Cavendish Brothers 02 - To Enchant an Icy Earl (9 page)

Fordingham was a man with more facets
to his character than any man she’d ever known, and she doubted she
would ever discover them all. Particularly not if he kept himself
as closed as he seemed to be so often—why, she didn’t even know his
Christian name. For all she knew, he didn’t have one, however
preposterous such a notion may be.

Did she love him?

She didn’t know him well enough to
love him. He was far from the gregarious, enigmatic man Lord Ellis
was, but that didn’t mean he would treat her more kindly than her
former suitor had done. Now that the marriage contract had already
been signed by both Lord Fordingham and Devlin—only now was she
starting to learn more about him.

He did have a tendency to tell
everyone around him what to do all the time, but when he told
Calista what to do, it was always with her best interests at heart.
He wanted to protect her, not to hurt her. Yet she wasn’t certain
he realized that by making every decision for her, he was hurting
her. His decisions limited, or completely eliminated, her ability
to make her own choices.

And yet, despite his authoritarian
tendencies, she was drawn to him. More so than she could ever
recall being drawn to another human. More often than she cared to
admit, she thought about his kisses and the possessive way he held
her. She thought about the fire burning within him which he kept so
well guarded and revealed to no one but her.

And she wanted more of it.

Shouldn’t that weigh into her decision
as much as everything else?

Calista lost track of time while she
sat out on the bench, debating what she wanted until her head felt
ready to explode. When the door opened and Lord Fordingham came out
to sit beside her, the breeze brushed over her and she
shivered.

Without saying a word, he removed his
coat and placed it over her shoulders.

“
Thank you,” she murmured,
looking up to meet his eyes.

Still today, she wasn’t certain of
their hue. The brim of his beaver hat sat low over them, casting
them in a shadow which prevented her from seeing them
fully.

His lip twitched at the corner under
her scrutiny. “Would you care to go inside? It is considerably
warmer in the house.” After the words left his lips, he fidgeted
beside her, his hands fisting and releasing by his
sides.

If she were not so aware of everything
about him, in an effort to sort out just precisely who this man
was, she doubted she would have even noticed such a thing. As a
matter of fact if she did not know Lord Fordingham as well as she
did, even if she’d noticed such a thing she would not have thought
it to indicate discomfort.

But if it were not a sign of his
obvious distress, she would eat her left foot.

“
No,” she replied at
length.

Then she laughed a bit, an action
which surprised even her, so she attempted to stifle it. Despite
having only known him for a few days, and regardless of the fact
that she did not know his Christian name, Calista knew him far
better than she’d ever realized.

“
My lord, was it so
difficult to ask me even that simple question? You seem
uncomfortable.”

“
I…” He blinked, then
looked away to stare at a white rose in full bloom. “Yes. Yes, I am
uncomfortable. I am nervous when I’m with you, because I’m afraid
that I’ll do the wrong thing or say the wrong thing, and then you
will leave me like everyone else in my life has always
left.”

Then he stood and paced
before her, his hands locked firmly behind his back and his stride
one that could put a lifelong soldier to shame. “I’ve had very
little
good
in my
life, Miss Bartlett—”

“
Calista.”

Lord Fordingham stopped so suddenly,
she thought him liable to fall over. “I beg your
pardon?”

“
My name is Calista. If we
are to be married, I think it only right for us to be less
formal.”

He appeared so stricken by her
suggestion, she was tempted to go to him and caress his cheek. She
doubted such a thing would ease his shock, however, so she
refrained.

Fighting back a smile, she asked, “And
what might I call you?”

His jaw fell slack in a delightfully
comedic manner. “I am Fordingham.”

“
I am well aware of that,
my lord.” This time, Calista couldn’t possibly hold back her
laughter. “But your Christian name? You do have one, don’t
you?”

“
I do,” he replied at
length. “No one but my brother uses that name for me.”

“
Because you won’t allow
them to?”

“
Of course I don’t allow
them to use my Christian name.”

This time, she did cross to him. With
one hand, she carefully reached out to touch his, fearful that he
might snatch it back from her touch—but he didn’t. “And you give
orders instead of requests. And everyone in your life
leaves.”

“
Are you going to leave me,
too?” Almost as soon as he’d asked, he spun around, turning his
back to her so she could not search his eyes. “Of course you’ll
leave me. Your sister made it very clear that I should have asked
you and not just assumed. I’ve been a despotic fool, telling you
what to do and never asking—”

“
I’m not leaving.” Calista
put a hand on his elbow, trying gently to turn him—but it was no
use. He was as intractable physically as he was impenetrable
emotionally. She tugged again—a futile attempt, because of his
sheer strength and stubbornness of will—and then continued.
“Miranda was right in telling you that you
ought
to ask. Any lady deserves to be
asked. But she never said that I would refuse, and even if she
thinks I will, she is wrong.”

“
Why?” His question
strangled in his throat, leaving him sounding tortured and wounded.
“Why would you agree to marry me after you’ve seen what I
am?”

“
You’re right. I
have
seen what you
are.”

