Tristan Richards

Duke Richards, a character in the Desire & Decorum series, is the former Duke of Karlington. 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. In the past, he slept with Mr. Sinclaire's wife, Roselyn, and continues to mock Mr. Sinclaire for it in the present. He is constantly trying to claim the main character for himself, making unwanted sexual advances and remarks each time they meet and going so far as to almost sexually assault her in Chapter 11. He even taunts that he can tarnish the main character's reputation with no consequence for himself due to his nobility. In Chapter 16, he lies to your grandmother about your engagement, resulting in you being betrothed to him. He is so arrogant and greedy that he is willing to overthrow and cheat his way at everyone including the Queen herself just so that way he can rule as a tyrant to force people on his on whims to do what he asks. He is also a racist and a misogynist as he believes that women are weak and simple-minded and commoners are beneath him. For instance, if your character chooses Annabelle Parsons as her soulmate, he gets angry at how your character would choose to love a girl and marry Annabelle despite Annabelle doesn't have much. If your character choose to love Luke Harper (later Sir Luke Harper), he would get angry at how your character is willing to lower herself to love someone lower than her.

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

Your Character
Duke Richards is infatuated with your character. He is very possessive over your character and is constantly making unwanted advances and remarks towards her. He also attempts to sexually assault her, but is stopped due to the intervention of Ernest Sinclaire. At the end of Book 1, he manipulates the Dowager Countess into believing they are engaged, which leads to her publicly announcing their "engagement" in the finale. When he finds out your character has shown evidence of his treachery, he gets upset and vows he would make the character pay.

Ernest Sinclaire
Duke Richards and Ernest Sinclaire have bad blood between them. Duke Richards had an affair with Sinclaire's wife, Roselyn, and enjoyed seeing Sinclaire's anger and pain when he found out. He also mocks Sinclaire's status compared to his own. He competes with Sinclaire for your character's affection.

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 and her first husband were former friends to Duke Richards, but their friendship disintigrated 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 were 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 concieved through their affair. She died in childbirth (while giving birth to the Duke's baby), it is presumed the baby died as there is no mention of either Richards or Sinclaire being a parent.

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

 * In Book 1, Chapter 4, Duke Richard mentioned that he was born in 1765.
 * In a premium scene in Book 2, Chapter 10, his birth month and date 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 shares his title with Godfrey from The Royal Romance series.
 * The name Tristan is Welsh origin, which means "to clatter", "sad" or "sorrowful".
 * The surname Richards is Celtic Welsh or Cornish origin, which means "Richard's son". The name Richard is German, French and English origin, which means: Ruler, leader, powerful, strong, brave or hardy.
 * 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.