PROLOGUE
Tristan woke with a start. He had been waking from nightmares quite often in the past six months. He knew that Nanny was only a room away. He could call out to her, but something in him hesitated to do so.
He wanted to be strong. Papa told him how important it was for a boy to be strong, so that he could grow up to be a great man. More than anything in the world, he wanted to please his papa. His father was all he had left.
And his baby sister, of course, but she was too little to understand what they’d lost. Rather than try to sleep again, Tristan climbed out of bed, picked up a candlestick, and struck a match to light the wick. Then he crept quietly out of his room.
Making his way down the hall, he tiptoed, all but holding his breath, hoping to move silently enough that he woke no one. He’d made this journey many times in the last six months. Sometimes during the day when no one is about and Papa was out on his day’s business or locked in his study. On those days, he waited until he’d finished his lessons and the house was quiet, and then he’d crept down the hall to the far end, and pushed open the door to his mother's room.
It had remained unchanged. Papa would not allow it to be altered, and he told the staff that no one was to enter Mama’s room except to keep it tidy. But he had not locked the door either. Tristan was grateful because he liked to visit the room.
The chamber still smelled like his mother. Not the way it had in those days when she was so ill with a fever, but the days before the sickness. The happy days. The days when she smiled and laughed and read him stories.
He could remember her better when he was in her room. And he did now, as soon as he stepped inside. He imagined he could still see her sitting in her chair or perching on the edge the bed. Or settled in front of her vanity. Yes, he could still see her there. But she wasn’t there. He couldn’t truly see her, and if he spoke to her, she never answered. Mama was not a ghost, though sometimes he wished she would come back as one. He wished he could see her, the true her, just once more.
His memories were more like shadows. A shimmer, like when he’d accidentally looked at the sun and then looked away. He could still see the shape of her.
Tonight, he pushed open the door and breathed in the fading scent of her perfume, then walked in a little farther. The carpet felt good under his bare feet as he approached her vanity. He dared to run his fingers over the bristles of her hairbrush, lifted the lid on a dish of hand lotion, and inhaled the scent of roses in the air.
Tristan smiled. Such a good smell, and when he closed his eyes, he could remember smelling that scent when she gave him a goodnight hug.
He heard a sound and froze, gently laying the lid back on the lotion dish.
Holding his breath, he strained to listen. What was that sound?
It almost sounded like someone had been hurt.
He heard a groaning and then a long moan through the wall. His Papa’s chamber was just next door. Tristan crept out of his mother's room, pulling the door closed gently so as not to make noise, and walked a little farther down the hall. He laid his ear against the panel of his father's door.
Papa was mumbling. Groaning. And then Tristan heard a sound he recognized all too well because he still cried himself to sleep many nights.
Papa was crying. He did not even know his father could cry. He had not cried at the funeral, and he never cried at the dinner table, as Tristan had once done. And when Tristan was bold enough to go and visit him in his study, he had never seen his father crying there either.
Nanny told him that his father was a stoic sort, but that his father had loved Mama. She told Tristan that a young gentleman was not supposed to cry in front of others or let others see one’s feelings.
For some reason, it was odd to know that his father was crying and that he did it privately, just like Tristan did secretly in his room. Hearing his father crying brought tears to Tristan’s eyes too.
He wanted to be with him, and he thought his father wouldn’t be cross if he saw him crying because he was his only son. Of course, Papa would never cry in front of visitors or the staff, but maybe if Tristan were with him, he could put an arm around his shoulders the way that Nanny sometimes did, to comfort him.
Often, it didn’t help, because Nanny was not who he really wanted to hug.
But maybe Papa would be comforted if Tristan went to him and gave him a hug.
Swallowing back a little lump of fear, he took the few steps down to his father’s room, twisted the doorknob, and slippedinside. At first, he couldn’t see his father. His bed was made. The room was tidy. But then he saw him sitting on the floor in front of the window. The window that looked out onto the garden that Mama used to tend.
When his father heard him, he snapped his head up, eyes wide with shock. He swiped his sleeve across his face.
“What are you doing, boy?”
“I couldn't sleep, Papa, and I heard noises.”
His father said nothing, just regarded him from where he sat in the shadows.
“I'm sorry, Papa. I wanted to help you.”
He sensed that his father was not happy to have him there and thought for certain he would be sent back to his room.
Or maybe his father would call for Nanny, and she would put him back to bed. She might read him a story.