He still wouldn’t face her, so Calista
decided it was time to take a different tack. She moved around so
she stood before him again, and reached up to remove the beaver hat
from his head so she could see his eyes. They were green—a rich,
deep green with gold in some places, blue in others. Even as she
stood there staring at them, they changed. In moments, they were
almost brown and filled with dismay.

She loved that at last she could see
his eyes, but hated the pain and self-loathing she found within
them. He tried to take his hat from her, but she pulled it behind
her back and held it out of his reach.

Fordingham let out a bedraggled sigh.
“You deserve so much better—”

“
I deserve a gentleman who
will carry me through the rain so my gown and slippers aren’t
ruined,” she interrupted him. “I deserve a husband who will do
whatever is necessary to make me feel safe and cared for and
protected. I deserve a man in my life who will do what I ask of him
when he can, even if he goes about it in a way I never would have
expected. I deserve to be kissed senseless on occasion, and
continually surprised—and you give me all of those things and
more.”

“
But I’ve ruined every good
thing that has ever happened in my life,” he countered, repeating
his earlier argument.

That was something she couldn’t
possibly deny. She’d seen enough of his relationship with Mr.
Cavendish to remove any possibility of doubt on that score. “That
is likely true,” she said. When he started to interrupt her, she
pressed on. “But it is also true that this has been in the past,
and that I’ve seen you making attempts to change.”

“
Some things can’t be
changed.”

Calista nodded and took his hand in
hers. He trembled slightly. Not from fear, though. There was fear
in his eyes, but also a deep, intense yearning.

“
The past can’t,” she
murmured. “But the future is not yet written.”

He shook his head and pulled his hand
away, then took a step back. “What if I can’t change?”

An excellent question. What if he
couldn’t? Calista wanted a man who would not be like Lord Ellis,
and Lord Fordingham was almost an exact opposite of Ellis. True, he
did not often think to ask her opinion on things—but he always
acted in a manner which made her feel loved and protected, despite
his lack of asking. Could that be enough?

“
Lord Fordingham,” she
began after a moment, cautiously renewing a previous discussion
point, “why will you not tell me your Christian name?”

He blinked at her, and his jaw dropped
and then closed. “My fa—” Then he shook his head, as though he
couldn’t go on.

Calista didn’t step in to rescue him
from answering. She waited.

At long last, he started again. “My
father beat me if I ever answered to it. ‘You are Wentworth,’ he
would say as he took a switch to me, ‘and someday you will be the
Earl of Fordingham. You are not Tristan Cavendish. You do not
answer to anyone but the king. You do now bow down before anyone in
your life. Never forget it.’ He beat me so often that the messages
he delivered with the blows seemed to imprint themselves upon my
person.”

She sniffled, and only then did she
realize that she’d been crying. “Tristan. May I call you that, my
lord?”

He reached over and brushed the pad of
his thumb over her cheek, drying away the tears before they could
fall to her gown. “I like the sound of it on your
tongue.”

His words were hardly more than a
whispered confession, but they warmed Calista through to her very
soul.

She lifted herself up upon her toes to
place a kiss upon his cheek, but he turned his head slightly before
she made contact, kissing her in return. This was unlike their
previous kisses. It was not heated, but tender and inviting.
Soothing, almost.

When he pulled away, Calista gave him
a watery smile.

“
I suppose there is only
one more thing we must do, then,” she said.

Tristan furrowed his brow in thought,
and then a moment later shook his head.

“
You’re supposed to
ask
her to marry you
now,” Miranda shouted from the doorway. “Good lord, you must be the
most obstinate—”

“
That’s enough, Miranda,”
Calista said through a chuckle.

“
Of course,” Tristan said
sheepishly. He bent to his knee, took her hand in his, and looked
up at her adoringly. “Miss Bartlett—I mean, Calista—would you do me
the great honor of becoming my countess?”

Now that she was getting to know him
as she was, she knew that this was a man greatly in need of some
teasing in his life. With all of her siblings, Calista had become
quite practiced in the art of teasing over the years. Fighting back
her smile, she pursed her lips together and said, “On one
condition.”

His eyes widened, and a bit of the
indignation she’d expected forced its way into his gaze. “But you
said you wouldn’t leave me.”

Calista raised a single brow. “I will
only agree to be your countess if I might also be your
wife.”

The fight left him and he visibly
relaxed, his shoulders lowering to a more natural, comfortable
position. “Calista Bartlett, will you be my wife?”

“
Forever,” she
promised.

“
Excellent,” Miranda put
in. “Now that that’s settled, can we do something about the Duke of
Danby? He’s insisting he must see you both in the drawing room
again.”

Calista could absolutely kiss the Duke
of Danby. She wouldn’t even care if anyone saw her do it. Well, not
overmuch at least. Indeed, as her husband’s carriage rolled along
the drive of Danby Castle with a blanket of snow beneath the
carriage wheels, she thought she very well might do just that once
she saw him again.

Over the last several months since
that day in Devlin’s drawing room, the duke had been forcing
Tristan and his brother, Wesley Cavendish, to come to terms with
one another—to sort out their vast array of differences.

“
You are married to my
granddaughter, Cavendish, and you to a woman who is as good as my
granddaughter, Fordingham. I will not have you sulking about and
not speaking, and I certainly will not stand for either of you
throwing blows at the other.”