Page 54 of The Wolf Duke's Wife
“I am still a single man.”
“You have obtained an agreement from me.”
“To act as my wife. To pretend.”
“When one pretends at something long enough, it can become…” Christine started, willing the words back but unable to contain the growing thrill pulsing from her heart.
The music ended, but Christine and Tristan did not stop. They glided, surrounded by their own music, unaware of the others. Until the Dowager Duchess clapped her hands.
“Well, what a display! Let us have a round of applause for the Duke of Duskwood and Lady Christine of Southbria!”
Now Christine was truly scarlet. Tristan stood stiffly amid the polite applause. He still held Christine’s hand, and she foundherself holding onto his fingers, willing him not to let go. He looked at her, and they shared, in silence, her unspoken words.
What do you feel about them? You are looking at me as though I have struck a grievous blow against you. As though you are angry.
The Dowager Duchess bustled past them, unaware of how loud she was.
“Of course, I brought them together. The wolf and the lamb. What a feat! Such a pair has never been seen, and it is all due to me.”
Christine smiled at her innocent conceit.
“I must give her credit, though it is dragged from me,” Tristan said.
“If we had not been invited here, then your plan could not have succeeded,” Christine said.
“Yes. I doubt Lady Gillray would have granted me an audience with you, let alone given away your hand.”
“Not if it did not benefit her.”
“I would have made sure it did.”
They took seats at one of the tables that lined the room. Several ladies and gentlemen paused to give their compliments on the excellence of their dancing. Christine felt pleased. Tristan looked furious. She put her hand upon his and tried to ignore the thrill that ran through her at that contact.
“Try to look less like you would like to kill them,” she said.
That brought forth a wolfish grin.
“I would not go that far,” he said.
“Not so far as to look happy? Or not so far as to want to kill them?” Christine said with a sweet smile.
Tristan’s reply was a wordless baring of teeth. There was something in his face that was deliciously roguish. The sly joke had landed with him, and he seemed to appreciate her humor, though she knew that anyone else in the room would have been utterly scandalized. She felt something between them click into place, a part of a complex mechanism coming together.
Seventeen
“Today’s game, the final game, is Unlock the Duke’s Secret!” the Dowager Duchess shrilled across the breakfast room, sweeping by the tables in a flounce of silk.
“And perhaps the secret some of you end up unlocking is the heart of your partner. That is our hope and, in some special cases, our certain knowledge,” she continued, turning the room into a stage just for her.
Tristan sipped tea, alone at his table in one of the room’s bay windows. Others had tried to share his table, but a glance had been enough to steer them away. Christine was across the room with Blanche. He was aware of her presence but did not look. She was a continual draw, there in the periphery of his vision. An itch he couldn’t scratch.
Thank God this is the last game. Let us be done with it and be gone.
“So, without further ado, I think it is time to draw lots. Let us see if further shuffling of our pack of available ladies and gentlemen will produce a pairing that has not yet found each other. I see some wistful eyes around this room that tell me just that,” the Dowager Duchess pointed, and wherever her finger landed, someone who had not yet found their partner blushed.
Tristan growled in his throat and stood, pushing his chair back so abruptly that it toppled into the wall.
“Spare me,” he snarled, “I choose Lady Christine Davidson and none other. Have our names taken out of your silk bag.”
