Of course, she did. Everything was so artfully arranged. The musicians playing my preferred symphonies, a mix of our favorite dishes, and that gown. She could have told me that she came straight from the heavens and I would have believed her in a heartbeat.
Maybe Julian was right. Tristan recalled his conversation with his friend only hours ago. The man had said he was out of sorts, and he could see that now. He didn’t know who he was or what he was doing. Especially when it came to Verity.
Seeing her in the hall upon his arrival, she had glowed gently like an early dawn in the midst of winter. Tristan saw her and had no choice but to move closer, as if he needed her to breathe.
He’d nearly dripped water on her. Ruining a masterpiece would have brought everlasting shame. When he went to his bedchamber to change into dry clothes, he’d debated coming back down. Already he had known he would disappoint Verity.
“So why did you marry me, after all?” she had asked him.
“Why do you keep asking me that?” Tristan had wanted to ask in return. “What answer do you desire? What do you want from me? Why do you act so differently from her?”
All he could do was give her the shortest, simplest version of the truth. He was meant to. He had to. A gentleman always righted his wrongs. Just one hint of a rumor would have him agreeing to marriage, knowing his honor requested it of him.
It was a union of necessity.
What their marriage meant now, however, Tristan wasn’t sure. He let out a shuddering breath and rose to his feet. Not certain where he was going, he left the dining room.
Wandering the halls of his townhouse, he eyed the pockets of darkness and shadows on the walls as he passed. He walked with his hands clasped behind his back, wondering if someday he would be nothing more than a painting on the wall as well.
Titles were supposed to mean something. But eventually, everyone was gone. Someone else would become the Duke of Halewood after him, just like someone had been the Duke of Halewood before him.
His walk had clearly done him little good if he was back where he had begun. Tristan feared he was going mad. He wanted to celebrate the effort Verity had put into supper that evening and wanted to run from her at the same time.
“So why did you marry me?”
Her words echoed in his mind.
She asked him with a laugh and in a shout and in a whisper, taunting him. For a moment, he thought she sounded like Cassandra, before realizing he wasn’t sure. Did he even remember what Cassandra sounded like?
She wouldn’t have worn a green gown,thathe remembered. She only wore pale shades of pink and orange. He’d begun to despise them. And she had despised his preference for darker colors.
The moment she was able to stop mourning Oliver, she had done so with loud relief. Then, she’d poked and prodded at him for refusing to ever wear anything lighter than gray.
Verity woregreen.
He glanced again at his ring, wondering if he could ask her what that was supposed to mean. A fleeting notion came to mind, that she aimed to connect with him. But he tossed it away at once.
She had looked so lovely. Calm, too, when she had asked that question. What she expected to hear, however, he still wasn’t sure.
He wondered how she would have reacted if she heard the part of him that meant to respond, “Because I want something real. Because I want to take one more risk. Because I think you could be that risk, that something real.”
But the truth often broke people. Knowing this from experience, he could only pull away from the present. Knowing his wife’s warmth and willingness, he couldn’t bear to get any closer in case he was burned.
Nothing was ever real with Cassandra. I hadn’t trusted my brother with her, but I hadn’t interfered because he was happy. And nothing was real until the day she died. I didn’t dare hope for anything real. But now…
As Tristan prepared to retire for the night, he reminded himself that the weakness would come and go. He was only human. The yearning would eventually fade away. No matter what Verity did, he couldn’t trust her.
And over the next week, he kept telling himself that again and again. He had to because suddenly she was everywhere.
She appeared in the hall no matter the hour he rose. He heard the staff whisper about her outings. He would often find her brushing her horse’s mane whenever he returned from his rides. She even started bringing him her supper trays and lingering, asking him countless questions so he had to talk and eat until she took the tray away.
She was everywhere, worming her way beneath his skin until he could no longer help it. Two weeks passed and he found himself grudgingly looking forward to seeing her around supper time.
“You’re very much a homebody,” she noted when he was finishing the last of his carrots. “And yet I swear I never see you. One of these days, I fear you shall grow a mustache, and I won’t recognize you in the hall.”
“Then I shall be sure to warn you if I do,” Tristan said dryly.
Smiling like he’d made a joke, Verity nodded. “Much obliged, thank you, Tristan.”
