gossiped around her. Once she wanted nothing more than to be the most popular girl at a ball and to marry a title. Once she got those, she realized she needed more, if only she knew then what that was.

  She knew now. She needed Tristram, meaningful work like his charity, the freedom to care about him without ruining relationships between the Selkirks and VanDorns again.

  “Susan wants to be a missionary,” Georgette said. “She writes to me now and again, and sometimes I am inspired to seek something more than this life we are so privileged to have. But now that I’ve met Lord Tristram, well...” She laughed. “I’ve decided perhaps that is where the Lord wants me to serve others—at his side in the London slums.”

  “That’s noble of you. I helped nurse some of the children on the estate a few years ago when there was a measles outbreak. It was exhausting, but rewarding.”

  “Perhaps we could work on something together, beginning with your mother’s annual tea. We will buy a ticket and come this year. I’ll make Pierce and Tristram come, as well. And for now...” Georgette rose. “I had better go home before the weather gets any worse. Grandmother predicted this, which is why we came home today. With Lord Tristram out here, she didn’t want me stranded in the city.” She glanced his way and blushed.

  Catherine looked away, her face as cold as Georgette’s looked warm. “Thank you for coming.” She couldn’t look at her old friend. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

  “Of course you do. I would be in the wrong if I didn’t give it.”

  They embraced again, and Georgette departed with her brother and admonitions to the Englishmen not to tarry and get stranded. Pierce was too polite not to bow to Catherine, but it was little more than an inclination of his head. He, apparently, was not ready to put the past behind him.

  Ignoring the protests of the Englishmen and Estelle, Catherine crossed to the windows and flung open one of the casements to feel the blast of icy air in her face in lieu of a walk.

  Despite Tristram’s maintaining his part of their bargain, she couldn’t uphold hers. Georgette wanted him, and Catherine couldn’t risk damaging that friendship and the potential for softening the hearts of the older Selkirk ladies by the appearance of Tristram paying her particular attention. At the same time, if she couldn’t see him and convince him of her innocence, her name might never be cleared and her family would suffer.

  “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 Ge
orgette 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

  Tristram 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 wh
ere 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.