Page 23 of The Viscount and the Vicar’s Daughter

“St. Ashton.” His father’s voice was a low warning.

Tristan looked up from Valentine only to see his father give a stern shake of his head. That single, peremptory gesture, so typical of his high-handed sire, filled him with barely suppressed rage. He released Valentine’s hands and got to his feet. He was frustrated and angry. In the grips of a painfully unfulfilled desire. But it was more than that. He was forced to admit that Valentine March’s refusal hurt him.

With an effort, he summoned his familiar sardonic smile. “Well,” he said dryly, “so much for gallant gestures.”

His father looked at him a moment, his expression infuriatingly unreadable. And then he moved to take the chair facing Valentine. Once settled, his eyes came to rest on her face. For a long while he said nothing.

And then, to Tristan’s amazement, the Earl of Lynden’s stern features softened. “You look very much like your mother, my dear,” he said.

Valentine exhaled slowly. Her shoulders slumped with something like defeat. “You knew her.”

“Yes. I knew her.”

Tristan watched the two of them with a growing sense of unease. His father had known Valentine March’s mother? What the devil! He sank into the chair by the fireplace, his imagination conjuring all sorts of shocking scenarios. Suddenly, he remembered a ramshackle fellow he’d been acquainted with at Oxford. The young idiot had gone to the country for the summer and seduced a girl on his father’s estate, only to later discover that the wench was one of his father’s by-blows.

The memory was accompanied by a wave of nausea. Good Lord! Could Valentine March be his half-sister? He dismissed the idea as soon as it entered his mind. The Sinclair men put a recognizable stamp on their offspring. The eye color of their descendants might occasionally vary, but the hair was always black as a raven’s wing.

Valentine March was far too fair to be any close relation, let alone an illegitimate half-sister.

“I asked you at dinner why you sought employment as a companion,” Lord Lynden said. “You told me your father’s death compelled you.”

“It’s the truth, my lord.”

“I will ask you now what I didn’t ask you then.” He paused, his expression once again growing stern. “If you were in need of help, why didn’t you write to Caddington Park?”

Tristan’s brow furrowed at the mention of the Marquess of Stokedale’s family seat in Kent. He knew Stokedale but little. He was an elegant man in his middle fifties, cold and implacable, with centuries of breeding behind him—something he let no one forget. “Why would she—?”

And then he saw it.

It was subtle, shimmering just beneath the surface, but by God it was there.

The undoubted resemblance between Valentine March and the Marquess of Stokedale.

“I did write, my lord,” she said. “On two separate occasions. Lord Stokedale didn’t see fit to answer me.”

“Who is Stokedale to you?” Tristan asked sharply.

Valentine met his eyes from across the room. “My mother’s elder brother.”

Tristan swore softly, earning him a reproachful glare from his father. “Lady Sara Caddington was your mother?”

“Yes.”

“Then you are—”

“Illegitimate, my lord.” She brushed a tear from her cheek with an impatient flick of her hand. “Notoriously illegitimate. Now you see why marriage to me is impossible. No matter h-how badly you’ve compromised me.”

Abruptly, Tristan stood. The action startled Valentine. She looked up at him wide-eyed, as if he might shout at her or storm from the room. But he made no move to go. Instead, he addressed his father. “Sir, I beg you would give me five minutes alone with Miss March.”

His father frowned his disapproval, but he didn’t object. Tristan waited in silence for him to rise from his chair, and then walked with him to the library door. He shut it firmly after him. When he turned around, he found Valentine watching him warily. He went to her, pulling up his father’s vacated chair so it was facing hers. “Forgive me for not kneeling at your feet again like some heartsick young jackass,” he said as he sat down. “It’s late and I’ve had too much to drink.”

“You’re angry with me.”

“I’m angry with myself for falling into this godawful scrape.”

“It’s my fault. If I hadn’t allowed you to kiss me in the conservatory—” Valentine broke off. “But I daresay my behavior will be no surprise to you. Not now that you know who my mother is. It’s in the blood, you see. This…this propensity for—”

“For what?”