Kindred Hearts by Rowan Speedwell Page B

her rounded abdomen contentedly. “As comfortable as I get these days.”
     
    “Don’t you want anything more from your marriage, Lottie?” he asked, taking her hand in his.
     
    She smiled up at him. “Of course not. I am not a romantic sort of person, Charlie, not like you and Tristan. I don’t care for the marriage act, and don’t really need much of anything. Tristan suits me quite well.” She shook her head. “I sometimes think that he needs more than just fondness, but there isn’t much I can do about that. When we were first married… well, that’s all done now, anyway.”
     
    “What’s all done?”
     
    “You know that he was unfaithful to me,” Lottie said. “I think he was still… I don’t know. Looking . As if he thought maybe he could find someone who could love him in a romantic sort of way. But he never did. It is a shame. He does so want to be loved.”
     
    Charles swallowed. Lottie patted his hand, which still clutched her other one, and slipped into the German the two of them spoke when discussing sensitive or private things, a holdover from their childhood with a German nanny. “I don’t know if he would be… open to your kind of love, Charlie. I asked him about that sort of thing—oh, years ago now. He was quite… appalled at the idea. And yet… I don’t really think he enjoys the marriage act.”
     
    Releasing her hand, Charles covered his eyes. “You didn’t tell him about me, did you, Lottie?”
     
    “No, of course not.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “I would never do that. You told me a long time ago that one must never under any circumstances reveal details of a private conversation, and I hope I will always obey that rule.”
     
    “You understand that if you were to slip, my life would be endangered,” Charles said carefully.
     
    “Yes—and that is why you must be very, very careful with Tristan, Charlie. I don’t think he’d do anything against you, but one can never tell, can one?”
     
    “No,” Charles said ruefully in English, “one can’t.”
     

     

     
    Tristan drank his way through dinner, barely touching his meal. Charles watched him covertly while talking to Lottie; his brother-in-law was quiet, not sullen, but seemingly lost in his own thoughts. He answered pleasantly and readily enough when addressed directly, but the only time his eyes met Charles’s was when Lottie mentioned that she’d had the room next door to his prepared for Charles’s habitation. Then he glanced up, startled, to meet Charles’s steady gaze, and flushed. “That’s fine, Lottie,” he said, turning hurriedly to his wife.
     
    “Is it? I hoped so,” Lottie said serenely, “but I wasn’t sure. You may, of course, lock the adjoining door if you feel the need.” She turned to Charles. “This house is rather small; there are only four bedchambers on the second floor, and a sitting room across the back of the house that Tristan and I share. All of the bedchambers connect; Ellen is of course next door to me, and Tristan and you will be across the hall. Your and Ellen’s rooms are a little smaller than ours, but not much, are they, Tristan?”
     
    “No, not by much,” Tristan said, and took another drink of his wine. It was his sixth or seventh glass—Charles had lost count—but he did not seem affected. Charles supposed that with the amount of drinking that went on in society these days, especially among the gentlemen, that putting away entire bottles of wine was no great matter.
     
    “Excellent vintage,” Charles said to Tristan. “Do you keep your own cellar?”
     
    “A small one,” Tristan said. “I’ve a few bottles of decent enough stuff laid away, but for entertaining we usually order through Berry’s.”
     
    “We dine simply enough at home, as you see,” Charlotte said, “so a bottle or two is plenty for us.”
     
    “Of course,” Charles said, giving her a smile. “And you don’t like wine anyway, do you, Liebling ? Or