.
"Do I need to shackle you to keep you here?"
"Tristan!"
"It's an honest question. Just when I think things are settling, that you have decided to play by the rules, I find that you faked your illness, you're running wild through the city, and you run away with the Martins."
"I had my reasons! I was frightened!"
Tristan shook his head, and Blythe felt a deep well of rage open up inside her. She paced in his library while Tristan watched her coldly from the desk. She was through feeling like a supplicant, and now all she wanted to do was to shout until he understood her.
"Blythe, ever since we've received news of the inheritance, you've been running wild. You cannot keep doing this."
She spun toward him, eyes wild. "I've been acting differently? Tristan, you're the one who's turned into an absolute tyrant! I can't talk with you anymore; we've been at loggerheads ever since."
"You've been defiant and stubborn, and you have decided, of all things, to start taking refuge with the Martins. Of all the people in London, why them?"
Blythe stuttered to a halt. She wanted to explain to Tristan how kind they had been to her, how they had helped her while all he had done was berate her. She knew he would never understand. Instead, she turned and stalked toward the door.
"Blythe, this isn't over."
"Yes, it is. We have nothing else to say to each other right now. We keep going around in circles. I will not continue to go to your damned galas and balls every night while you dangle me in front of the bachelors of the ton. That is the end of that."
"Then you are not leaving this house. I swear to God, Blythe, do not push me on this matter. If I catch you out of bounds again, I swear I will take stronger action."
Blythe looked at him bitterly. "I'm sure you will. All you seem able to do lately is act the tyrant. Why not take it further?"
He had nothing to say to that, and so she returned to her bedroom. A small part of her hoped that Tristan would come around and see how terrible he was being, but the rest of her was coldly certain that was not going to happen. If this was going to be her life now, she needed to figure out what she could do to preserve herself.
Blythe lasted for almost five days. Five days of being cooped up in the house made her feel as if the walls were closing in on her, and on top of that, it felt as if there were eyes everywhere.
Tristan's damned spies, she thought angrily. He wasn't content with using groomsmen to keep an eye on her or to rifle through her things. Now she could tell that the maids and the footmen were watching her as well, and so she spent even more time shut up in her bedroom. The situation felt like a powder keg, and Blythe had no idea when it was going to blow until she received a letter on Wednesday morning.
Blythe supposed it was a comfort that Tristan had never bothered to check her mail. She received plenty of correspondence from women doing good works in the city, after all. However, she could tell right away that the ragged brown envelope didn't come from one of the well-heeled women who occasionally called on her for help with their pet projects. When she opened it and started reading, she felt her stomach lurch with fear.
...don't know what to do... can't sleep, and I can't eat... some days are so dark... I've run away from the Abeggs...
Every word Honey wrote clawed at Blythe with an abyssal kind of darkness that made her shudder. The plea for help was jagged and tore at her. If she ignored it, she would never be able to forgive herself.
Thinking swiftly, she wrote a letter, sealed it, and stuffed it in an envelope for the Abeggs.
She had summoned a messenger and was waiting for his arrival when Tristan came upon her in the foyer. She stiffened. They had not spoken in days, but the man she saw now was less like the tyrant she had been battling than the cousin she grew up with. Something tired in his stance told her he was sick of fighting as well.
Tristan gestured toward the letter in her hand. "What's that?"
"A message to one of the people who coordinates with me on the crusade to end hunger in the city. They are having a fundraiser in a few weeks, and I'd forgotten to let them know I cannot help."
The lie rolled off of her tongue easily, the way it always had, but this time, Tristan simply studied her. There was nothing angry in his gaze for once, nothing furious or domineering. Blythe held his gaze while the damning letter sat burning in her hand.
"I'm tired of fighting with you."
Blythe blinked. She had not expected this. "Are you? I'm exhausted of it."
"Yes, you must be. I'm sorry for the last few weeks, Blythe. It seems as if everything is moving quickly now. Everything is changing."
"I've not changed at all."
Tristan laughed a little, and it startled Blythe. When was the last time she had heard him laugh? "I think you've not looked in a mirror for a while, cousin. You've changed more than you know. You change, and all I can do is to try to think of ways to keep you safe."
"You don't have to do that."
"Of course, I do. It's my responsibility. The moment I became the Duke of Parrington, it was my responsibility."
Blythe swallowed hard. There was something strange in Tristan's tone.
Tristan shrugged. "It's no matter. I simply saw you and thought how much I wished things were as they had been."
When I was lying to you regularly and you never noticed, you mean? But that was unfair. She had never lied to Tristan to trick him, only because there were so many things she wanted more than to be a diligent little woman in the drawing room.
"I hope, Blythe, that we are still friends?"
"We are." Maybe they could be again someday.
"Good. I'm glad."
Blythe felt a twinge of guilt when she handed the letter off to the messenger. There were things in the world that were more important than her cousin's feelings, however, and she knew that to the very core of her.
Thomas, don't let me down.
That night, the clock in the main hall struck two, and moving as quietly as she could, Blythe stole through the darkened halls of the Carrow residence. She had always been careful, but now she was utterly paranoid, freezing with every slight noise she heard.
She could no longer use the servants’ entrance, so she had had to get creative. In the ladies' drawing room, a place Tristan had no reason to go, she had left the window open, covering it with an old book to block the draft and closing the drape. Now she opened the drapes and set the book aside, revealing a window that was just open enough for her to sneak out. She was pleased to come up with the idea so that she would not be heard fighting with it, and she easily made her way to the rear alley. When she saw the hack with black drapes drawn over the windows, she grinned and walked faster. When she whistled the first bars of “Parson Hollis,” they were whistled back to her and the door opened for her to step inside.
