Chapter 53
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CASSANDRA
Cassandra ran through the open front doors of the house and stood perched on the stone steps, gulping in air. No sign of them.
Hoofbeats sounded, and a mounted footman reined in before her in the drive. “Ma’am?”
“Your horse. And your coat.”
“Your Grace? May I—”
“Get down!” she snapped.
The footman dismounted at once. Cassandra caught the reins and swung herself into the saddle. “Your coat.” He stripped it off and handed it up. She thrust her arms into the sleeves as best she could, gathered the reins, and drove her heels in the horse’s flanks. The animal surged forward.
Tristan was alive.
It was impossible. Defied all reason. Yet it was true. And Rowen seemed to know.
Her brother was much changed. And their uncle had managed to twist his mind in his favour against her and Rowen. She had to find them.
Dear God, let me not be too late.
She had an idea of where they could be. Rowen and Tristan’s favourite spot on Tidesfar. The spot from where her brother had once remarked, “You could drink in the majesty of this earth.”
The hill where the Oakley temple stood.
She urged the horse over the narrow bridge, the cold wind battering her skin.
Soon enough, they reached the hill to Hawk’s Crown and charged up the worn path.
The dome came into view, and she slowed the horse to a halt and slid off him.
She ran. Curses and grunts reached her ears. Shouts echoed in the hollow temple.
Tristan held Rowen up against a moss-covered wall and punched him.
Rowen twisted in his grip, and his knee flew up and hit Tristan between the legs.
Tristan’s body jerked for a moment, and in that second, Rowen shoved away and launched at him again, landing a punch on his face.
On a roar, Tristan heaved at Rowen, throwing him to the ground and kicking him.
“Stop!” shouted Cassandra. “Tristan, stop!”
He would not stop. He was a savage animal unleashed. She rushed at her brother and pulled at him, ripping at his shirt. “Stop it! You’ll kill him!”
“I want to kill him.”
“I won’t let you!”
She shoved at her brother with all she had left in her, and he fell back. “Rowen!” Cassandra cradled her husband’s bruised and bleeding face. With her assistance, he lifted up and staggered to his feet.
“Look at you, defending him,” Tristan bit out. “The two of you profited together off our house. His father always wanted Redthorne, did you know that, Cassie?”
A shiver raced around her neck at the sound of his nickname for her. No one had ever used it but him. She never thought she’d hear it again. “No. I didn’t know, but I believe it.”
“Our father had once told me to watch out for the Duke of Oakley. He’d had a terrible run-in with him before he died.
But I told father, I liked Rowen. He was different.
What a fool I was. But you, Cassie, you understood the stakes, did you not?
” Tristan’s voice was saturated with acid.
“Uncle told me how you seduced Rowen and forced his hand in marriage. Then how swiftly obstacles to your future disappeared, and how neatly Redthorne and Tidesfar were secured. You abandoned your family for title and a life of ease and indulgence.” He stood, wiping his bloodied hands down his trousers as he glared at Rowen.
“And you—I asked you to look out for her, instead you consumed her like one of your—”
“You left, Tristan,” Cassandra’s voice rang out.
His gaze swung to her. Rooks cawed in the distance. The trees shuddered in a gust of wind.
“You left,” she repeated.
“I left you in the care of our uncles.”
“Our uncles did not offer care but ruin.”
His face darkened, his shoulders stiffened.
“After you left, they dismissed my governess and most of the staff and kept me locked in the nursery like a possession set aside for later use whilst they filled Redthorne with prostitutes and drunken revelry. Their debts mounted quickly.
“In the beginning, Uncle Robert attempted to force himself on me. Alastair stopped him because I had to remain untouched. Because they intended to sell me in marriage–my body, my name, my future to Rowen’s father, the Duke of Oakley. They called it an advantageous marriage. I did not.”
Tristan’s features tightened.
“They needed money. Their reputation was in ruins. They craved connection to the house of Oakley. Their respectability would be purchased through me. I was not a niece. I was their asset.
“Alastair intended for His Grace to marry me, and in return, my uncles would claim the fortune you left me and keep Redthorne for themselves. But before any marriage, the Duke, who did not trust them, wished to examine what he was buying as if I was a prize to be evaluated … and sampled for quality.”
Tristan stumbled back and grabbed at a stone pillar.
“And Rowen stopped him.”
“Like father, like son.” Tristan’s burning gaze shot to Rowen. “He only wanted to use you for himself!”
“You’re wrong.” Her voice was quiet now, steady. Certain. “Every man in my life claimed some right over me. Guardian. Seller. Buyer. Rowen saw me when no one else did.”
“Cassie, he’s—”
“I love him.” The words flew out of her and settled into her all at once. “I love Rowen.” She stood straighter, as if something long unmoored within her had finally dropped anchor and held.
Rowen stilled. His gaze fixed on her. One hand tightened slowly at his side. “Zandra…” His voice was rough, as if dragged across stone.
Tristan glanced between them, his body sagging against the column.
She had spoken her truth, and it flared hotly in her veins, pounded in her pulse.
Yes, truth. Cassandra turned to Rowen. “You knew he lived?”
“I suspected. I—”
“How long?”
Rowen did not answer at once. “Before we left Naples, intelligence reached me that contradicted Tristan’s reported death.
