Free The Dowager's Wager by Nikki Poppen Page A

since you know about the debacle in October. The man who
attacked me on the wharf knows who I am. I had hoped I
might have given him a fatal wound that night but it appears
that he survived. Since he still has a use for me, I am to be
the bait to lure him into Halsey’s trap”
    “I know.” Beatrix said simply. The warmth of her earlier
tone had faded. Tristan found the cold professionalism of
her voice reassuring. Beatrix was part of a past that was finished for him or nearly so.
    Tristan did not turn from the fire. “I assume that your
appearance on the scene means the roses won’t be far behind.”
    “You assume correctly. It will be the standard routine,”
Beatrix affirmed. “My flagrant entrance will ensure that people will think the secret admirer is me once you make it known
in the men’s clubs that you have one”
    Tristan nodded absently. “So the game begins one last
time.”
    “So it does, cherie,” Tristan felt the caress in her voice,
smelled her light provocative scent of violets, heard the confident swish of her gown as she passed him. Without turning,
he knew when she had left the room.
    Tristan drew a deep breath. Her interruption tonight had
been disappointing but it had saved him from making a grand
mistake. The game was beginning. The brief idyll of his homecoming was over. Danger was afoot. It was no time to be making declarations to Isabella. If he had spoken the words in his
heart tonight, she would have become disillusioned before the
week was out. At least now the flowers from a secret admirer
wouldn’t appear to be a betrayal. When the turncoat was caught
and the assignment completed, he could explain it all to her.
    Beatrix discreetly left the ball through a garden gate, undetected. Everyone had seen her leave the party with Tristan and no one would expect them to return together. She doubted Tristan would even go back to the musicale. He was smart
enough to know that it would add credence to their relationship if it appeared they had retired from the party together.

    The ruse had begun well and neither Halsey nor Tristan
suspected the double game she played within their larger
game. She had worried that Tristan might suspect something
but he was so besotted with Lady Westbrooke he couldn’t
think past Halsey’s assignment.
    Beatrix climbed into the unmarked coach waiting for her
at the corner. A moment of jealously took her when she
recalled spying Tristan with the lovely woman in the drawing room. There had been a look about him she had not
glimpsed before. He’d looked handsome and noble, protective and honorable. What woman wouldn’t fall in love with
a man who looked at her the way Tristan looked at Isabella?
    She had known many men in her time. She knew Tristan
was a man worth having just as she knew she could never have
him. She’d set her cap for him once and failed to snare him.
Now it was payback time in more ways than one. Tristan was
about to face a well-deserved and long overdue reckoning.
    The tittle-tattle started slowly with hints dropped at clubs
and by women visiting each other for afternoon tea. The
rumors escalated as the story of Tristan and Beatrix
Smallwood was told over and over at this rout and that card
party. Old military dispatches were dug out so people could
refresh their memories regarding the viscount. Scandal
mongers dragged out the Gresham family history, resurrecting the story of his parents’ deaths in an outrageous carriage
race. The gossip began to accumulate like a snowfall, starting as nothing more than tiny specks on the dark ground and
then overnight transforming into carriage stopping drifts.
One week Tristan was a nonpareil. By the end of the next he
was the rake of the century.
    Isabella was beside herself. She had done all she could to
deflect the ill-effects of the encounter away from Tristan. She reminded all who would listen that Tristan had made a point
of not presenting the woman to her.