Chapter Nine Tristan #2
“Yes, and that’s dreadful.” A beat. I waited for the but. “But honestly, darling, did you really give him your full attention? At the Lords’ party last month, you two were barely in the same room.”
She was right. Of course, she was right. That was the problem.
“You could have a quieter life, you know.” She flicked her gaze over me, appraising. “You just choose not to.”
“Quieter or smaller?” I stirred honey into my tea.
“Safe.” Her smile was too gentle. “You could be safe.”
Safe. What a word to choose.
As if safety were a birthright she could gift, not a luxury most people never touched.
She’d heard the stories, of course. Saw the news.
Protests, riots, violence creeping into the city.
And she heard what Father dealt with in the courtroom.
But to her, London’s chaos happened on the other side of tinted glass.
My choice not to apply for pupillage this year, to stay a student instead, in a house not smelling of old money and expectation, gnawed at her.
“In the house with Father?” I shook my head. “I’d suffocate before the end of the week.”
“Oh, don’t be unkind. He pushes only because he wants you to be brilliant. You’re so alike.”
That was the tragedy, wasn’t it?
He wanted me to be his reflection, and she wanted to polish the glass.
Mother sighed, leaning back and crossing her legs to drape her silk wrap over them.
“You know, Tristan, when you were little, you used to tell people you wanted to be an artist. Or a chef. Or a pilot. Every year it changed. But the moment you shadowed your father in court, you stopped saying anything else. You came home glowing. You’d never looked so proud. ”
“I was twelve.” I rolled my eyes. “I glowed because I’d been allowed to skip school.”
“You were proud because you wanted him to be proud. It’s the same thing, really. Same as Marcus. And look how proud we are of him.”
I didn’t answer. The tea had gone lukewarm, and the jasmine smelt faintly of soap.
Raquel appeared then, discreet and smiling. “Would you like to continue your day with a facial or the oxygen treatment, Mrs Hale-Fitzroy?”
“Oh, not today.” Mother slipped her sunglasses onto her head, pushing back her salon-beautiful blonde hair trailing her shoulders in blow-dried perfection. “My son’s had quite enough pampering for one morning. Haven’t you, darling?”
“More than enough.”
Raquel nodded graciously, as if we’d concluded a diplomatic meeting, and drifted away.
We collected our things in the changing suite.
Her bag, my folded jumper, the perfumed towels waiting in neat stacks.
The ritual was smooth, seamless. That’s what luxury buys: the illusion that the world has soft edges.
Outside, Knightsbridge was bright with the early afternoon.
The pavement shimmered from the recent rain; taxis lined up like black beetles, engines purring.
Across the street, Amelia paid for her shopping, visible through the shop window, a flash of blonde ponytail and shopping bags swinging from her wrist.
Mother looped her arm through mine, then waved to Amelia. “Come. Let’s have lunch. There’s a place in Harcourt Gardens that does a divine truffle risotto.”
I let her steer me because resistance always looked like cruelty with her, but I declined as politely as I could. “I’ve got to get back. I have an essay due. Library. All very academic.”
She looked at me over her sunglasses. “You’ve always been a terrible liar, Tristan.”
“I learnt from the best.”
She squeezed my arm. “You make it sound like I’ve done something dreadful.”
“You haven’t; you’ve just perfected gentle manipulation.”
“That’s called parenting.” She prodded my nose. “You’ll understand one day, when you have children.”
“I’m not sure that’s on the cards.”
“Oh, don’t be defeatist. You’re twenty-three, not ninety. You’ll find someone.”
The words slid under my skin. She meant someone like us.
Someone who could sit through charity dinners without wanting to scream.
Someone polite, polished, palatable. Whilst she knew there was no hope of me marrying a woman, and it wasn’t a major issue of hers, or even father’s, they still expected heirs.
And heirs came through marriage.
Mother tightened her hold, drawing me back into her orbit. “You don’t have to prove anything to him, you know.” She meant my father. “You could… come home. Or go to Grandfather’s cottage. That’s secluded enough for you to rest. Write. Breathe.”
“Is it empty? Are you not renting it?”