” His jaw tightened. “I began searching quietly. It was not enough. In Naples, I learned that truth rarely moves through official channels. It moves through vanity. Through men who believe themselves secure and invulnerable. With my reputation, I easily built a circle of my own where I could encourage that movement.”
“The private club at Greywick.”
“There, I controlled the room. Influence flows easily where pleasure blinds judgment. I gave them indulgences. I let them speak, I persuaded them to speak, and I listened. The first lead came shortly before the royal wedding. Confirmation came later.” Rowen did not elaborate. The torches hissed in the damp air.
The heat of those nights at Greywick rose before her. A blur of revelry, wine, masked whispers. Such spectacle. She had believed them daring, reckless freedoms shared in trust.
They had been deliberate. Calculated. More of an extravagant fiction than she’d realised.
She held his gaze, her own burning. “At what cost were those games played? At what cost to us?” She drew back, a low moan twisted from her. “While I mourned my brother, you hunted for him.”
Tristan let out a low breath, his mouth sliding into a brittle curve. “Oakley…you lied to your precious wife?”
Rowen’s head turned slowly toward Tristan. The air between them tightened, strained like rigging in a rising gale. “My wife is the most precious thing to me in this life. I love her.” The words tore from him.
The temple fell silent around his raw voice.
He had never said it before. Now his sudden and fierce words seared Cassandra’s heart.
Rowen’s jaw tightened. “And I shielded her as long as I could from a ghost.”
Tristan’s smile flickered away, the amusement vanishing from his face. “Cassie—”
Cassandra’s fingers curled into her skirts as she met her brother’s dark gaze. “I was told you had been buried at sea. And then I had to bury you in my heart.”
Tristan did not reply, did not move.
“Tell me how.” There was no softness left in her, no ache, no plea. “I want to know how you died.”
Tristan winced.
“How is a man is buried at sea and yet he stands before me breathing?” she said quietly. “I want the truth, not tales of sacrifice or valour. The truth.”
A thick silence simmered between brother and sister.
Tristan drew a slow breath. “We reported an engagement off the coast. There were casualties. Guns exploding. Smoke. Fire. Confusion. In such moments, bodies are not…carefully accounted for.”
Cassandra remained still.
“I was removed before the roll was finalised,” Tristan continued. “Listed among the dead. A burial recorded. Witnesses signed. The Admiralty sealed it.”
“You arranged it? Your own death?”
“It was my idea.”
“And Enggers assisted?” said Rowen.
“He did.”
Cassandra’s chin lifted. “All this time, and not one message in secret to me? You let them tell me you were gone. You let me—”
“I could not risk it.”
“You could not risk me knowing?”
“If even one person knew the truth,” Tristan said, “then the man I had to become could not exist. I had to disappear completely. Not missing. I had to be dead.”
“For what purpose?”
“Our enemies watch the living. They do not hunt the dead,” he replied.
“Sister, I erased myself for my nation, for an idea greater than any one life. Under a new identity, I entered confidential service to the Crown. I established channels of intelligence across the Continent…informants, agents, couriers who go out to the enemy and gather information on movements of armies and personages of interest. Hear rumours and use them. Information that England was never meant to know, becomes knowledge that reaches England before danger can.”
“So England gained a ghost,” she said. “And I lost my brother.”
The lines of his weathered face collapsed, his breath shuddering. “A living man could never have accomplished such an enterprise. A dead one did.” Tristan’s voice broke, his head hung low, and he staggered, his torn shirt falling open.
Angry welts and bruises marked his abdomen, his chest. Cassandra’s breath cut. Scars layered upon scars. There was barely an inch of him untouched. The brutal cost of Tristan’s dedication was branded in his flesh.
Once, she and her brother had played at naval battles beneath this very sky. Once, they’d called it a game. Once, they had imagined glory.
Now they stood inside its ruin.
The wind from the valley rose and howled through the hollow temple, and a memory stirred in her mind. Frederica’s words. Cassandra reached forward and pulled open Tristan’s torn shirt.
“He had the most horrible scars all down his chest, and long stretches of burn marks too. Many were recent. He would not discuss it. I assumed he must have been in the army and fought in a battle, and perhaps was imprisoned for he suffered greatly.”
“You have suffered, suffered greatly?” She used Frederica’s words.
“I have,” he breathed.
Her body swayed, a roar uncoiling in her ears.
Rowen slid his arm around her waist, steadying her. “Tristan led the siege of Morbihan. He led the few survivors to safety in Guernsey. They’ve been there ever since.”
“Guernsey?” Cassandra’s mouth dried. “For over ten months?”
“Yes,” replied Tristan.
“Their mission was betrayed, and they’ve been in hiding ever since,” explained Rowen. “Enggers was in Jersey looking for them. If he’d found them…”
“Enggers and Uncle were looking for you,” said Cassandra. “I was there, and Uncle recognised me and tried to kill me with poison.”
Tristan’s eyes narrowed. “He tried to…kill you?”
“And then he poisoned you with lies about me.”
Tristan’s nostrils flared. “He insisted I cross to England with him, that we would come here and take back what was ours. But I gave him the slip. What I would do to him, if I had him before me now…”
“He is here, brother,” said Cassandra. “We have him here at Tidesfar.”