“It’s not a struggle. I simply don’t have the time or interest?—”
Both gentlemen jolted as they heard a shout from outside. Plastering themselves to the window, they stared in strained silence as the two women fled the gazebo—and only made it to the next dart in the garden path before they burst into laughter even louder than the shout.
Tristan exhaled. His chest felt tight from holding his breath for those precarious seconds and began to loosen.
As for Julian, he clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I think you should find the time. The interest. Because your wife clearly does.”
The very notion was too much for him to consider. Shaking his head, Tristan rounded the desk to refill his empty glass. “As someone who intends to avoid the marriage trap, you seem hellbent on keeping me trapped in mine.”
“Like I told you, if anyone marries in our club, it would be you, Tristan. Someone to do for you what we clearly couldn’t. You’re too comfortable and set in your ways. Our friends have their passions and interests. But you? You’d rather sit in the corner and haunt the room.”
“How generous of you,” he responded dryly.
Julian gave a halfhearted shrug. “You’re a good man. Intelligent, loyal, and protective. But much leaves us all wondering whether or not you’re happy. And you deserve to be happy.”
Tristan frowned. “Iamhappy.”
Squinting at him, his friend wrinkled his nose. “Are you?”
Tristan opened his mouth to object once again. But then he hesitated, not certain how else he would explain himself. Because he was happy. He had to be. This was the life he had, and he managed it the best he could. Surely that was happiness.
Isn’t it?
Suddenly, he wasn’t too sure.
“It’s only… She’s… She’s different.”
Verity’s smile came to mind. She smiled often, like she enjoyed doing so. Except for when he was around.
The fact maddened him. Perhaps he was obsessing over her.
There are probably a lot of words that I should have for someone I have brought into my life and will be bound to for the rest of my days. Most likely, there is so much for me to discuss. Especially since I’ve taken to avoiding her once again. She won’t appreciate that.
“Different how?” his friend inquired. “Different in a good way? I do hope you’re not comparing her to your first wife.”
Cassandra. How that woman still haunted him. Tristan would never escape her, not really. It had taken him years to realize this and even longer to accept it. Some days, he wasn’t particularly confident where he stood. It was more because of resentment than grief, he could admit.
Filling his glass, he took a long sip to try savoring the brandy. Cassandra hadn’t liked the smell or taste of it. But she hadn’t cared for his company at all, not even in the beginning.
“What an excellent match we will make, don’t you think?” she had pleaded that evening.
She had looked so pretty. Innocent, too, to anyone who hadn’t heard the words slipping from her sharp tongue.
“It is for the best. Poor Oliver. If only he hadn’t left us. But now we can have the lives we were meant to have. I shall be a duchess, and you shall be properly married. The ton will have what they need. Us!”
“It will all be a lie,” he remembered telling her.
“Everything is a lie until you make it the truth. And the truth doesn’t matter,” Cassandra had reassured him sweetly.
He had struggled to understand the meaning behind the smile he learned too late not to trust. “So is the blackmail a truth or a lie?”
She’d only laughed. It was a trilling sound that reminded him of bells in the springtime when the sun was too bright. How pleasant it had been when they had Oliver between them. But then his brother was gone, buried along with the truth Cassandra had been willing to keep hidden.
“Tristan?”
Starting, Tristan turned back to Julian. The shadows in his mind only receded partially. Smiles were lies. Weren’t they?
Somehow he found his thoughts escaping into their conversation. He rubbed his forehead as though he could hide his vulnerability. A duke was supposed to be confident. Lately, Tristan didn’t know what he was.
