“Home,” Hugo replied when Tristan remained silent, his voice carrying a gentleness that hadn’t been there since the disaster. “Back to Greystone, where we can lick our wounds and plan our next move.”
“Home.” She repeated numbly. The word felt strange on her tongue—when had she started thinking of that crumbling castle as home? “Right. Back to our lovely accommodations with the questionable plumbing and the rooster who thinks dawn happens at midnight.”
“Your tongue remains sharp,” Tristan observed, the first words he’d spoken since leaving the palace. “Even in defeat.”
“Sarcasm is my coping mechanism,” she replied, trying to inject some lightness into the oppressive weight of their circumstances. “It’s either make jokes or have a complete breakdown, and I’m saving the breakdown for when we’re safely behind Greystone’s walls.”
Something that might have been the ghost of a smile flickered across his features before being quickly suppressed. “At least there we need not fear Guy’s immediate reach. The castle may be crumbling, but ’tis still defensible.”
Thunder rumbled overhead, promising more storms ahead. The taste of failure lingered bitter on her tongue as London’s walls disappeared completely behind them, but the familiar Yorkshire hills beckoned in the distance—not salvation, perhaps, but sanctuary.
But beneath the fear and disappointment, something else stirred—a stubborn spark of determination that refused to be extinguished. She’d ruined everything, yes. But Greystone still stood, Sir Whiskerbottom still needed feeding, and she was still breathing, still capable of fighting back.
Even if she had no idea how.
CHAPTER 18
The inn at Hertford was the kind of establishment that advertised itself as “quaint” but delivered on “questionable hygiene with a side of structural damage.” Rachel sat in the corner of the common room, nursing a cup of ale that tasted like it had been filtered through someone’s old boots, watching Tristan brood at a table by the window with the intensity of someone perfecting the art of self-recrimination.
Four days on the road had done nothing to improve the atmosphere between them. If anything, the forced proximity had turned their silence into something with actual weight—thick enough to slice and serve with the inn’s truly tragic excuse for bread.
“Still giving each other the cold shoulder, are we?” Hugo asked, settling his massive frame onto the bench beside her with a creak that suggested the furniture was reconsidering its life choices. “Because I have to tell you, the entertainment value wore thin two villages ago.”
“We’re not giving each other anything,” Rachel muttered, taking another sip of ale and immediately regretting it. “We’re just... existing in the same general vicinity without actually acknowledging each other’s presence. It’s very mature and sophisticated.”
Hugo snorted. “Aye, about as sophisticated as watching two cats circle each other whilst pretending the other doesn’t exist. Though I’ll grant you, the cats usually have more sense.”
Through the grimy window, she could see the market square where vendors hawked their wares to travelers unfortunate enough to be passing through. The scent of roasting meat and questionable vegetables drifted through the open shutters, mixing with the inn’s signature aroma of unwashed bodies and spilled ale.
“He thinks I’m a walking disaster,” she said quietly, voicing the fear that had been gnawing at her since Westminster. “And the really awful part is, he’s not wrong. I do ruin everything I touch.”
“Bollocks,” Hugo said with enough force to make several other patrons look over. “Absolute bollocks, and if you believe that rot, you’re dafter than Father Clement on his worst day.”
She glanced at him in surprise. Hugo wasn’t exactly known for his philosophical insights—more for his ability to consume alarming quantities of ale while providing running commentary on everyone else’s poor life decisions.
“Think about it, lass,” he continued, lowering his voice but losing none of its intensity. “You want to know what Tristan was like before you arrived? I’ll tell you. He’d wake before dawn and work until midnight, pushing himself like a man trying to outrun demons. Barely spoke save to give orders. Ate whatever Cook set before him without tasting a bite.”
Hugo’s voice took on the patient tone of someone sharing hard-won truths. “I watched him go through the motions of living without ever truly being alive. ’Twas like watching a ghost haunting his own castle.”
“Because Guy destroyed his life,” Rachel protested weakly.
“Because he’d forgotten he was worth saving,” Hugo corrected firmly. “Then you arrived—this strange lass speaking of impossible places, wearing clothes that marked you as foreign as a purple sheep. Did he cast you out?”
“No, but?—”
“Nay, he gave you shelter. Shared his kitchens, his knowledge, his precious spices from court. And something changed in him.” Hugo’s scarred face softened with memory. “First time I saw him truly smile in months was when you burned that first batch of porridge and apologized to it like you’d personally offended the grain.”
Despite herself, Rachel felt her mouth twitch at the memory. She had indeed spent considerable time expressing regret to charred breakfast items while she was getting used to cooking over an open flame.
“You should have seen how he looked at me in that cell,” she said, the memory still sharp enough to cut. “Like I’d personally betrayed everything he’d tried to rebuild. Like trusting me was the final mistake in a long line of poor judgment calls.”
“Aye, I saw how he looked,” Hugo replied, his voice carrying the weight of someone who’d watched his friend suffer for years. “Like a man whose heart was breaking because he thought he’d lost something precious. Not anger, lass. Fear.”
“Fear of what?”
“Fear that he’d been right about himself all along,” Hugo said simply. “That everything he touches turns to ash. That he was cursed to destroy everything good in his life, starting with you.”
The brutal honesty of it hit her like a slap. She’d been so focused on her own guilt, her own failures, that she hadn’t considered how this might look from Tristan’s perspective. A man who’d already lost everything once, watching it happen again.
