"Lurking in doorways is a bad habit, you know." He gave a dry chuckle at his friend's bemused expression.
Carter shrugged. "I didn't think you'd leave London." There was something about the way he spoke that concerned Tristan.
He'd missed something, and Carter was hinting at whatever it was.
"Yes, well, I had my reasons for leaving. Is my father waiting for me?" he asked.
"He is, but he doesn't know you've arrived."
Which meant they had a few minutes to talk before his father would learn of his arrival.
Carter turned and went back into the morning room, where one of the Chippendale desks was littered with schoolbooks and papers. A sleek laptop was powered up, and spreadsheets filled the screen. Carter was hard at his studies, unlike Tristan.
Guilt chipped away at the back of his mind. Despite being born with everything he'd ever desired, the need to earn his place, to prove to himself and his father that he deserved the life he had, was always there. "Never good enough," was what his father said. Never good enough. A disappointment, a failure as a son. The words were as harsh as a physical blow.
I should be focused on my studies, like Carter, not obsessing over Kat. Not that it had done him any good, in the end.
"I was in London yesterday evening," Carter said, his lips twitching. "Do you remember seeing me?"
He'd seen Carter? Yesterday? With a shake of his head, Tristan took a seat at the table.
"I didn't think you'd remember." Carter's lips broke into a full smile. "But I met her."
"Her?" What the bloody hell did he-
No, there was no way he had met Kat.
Carter sat down in the chair across from him. With a slow, deliberate movement he closed the laptop and propped his elbows on the table as he fixed Tristan with piercing blue eyes.
"I met Kat. The woman you said you fucked to within an inch of her life and couldn't get out of your head. The same Kat who happens to be your future stepsister."
Tristan flinched. Sometimes he confided too much in his best friend.
"How did you find out?"
"Brianna called me after you met up with her at the pub. She decided to play her hand at matchmaking after you shared your interesting situation with her. She slipped a heavy allergy pill in your drink to make you a tad helpless, and she called me to help get you home. She knew it wouldn't look good for Kat to see you returning home with another woman, especially one you'd been involved with in the past."
"Bri did that to me?" He couldn't believe it. The thought of Brianna planning something like that was almost funny.
With a wry smile, Carter collected his textbooks and notes in an apparent effort to tidy up. "She guessed, accurately so, that Kat wouldn't let you sleep alone while you were in such a wretched condition. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say you two shared a bed last night."
A warm flush spread across Tristan's face. Everything in his life was suddenly out of his control.
"Did things not work out between you?" Carter's brows drew together.
Not work out? The woman had cut his soul out of his body and left it drifting in the wind like a lost specter. Things not working out was an understatement he couldn't tolerate.
The frustration of the last few weeks had been steadily building like storm clouds inside him, and finally it rumbled out. With a curse, he kicked a nearby chair, and it toppled over in a crash.
His friend's eyes widened, but he didn't retreat.
"Fuck!" Tristan shoved his own chair back and surged to his feet, fists clenched. "I'm so bloody sick of everyone manipulating me. This is ballocks! The lot of it!"
The only thing in the world he wanted to control was his own life, and it had never been his to live. His father and his future title weighed him down and the pressure was crushing. "If I want to go in there and yell at the old man until my throat bleeds, I'll do it," he snapped.
"But what good does it ever do?" Carter sighed. "You know how he is. No amount of shouting will make him see reason. The best you can hope for is to placate him enough so that he'll leave you alone for the time being. It's worked before, it should work again."
As much as Tristan was loath to admit it, his friend was right. If he went in to see his father like this, he'd likely never be allowed to return to Cambridge. The damnable man would restrict him to the estate with excuses of him having to learn management from a practical angle, and his real goal of leashing Tristan like a spaniel would be achieved.
"I've never seen you like this before," Carter admitted in a low voice. "Am I to understand that this is because you and Kat aren't … "
"No," Tristan growled, then bent over and lifted the chair he'd knocked over. He didn't want to admit to his friend that it was more than just physical with Kat. Simply having sex was one thing, but sharing so much of themselves, they'd passed the point of no return. They couldn't be casual. And she wouldn't fit into his life, not the life his father had so painstakingly crafted for him.
There's no escaping it, and I can't take her with me, not without pitting myself against my father and risking the consequences of his anger. There was so much to lose and so many people who could get hurt if his father wanted to punish Tristan. Yet he would risk everything if Kat would agree to take the chance herself.
"She's afraid to be with me."
Carter's brows raised. "What's stopping her?"
"Our parents. She believes it will cause a problem if they find out we're together. She worries her father will overreact." The truth was too painful. Kat was too afraid to love him.
Carter laughed. "She may be right, you know. Parents are tricky creatures to deal with when it comes to their children. Celia's father glares at me every time I enter the room and makes a point to ask if I've been promoted up from stable boy. The man thinks he can rub my situation in my face and keep me from Celia. And damned if it doesn't work because I can't seem to stay near her long enough to have a conversation. I avoid her because I know I'd end up kissing her, and we both know that would … change everything. I can only imagine how unreasonable an American father might be. They're a lot more vocal about their emotions than we Brits are. They have that saying in America, you know, about fathers meeting their daughters' boyfriends with a shotgun in hand. I'm sure Kat's only trying to protect everyone, including you."
Tristan paced the length of the room, staring without seeing the forest-green walls and the paintings of his ancestors. It was a strange thing to feel torn about one's home. The love of this house was in his blood, but his father had ruined the estate with his pride and arrogance, making it a place full of as many bad memories as good ones. Curling his fingers into his palms, he drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes.
"Give it time, Tristan. Your mother and her father will settle down, and when they do Kat's father might see how good you are for Kat. Who knows … maybe he'll surprise us and stop being a pompous arse." Carter took his seat at the table again, seemingly confident with his strategy.
Lord if it were only that easy. Tristan's father was the true barrier between him and Kat. His mother would accept Kat and, given time, he might win over Clayton … but his own father? Hell would be reporting snowfall before Edward Kingsley would ever let an American pollute the title of Pembroke. His father often ranted about their bloodline being traceable back to King Richard I.
"You have no idea what I'm going through. Being around her and not able to touch her, or even smile, without fearing our relationship will be exposed … It's torture." And he was dying.
He glanced at Carter, and his friend's expression stopped Tristan in his tracks. It was not a look of sympathy, but a look of quiet agony that mirrored his own.
"I don't know a thing about torture? To watch the woman you love across the room and know that the smile she sends your way is the only thing you can have? Because you can't touch her, can't kiss her, can't breathe a word to her of the storm raging inside you? I know exactly how you feel." Carter raked a hand through his fair hair and stared into the distance, lost in thought.
"Celia." Tristan didn't have to guess. He'd always known how deeply his friend loved her, but he often forgot because he was absorbed with his own concerns. I'm a bloody selfish bastard … It was not a reassuring realization.