“You are,” Gideon said. “Your jaw is tight enough to crack a stone.”
“I should have said something against holding this meeting at night. I do not like the silence.”
Gideon’s eyes strayed out of the carriage and then back to Tristan’s face. “Yes, but that is not exactly the cause of your distress, is it? There is something else.”
Tristan shifted in his seat. He hated feeling this transparent.
“What are you thinking about?” Gideon eventually asked, his voice clear.
“Nothing. Just that I cannot afford a misstep. Not tomorrow, not tonight. If Marcus has already convinced half of those lords, then …”
“Then you will convince the other half,” Gideon cut in, his voice sleek and sharp against Tristan’s demeanor. “You know how to do that, convince people.”
Tristan gave a dry laugh. “You speak as if it is that simple.”
“It is not simple,” Gideon said. “But you are capable of it. I have seen you when men were ready to scatter and die. Do you remember the ridge outside Antwerp?”
Tristan looked up sharply. “How could I forget? And how come you always pick that one.”
“Because it fits,” Gideon said. His voice lowered, steady as stone. “We had no food left. The supplies had been cut off for three days. Men twice your age were ready to desert, ready to throw down their arms as you stood there, hungry as the rest of us, and you told them if they abandoned the line, the entire flank would fall. You held them with nothing but your voice, my lord. You did not use your rank or any kind of medal. Only words.”
Tristan felt the memory tug at him. It all came rushing back like a smooth waterfall. He could almost feel the cold in the air that gray dawn and the mud in his boots. The smell of powder hanging thick filled his nostrils. He remembered everything. Men hollow-eyed and trembling. He had spoken without thinking, had told them to stay, to fight. And somehow they had.
“You made them believe,” Gideon continued. “And you saved us. That was not a battle of rifles. That was a battle of will. This is nothing but another battle of will. It is no different.”
Tristan shook his head slowly. “No different? This is politics, Gideon. Land, ledgers, signatures. There are no rifles to point, no charges to rally.”
“Do not let this situation dissuade you, my lord,” Gideon said. His voice sharpened. “Thisiswar. Only the weapons aredifferent. What you have instead are pens instead of bullets and signatures instead of swords. Mr. Harwood is your enemy across the line. And just like before, you cannot let him break through.”
Tristan sat back, his hands tightening on his knees. “If I fail, Evermere falls. And so does my wife.”
Gideon’s tone softened. “Then you will not fail. You never have when it truly mattered.”
The carriage rattled over a rut, shaking both men. Outside, the countryside lay completely black and silent, broken only by the glow of the moon on the fields.
Tristan pressed his palm against the window, staring out into the night. “It is strange. I have faced bullets, cannon fire, the screams of men dying all around me. Yet my heart has never beaten like this.”
“Because this time it is not just your dignity on the line,” Gideon said. “It is hers, too.”
Tristan closed his eyes.
Eliza.
Always Eliza now.
The way she looked at him last night, her hand against his arm. The way she had whispered that they would face this battle with Marcus together. That vow rang louder than any battlefield oath.
“I will not let him use her again,” Tristan muttered, almost to himself.
Gideon’s gaze softened, though he said nothing.
For a long moment, the only sound was the wheels and the horses’ steady rhythm. Then, on the horizon, faint traces of light appeared. Lanterns rose with the landscape, glowing in the darkness.
“There it is,” Gideon said quietly.
Tristan leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. A house rose at the edge of town, its windows lit, the air around it faintly alive with voices that seemed to carry on in the wind. The house was not exceptionally daunting in any way, yet the voices he heard coming from the house seemed to send waves of fear down his spine.
The battlefield.
