Page 76 of Untaming Lady Violet
“Tristan?” The doorknob rattled, the key holding in the lock despite the fierce shaking it received. “Tristan?”
The devils had a voice. Verging on the hysterical, but a voice nonetheless. How interesting for the devils.
“Oh, God, please. Please open the door.” A slight hesitation, then increased battering followed. “Are you there?”
The devils in his head sounded just like his sister. But that couldn’t be right.
Celia pounded the door again. “Tristan!”
There was a desperate shrillness in her tone. Why? And why did his heart seize up with the immediate thought something was wrong with Violet?
Rolling from the bed onto the floor, Tristan landed in a half-drunken heap on his rear-end.
“Shit,” he mumbled, giving an angry swipe at an empty decanter beside him. It once held a full measure of whiskey. Now, he watched it spin in a lazy half-circle on the hardwood floor before it stopped, the mouth facing him in an accusing manner.
With a growl, Tristan kicked it away so it joined the other one. The clatter of glass hitting glass was unnaturally loud in the quiet of the room.
Well, not so quiet. Celia still banged her fists on the door in a most impolite fashion.
Didn’t she know he was nursing a heartache? And a headache to boot? Wasn’t it obvious he should be left alone in his cave? Permitted to lick his wounds with no interference?
Getting up from the floor, he automatically reached for a robe before realizing the clothing from the night before was still draped over his body. The trousers were unbuttoned, his shirt hanging open haphazardly. He was without his shoes; however, they were nowhere to be seen. A vague remembrance of picking them up and throwing them in a rage at some insignificant painting inside his studio flitted across his consciousness.
“Tristan. I know you are there; I can hear you. For the love of God, please open the door. You must hurry before it’s too late.”
Too late? Too late for what? Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore. Not now…
He buttoned his pants while stepping over the bottles, giving the ruined interior of his room a cursory glance. He was obviously in quite a state the previous night if the wreckage surrounding him now was any indication. Destroying his own personal belongings was incredibly immature, certainly, but it must have satiated some deep need within him.
Flinging open the door, he glared at Celia with a scowl so dark, so fierce, she actually stumbled back a step.
“What do you want?”
His voice sounded as though it had been keelhauled across the bow of an ancient pirate ship several times over. It was rough, raspy. Shredded from emotions he never thought he would experience. Raw with regret from the injury he had inflicted on a person so dear to his heart. He was exhausted following his attempts at drowning the pain that crushed him after she left.
It hadn’t worked.
Celia stared, her eyes big and round and so similar to his own, it was like gazing into a mirror.
“Will you save her?” Tears streaked her cheeks; her eyes were red and puffy. She was garbed in an afternoon riding habit, a jaunty hat still fixed to her windblown curls. Mud splattered her boots. Celia would never traipse through the house with boots in that condition. “Canyou save her?”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
“Violet …” Her voice trembled.
Tristan grasped his sister by the shoulders, nearly lifting her off her feet. “What about her?”
Celia had never seemed so small, so defeated before. Her heart was breaking for some unknown reason.
Tristan’s own heart began pounding with uneasy fear.
What the hell is going on?
“They will force her to wed,” Celia sobbed. Damn if she wasn’t making any sense.
Tristan’s frown darkened his eyes to a shade nearly ebony in color. “Who is forcing her? Wed to whom?”
“Her parents… they arrived this morning. Someone accused Violet of spending her nights in Lord Gadley’s rooms. This person claims they caught Violet and Gadley in a romantic liaison in the conservatory. And that you, you saw them together, too.”
