Touch of a Lady by Mia Marlowe Read Free Book Online

connections, when the daughter of a peer of the realm was his for the asking.
    He leaned against the crystal-studded grotto, welcoming the pinch of pain that accompanied each jab to his spine. He deserved it. Perhaps it would sharpen his thinking.
    It didn’t help. He was thinking about Delphinia so hard, he’d actually conjured her in his imagination. There she was, making the final turn into the center of the maze. She walked toward him, her wrap floating in the slight breeze, her slim feet making no sound. Then as she drew near, he heard the soft crunch of the pea gravel and realized she was no apparition.
    Delphinia was really there. She stopped an arm’s length away. Her hair was unbound, the thick dark cloud framing her angel face and curling over her shoulders.
    “It’s no good, you and me,” he said miserably. “It’ll never work.”
    “Do you want it to?”
    “More than my next breath.”
    “Then it will work,” she said softly.
    He grabbed her and pulled her roughly to him. “In God’s name, how?”
    “I don’t know yet,” she said. “Maybe we aren’t meant to know. Maybe we’re meant to trust.”
    “In what?”
    “Love,” she said, tipping her chin so her lips were a mere finger-width from his.
    “If we try to live on love, we’ll be skinny as snakes,” he said.
    She smiled up at him. “Perhaps. But we’ll be the happiest skinny snakes anyone ever saw.”
    Tristan laughed. He couldn’t help himself. Then he sobered in an instant. “How can I purchase my happiness at the expense of everyone and everything else I hold dear?”
    “You’re so doggedly responsible. Oh, I love that about you.” Del hugged him fiercely, then she released him and held him at arm’s length, her grey gaze rooting him to the spot. “But I want you to trust me when I tell you everything will turn out all right.” She cocked her head to the side. “Have you heard any rumors about me?”
    “You mean the ones about you being part witch and knowing things you shouldn’t?”
    “Yes, those. I hope to heaven there are no other rumors circulating.”
    “If we’re caught in this grotto at midnight, there will be,” he said wryly.
    She rolled her eyes at him. “In any case, I want you to know the rumors are true. At least partly. I can’t claim to be a witch, but I do have ways of knowing things. Things past and things future.”
    He tugged her close again. “So you really are Madame Zola?”
    “I’m trying to be serious here. I want you to believe me when I tell you that you will not be sacrificing the well-being of your family by choosing to be happy.”
    “I want to believe you, Delphinia, but—”
    She pressed the hand that bore the signet ring between hers. Her eyes seemed to unfocus for a moment and she stared at a point over his shoulder. Finally she blinked twice. “I know about the China Dog, Tristan.”
    “What?”
    “It was your mother’s favorite piece, but your brother Thaddeus was rough-housing in the parlour and broke it. You knew your father would whip him when he found out, so you told everyone you did it.”
    Tristan’s jaw dropped in surprise. She was telling the truth. She did have ways of knowing things.
    “Thad was contrite enough about breaking the damn thing, but Father has always had a heavy hand. My brother was never strong and he always took a beating so to heart,” Tristan said softly. “It was a small matter for me to take one for him.” The previously hazy memory leapt into his mind, sharp-edged and bristling with fresh bitterness over the way his father had treated his weaker younger brother. “But how could you know about that? I haven’t even thought about it in years.”
    “It doesn’t matter how I know it. I only tell you so you’ll understand that I do know things.”
    “And this knowing of yours goes into the future as well as the past?” By now, if she’d told him she could fly, he was half-disposed to believer her.
    “It does.”
    “Then what does