“If you know, then why would you let your prick do the thinking?”
“What did I do?” Tristan flung his arms out, forgetting he was on a train momentarily and rapped the cold glass of the train car window with his knuckles.
“You kissed a girl and fell in love with her!” his father said, his face flushing temporarily red.
“I tried to make Ophelia remove her from the expedition. That way, I could properly court her, and there would be no issue about Scotland or the Matterhorn, or any of our preparations out in the countryside. Every woman’s reputation would have been safe, if Ophelia had gone along with it.” Tristan slumped back against his seat. “But then Ophelia got mad and demandedto know why I wanted Eleanor off the team, and then she told Eleanor what I’d asked, and then Eleanor broke the whole thing off! She chose the adventure over me. There. That’s my humiliation. Would you like to rub my face in it a little more? I’m not sure I’ve got many more details for you to savor.”
His father was silent. Tristan looked up, wanting to know the tone of his silence. His father turned his weighty gaze out the window.
“Do you not have another chastisement for me?” Tristan asked.
“No.” His father heaved a sigh. “It makes a damned mess of everything. We’ll have to work hard to build trust back up.”
“I know.”
“You asked the girl to pick which dream she wanted. The mountain or a marriage.”
“Because I did not think she wanted the mountain in the first place.” The shame that shot through him was foreign and altogether miserable. His father was silent, so he continued. “And she told me she wanted me.”
“Everyone should be given a chance to follow their dream. Miss Piper included. Should you have a dream, as Ophelia has hers, as Arthur has his, as Portia had hers, I will give you all the backing you want.”
Tristan felt the flush of shame for his lack of ambition. “I know.”
“I know that it hasn’t been easy for you, not being the heir.”
Tristan shrugged. It wasn’t that he wanted to be the heir. But sometimes, wasn’t it nice to have a direction already laid out to follow? Instead of starting from nothing?
“But times are changing rapidly. While being a viscount is a heavy responsibility, I fear the job will only grow more difficult in the years to come. Arthur knows this. You, however, have the opportunity to start anew, free of the confines of the estate.”
Tristan did his best not to wince. This was the speech he hated the most. Thehow lucky you are, Tristan,speech. Where his future was shiny and bright and open. And not a yawning pit of nothingness that he stared down every time he heard this.
“But perhaps you are more like Portia, and less like Ophelia and Arthur?” His father kept up his gaze out the window. “All Portia wanted was a family. She married a man she loved, living in the house of her dreams. Her ambition was simple. Perhaps that is more akin to what you want?”
Tristan shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He didn’tknowwhat he wanted. Not until he’d met Eleanor. And then he wanted her, by whatever terms she’d have him. But then, those terms weren’t acceptable to her, so here they were.
His father continued when Tristan didn’t answer. “I thought because of your dalliances that you were not a man who wanted a family. But now I’m not so sure.”
A family? That seemed a leap of logic. “I believe that doesn’t work with what I’ve been branded as.”
An amused look graced his father’s face. “And what is that?”
“Feckless. Irresponsible. And of course, devilishly handsome.” He couldn’t help tacking the joke on the end. The bravado he used, the only positive thing anyone ever said about him. Herringbone was the smart one; Ophelia was the driven one; Portia was the nice one. Tristan was the good-looking one. What did he have when the only asset he had was skin-deep?
Unexpectedly, his father frowned. “That’s not what people say.”
“It is. I’ve heard all of those,” Tristan assured him. “Especially that last bit.”
“It isn’t a bad thing to be an attractive man.”
“Indeed, it has served me well.” Tristan looked out the window. “But what else am I?”
“You’re the son of a viscount is what else,” his father said, his tone sounding insulted.
Tristan nodded. Another tick of a box that had nothing whatsoever to do with him. His looks, the circumstance of his birth. He was lucky, not good.
“Not that I would ever condone this sort of compliment hunting for anyone else, but,” his father said, staring him down as if they were adversaries, “but you are generous and thoughtful towards your sister, which not all men could be. You are excellent at putting aside your ego and letting her shine. You are strong, loyal, and determined.”
“Determined?” Tristan laughed. “I could hardly say so. What have I done in my life that was determined? I have no ambition, I have no career or legacy to show for my twenty-six years on this earth.”
