He had always thought Aristide the more open of the twins, but in the past months he had been unusually hard to read. Adrienne’s marriage had upset him considerably, of course – Trystan had expected that, as their sorting into different houses had done when they were eleven; as they had suffered since from any sort of separation – but what Aristide made of him these days, Trystan hadn’t yet divulged. It was, to put it lightly, driving him mad.

He had hoped that Ari’s determination to leave the estate and move to Wellingtonshire was more a product of the former change than the latter, but Trystan had attempted to be as courteously agreeable to his nephew’s whims so as not to risk their relationship any further. At the invitation to see the new place – finally! – Trystan was eminently relieved. Now that he was here, however, he felt a most unnatural twinge of trepidation.

Adrienne had not resented him for finding out, but what if this was the one occasion in which the twins were not of one mind? He couldn’t bear to think of it. After all, Aristide had always been his favourite son.

“Not at all,” Trystan waved him off with a blustery cheer, casting his gaze over the walls and ceiling of this room to feign that all his attention was not riveted to his son. “I see you’ve been terribly busy in your new freedom,” he remarked, gesturing at the wallpaper and all that looked new. “Is this all your design?” Ari had always had an uncommonly artistic eye.

---

“An excellent improvement, then,” Trystan said, more passionate about being supportive of his son than properly admiring the artistic talent, but hoping his praise might pass for either.

“And is there anything else you still need?” Trystan asked, his gaze trailing around the place. “Any more furniture – a larger allowance?” He had his regular fits of generosity, of course, but today he was more aware of how Aristide received it – if he said he didn’t need any help, would that be an implied damnation of their family ties entirely? Was he trying to distance himself, or was he still at ease with his “uncle” in the room?

---

He had given a perfunctory smile at that first comment – none of that had been unexpected in the least – but the latter addition stopped him in his tracks. “I expected she might,” Trystan began carefully, every nerve ending in his body alight with the trepidation or anticipation of this conversation. He tried to relax the set of his shoulders, but it took considerable effort. “And I am sorry I never told you myself. I had thought it – better for everyone that it remained unsaid.”

Trystan cast Aristide a contemplative look, trying to discern whether or not he understood the reasoning.

---

“I could not have let you be separated,” Trystan replied, a little more relaxed at Aristide’s general air of calm. He was finding things to be grateful for, even knowing that he was a bastard child, a secret that had been kept for the last two decades.

“In fact, I would have preferred to have raised you myself, but, ah,” – it was his turn to shrug – “other parties felt that the distance would serve you well, in the end.” Distance, discretion, a little veil of anonymity. Trystan was too selfish to have given them up forever, though.

---

Ah, their mother. “She was a debutante,” he explained, with a sigh churned up by his memories of her and their forced separation. “I loved her. And she would have loved you,” he added, “– she did love you, already – but her family sent her to France when she was pregnant.” He didn’t know whether all the details would help the twins adjust to the truth, exactly, because they were a little bittersweet, but he couldn’t fault the asking. He was sure he would have been curious too.

“She wrote me a letter, told me her family had made her swear a vow not to keep the children. So you found your way to our cousins instead, and then –” back to me. “I don’t know where she is now.”

---

“No, not in those words,” Trystan answered, because that hadn’t been part of the phrasing. Unable to “raise them as her own”, yes, and prevented from “continuing the affair” but as far as he knew it had not been that lengthy in further conditions. “The vow was made before you were born.” He didn’t know whether that made things better or worse, then, if she could have contacted them but hadn’t... but it had been a long time ago. Nineteen years. And Trystan had continued to know them, but she couldn’t, and hadn’t. It was hard for love to grow in circumstances like that.

Certainly, Trystan had his flaws as a parent, but who was to say she would have been any better, if she could have had them as hers? He wasn’t sure if he felt concerned or jealous at the implication behind Aristide’s questions, but he felt dubious at best about it, and tried not to let it show. “You don’t mean you intend to seek her out?”

He hadn’t always been the most discreet about his bastards; but for the twins’ own sake, they had to consider the damage to their reputation if any part of this got out.

---

“Mmm,” Trystan agreed, non-committal: he was not sure this line of curiosity would lead to anything good, in the long run. Perhaps only to heartbreak and disappointment; perhaps to public ruin.

So when he saw an opening to change the angle of the subject slightly, Trystan marched on and took it. “I take it that means you don’t have any yet, then?” He said with a joking air of faux-disapproval. (Of course he had to be joking; one could not be that much of a hypocrite, when they had just been discussing his son’s own bastard status.)

Now that he had his own place, it was only be a matter of time, probably. Room and opportunity for youthful romantic affairs to get messy, he meant; perhaps Aristide would be more careful than he had been.

---

Trystan chuckled back. “Smart man,” he said, although he was trying fervently to be the cool parent here, and was confident that were Aristide ever to come to him with problems of his own that he would not do as his parents had done, and chain him to a miserable harpy. (Now if Cadawalader came to him...)

It made sense how close the twins were, Trystan supposed, even beyond the fact that they had shared a womb. When it had come down to it, all their childhood they had only really had each other. And here they were, still set to be living side by side. “Well now, as long as you aren’t a bad influence on her, I shan’t complain,” he declared with a smile – he did not want to contemplate that Aristide’s new freedoms of living alone might encourage Adrienne towards reckless past-times one could not afford as a respectably married woman. He softened, though; he could not conceive of Adrienne doing anything unwise, knowing what she did as well. “And you’ll keep an eye out for her too, I’m sure,” – as if that was even a question – “and be sure to tell me if either of you need a thing.” (He had hated having to give Adrienne away already, and Aristide’s absence from Wales was going to make that sorer for him still.)

---