Tristan smiled when Douglas praised the wine. He ate and drank slower than the earl, but he held out the bottle to top up his friend's glass.

"Hmmm... Well, if I could do anything, I would want to visit the Continent and travel around. But workwise, I would have liked to do research. I've had my hypotheses while at university, and my work in the asylum has only deepened them, but I could find neither the funding nor the supervisor for it." And to think that those had been his ideas under a cover of a more general line of research that could pass the test of 'propriety'. "I do some study and a little writing in my private time, though, so I suppose I haven't given up entirely."