Page 57

"Then what?"

"Trust." Julian leaned back in his leather chair. "I was expected to take a wife. The trustees demanded it, the entail demanded it, and thirteen years of avoiding England demanded it. And when I considered who⁠—"

He paused, his fingers finding the stem of his untouched glass.

"I could think of no one but Adelaide. I have known her since childhood. She is the only person alive I trust without reservation."

Cassian did not respond immediately. He studied Julian with a deliberate stillness that presaged a sharp observation.

"Does she know the man you are now, Julian?"

The question landed like a stone dropped into still water.

"And what your brother's death has truly done to you?"

Julian's hand tightened around the glass. The warmth of the club, the comfortable leather, and the easy conversation contracted into a tight, airless space behind his ribs.

She has no idea.

She did not know that he lay awake in the dark for hours each night, staring at the carved oak canopy, listening to the silence of Ravensmere House as though it might speak.

She did not know that sleep came only in fragments, or that when it arrived, it dragged the Highland rain back with it.

She did not know that the adjoining door between their chambers had become a torment, because on the other side she slept peacefully while he lay rigid in the dark, gripping the counterpane and waiting for a dead boy's voice to reach him.

"It is not a subject I have discussed with anyone," Julian said, his voice coming out flatter than intended. "And I do not intend to begin."

Cassian held his gaze for a moment, then inclined his head. He did not press the matter; he never pressed, a quality that made him both a loyal friend and an infuriating confidant.

Julian redirected the conversation. "No one understood Thomas as Adelaide did. No one. She knew his mind, his work, and his way of seeing the natural world. When I found her annotations in my expedition journals, correcting errors I had overlooked for years—" He broke off, shaking his head. "No one else could be trusted with what he left behind."

Cassian remained silent for a moment before his expression softened into a milder regard.

"I confess I never realized how deeply Thomas's friendship shaped Adelaide's life," he remarked quietly. "Not until I watched the two of you together in the library at Ravensmere, arguing over juniper taxonomy as though the fate of nations depended upon it." He smiled gently. "Some love stories simply arrive later than others."

The word hit Julian with physical force.

Love.

"You are a romantic dreamer, Cassian," he said, his tone sharper than intended. "Our union is grounded in trust, honor, and duty. Those are the foundations of a marriage, not sentiment.

"If you say so."

"I do say so."

"Then I shall not argue." Cassian took a slow sip of his drink. "Though I will note that you have not touched your brandy in the last quarter hour, which is unlike you, and you have been fidgeting with that glass since I mentioned Adelaide's name."

Julian set the glass down firmly. "I am not fidgeting."

"You are fidgeting extensively."

Julian chose not to dignify the comment with a response. Cassian allowed the silence to hold for a moment before shifting in his chair.

"Do you still intend to set sail for Xanthos in two months?"

The question redirected the conversation into safer territory, or so Julian believed.

"My plans are uncertain," he stated.