She moved around the room, chatting here, chatting there, always conscious of Tristan, that he watched her as she watched him. Then Havers announced dinner, and they all went in, she on Tristan’s arm.
He sat her beside him at one end of the table; Lady Hermione was at the other end. She made a neat speech expressing her pleasure at the prospect of shortly yielding her chair to Leonora, and led a toast to the affianced couple, then the first course was served. The gentle hum of conversation rose and engulfed the table.
The evening passed pleasantly, truly enjoyably. The ladies repaired to the drawing room, leaving the gentlemen to their port; it wasn’t long before they rejoined them.
Her uncle Winston, Lord Warsingham, Mildred’s husband, stopped by her side. “An excellent choice, my dear.” His eyes twinkled; he’d been concerned by her lack of interest in marriage, but had never sought to interfere. “Might have taken you an unconscionable time to make up your mind, but the result’s the thing, heh?”
She smiled, inclined her head. Tristan joined them, and she directed the conversation to the latest play.
And continued, at some level she wasn’t sure she understood, to watch Tristan. She didn’t always keep her eyes on him, yet she was wholly aware—an emotional watching if such a thing could be, a focusing of the senses.
She’d noticed, again and again, his momentary hesitations when, discussing something with her, he would check, pause, consider, then go on. She’d started to identify the patterns that told her what he was thinking, when and in what vein he was thinking of her. The decisions he was making.
The fact he’d made no move to exclude her from their active investigations heartened her. He could have been much more difficult; indeed, she’d expected it. Instead, he was feeling his way, accommodating her as he could; that bolstered her hope that in the future—the future they’d both committed themselves to—they would rub along well together.
That they would be able to accommodate each other’s natures and needs.
His, both nature and needs, were more complex than most; she’d realized that sometime ago—it was part of the attraction he held for her, that he was different from others, that he needed and wanted on a somewhat different scale, on a different plane.
Given his dangerous past, he was less disposed to excluding women, infinitely more disposed to using them. She’d sensed that from the first, that he was less inclined than his less adventurous brethren to coddle females; she now knew him well enough to guess that in pursuit of his duty he would have been coldly ruthless. It was that side of his nature that had allowed her to become as involved as she was in their investigations with only relatively minor resistance.
However, with her, that more pragmati
c side had come into direct conflict with something much deeper. With more primitive impulses, all-but-primal instincts, the imperative to keep her forever shielded, tucked away from all harm.
Again and again, that conflict darkened his eyes. His jaw would set, he would glance at her briefly, hesitate, then leave matters as they were.
Adjustment. Him to her, her to him.
They were meshing together, step by step learning the ways in which their lives would interlock. Yet that fundamental clash remained; she suspected it always would.
She would have to bear with it, adjust to it. Accept but not react to his repressed but still present instincts and suspicions. She didn’t believe he’d put the latter into words, not even to himself, yet they remained, beneath all his strengths, the weaknesses she’d brought forth. She’d told him, admitted why she didn’t easily accept help, could not easily trust him or anyone with things that mattered to her.
Logically, consciously, he believed in her decision to trust him, to accept him into the innermost sphere of her life. At a deeper, instinctive level, he kept watching for signs she would forget.
For any sign she was excluding him.
She’d hurt him once in precisely that way. She wouldn’t do so again, but only time would teach him that.
His gift to her had been, from the first, to accept her as she was. Her gift in return would be to accept all he was and give him the time to lose his suspicions.
To learn to trust her as she did him.
Jeremy joined them; her uncle seized the moment to talk estates with Tristan.
“Well, sis.” Jeremy glanced around at the company. “I can see you here, with all these ladies, organizing them, keeping the whole household ticking smoothly along.” He grinned at her, then sobered. “Their gain. We’ll miss you.”
She smiled, put her hand on his arm, squeezed. “I haven’t left you yet.”
Jeremy lifted his gaze to Tristan, beyond her. Half smiled as he looked back at her. “I think you’ll find you have.”
Chapter Eighteen
For all his relative naïveté, Jeremy was correct in one respect—Tristan clearly considered their union already accepted, established, acknowledged.
The Warsinghams were the first to leave, Gertie with them. When Humphrey and Jeremy prepared to follow them, Tristan trapped her hand on his sleeve and declared that he and she had matters pertaining to their future that they needed to discuss in private. He would see her home in his carriage in half an hour or so.
He stated it so glibly, with such complete assurance, everyone meekly nodded and fell into line. Humphrey and Jeremy departed; his great-aunts and cousins bade them good night and retired.