Chapter Six – A Guardian Angel
After another degrading and soul-crushing evening at his uncle’s house, Tristan once again sent his driver homeward without him. He knew that it was foolish to do so, especially considering the misfortunes that seemed to wait for him around every corner.
However, after an evening in his uncle’s and cousin’s company, Tristan needed fresh air. He needed to be alone with his thoughts to convince himself that he was not the man they deemed him to be. He needed to move his legs and feel the wind on his face.
Engulfed by the night, his agitated heart slowly calmed, the throbbing pain slowly decreasing to a dull ache, and once more, he found himself outside one of his favourite taverns. Whenever he walked the streets of London lost in thought, he would almost always end up in a place where he should not be, and yet, he couldn’t stop himself.
So, he entered, found a lonely corner and began to drink. As he did on so many evenings.
An hour passed−or maybe two, he didn’t know−and while the drunken laughter around him grew louder, the ache in his heart grew deeper. As always, he thought of his father, pictured him in this very tavern, sitting beside him, downing one drink after another. And as always, Tristan wondered why he had done so. Why had he not simply gone home?
Why are you here? A voice in his head whispered.
But Tristan knew the answer to that question. Or at least he thought he did.
Because he was lonely…and afraid…and desolate. And when he drank, he at least felt closer to his father…as absurd as that thought was. After all, his parents had died when he had been all but a few months old. He didn’t have a single memory of either of them, and yet, a part of him was ready to give and do anything to at least catch a glimpse…as fleeting as it might be.
Had his father felt lonely, afraid and desolate, too? How could he have when he had a family to love? What had happened to him? What was happening to Tristan now? Why had his father not simply stopped?
Why don’t you? The voice whispered again.
“Is there anything else I can bring you?” a seductive voice asked beside him, and Tristan’s head snapped up.
A well-endowed barmaid stood next to his table, a suggestive smile on her face, her hand gently resting on his shoulder before it slowly slid down his back as she leant closer.
Blinking, Tristan tried to focus his mind as his vision blurred again and again. Was he truly this deep in the cups that he couldn’t see straight?
“Hey, take your mitts off my wife!” an angry voice snarled on his other side, and a moment later, Tristan was yanked to his feet. Strangely enough, Tristan’s mind noted that the voice sounded familiar. Had that man yelled at him before?
However, before Tristan could dwell on that detail, his head was flung backward as the man’s hard fist connected with his jaw. Flying over the table, he landed hard on the floor, pain shooting through his back.
Scrambling to his feet, Tristan glanced around for the door, knowing that he was in no shape for a fist fight. He was already past the point where he would wonder why on earth that man had attacked him in the first place. After all, he had barely looked at the barmaid…if she had indeed been the wife the man had referred to.
But these things tended to happen to him, and by then, Tristan had accepted them as a part of life.
At least a part of his life.
A part that he couldn’t seem to escape.
However, he was determined to escape that tavern, and so he rose to his feet and quickly exited without another look back.
His head throbbed unbearably as Tristan stumbled out into the night. Drunken laughter followed him out the tavern door, and he momentarily covered his ears to shut out the noise.
The man’s fist had come out of nowhere, and Tristan rubbed the aching place on his face where it had connected with his jaw. Had he truly leered at the man’s wife? Whoever she had been?
His head buzzed like a beehive, and all he wanted in that moment was a good night’s sleep.
Turning down the street, he squinted his eyes as even the dim light from the street lamps increased the throbbing in his head, and he stumbled over an uneven cobblestone, almost falling flat on his face.
Tristan cursed under his breath and stopped in his tracks, trying hard to keep upright. The night sounds of the city echoed to his ears, and strangely he wondered what it would feel like to be blind, unable to see what lay ahead. As he listened to the distant sounds of hoof beats and cart wheels, dim voices and music, Tristan felt the skin in the back of his neck begin to prickle.
His eyes snapped open, and he craned his neck, glancing at the shadows that surrounded him.
Had he heard someone breathing behind him? Or had it only been the wind?
Tristan couldn’t be certain. After all, trouble seemed to find him no matter where he went or what hour of the day it was.
Stumbling on, he hoped that he would find a hackney carriage, but looking out through narrow slits, Tristan thought the street appeared almost deserted.
Footsteps echoed behind him, and Tristan spun around.
Instantly, his headache pounded mercilessly, and he cringed.