“Not anymore. Too many things need fixing. But if you want to go there, we could look into getting it done up again. You could swim in the lake. You used to like that.”
“I’ll think about it.”
A Range Rover idled at the curb, engine purring.
The driver spotted us and stepped out to open the door.
I hesitated, caught by our reflection in the tinted glass.
Mother serene and radiant, me a half-step behind, an echo dressed in better tailoring.
Then Amelia came bounding across the pavement, ponytail swinging, a cluster of glossy shopping bags cutting into her wrists.
She dropped them into the boot with a thud.
“Tristan.” Mother tapped the leather seat. “If you can’t manage lunch, at least come home. Marcus will be there. It’s polite to say hello when you’re in the area.”
Amelia slipped in beside her, eyes bright from the spoils of Knightsbridge. “Oh, come on, Tris.” She gave me a playful shove. “Keep me company with all the boring old farts. Until I get dropped back at school later.”
I sighed. There was never really a choice, so I slid into the car, and the door shut with the quiet finality of good manners.
The city rolled by in reflections: marble facades, glass towers, the blur of umbrellas.
Mother scrolled through her phone while Amelia chattered about riding gear and an upcoming competition.
I watched the city change skin outside the window, from the shine of Knightsbridge to the muted sandstone of Mayfair.
And by the time we turned onto our road, the conversation had shifted to logistics.
Dinner guests, charity luncheons, Father’s schedule.
The driver eased the car to a stop before the townhouse.
Mother disappeared upstairs to change. Amelia dumped her bags in the drawing room, humming to herself.
Mrs Linton appeared, quiet as habit. “Marcus is in the study, sir.” She took my coat. “With your father.”
Of course he was.
My brother. The golden heir. Always there to remind me what success was supposed to look like.
Married to Eloise Kingsley, the High Court judge’s daughter turned charity patron who hosted fundraising galas and graced Tatler spreads, Marcus Hale-Fitzroy had walked the family line without missing a step: Eton, Oxford, the law without the theatre, Home Office.
A life mapped out and executed like a brief.
Those same footprints I was trampling a significant amount of dirt over.
Father had dispatched me to Harrow instead of Eton, though, muddying that path for me years earlier.
He’d said I needed “more pastoral support.” Which was his polite way of saying I wasn’t built for rugby or cruelty, and certainly not for being Marcus.
Because I was gay. And as I made my way down the corridor, shoes whispering over marble, my chest tightened at facing what the perfect son looked like when I was scraping my feet in the gutter.
I usually avoided him unless there was a party of people I could hide behind.
Or Ollie was there to pull me away when it got a little ugly.
But he wasn’t around anymore.
So I had to learn to face these things by myself.
The study door stood ajar, filtering out the low, precise timbre of men discussing lives they were determined to dismantle.
Father sat behind his desk, immaculate as always, a confidential file open before him.
Opposite him sat Marcus. Tie strategically loosened, sleeves rolled to the forearm.
The picture of studied ease coming from total, unearnt control.
Even on a Sunday, Marcus wore the armour of a man heading to the office.
Father looked up first. “Tristan,” he said evenly, as if I’d arrived on cue. “Good. You might learn something.”
Marcus turned in his chair to greet me. “Afternoon, Tris. Took you long enough to surface.”
“Mother’s doing.”
“As always.” Marcus smiled, all beautiful teeth and chiselled jaw. “How was the massage?”
“A lot less happy an ending than I’d prefer.”
Marcus held my gaze. Ruffled his lips. Then immediately looked back at the file. “We’re reviewing a Home Office brief. Organised crime. You remember the case Father’s prosecuting?”
So that was our banter finished.
I dropped to the chair next to him. “Vaguely.”
Marcus gestured to the file. “Intelligence suggests their distribution chain reaches into East London. We’ve got an informant ready to testify, if he doesn’t get himself killed first.”
I blinked. East. Wonderful. Now I had to sit here thinking about that place again. London really wasn’t as big as people made out.
Father leant back, steepling his fingers. “The prosecution’s shaping up. If it holds, we’ll bring down the entire operation.”
Marcus nodded. “The Home Office wants a decisive win. Public confidence. Optics, Father said.”
