“And you want Charles?” Christine asked.
“I want justice.”
Her chin lifted, tremulous yet proud. “Best for me? Are you threatening me? Exposure or hand over my brother?”
He shook his head, amused. “Merely stating uncomfortable facts.”
Before he quite thought better of it, he lifted her hand to his lips. She snatched it back as though burned, retreating to the far side of the room. Tristan felt almost giddy at the memory of his lips against her smooth skin. He wanted to know what she tasted like. What her lips tasted like. How she felt to hold, to possess.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“To help you.”
She laughed softly, bitterly. “First, you threaten, then you offer aid. Your reputation suggests I’d be a fool to trust you.”
His own smile was mirthless. “Your own reputation is hardly stainless.”
“My reputation,” she said coldly, “is unimpeachable.”
“Your brother’s is not,” he returned smoothly.
Color flared in her cheeks. “There is nothing you can say of Charles that I haven’t heard a hundred times.”
Tristan shrugged. “Then I will not voice my thoughts. It is understood what he did.”
“The ton understands what he did. But not why.”
“I do not spend my time among the ton,” Tristan said. He didn’t spend his time with anyone, in fact, but she didn’t need that knowledge.
Her eyes narrowed. “Then what are you doing at the Duke Hunt?”
“My duty,” he said simply.
She scoffed. “And I suppose you’d have me believe you dislike all this?”
“I dislike most things,” he said, voice dry, “tell me, was your invitation for the ball only, or for the full week?”
She hesitated. “I am invited to participate. I attended for two years and won Lord Bingley’s attention. I think our hostess wants to see if I can be matched again, perhaps?”
Tristan laughed, sharply. “The man quails at his own shadow. What on earth drew you to him?”
“I…I was fooled.”
“Perhaps,” Tristan said. “And if you prefer weakness to strength, then perhaps you are a poor judge of men.”
Her eyes flashed. “Better a weak man than an insufferable one.”
He stepped closer, slow, deliberate. “Why not ask your brother for aid? He is Earl now, is he not?”
Her throat worked. “I don’t know where my brother is.”
A lie, surely. I can see it in the flicker of her eyes, the set of her jaw. She knows more than she claims. And she might be my best chance of finding Charles Davidson.
“I am also invited to participate in the Hunt,” he said at last, voice low, deliberate, “Perhaps thefriendshipof a duke might serve you well—and persuade Lady Martha to leave you in peace?”
She blinked. “Why would you do that?”
Tristan smiled thinly, though his blood was hot with want and warning both.
