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“I haven’t got the guns, you fool! I’m looking for the man who killed Alberton. I know where the guns are. They’re in America. I followed them there.”
Taunton was stunned-nonplussed.
“Then what do you want? Why are you here?”
“I want to know who killed Alberton.”
Taunton shook his head. “Why?”
For a moment Monk could not answer. Was that really what he had been like, a man who did not care that three men had been murdered, or who had done it? Did his need to know require explaining?
Taunton was still staring at him, waiting for the answer.
“It doesn’t matter to you.” Monk jerked himself out of his thoughts. “Where is Shearer?”
“I don’t know! I haven’t seen him for close on two months. I’d tell you if I knew, just to get rid of you. Believe me!”
Monk did believe him; the fear in his eyes was real, the smell of it in the room. Taunton would have given up anyone, friend or foe, to save himself.
How had Monk ever been willing to trade with such a man? And worse than that, larger and far uglier, to make profit by trading with a man whose money came from slaving! Had Dundas known that? Or had Monk misled him, as Taunton implied?
Either thought made him sick.
He needed the truth, and he was afraid of it. There was no point in seeking an answer from Taunton; he did not know. What he believed of Monk was indictment enough.
Monk shrugged and turned on his heel, going out without speaking again. But as he walked past the man at the desk in the hall, his thoughts were not on Taunton, or Shearer, but on Hester and her face in his mind’s eye as she had spoken of slavery. To her it was unforgivable. What would she feel if she knew what he now knew of himself?
Already the thought of it bowed him down, crushed him inside. He walked out into the sun, and was cold.
9
For the first time since he had been married, Monk was reluctant to go home, and because he dreaded it, he did it immediately. He did not want time to think any more than he had to. There was no possibility of avoiding seeing Hester, meeting her eyes and having to build the first lie between them. Earlier in their knowledge of each other they had fought bitterly. He had thought her opinionated, quick-tongued and cold-natured, a woman whose passion was all bent towards the improvement of others, whether they wished it or not.
And she had thought him selfish, arrogant and essentially cruel. This morning he would have smiled at how happy they both were. Now it twisted inside him like a torn muscle, a pain reaching into everything, blinding all other pleasures.
He opened the door and closed it behind him.
She was there, straightaway, giving him no time to recompose his thoughts. All his earlier words fled.
She misunderstood, thinking it to do with his search along the river.
“You found something ugly,” she said quickly. “What is it? To do with Breeland? Even if he’s guilty, that doesn’t mean Merrit is.” There was so much conviction in her voice he knew she was frightened that somehow she was mistaken, and Merrit had played a willing part.
It was the perfect chance to tell her what he had really found, uglier than she could imagine, but about himself, not Breeland. He could not do it. There was a beauty in her he could not bear to lose. He remembered her in Manassas, bending over the soldier, half covered in blood, tending to his wounds, willing him to live, sharing his pain and giving him her strength.
What would she think of a man who had made money out of dealing with the profits of slaving? He had never been more ashamed of anything in his life, anything he knew about. Or more afraid of what it would now cost him … and he realized that was the most precious thing he would ever have.
“William! What is it?” There was an edge of fear in her voice and in her eyes. “What did you find?”
She was concerned for Merrit, and perhaps for Judith Alberton. She could not guess that it was her own life that was threatened, her happiness, not theirs.
The truth stuck in his throat.
“Nothing conclusive.” He swallowed. “I didn’t find any trace of the barge coming back up the river. I’ve no idea whose it was. Probably someone who lent it willingly, or it was stolen from someone who daren’t report it. Or maybe they stole it themselves.” He wanted to touch her, as he usually did, feel the warmth of her body, the eagerness of her response, but self-disgust held him back, closing him in like a vise.
She moved back again, a flicker of hurt in her face.
It was the first taste of the overwhelming loneliness to come, like the fading of the sun before nightfall.
