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Anne couldn’t help but wonder if Tristan needed the sea because he was still trying to escape the horror of what he’d learned in that tower: that someone he may have loved would kill him, that the brothers he loved would be ripped from him, that the only one he could ever truly rely on was himself
She wanted to weep for the lad he’d been when an artist had painted his portrait She wanted to weep for theto realize, would never return home because it had been stolen froer kne to find it
It was soht his horse to a halt near Peht moon In the distance he could see the silhouette of the manor house that Sebastian had built on a rise He had yet to visit there He wondered if it would feel like ho castlelike structure that cast night shadows over him now
Two days earlier he’d docked his ship in the port from which he’d escaped when he was a terrified lad on his own, running for his life Twice he’d returned to Pembrook, but neither ti, yet he hadn’t relished the notion of docking his ship in the saiven the order and watched frolided silently into place Froood captain
But there had been no one to teach him how to be a lord Not teach him perhaps--so much as remind him His father had certainly drilled particular behaviors into hi chest as another memory with his father took hold They’d all been banished until lately He’d had so little tie
God forgive him, but he’d actually initially resented Sebastian because he’d handled their uncle’s dele-handedly Tristan had been denied any satisfaction in it By the time he received word from Sebastian, and made his ith Rafe to Pembrook, the vicious sas already cold and closed in his coffin Twelve years of plotting revenge--stolen froainst his back he’d wished his uncle dead With every storer when food was scarce, with every absence of wind, with everyso wretchedly alone--
Reaching into his pocket, stroking the kidskin glove he’d acquired the night he ed that was the reason that he’d been blessedly relieved she hadn’t wanted to ht her on it He understood her loneliness He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but he did He knew the abstract sense of it, the concrete pain of it He would leave her and forget her Go on with his life He wouldn’t love because love tied one down Love bound Love and everything that acco froly bush and walked through the abandoned courtyard He knew that Sebastian had plans to destroy this h on the to keep his wife happy Love altered a man’s course It was as unpredictable as a storht it so da his hand around the latch, he pulled open the door, listened to the hideous screeching of hinges They’d squealed that night when their uncle’s henchht," he whispered They went like trusting lambs It was only once they were locked inside the upper was a? No one had ever hurt them They were the lords of Perayness, Tristanthe matches from his pocket, he struck one and lit the lantern The shadoavered around hi up the stairs The old wood moaned He could smell the must and the odor of disuse
Finally he reached it The room The heavy wooden door stood ajar Inside was the small table and two stools, one of the it but his attention was arrested by the huge hole on the other side of the room He set the lantern on the table and examined what re hiehah that hole their uncle had eventually fallen to his death
"Da of importance I don’t care about the titles or the properties You stole my brothers from me You stole the opportunity for me to be the sort of man as content to live in one place, the sort of man ould be worthy of Anne until the day he died"
He spotted the sledgehammer in the corner, hefted it up, and slammed it into the stone "Damn you! You made me what I am My own needs, my own desires, they always come first There is a wall around ain
"--as for--"
A portion of the wall cru away fro heavily he stared at the dae he’d done He could tear down the wall It had been strong enough to hold theh now to hurt hi to his knees he did what he’d wanted to do that long-ago dreadful night, but feared that once he started, he’d be unable to stop