"You've a fine sense for the dramatic, angel."
"I'm not being dramatic, I'm just trying to make sure that I don't get caught. And why are you calling me angel?"
Even in the darkness of the coach, she could tell that Thomas was grinning at her.
"Aren't you one? Maybe you're a little dirty since you fell down to earth, and certainly, you can't keep your halo polished if you keep wanting to run down to Seven Dials, but I stand by the statement. You do great good, you are willing to fight with the devil himself, and you wouldn't let heaven and earth stand in your way if you wanted to do something."
"None of your sweet talk; we're on serious business tonight."
It was true. Honey was in serious danger of doing something terrible. Blythe was worried about the young girl, but there was also something in her that reveled at being out and about again, doing what needed to be done.
"Are you doing all right? Georgiana tells me that the gossip mill's running wild about you, that Tristan has you under house arrest and is refusing all of your would-be suitors."
"Thank God he is. I think he finally understands that much about things; I would make a surpassingly poor wife. The house arrest part... well, that's a little extreme."
She wasn't sure why she wanted to defend Tristan to Thomas. Perhaps it was the talk they had had earlier. Of course, it hadn't stopped her from going out and doing exactly as she pleased, so maybe she wasn't much better than a hypocrite regarding the situation.
In the darkness, Thomas reached out and touched her hand. That shock ran through her again. Skin to skin, there was something powerful there. She wondered suddenly if all of the sermons she'd listened to, all of the things she read in her cover as the good missionary girl was right, that carnality was, in fact, the root of people's banishment from paradise. She had never understood it before, but when she kissed Thomas, well, perhaps she might be willing to turn her back from a perfect garden for more of him.
"I'm glad you sent for me."
"I was afraid you'd be irritated when you saw that I wanted to drag you to Seven Dials again. It's hardly the most fashionable place to take a man of the town like you."
Thomas chuckled a little at her teasing. Impulsively, she reached out toward the sound, and her fingers encountered the strong line of his jaw. He was clean-shaven, as was the style of the young men of the ton, but she could feel just the barest bit of spiky growth there, rough and sharp against her palm. Fascinated, she ran her hand against it, and Thomas made a sound that was shockingly like a purr.
"It feels good."
"You feel good when you pet me like that."
When she laid her palm along his jaw, he turned his head to kiss her hand. She could still remember how good his lips had felt on hers. She knew that she should pull back before things got out of hand, but instead, she lingered, letting him kiss her palm, her fingertips, the sharp bones of her wrist.
Thomas’ voice was a rumble in the dark. "Do you have any idea how delicious you are? How good you taste to me?"
The words popped out of her mouth before she could stop them. "I imagine as good as you do to me."
Thomas pulled her across the coach toward him, letting her body sprawl over his. It was so dark there was no need for shame or prying eyes.
When Blythe's lips finally found Thomas’, it was as if she had come home. She kissed him as fiercely as he kissed her, wrapping her arms around his neck because if he pulled away, she would surely perish.
There was no telling how far she might have gone if Thomas hadn't pushed her back.
"Dammit, that's not what I wanted to do."
Blythe had to catch her breath. "Was it not?"
Thomas’ laugh was bright. "Damn you, but you are the most tempting thing since Eve. No. There's something I want to say to you. To offer you."
Blythe felt something in her shiver, and it made her pull back from him. She couldn't have gone as far as she had, accomplished what she had, if she was afraid of her own desires and her yearning from freedom, but nowhere in any of that was anyone like Thomas. He overwhelmed her, like standing too close to the sun, like flying through the air without any way of getting down.
“What is it?”
In response, she felt him press a key into her hand and close her fingers around it. It was heavy and cool with a ribbon strung through the filigree at the head.
“This is a key to a flat on 29 Brook Street. The designation is on a tag on the key. I purchased the flat a few days ago, and I want you to have it.”
Blythe felt that she would have given anything for some light so she could see Thomas’ face just then. “You're just... giving me a flat. Thomas, what does this mean?”
She was a little afraid of what it might mean. This was something that men did for their mistresses, for fallen women. It bore an uncomfortable similarity to the story of some of the women she had helped.
“It means... I suppose it means I'm a fool. I wanted you to have a place of your own. A place where you could get away if you couldn't reach me or Georgiana. A place of refuge.”
“And you bought me a flat?”
“It's still in the process of being finalized, but yes. I paid for it, and in a few weeks, it will be entirely in your name.”
“Mine...” The idea staggered her.
“Yes. Perhaps, sometime, I could come visit you there. On your say-so, of course. I didn't purchase you this flat to set you up there, Blythe.”
She didn't know what to say. She had always been a poor relation among rich relatives, and even after finding out about her inheritance from the former Duke of Parrington, very little had changed. It might be a long time before she ever saw Gallowglass, for all that she owned it. She might never do so.
A flat in London was something else. She closed her hand so tightly over the key that it dented her palm. Blythe threw herself into Tristan's arms. She tried to say thank you, but her throat felt thick with tears. Somehow, she instinctively knew this wasn't charity. This was something else, and even as she tried to tell him what it meant to her, he was holding her tight, warm and solid and there.
“I know, Blythe. I know.”