Page 114 of The Wolf Duke's Wife
“They’re only…”
“Christine, please.”
Something in his voice, the raw, ragged note of it, undid her. She turned to the footmen. “Wait at the gate. I’ll call if I need you.”
They hesitated, exchanged looks, and obeyed. When they had gone, she closed the distance between them.
“My God, what’s happened to you?”
“Life,” he said bitterly, “or what’s left of it.”
She reached for his arm, but he drew back.
“I shouldn’t have come. I swore I wouldn’t. But I’ve no choice. You’re the only one who’d still see me.”
Her pulse quickened. “Are you in danger?”
He laughed once, low and hollow. “Only from men who expect payment. Money, Christine. That’s all. Just enough to get me out of England. I swear it’s the last time.”
Her stomach turned cold. “You promised that before.”
“I mean it now,” his eyes shone with the fierce sincerity of the hopeless. “I’ve debts, ugly ones. They’ll kill me if I stay. I just need a few hundred pounds to buy my passage. After that, you’ll never hear from me again.”
I want to believe him. God help me, but I want him out of my life so I can have a life with Tristan. What kind of sister does that make me?
If she helped him to escape, then Tristan would never find him. He might keep looking—and as long as he looked, her marriage would survive.
But if he finds Charles, then he has no reason to go ahead with our marriage. It will all be over.
“Tristan will help you if you…”
“No!” The word cracked like a whip, “he’d hand me to the magistrate before the ink dried. Don’t you see? I’ve run out of chances.”
She stood frozen between duty and mercy. The simplest thing in the world would be to summon the footmen, to end it here and deliver him to Tristan. Let justice, or whatever passed for it, take its course. But she saw in her brother’s face the boy who had made her laugh when they were children, who had held her hand at their mother’s grave.
“Christine,” he said, softer now, “you’re his duchess or you will be. What’s a handful of gold to you? Help me once more, and I’ll be gone for good.”
She closed her eyes. Tristan’s voice echoed in her memory
Trust yourself, Christine.
When she opened her eyes, she said, “Wait here. I’ll find what I can.”
He sagged with relief. “You’re an angel.”
“No,” she said quietly. “I’m a fool.”
She turned back toward the house, the footmen falling into step a distance behind her. They had stopped too far away to overhear the conversation. Her thoughts raced, sharp and guilty. If Tristan discovered Charles had been here, if he learned she had concealed him, the fragile peace between them would shatter. But if she did nothing and Charles was caught, the end would come just the same.
She paused at the foot of the stairs and looked up at the grand façade of Duskwood. For the first time, it felt like something alive and watchful, the very walls whispering.
Do not lie to him.
“I’ll just be a moment,” she told the footmen, “see that no one goes into the gardens.”
In Tristan’s study, the air was cool and still, scented faintly with wax and cedar. His desk gleamed, immaculate, papers stacked with a precision that made her heart twist. She began with the drawers of his desk, the right-hand drawer for correspondence, the left for ledgers, the center one locked. She found a small key in an empty vase on a corner of the desk, which rattled when she nudged it.
Inside the drawer lay order and temptation. Stacked paper money, promissory papers, a leather purse of sovereigns. The gold gleamed like accusation.
