Alas, he’d given her valuable guidance in finding an art instructor.
“Claire?”
She started, jolted back to her brother’s question. What had it been? Ah, yes, did she wish to speak about it?
“No,” she said softly. “I don’t.”
“Well, we’re going to.”
Claire managed her first smile of the day. She forced her gaze from the frosted window. “I thought you asked if I wanted to.”
“I was being polite.” Tristan looped an ankle across his opposite knee. “I was hoping you’d say yes. I was hoping you would tell me on your own what madness compelled you to leave.” His previously calm tones grew increasingly agitated as he spoke, the questions coming without even a pause for her to interject an answer. “To seek out a stranger. My God, Claire, what possessed you?” he demanded on a furious whisper.
She winced. In all her life, he’d never spoken to her with the disappointment now dripping from his every word.
Dropping that nonchalant pose, he leaned forward. “Is it really that bad, Claire?” There was such pain in her brother’s voice that tears clogged her throat. “Has it been so bad that you would run off to marry a strang—?”
“No!” she exclaimed. Except, that wasn’t the whole truth. “Yes.”
His features contorted in such grief, she briefly closed her eyes. “Th-that is, not because of you. Not because of Poppy. It is just… I am so tired of being linked to what Mother and Father did,” she implored, begging for him to understand. “I hate what they did. And I hate that I shall be held accountable.”
“Oh, Claire.” His voice broke, and he reached a hand out.
She ignored that offering from her eldest sibling. “I don’t have a future awaiting me, Tristan.”
“Of course you do.”
“You know I don’t,” she shot back. “You said it yourself,” she pointed out, reminding him of that day they’d been forced out of the Earl of Maxwell’s townhouse, and she and her sisters had been carted off to the country while Tristan had remained behind in London.
“Whatever happened to, ‘I for one don’t much care if some proper lords and ladies give us the cut direct. If a gentleman doesn’t wish to know me or marry me because of actions beyond my control…’?”
My God, he’d remembered verbatim those words she’d spoken to him in the ballroom that day.
“I lied,” she cried out. “I lied because I wanted you to not feel so bad because it wasn’t your fault.”
“It wasn’t yours either, Claire,” Tristan said quietly.
She paused. Yes, she knew that… now. Because of Caleb. She slumped in her seat, seeing Caleb on the bench across from her as they sketched quietly together. Conversed. Learned each other’s bodies…
This time, she didn’t attempt to hide the flow of tears. She let the big drops well in her eyes and fall silently down her cheeks.
A tortured groan slipped from Tristan’s lips, and he reached another hand out.
“I’m not a child anymore, Tristan,” she said, her voice catching. “I am tired of being a burden.”
He made a sound of protest. “You would never be a burden.” That denial burst from him.
A half laugh, half sob escaped her. “Tristan, not having a life of my own and imagining that I’ll always live in your household, it’s simply how I feel. I am never going to have a life of my own. You cannot make any of this go away. You cannot make society accept me. You cannot make a-anyone love me.”
But she didn’t want just anyone. Caleb. She wanted him to love her as desperately and passionately as she loved him.
“It is my life to command,” she finished.
“I respect that,” he said instantly. “But can you please not let those commands include tying yourself to a stranger? My God, Claire, he could have been any madman. He could have beat—”
“I know,” she bit out. She’d considered every last horrible possibility before she’d responded to that advertisement.
Her brother’s gaze scoured her face. “And yet, it was still a risk you took?”
“It was,” she said tiredly. “Because at least then it would have been my decision.”
A sound of frustration escaped him, and Claire’s patience snapped.
“How dare you, Tristan?” she hissed. “How dare you condemn me? You, who were so determined to restore honor and not look like a fortune hunter, joined the military, again.”
He winced. “Claire.”
“No,” she said calmly, forging ahead even as her heart raced from the double standards of it all. “You then agreed to a business arrangement with Poppy.”
“It wasn’t the same thing,” he mumbled, and at least he had the good grace to blush at his own hypocrisy.
“Why?” She lifted an eyebrow. “Because you fell in love? Well, I—” Claire clamped her lips shut, but it was too late. In her bid to defend her actions, she’d exposed herself in the most agonizing way.
Oh, God.
She whipped her gaze back toward the window, silently pleading. Please, do not say anything. Please let it go. Please, just—
“Do you want to talk about Gray?”
All her muscles clenched. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“I knew before you let slip what you just let slip,” he said gently. “I knew the moment you rushed into his office, pretending to be happy to see me.”
Claire flinched. “You knew—”
“Knew that you were pretending? Yes, I knew that, too. Don’t take me for either a blind man or a fool, Claire. You’re my sister.”
Claire sank her teeth into her lower lip to steady the tremble. “What is there to say?” she asked on an aching whisper. She folded her arms around her middle. “I hated him… until I didn’t. I despised him until I fell madly in love with him.”
He ran a hand down the right side of his face. “Oh, Claire. I’m sorry.”
“That he doesn’t love me back?” She couldn’t swallow back the bitterness in her reply. “No, you’re not. You’ve hated him from the moment you came home and found him instructing Poppy.”
“Fair enough.” He leaned forward again, but remained silent until she met his gaze. “But this has nothing to do with Poppy and everything to do with you. Caleb Gray doesn’t deserve you.” Then, just like when she’d been a small girl, he tweaked her nose. “No man does.”
“He does,” she whispered. Her brother was wrong. About so much.
“If he was fool enough to let you go, Claire,” he said quietly, “then no, he was never worthy of you.”
Perhaps. Because the man she loved was surely one who would fight for her, who would be so bereft at the thought of her leaving that he’d stop her carriage midflight.
Another tear slipped down her cheek, and she discreetly brushed it back.
And yet, this wasn’t one of the romantic tales she’d once read. This wasn’t some love story for the stage. This was life, as real and harsh and painful as only life could truly be. Love was complicated and messy, and there weren’t happily-ever-afters. At least not for everyone.