The young man started in surprise. He bowed before pointing toward the nearby gallery.
After she nodded to him, she pushed open the door and stepped inside. More paintings of people that stared down at her. Someteased her, some mocked her, and some ignored her. But none of them had thought to warn her.
There were a few sculptures she walked around and a few trees in large plots to offer some greenery. She had added them recently, thinking it was a lovely change to the room. Now, she swatted at the leaves that brushed her shoulder and found Tristan at the far end of the room.
In the corner was a small table laden with supplies for painting and sketching. While her skill was often wanting, she had enjoyed it on occasion. And the supplies had all been here. She hadn’t seen any reason to change that until now. Now, she wondered if it was all there because of Cassandra.
Tristan stood at the edge of the table, leaning his hip against it with one hand on the windowsill. The rain appeared to have started up again. A small tree swayed in the wind nearby, branches outstretched and struggling to stay up. To stay alive.
Tristan sighed as she drew near, clearly able to sense her.
She was still considering her words when she neared him. But then he glanced over his shoulder at her. His gaze landed on her hands, and he did a double-take, blinking several times and squinting down when she carefully laid out the pages.
Once they were presented neatly on the table, Verity took a step back and watched Tristan steadily.
“Well?” she prompted quietly, refusing to raise her voice.
Other words stuck in her throat. She couldn’t get them out. Clasping her hands together so they wouldn’t shake, she watched her husband for his reaction.
His gaze shuttered like it always did. The sight made her heart stutter. Even when he looked over the pages, he hardly reacted. He picked up one—the most recent of them—and paused. She held her breath until he set it back down on top of the others in a casual but careless manner.
He doesn’t care. He won’t defend himself because why? Because it’s true?
Verity rocked back a step, feeling as though she had been struck. She hadn’t realized how much she had held onto the hope that this wasn’t the truth and that Tristan would tell her this was all a lie.
Except he did nothing. Already he turned back to stare at the storm again, as if she wasn’t there any longer. As if she didn’t matter, never had, and never would.
Letting out a slow, measured breath, she blinked several times to hold back the tears. There was a storm inside her now. It raged and shattered her to pieces over and over with every passing second Tristan didn’t turn to acknowledge her. She felt suffocated at that moment.
“Very well.” Verity collected the papers and forced herself to walk away.
She held her head up high, refusing to cry over this any longer. To cry overhim.
Perhaps Cassandra and I are alike, after all. We will leave Tristan in order to stay alive.
CHAPTER 27
Tristan stewed over the lines for some time, leaning more heavily against the window to pinch the bridge of his nose.
Even now Cassandra wouldn’t free him.
A clever move he could never have anticipated. But he should have.
Cassandra used to write daily—one of the few things in her life she had been loyal to. He had never paid it much mind. Their correspondence over the last couple of years had always been done through his solicitor, since it was usually about her requiring more money or Tristan noting that they would be closing one of their properties soon—and he didn’t care for those she used to write to.
You can find a lie in anything. Lips, dreams, and letters. Or journals, perhaps. Cassandra could not write from the grave, could she?
Tristan wasn’t entirely confident of the answer. It seemed the woman could do anything, particularly when it came to dashing every single one of his hopes.
Not that I had any hope for Verity. She would never listen to me. Never trust me. I should never have kissed her, thinking some things might change.
“No, no, don’t be silly,” he thought he could hear Verity speaking in the hall. “I shall manage very well with what I have. There is nothing else here that I would need.”
Tristan supposed he could have said something, but he preferred action over words in a tense moment. Soldiers were trained to react, but no war could have prepared him for the monster that had been Cassandra.
And what would he have done with Verity? He had never really deserved her. Their union wasn’t intentional nor wanted.
He watched a branch break from the sapling outside the window. He had been afraid that would happen. They’d planted the tree just a few years ago, and he had been hopeful for its growth.
