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“I intend to avoid the marital noose.”
Oliver chuckled. “It wouldn’t be so terrible for you to marry, assuming you find someone you can tolerate.”
“That is the problem,” Baldwin replied. “I don’t tolerate very many people.”
“No, you don’t,” Oliver joked. “I see that you haven’t changed.”
Baldwin winced at his brother’s remark, knowing that wasn’t true. He had changed drastically over these past few years, and not for the better.
“What is it?” Oliver asked.
“Nothing,” Baldwin said.
“It clearly is something,” Oliver pressed, eyeing him with concern.
Baldwin sighed deeply. “I have seen some terrible things, Brother,” he admitted. “Things that I cannot unsee.”
“We have that in common, you and I,” Oliver replied with a look of compassion.
“The royalist group I worked with was merciless,” Baldwin confessed. “They wanted to get their message across at any cost, and they didn’t care who got hurt in the process, including children.”
“That is awful.”
Baldwin grew silent as he turned his gaze towards the window. “I am not the same man I was before I left for France,” he admitted.
“In what way?”
“I’m angry,” Baldwin shared, bringing his gaze back to meet his brother’s. “I’m angry that there are people out there intending to harm innocent people to advance their own selfish agendas.”
Oliver uncrossed his arms. “That is why we do what we do,” he said. “We go after the radicals and rein them in.”
“But who reins us in?”
Oliver gave him a questioning look. “Why would you need to be reined in?”
Baldwin ran his hand through his brown hair, finding the familiar rage brewing inside of him. He couldn’t seem to explain his emotions clearly, nor could he understand them himself. All he knew was that every day was a struggle to go on. His haunted past was colliding with the present, making his life unbearable.
“Forget I said anything,” Baldwin remarked dismissively.
“Baldwin—”
But Baldwin spoke over his brother. “I mean it.” His voice was firm.
Oliver frowned, but he wisely changed subjects. “How did your time at Floyd’s Coffeehouse go?”
“It went well,” he admitted. “I discovered that a group of men meet late at night, near closing, and they tend to keep to themselves.”
“Do you suppose they are the radicals that you are looking for?”
Baldwin shrugged. “I’m not sure, but it’s a start.”
“That it is,” Oliver agreed.
“I should note that an odd thing did transpire yesterday.”
Oliver sat straighter in his seat. “Which was?”
“A lady came to the coffeehouse and went upstairs to visit a female tenant,” he explained. “They exchanged a few words and then she departed by way of coach.” He intentionally left out a few parts of the story that were not important.
