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Henry pursed his lips. Of course she didn’t understand. She wouldn’t, not knowing the whole story. If he told her, might she not feel the weight of all she had cost him? He suddenly very much wanted her to know, to fully understand, all she stood guilty of.
Henry rubbed his hands together, acutely aware of the calluses he had developed these past months during his work posing as a smuggler. “I assume Mr. Harding never explained to you why I was pretending to be one of the smugglers when Adele was taken.”
“No,” she said, her gaze still forward, toward the darker side of the room.
Even if Mr. Harding had told Dinah, the man didn’t understand the full depth of what finding Spade would mean for Henry.
“The man who directs most smuggling in this area once killed a friend of mine.” It was almost word for word what he’d told Mr. Harding so long ago.
Dinah shifted about in her seat, twisting around until she could face him fully. “How awful.”
That was one way to put it.
“What was his name?”
“Steven. Steven Jacobsen.”
“How long had you two been friends?” she asked.
Not long enough. Henry sat back up in his seat, his shoulder brushing against hers as he did so. The concern in her eyes was apparent. It chipped away at his desire for her to feel guilty.
So he turned back toward the hearth and spoke without looking at her. “He was the son of a farmer—a man who worked some of the land at Kingcup Estate. We grew up playing together. Later, we fished and hunted. When my dog had pups, I gave him the strongest of the litter. When his mother baked blueberry scones, he’d snitch some and we’d eat them together, secretly, behind the stables.”
He hadn’t talked about his childhood memories with anyone before. David had known Steven, but there were enough years between them that Henry’s friend and his brother hadn’t ever been particularly close. Somehow speaking of those times further eased his anger and frustration, two emotions he was finding himself struggling to hold onto. He wanted to feel them, wanted them as yet another brick in the wall between him and the woman at his side.
Dinah placed a hand on his arm, just above the elbow, silent permission to continue.
Henry angled his face in her direction. She watched him, her face half-lit by the fire in the hearth. Despite the many shadows in the room, he could still see the worried purse to her lips, the concern in her blue eyes. Her eyes showed a lot of emotion; he’d seen quite the range today alone. He’d been told his did the same. Was this what it was like when others looked into his eyes? A heady awareness of another’s soul? A desire to lean in and learn more?
“Steven had been married less than a year.” He found himself continuing; his malice toward Dinah was all but completely gone now, but he pressed on anyway. It felt right to tell her, no matter his reason. “Upon hearing of his death, his wife succumbed to a deep melancholy. She was with child at the time, but grew deathly ill, almost overnight.” He’d been there for most of that time, pacing the halls, waiting for the doctor to either declare her turning for the better or dead herself. “The baby was not well when he finally arrived. I held him in my arms for a bit before...” Those days had been some of the worst of his life. “He was so small. The doctor said there was nothing that could be done for either him or his mother. I buried them both beside Steven not three months after he was shot.”
“Oh, Henry, I’m so sorry.”
He placed a hand over hers. He hadn’t ever spoken of that time, of seeing after Steven’s wife and child; he hadn’t expected saying the words aloud to make much difference. But they did. He felt surprisingly lighter, strangely more at peace.
“After all you meant to one another,” Dinah said softly, “how could you not feel obligated to seek out your friend’s killer?”
She did understand.
Irritation pricked in his stomach. Blast it all, but he’d been so bent on staying resentful toward her.
Henry placed his elbow against the low back of the courting bench and leaned away from her, resting his head in his upturned palm. “I’d finally worked my way through the smuggling operation to the point where I was on my way to meet him,” he said with his eyes closed. “The man calls himself Spade, among other things. It seems he changes his name as often as he changes his shirt.” It was only one of the man’s habits that made him extremely difficult to find. “Then, a little girl stumbled upon us at night, and one of the men decided it was too much of a risk to let her leave.”
“And then I couldn’t get her out without you showing your true allegiances.”
“Mr. Harding says he doesn’t think there’s a second chance for me. It’s too well-known among the smuggling communities that I was there the night everyone was caught. If I show up again, men will only grow suspicious.”
“So I destroyed your chance—”
“At getting justice for my closest friend, his wife, and his son.”
Dinah leaned back a bit. “I think I’m a bit angry at myself, now.”
Henry chuckled despite the heaviness in the room.
“Before she passed...” Henry paused. Who would have guessed his new wife would be so easy to talk to? He’d never known another soul he with whom he’d shared so easily. “Before she passed, Steven’s wife named her little boy after me. She said she and Steven had discussed it before he’d died and that’s what they’d decided upon.”
“How sweet.”
