Tristan Richards

Tristan Richards, a character in the Desire & Decorum series, is the former Duke of Karlington, the secondary antagonist of Book 1 and the main antagonist of Book 2. He is first seen in Book 1, Chapter 4.

Appearance
Duke Richards is a middle-aged man with dark brown hair with some gray strands, gray eyes, and fair skin. He wears a red jacket with a white shirt underneath and brown trousers.

Personality
Duke Richards is a highly arrogant and entitled man. He uses his title as a duke, two generations removed from royalty (he is descended from a great uncle of King George), as an excuse to act however he wants. He is used to getting his way with most women, and sees most men as inferior to him. He is also racist and misogynistic, believing that women are weak and simple-minded, and that commoners are beneath him.

It is his arrogance, greed, and inflated sense of worth that makes him vulnerable to Gideon Payne's manipulations.

Background
Duke Richards is descended from a great uncle of King George, his bloodline stemming from King George's side rather than Queen Charlotte's.

Book 1

 * Chapter 3: Threading the Needle (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 4: Best Foot Forward
 * Chapter 6: An Intimate Affair
 * Chapter 7: Opera St. James
 * Chapter 8: Ill Repute
 * Chapter 10: On Your Marks
 * Chapter 11: The Clock Runs Out
 * Chapter 15: A Cut Above
 * Chapter 16: Season's End

Book 2

 * Chapter 1: Betrothal & Betrayal
 * Chapter 2: A Royal Introduction
 * Chapter 3: Homeward Bound
 * Chapter 6: A New Set of Rules
 * Chapter 7: Moonlit Deception
 * Chapter 8: Hunt Or Be Hunted
 * Chapter 9: Until Dawn
 * Chapter 10: In the Balance
 * Chapter 11: A New Horizon
 * Chapter 12: The Deep End
 * Chapter 13: Changing Tides
 * Chapter 14: Before the Bell Tolls
 * Chapter 15: Eye of the Storm
 * Chapter 16: The Final Vow

Book 3

 * Chapter 1: Family Matters (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 4: Sugar & Spice (Mentioned; Determinant)
 * Chapter 6: Keep Your Enemies Closer (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 7: London Calling (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 8: The Price of the Past (Determinant)
 * Chapter 10: By Royal Appointment (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 11: The Game is Afoot
 * Chapter 12: Tower of Terror
 * Chapter 13: Love and War (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 14: Anticipation (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 15: With This Ring (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 17: Wife or Death
 * Chapter 18: 1817 (Determinant)

Your Character
Duke Richards appears infatuated with Your Character from the moment they meet. He is very possessive of you and constantly makes unwanted advances and remarks towards you. He also attempts to sexually assault you and taunts that he can tarnish your reputation with no consequence for himself due to his nobility. Although he is stopped due to an intervention by Ernest Sinclaire, he continues to desire you. If you choose to tell him that you choose Annabelle Parsons over him, he gets angry at how you would choose to love a girl and marry Annabelle despite the fact that Annabelle doesn't have much. If you chooses to love Luke Harper, he gets angry at how you are willing to lower yourself to love someone of a lower social status. At the end of Book 1, he manipulates the Dowager Countess into believing you accepted his proposal, which leads to her publicly announcing your "engagement" at the ball in his London estate.

In Book 2, you and your friends try to find a way to break your engagement to Duke Richards. You can choose to be pleasant and practice manners with him to gain information or be rude and tactless with him. Either way, you discover his plot to overthrow the current monarchy and place himself on the throne. His only reason for wanting to marry you was to try to persuade commoners to support his claim to the throne, since you were a commoner yourself before your father named you his heir. When you finally expose Duke Richards for the man that he is, your investigation brings about his downfall. Depending on how much you investigate, you can also name his co-conspirators and bring them to justice.

After Queen Charlotte strips him of his lands and titles, you believe you are finally finished with Mr. Richards. However, when Gideon returns as Comte Renard, you must visit Mr. Richards in the Tower of London to enlist his help in defeating Gideon.

Ernest Sinclaire
Duke Richards and Ernest Sinclaire compete with each other for your affection, but their history with each other extends past that. Duke Richards had an affair with Mr. Sinclaire's wife, Roselyn, and enjoyed seeing Mr. Sinclaire's anger and pain when he found out. He also mocks Mr. Sinclaire's status compared to his own. Mr. Sinclaire does not call him out on it or oppose him because he is a country squire while Duke Richards is only two generations removed from royalty.

