“The tale of your axe skills, if you please, then,” Isolde said, the wind billowing her skirts behind her.
Tristan happily seized on the reprieve. This tale, at least, was marginally more tolerable to relate.
“As you likely know,” he began, “Allie and my mother left when I was ten years old, once Old Kendall granted my mother a permanent separation. As heir, I had to remain with my father. Obviously, I was bereft. The two people I loved more than anyone else in the world—and the only two people who have ever loved me—were severed from my life in one cruel blow.”
The memories of that final day . . . His mother’s anguished, yet determined, expression. Allie’s sobs, clinging to him. His own promise, whispered in his twin’s ear,I will find you. We are forever, you and I.
Isolde nodded, “Yes, Allie has told me of it. I know why your mother did what she did—she feared for her life. Your father was cruel and violent. Uncle Rafe has spoken more than once of how horrid your upbringing with that man must have been.”
Tristan’s old resentment toward Sir Rafe festered.
Tugging on her hand, Tristan guided his wife around a small pool the outgoing tide had left in the sand.
“Rafe knew and yet did nothing to help.” Tristan couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice.
“Rafe? What could he have done?”
Not betrayed me, for one.
He knew he would tell Isolde the story eventually. Just not today if he could help it.
“I thought we were discussing my axe-throwing prowess?”
“Mmm,” his wife hummed. “Continue.”
“Life after the departure of my mother and sister was difficult. My father became more morose, more prone to outbursts of anger.”
Tristan would hide in the boathouse or ride his horse to exhaustion across the countryside. Anything to be where his father couldn’t easily locate him.
“I started to visit the gamekeeper with some regularity. Auld Graeme, they called him—a Scot. In hindsight, I am sure my presence on the doorstep of his cottage was unwelcome. But as I was Lord Hawthorn, he could hardly toss me out on my ear. Finally, in a bid to get rid of me,he said I would have to make myself useful if I were to hang about. His very words.”
“Seems like he took a liking to ye then.”
“Hardly,” Tristan snorted, remembering the grim-faced Scot. “Do not delude yourself, Duchess. My father employed servants as hard and cold as himself. Anyone with a heart quit their post almost immediately upon taking it. The gamekeeper tolerated me. And in return, I learned to chop wood.”
“Ye became proficient.”
“Perhaps.” Tristan lifted his gaze to the greenmachairrimming the beach, tufts of grass rippling in the breeze. “I found the repetitive motion soothed my mind. It permitted me to cast aside my worries and heartache and just . . . be. I am namedTristan, after all. I had to discover something to dispel all the melancholy and hurt.”
“Pardon?”
“Tristan. My name. It derives fromtristein Italian. Sadness. Gloom. Our mother named us twins, you see. How she convinced Old Kendall to relinquish the task to her, I shudder to think. But she named us for the feelings in her heart upon our birth.Allegrafor my sister—joy and happiness at our arrival. AndTristanfor myself—sorrow and heartache at the pain my life would be, forever tethered to Old Kendall and the duties of a dukedom.”
“How poignant. Allie has never told me this.”
“My mother named us true. Allie has always been the brightest light. The day she left, I felt as if all happiness had been stripped from me. Maudlin, I know.”
“Nae, losing a beloved sister like that—particularly your twin—would be devastating. And to be abandoned in Old Kendall’s care . . .”
They had reached the end of the beach, where sand gave way to basalt boulders stretching along the headland.
“Yes. I cannot say I expected anything else, however. I was born to be melancholy, as I said, and—”
Isolde pulled him to a stop. “What rubbish!”
“Pardon?”
“Ye are hardly melancholic, Husband. Ye are a wee bit quiet and taciturn, but that is not the same thing as a depression of spirit.”
