“Look at ye,” Alistair grunted, “Starin’ at me with that same hatred you had for me the day I married Theo. I knew right away you were not the perfectly mild mannered lord you pretended to be but I thought ye and I were past this sort of contempt.”
Realizing not only that he had truly lost control of himself, but had just also nearly broke his brother-in-law’s arm, Tristan stopped struggling against Dominic and Hugo’s hold. He felt the rigid lines of disdain slip into defeated sadness; felt the ache in his chest bloom free, and he hung his head.
“I am sorry, Alistair. Everyone,” he murmured guiltily. “I lost myself.”
For a moment he simply hung in Dominic and Hugo’s hold as silence stretched between them. He felt the heat of his fever pound into his very flesh, his temples, and finally accepted that he was in far worse condition that he’d let himself believe.
“Let him go,” Alistair softly commanded.
Shame funneled through his soul as Tristan dropped to his knees as his friends’ grip loosened on him, unable to look up at the men he’d just betrayed.
“I have never seen him like this,” Dominic murmured.
“You three go, I shall handle this,” Alistair replied.
Tristan kept his head bowed as the shuffling of footsteps filled the room, followed by the sound of a shutting door. With his eyes still on the floor, Tristan watched as Alistair’s shoes appeared before him and his friend crouched down. A second later he felt Alistair’s large hand pat his cheek twice.
“Get up,” he commanded. “We need to speak.”
This time Tristan made no move to fight Alistair as he put his hands on him and helped him up. He let Alistair walk him off the ring and to the table, where Alistair pushed him into a chair then flung a towel at him.
“Clean yourself up,” Alistair insisted, pouring a glass of water. “Drink this. Then I want you to start talking. Perhaps I can be of more assistance than you think.”
As Tristan rubbed the towel over his soaked hair and behind his neck, he picked up the glass of water with the other and drained it.
“I am not myself,” he stated as he sat the glass down.
“That is obvious,” Alistair replied dryly. “The question is why. Is it about this Perley fellow? I told you we would find him. You just need patience.”
Tristan huffed out a humorless laugh.
“Perley is part of it,” he replied, “Every time I think I’m about to grab hold of a solid lead it slips through my fingers. As for patience? Could you be patient if you found a man responsible for your father’s death? A death that had been disguised for over a decade as a natural cause?’”
“Nay,” Alistair admitted, rubbing his jaw tiredly. “I suppose not.”
A moment of silence stretched between them before Alistair quietly asked, “But he is not the only one that evades your grasp, is it?”
Tristan looked up wearily, and from the look in Alistair’s eyes Tristan knew there was no denying it. Alistair did not have to say her name for him to know who he was alluding to.Ophelia.
“No,” he whispered.
“Something happened between you two,” Alistair egged on, “Something perhaps at the club you operate?”
Tristan’s body went still as he willed his eyes not to widen.
“I do not know what you are talking about,” Tristan lied.
Alistair raised a doubtful brow and leaned back in his chair.
“Theo shares much with me,” Alistair stated. “There is not much we keep from one another.”
Tristan’s brows furrowed.
“So?”
Alistair shrugged.
“So I find it mightily suspicious that the same time Ophelia reveals to Theo that she has been working as a painter for the Devil’s Masquerade until recently. And coincidentally along that same time line you start acting as if your entire world has fallen apart,” Alistair replied.
