Page 25 of The Wolf Duke's Wife
Tristan’s eyes seemed to sharpen, and Christine looked away.
“…and look what happened,” she finished.
“What did happen?” Tristan leaned forward in his seat, every inch the hunter.
“You know as does everyone else here. What no one knows, myself included, is where he is now.”
Tristan sat back, disappointed. Christine had thought of another reason that Tristan might be helping her, but could not bring herself to believe it.
He might be interested in me. In the same way that Dreadford is.
The thought of being desired by Tristan was intoxicating, setting her heart racing.
But I have to live in the real world. Such things are not for me.
Tristan shrugged. “As you were saying, after this week, there will still be seven weeks of pregnancy ahead for your sister. You will just have to endure Gillray for two months. Such hardship. Fine food, a nice house, servants to wait on you. However will you manage?”
His words were so barbed that Christine was unable to prevent herself from replying in kind. His sarcasm stung.
“Yes,” she snapped, “such hardship as being bartered to Lord Dreadford like a broodmare for the advancement of Lady Gillray. Sold to be his mistress. Why do you think I set so much value on trust? It is literally all I have.”
Her voice wavered as anger gave way to something like despair. “You ask, you prod, but you do not give. Tell me why you are so keen that Charles should face justice. What is it to you? Money?”
Tristan did not reply. Christine threw up her hands.
“You see? When it is your turn, you dodge and evade but demand total honesty from me!”
She turned and fled, skirts whipping, along a hedge-lined path that led, she knew not where. All she knew was that she needed to be away from him. At that moment, his company was intolerable. She stopped, panting, in the dappled green hush of an arboretum. There, she sank to the ground and pressed her face into her hands. It was hopeless. All of it.
“Christine.”
She flinched. He was there, of course, he was. Tristan dropped down beside her on the grass, heedless of his fine clothes.
“Go away,” she muttered.
“No.”
“Why must you torment me?”
He was quiet for a long moment.
“Because I have torments enough of my own.”
She lifted her head. His face looked different here, shadowed and unguarded.
“You want three facts?” he said. “Here are mine. My father died when I was a boy. No pain I have ever known compares,” his voice roughened. “Soon after, my uncle, who had become a surrogate father to me, died falling from his horse. I went from climbing trees and sketching animals and plants to being a Duke. Alone.
“Three facts,” he finished with a somber dip of his head
Christine’s breath caught.
He reached, gently brushed away her tears with his thumb. “Now yours.”
She swallowed. “I was treated as a slave at Gillray. You know I have a brother. The third…my father died when his heart gave out after Charles’s scandal. He died of shame. Of grief. Of a broken heart. I will give you a fourth for free. I love my brother and I hate him. Both at the same time.”
The silence was heavy, full of ghosts.
Tristan’s hand lingered against her cheek. “Why were you crying?”
