Page 69 of The Wolf Duke's Wife
He looked at her properly then—small, frightened, trembling with loyalty to a friend and prepared to defy a mistress who would throw her into the street without a second thought.
“What is your name?”
“Jane, Your Grace.”
“Jane,” he repeated, as if testing the sound, “and why tell me this?”
“Christine is my friend and has been for years,” the girl whispered. “If you’ve helped her get out of this house, then I won’t let anything old Gillray does stop you. I want her out of it.”
Tristan’s expression flickered, something sharp and conflicted passing through it. “You’ve risked much.”
“I know, Your Grace. But I don’t mind if it helps her. You are helping her, ain’t you?”
Tristan admired the fierceness in Jane’s eyes when it came to the matter of helping her friend.
“I am,” he said, “if you’ve a mind to leave this house, go to Duskwood. Tell my steward your name and that I promised you a position. He’ll see you set to rights.”
Her eyes widened, a mix of shock and gratitude. “Truly, Your Grace?”
“Do I look the sort of man who trifles?” his voice softened a fraction. “Go back before you’re missed.”
She dipped another curtsey, tears glinting in her lashes. “God bless you, Your Grace.”
Then she vanished back into the house like a shadow in the rain.
Tristan walked back to where his carriage waited. As he climbed inside, he caught sight of his reflection in the glass, the hard planes of his face. The rain outside blurred the world into moving streaks of silver.
He flexed his hand.
“I’m surrounded by orphans and fools,” he muttered, “waifs, strays, sentimental causes.” The carriage lurched into motion, wheels splashing through puddles, “and now maids.”
The irony wasn’t lost on him. He, who had sworn never again to expose himself to attachment, to weakness, now found himself collecting additions to his life as though they were trophies.
Christine would laugh if she knew. She would clasp her hands and say the girl must be helped, that kindness cost nothing. He could already hear her voice in his mind. Soft, infuriating, but unyielding. He looked out at the passing countryside.
“I’m getting soft.”
But even as he said it, he knew that softness was contagious. Christine’s compassion had begun to seep into him, dissolving edges he had spent years sharpening. She had stepped into hislife like light spilling into a locked room, and he, fool that he was, had not barred the door.
The carriage turned toward London. Through the misted glass, he watched the lights of the city glow in the distance, smearing and shifting through the rain.
Somewhere out there, Gillray’s carriage might already be rattling toward a magistrate’s house, armed with outrage and self-righteousness.
Let her go. A public accusation only strengthens my position. Scandal will surely draw the brother like a wasp to honey.
Still, his jaw tightened. He disliked being maneuvered by anyone, least of all an old harridan who reeked of lavender and malice. Perhaps tomorrow he would send his solicitor to pay the magistrate a visit, just to ensure the man’s imagination did not wander too far.
His thoughts drifted back to Christine, her wide, watchful eyes as she’d stood beside him in the Dowager’s drawing room, the tremor in her voice.
“You will return?”
He had swallowed the answer his heart had wanted to give. Dismissed it as a weakness. As superfluous, irrelevant to his objectives. Emotion was a currency he spent sparingly. He pressed his fingers against the windowpane, feeling the coldseep through. What a fool he was becoming. He could almost hear his uncle’s dry laughter echoing from the grave.
You cannot save the world, Tristan. You can barely save yourself.
The carriage jolted over a rut, jerking him back to the present. He exhaled slowly. The last traces of daylight were sinking behind the horizon. Rain turned to fog.
He thought of the future waiting at Duskwood. Christine’s quiet defiance, her unflinching kindness, the maddening warmth that crept beneath his skin whenever she looked at him. A house filled not with shadows and silence, but with her laughter and perhaps, if she had her way, with half the downtrodden of England she insisted on rescuing.
