His twin tucked her feet underneath her, red skirts spilling onto the floor.
“You should know me better than that, Tristan. I have never been one for false platitudes.”
He sighed and pressed two fingertips against his brow bone, attempting to stem the pounding that had taken up residence there.
Silence reigned again.
Kendall stared at the mesmerizing flames licking the grate.
“Was it . . . w-was this inevitable, do you s-suppose?” he asked after a while, unable to stem his hiccups.
“What do you mean?”
“Can a Tristan ever escape the s-spell of an Isolde?”
Allie laughed, a startled burst of sound. “Is that what you think has happened here?”
“Sometimes,” he whispered. “She is madness in my blood, Allie. I loathe it . . . I want . . . I want her gone. But now, that madness has costme . . . everything.” He spread his arms wide, enunciating slowly, forcing his sluggish tongue to form the words. “Every goal. Every dream. Every hope. Gone. I am just l-like the Tristan of legend.”
“While that is vividly melodramatic to be sure, I have to disagree with your conclusions. We both know you have a tendency toward obsession. You decide a situation must unfold in a specific way and then charge ahead, intent on that vision.”
He frowned, lifting his head and fixing her with his bleary gaze. “Pardon?”
“Oh come, Tristan. Ethan has told me about your behavior with his sister-in-law—”
“Viola . . . Viola Brodure?”
“Yes, and how you fixated on using her talent, along with Ethan’s poetry, to further bolster your own political clout. And then, you moved on to kidnapping myself and focused on utilizing my marriage as a stepping stone to power.”
Kendall’s brandy-soaked brain could scarcely absorb her words. “Your point?”
“You have spent the years since our sire’s death zealously focused on furthering your own reputation and consolidating political power. This latest contretemps with Hadley has had a similar aim.”
“Yes. A dream that is now rubble.” Anger dissipated a bit of his drunken fog. “Again, what is your point . . . aside from rubbing s-salt in my wounds?”
“You become consumed by a sort of mania. Once you decide on a goal, you cannot be swayed from it. Remember the skiff in the boathouse of Hawthorn growing up? The one you were so insistent you could repair? You spent an entire summer at the pond, trying to make the boat seaworthy again.”
“Try? I s-succeeded!”
“You did. But when you obsess, Tristan, you miss what is truly important. You ignored me that summer. And in the end, it was our last together. I would have given anything to have that time back.”
Guilt rose in Kendall’s chest. Yes. He, too, would have given anything for more time with his twin that year.
“Though unwillingly, you display a similar fixation for Lady Isolde,” Allie continued. “She calls to you.”
“I do not want her as my duchess!”
“But that is my point, Tristan. You are so focused on resisting her, you miss the beauty you could have together.”
At Allie’s words, hypothetical scenes crowded his mind. Isolde smiling at him from down the dinner table at Hawthorn. Isolde laughing on his arm as he escorted her into a ballroom. Isolde sliding a hand around his neck to tug him down for a kiss—
The images should have been comforting, hopeful even.
But they sent a flight of anxious wings battering his ribcage.
He didn’twantthat life.
He didn’t want to love and accept Lady Isolde. She was too chaotic, too vibrant, too . . . too . . .