Dowager Countess Dominique
Because of his title, the Dowager Countess considers the Duke a sterling option for your character to marry and repeatedly recommends that you consider him for marriage. In the finale of Book 1, the Duke uses this goodwill to manipulate Dominique into thinking your character has accepted a marriage proposal from him. This leads to Dominique announcing this "engagement" at the Duke's ball, much to the dismay and chagrin of your character. It is only until the Duke makes himself more than comfortable at Edgewater that he reveals his unsavory nature when Dominique finally sees the error of her ways.

The Marlcaster Family
It is revealed that Countess Henrietta Foredale and her first husband were former friends to Duke Richards, but their friendship disintegrated after Edmund's father refused to sell their land to the Duke. When Henrietta's first husband died, the Duke went to great pains to ruin the widowed Henrietta to the point where she was barely able to save enough fortune for Edmund's future. Once your character learns of the bad blood between the Countess and the Duke, she proposes an alliance with Henrietta to take him down.

Roselyn Sinclaire
Duke Richards had an affair with Roselyn, leading to the intense animosity between himself and her husband, Ernest. She ended up getting pregnant with the duke's baby, but he refused to have her and take care of the baby that was conceived through their affair. She died in childbirth, and when Ernest tried to give the child to the duke, the latter insulted Roselyn, calling her a "trollop" who could have been with "every man from here to High Holborn Street".

Percival Richards
"Why should I care for a child who can offer me nothing in return? He wasn't useful then."

- Tristan about Percival in Book 3

Percival Richards is his biological son with Roselyn. When Percival was born, Mr. Sinclaire attempted to give him to his father to raise. However, at that time, the former-Duke Richards dismissed Mr. Sinclaire's claims saying that the child could be sired by anyone. In Book 3, Chapter 12, Mr. Richards tells you and your friends that he legitimized Percival a few months ago during your engagement to him under Gideon Payne's advice. He was aware of Gideon raising the child in France for some time.

Gideon Payne
Gideon uses Tristan's inflated sense of worth to manipulate the latter. Gideon convinces Tristan to make a play for the throne, so he may rule as a tyrant and force people to do what he asks.

Lady Ida
Lady Ida was a noblewoman who the Duke had "feelings" for. He tried to get her to marry him. But she figured out that he was no gentlemen or equal to her and refused and dumped her glass of wine on him much to the eavesdropping and glee to Countess Henrietta.

Trivia

 * The name Tristan is of Welsh origin and means: To clatter, sad, sorrowful.
 * The surname Richards is of Celtic, Welsh, and Cornish origin, which means "child of Richard". The name Richard is of German, French, and English origin, which means: Ruler, leader, powerful, strong, brave, hardy.
 * In Book 1, Chapter 4, Duke Richards mentioned that he was born in 1765.
 * In Book 2, Chapter 10's premium scene, his birthdate was revealed to be February 16 from a letter he wrote to his future self on his 12th birthday.
 * In Book 1, Chapter 11, you can choose to yell at him and tell him you're young enough to be his daughter.
 * It was revealed in a premium scene in Book 1, Chapter 12, that Duke Richards was Rupert's (Vincent's father) protege.
 * He has been the Duke of Karlington for at least 25 years because his father died prematurely young.
 * He shared his title with Godfrey from The Royal Romance series.
 * The golden idol found in his Bath townhouse resembles the Serpens idol from Endless Summer. It is said to represent what he's like: a golden idol, when in fact he's really a snake.
 * In Book 2, Chapter 16, he is arrested for high treason. He is also stripped of his land and titles, and his title card changes to Mr. Richards to reflect this.
 * He is a playable character in a premium flashback scene of Book 3, Chapter 12.
 * In the same scene, he is referred to as "Pathetic Criminal" in his character box during Yeoman Warder Morris' version of the story.
 * In Chapter 3 of Bachelorette Party, his painting makes a cameo appearance in the Abracadabra Lounge. It scares Main Character (Bachelorette Party) and the rest of the Bachelorette Crew because they think the eyes in it moved.
 * He appears in Book 3, Chapter 18, if you have enough Manners to see his future. He and Gideon meet again in the Tower of London.
 * On April 10, 2020, Pixelberry tweeted their #QuarantineHouse challenge, placing him in House 5 with Hana Lee, Kamilah Sayeed, Mal Volari, Michael Harrison and Damien Nazario.
 * He shares the same name as Tristan Gawain from Save the Date and Tristan Dumont from The Heist: Monaco.