“Optics matter,” Father replied. “Justice must look like order, even when it isn’t.”
They shared a look of quiet understanding, a language built from shared certainty.
I scoffed. “Sounds less like justice, more like stage management.”
Marcus’s smile didn’t falter. “And what would you call it?”
“Rehearsal,” I said. “For a verdict already written.”
Father exhaled, the Hale-Fitzroy version of a reprimand. “You’ll understand once you’ve earned the responsibility of deciding who deserves the dock.”
I glanced at him. “I’d rather understand why they end up there in the first place.”
Marcus cocked his head. “Empathy’s admirable, Tris, but inefficient. You can’t build policy on sentiment.”
“Maybe you can’t.” I held my brother’s gaze in challenge.
“Enough,” Father cut in, smooth but final. “Marcus and I are drafting the statement of intent. There’s a press briefing tomorrow.”
“Of course there is.” I rolled my eyes.
Father ignored it. “We could use your mind on sentencing theory once your dissertation’s complete.”
“And If you ever want to see how the law actually works,” Marcus added, “not in theory, but where it keeps the city from collapsing, you’re welcome to sit in.”
“That’s generous.” I ruffled my hair, greasy from the massage and reminding me I was my mother’s son and Marcus was all my father’s. “Assuming the city’s still standing after you’re done with it.”
Marcus laughed.
Father removed his glasses, setting them neatly beside the file. “Tristan, you mistake detachment for cruelty. The law doesn’t require us to feel. Only to act.”
“I know.” I folded my arms, dropping back in my chair like a reprimanded delinquent. “That’s what frightens me.”
Father closed the file. “I trust you have to get back to Eloise, Marcus?”
“I do. Luncheon for Rosewood House, the mother and baby unit.” Marcus rose, buttoning his jacket then dropped a hand on my shoulder. “Sorry to hear about you and Ollie.”
No, he wasn’t.
“Terribly bad show from a Montgomery.” Marcus then nodded to Father and left.
And when the door shut, Father rubbed the bridge of his nose, the gesture usually preceding disappointment. “You don’t have to resent my world. You’ll inherit it soon enough.”
“I’m not resentful. I’m observant.”
“Then observe carefully. Because one day you might be sitting across from men like me.”
I looked at him for a long moment. The cut of his suit, the precision of his posture, the absolute certainty that the world was better because men like him and Marcus decided what order looked like.
He gave a small nod, mistaking compliance for agreement, then turned back to his papers. “You were abrupt with Marcus. Try not to be. He has a lot going on.”
As did I, but my brother’s attempt at making a family that wasn’t getting anywhere was far more important than me being cheated on.
“He thinks punishment is a narrative.”
“Everything is a narrative,” Father said, with the reassuring arrogance of those who win. “The question is who writes it, and whether the audience applauds.”
“I’m less interested in applause than I am in harm. And who gets to define it.”
Father rested his elbows on the desk in a way that would have drawn a rebuke from his own father. “You think I enjoy this? Dragging men like animals into a dock and asking strangers to judge them?”
“Yes.”
He smiled without teeth. “I enjoy being good at something. That is different.”
“Do you ever wonder who they are when they go home? Men you call by a first name only when you want the jury to dislike them.”
“They are defendants.” That word fell like a sentence of its own. “What they are at home is none of my concern, unless they make it mine.”
There it was. The family anthem. We are responsible only for what we decide matters.
I left the study, the lilies bleeding their sterile perfume into the hall, and all I could think to do, to slow the inevitable and stop replaying Ollie’s betrayal along with forgetting the rough hand of a stranger in an alley, was to drown myself in something looking like purpose.
So I said goodbye to Mother and Amelia, jumped in the waiting car and went to the university library, where I sat under its too-bright lights, surrounded by people pretending to understand justice, and buried myself in case law and moral theory until the words lost meaning and darkness spread over Bloomsbury.
If Father imposed order on chaos, I was trying to understand why the chaos felt more honest. Why a man from the gutter could make me feel seen when everything else was built to erase me.
Pathetic, maybe.
But at least it was real.
Even if he felt like a dream.