Page 11

“Yes.”

He had finished tending to her injury, and yet Tristan continued holding her hand. The scent of cut grass drifted through the open window, accompanied by the rhythmic snip of hedge shears in the distance. Yet he was scarcely aware of either, his attention fixed on the warmth of her fingers resting against his wrist. Neither of them moved.

Lydia raised her eyes. He noticed the pulse at the base of her thumb and the thin line of blue pigment beside her nail. He had been looking at her hands for far too long.

At last, Lydia broke the silence.. “Thank you.”

Only then did he release her. She rested her hand in her lap and examined the neat bandage. “I may have to leave the drawing until later.”

“You could read.”

“That was my intention.”

“Before I interrupted.”

“Before the book objected to being removed.”

He smiled, and Lydia returned it before turning back to the table. She might not have forgiven their earlier encounter, but he found himself longing to hear her laugh again. Unfortunately, he could think of no reasonable excuse to prolong their time together, short of contriving a second injury. Which would not be reasonable at all.

Then she reached for her pencil and bent her head over the book. A minor injury had given him permission to touch her. He had used every second of it. That was an annoyance he hadn’t expected. Tristan bent to retrieve the fallen sheet. It contained page references and several corrections in a cramped hand. “This may help with your disagreement.”

Lydia studied it. “Yes. I think it might.”

He placed the sheet beside the book and moved the basin away from her papers. “You may work here as long as you wish. I will have the table kept clear.”

“That is kind of you.”

The formality of her thanks irritated him more than it should have. “I should let you begin.”

She nodded. At the door, Tristan looked back. Lydia had laid the penciled notes beside the plate and was comparing them, already returned to the question that interested her. He went out into the passage, where the air smelled of beeswax and cut grass, still conscious of where her fingers had rested against his wrist.

In the hall, Whitmore was supervising the delivery of wine. A footman held the cellar list while another counted the cases. Tristan said, “Lady Lydia will be using the library. See that the table near the shelves remains clear.”

“Certainly.”

“And the window takes the afternoon sun. If she is still there later, have someone lower the blind before it reaches her drawings.”

Whitmore looked at him. “Very good, Your Grace.”

There was nothing in the butler’s voice that could reasonably be called amusement. Tristan found the absence of amusement irritating, nevertheless.

By the following afternoon, the house had filled. Carriages arrived at irregular intervals, and the front steps were never empty for more than a few minutes at a time; the hall floor bore the pale prints of a hundred traveling boots. Men he knew from London occupied the drawing room, women inspected the flowers, and servants moved through the passages carrying luggage to rooms which had seemed plentiful that morning.

Tristan spent an hour greeting guests. He had almost reached the stairs when his mother intercepted him. “A moment,” she said, and steered him into the small sitting room beside the hall. She closed the door.

“Lady Pembroke has spoken to me.”

Tristan waited.

“Lydia has told her there will be no courtship.”

“Then Lady Pembroke has been accurately informed.”

“You made her believe she had been foolish to come.”

He remembered Lydia in the passage, holding the sketchbook as if the cloth cover were the only object she trusted in that place. “I did not tell her that.”

“You did not have to.”