“Don’t you look handsome,” a familiar voice laughed. “Who did you offend this time?”
Sighing in relief, Tristan took a deep breath, waiting for his heartbeat to slow. “Apparently, I leered at another man’s wife.”
Derek chuckled. “With the husband present, I assume?”
“You would assume right,” Tristan admitted although he could do without his friend’s teasing.
After a small eternity, Derek finally stopped laughing. “I’ve known you to do stupid things, but still you never cease to amaze me.”
“If that is the kind of compliment you offer to the ladies,” Tristan snapped, “it’s no wonder they all turn you down.”
Derek’s face sobered, and he swallowed, his eyes shifting to the ground.
“I’m sorry,” Tristan mumbled. “It’s been a long night. I did not mean to insult you.”
“I know,” Derek said. “Let me help you home.”
“Thank you.” Allowing his friend to guide his steps, Tristan sighed. “What would I do without you?”
Derek chuckled, “Die an early death, I presume!”
“I suppose you’d presume right.” Leaning heavily on his friend, Tristan wondered where Derek had come from. “Did you follow me?”
Derek merely shrugged, which wasn’t unusual as the man was rather monosyllabic most of the time.
With his dark hair neatly pulled back, a few stray locks falling in his face, Derek glanced around, his midnight blue eyes assessing the street to the right and left with a calculated gaze. Dressed in dark colours, he moved with precision and purpose, every step measured and taken with care, and Tristan wondered if Derek knew something that he did not.
“Is someone following us?” he asked, wondering if the prickling in his neck he’d experienced before had been something after all.
“I’m not certain,” Derek admitted, his watchful eyes sweeping their surroundings as he guided his friend down the street and toward less deserted neighbourhoods. Soon, a hackney coach came within view, and Derek hailed it with a slight nod of his head.
How the hackney driver had seen it, Tristan didn’t know. However, his friend had always had this quiet authority. That as well as his ability to blend into his surroundings had been assets in the war and would surely serve him as a baron.
Glancing out the window, his friend kept a wary eye on their surroundings, a concerned frown on his face. “Did I not ask you to take the carriage home?” he asked, his eyes still trained out into the night. “Why do you even have that blasted thing if you refuse to make use of it?”
Tristan sighed. After all, this was not the first time they’d had this conversation, and Derek had every right to be annoyed. Although his friend had returned to England and been granted his barony a few years back, he had yet to find the time to bring the run-down manor back to its former glory. While the title was prestigious, there was no fortune attached to it.
Derek would have to start from scratch.
“I needed some air,” Tristan said feebly, suddenly feeling incredibly selfish for keeping his friend in Town when he had such pressing matters to attend to.
Derek’s calm eyes shifted to him. Then he raised an eyebrow before turning his gaze back out the window.
“I know that you disapprove,” Tristan began, “and I know that you’re right. Of course, you’re right, but I…” He shook his head. “Oh, I don’t know how to explain…any of this.”
“You feel lost,” Derek said, his voice rough and, yet, slightly emotional as though he understood only too well how Tristan felt. “But this is not the way,” he added, and now there was a clear reproach in his tone as he turned to meet Tristan’s gaze, his own unwavering. “I cannot continue to watch over you for the rest of your life.”
Tristan nodded. “I know.”
Derek drew in a deep breath. “I wish you did.”
Knowing exactly what his friend meant, Tristan sighed. He needed to find a way to accept his life for what it was and not deal with it in such a self-destructive way…or he would end like his father. “Did you see someone out there?” he asked, wondering what threats his eyes didn’t see, his instincts didn’t notice.
“Many dangers lurk in the city,” Derek said mysteriously. “However, not all dangers are meant for you.”
Tristan chuckled, “Tellington believes I’m cursed.”
Derek snorted, “Preposterous.”
“You don’t believe in curses?”
Once more, his friend’s dark eyes shifted to him and narrowed as they contemplated the expression on his face. “Neither do you,” he concluded. “Curse or no curse, we fear what we fear, and your father’s example has always held sway over you.”
Drawing in a sharp breath, Tristan nodded. “You’re right,” he mumbled for the second time that night, wondering why−if he knew that−he was still unable to change, to walk down a path different from the man who had fathered but never had the opportunity to rear him.
Everything could be so simple.
And yet, for some reason, it wasn’t.