Page 59 of The Wolf Duke's Wife
Christine playfully slapped his chest with one hand. She meant to draw it back, but her fingers lingered against his damp shirt. The starched cotton was thinning under the liquid assault, and in several places it clung to Tristan’s skin, rendering itself transparent. She felt as though the barriers between them were thinning.
Perhaps only for the duration of this game. The way the veil between life and death is said to thin on All Hallows’ Eve. But that does not last.
“Lady Martha, no doubt, expects the best of everything because she has always had the best. I have never had it. At least not since I was a young child.”
Tristan gazed down at her from a distance of inches. Christine laced her fingers together behind his neck, telling herself that it was simply to aid him in holding her up. His arms showed no sign of noticing the burden of her weight, though. They were solid as stone and without a tremor.
It would be nice to be held…for a while. To be carried as though I am fragile and precious.
“I am sure I saw the crown of an oak earlier, perhaps a quarter mile from the house. That would provide solid enough cover for us to wait out the storm. Shall we dare it?”
“Let’s,” Christine responded.
Tristan grinned. Not a wolfish grin. Not savage. It was pure enjoyment. As though she had stumbled on an activity he could take genuine pleasure in. It felt like a chink in an iron mask that had been impenetrable to this point, revealing a living, breathing man behind the image that was so relentlessly presented to the world. They walked deeper into the woods. After a few dozen yards, Christine spied a key dangling from the low-hanging branch of an elm.
“Take it. When the game resumes, we will have a head start on the rest,” Tristan urged.
“That would be cheating.”
“No one will ever know.”
“I would. Aren’t gentlemen supposed to hold honor sacred above all?”
“Not all gentlemen do,” was Tristan’s loaded reply.
Christine looked at him, then pushed against his chest.
“Put me down.”
“Your feet will get wet.”
“I don’t care.”
He put her down. She turned her back on the key and the victory in the last game of the Hunt. She put her hands on her hips, glaring at Tristan. Rain spattered through leaves to wet her hair, plastering it to her head.
Tristan tossed his own head, hair sending droplets flying. The clothes of both were darkening and thinning, but these changes were ignored.
“I do not deny that Charles has behaved dishonorably,” Christine began.
“That is well because to do so would be a lie,”
“But I do not believe he acted deliberately!” Christine shot back, “he is not a bad man.”
“Only a liar and a cad and…” Tristan began.
“No!” Christine exclaimed, “he got in over his head in something I do not understand and over which he lost all control. He was incompetent and perhaps selfish and even delusional. But not malicious. We must establish that here and now.”
Tristan loomed, but she stood her ground. She had seen him do it to others. He wielded his name and reputation like a club, and all he swung at fell down. But she would not.
I will be heard! I am not to be a mute bait dangling on his line for my brother. I am to be a Duchess. Well, let me be one then!
“You forgot, ‘coward’,” Tristan said in a voice like steel being unsheathed.
The club had swung and she had withstood the blow. Tristan grimaced.
“He did terrible things, but he is still my brother. He was the one I ran to as a little girl when I fell and skinned my knee. He was the one who protected me. I cannot simply hate him as though I am closing a door on a room of my life. He behaved dishonorably, but does that make him wicked?”
“Perhaps not. A dishonorable coward. He still deserves…”
