Page 75 of The Wolf Duke's Wife
There. The blade lay on the table between them. Something like approval glinted in his eyes, approval of the courage to say it. “You think clearly.”
“You never answered my question,” she said. “Will you harm him?”
“If the law demands it,” he said.
She flinched. “That is not an answer. The law has a blindfold that slips. It sees what it is told to see. By men like you.”
He leaned forward, forearms on his thighs, the space between them filling with gravity.
“Listen to me. If Charles comes, I will not allow anyone to lay hands on you. Or him. Not until I have heard him. That much I can promise.”
She searched his face. Stone gave nothing. But his eyes were not stone. They stormed.
“And if what you hear is not to your liking?”
“Then,” he said evenly, “I will have a decision to make.”
“So will I,” she murmured, almost to herself.
His gaze sharpened. “Meaning?”
“Meaning that a wolf and his mate hunt together. If you wish my cooperation, then show me the trail you wish me to follow.”
Meaning that if you make yourself judge and executioner, Wolf, I shall not be your lady.
“I would like nothing more than to hunt with you,” Tristan said quietly.
Christine looked at him, eyes sharp, breath quick. He returned her stare with unspoken words in his gaze, constrained feelings in his carefully controlled expression.
“I am not savage enough to hunt.”
“Are you not? But I am?”
“You are wild. You have said as much.”
“Or howled it.”
“That is in the nature of wolves.”
He grinned, a movement of his lips that showed teeth. His mane of hair fell about his face, and in that moment, he was the wolf. Christine looked away with a lazy blink, showing how little his stare affected her. But it did. She tried to control her breathing. Tried to control the beating of her heart and the heat in her cheeks. Hoped she was doing a better job of it than she felt.
She did not speak those thoughts aloud. She wondered if she would have the courage of her convictions if it came to choosing between Tristan and Charles.
It should not be a matter for debate. It should be a foregone conclusion. But I feel doubt.
“Nothing,” she said instead, and hated herself a little for the lie.
The road began to climb. The air sharpened, the smell of bracken and wet bark threading the crack in the carriage window. When the horses slowed, Tristan turned his head and looked out. “Duskwood,” he said.
She followed his gaze. The house rose from the slope as if the hill had thrust it up and forgotten to cover it again. Wings sprawled out at odd angles, a tower shouldered the sky, slate-scalped and watchful. Even in daylight, it was dark with its own gravity, windows like hooded eyes, stones carrying the damp of old winters in their bones.
“It is…”
She groped for a word that did not insult, and then another that did not flatter, but found neither. “It is itself.”
A warmth touched his eyes. “That is the highest praise you could give it.”
As the carriage drew under an arch, movement flashed on the stone steps. She recognized Ernald Thynne and his wife, Elizabeth. She also recognized the two girls who bounced on their toes, waiting to greet the carriage.
