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One last glance at the wound on her arm and his stare moved to her face. He clasped his arms across his chest. “You were following me. Why?”
Without control, bitterness rolled into a boil in her belly and she looked up at him, all the hatred she’d stewed upon in the last nine years storming into her eyes. “You should still be rotting in Newgate.”
His eyebrow cocked. “I should?”
Her voice dipped into the bitter rage that she’d tried so hard to purge from her life. But sitting here, before this blackguard that thought to have every right to her body—that had taken her and stuffed her on a ship—and she had no control over it. “You killed my family, you bastard, so don’t stand there and talk to me like we’re friendly acquaintances.”
She stood up, her shoulders pulled so far back her arms were shaking, each word punctuated with visceral rage. “You. Killed. My. Family. So yes. Yes, Mr. Robert Lipinstein, you should still be rotting in Newgate.”
He blinked at the ferocity in her words. Again. And a third time.
“I didn’t do it, Torrie.” His words were flat, emotionless. “I was there, at the farm, but I never made one motion to injure you or your family.”
“I don’t believe you.” Her eyes narrowed into slits. “You had a torch in your hands.”
“I did. And I walked away.”
“You walked away from a family burning to death. From a woman in flames.”
He flinched.
Exactly. He did it and she knew it.
“I didn’t do it, Torrie.”
“You didn’t stop it.”
The vein in his forehead started to throb, his jaw clenching. A warning of boiling anger.
She didn’t care. “You stood there with a torch in your hand, watching hell on earth. And you think to tell me you didn’t do it?”
“Are you truly so bitter you cannot see the light for the day?”
“Bitter?” An acerbic chuckle choked from her throat. “I’m much more than that. So much more.” Her words came out in rushed, sour scorn. “But at least I know what I am and I’m not lying to myself on the matter. Not like you. I know exactly who I am and I know exactly what you are.”
His head shook, his lips pulling back in barely bridled rage as his fingers curled into fists. “I’m not that man anymore.”
She took a step toward him, crowding him, her glare piercing him. “You will always be that man, you wretched boot scum of a coward.”
{ Chapter 3 }
Wretched boot scum. Coward.
Not that he could argue it.
Clutching a needle, thread, strips of linen and a bottle of brandy in one hand, Roe took a breath, pausing with his free hand on the door.
His anger had better be in check. Better than it had been twenty minutes ago when he’d stormed out of his quarters.
That he’d managed to leave the room without throttling the woman had been a miracle.
She believed everything that was ever said of him. Every accusation cast his way at that farce of a trial that landed him in Newgate. That he was a cold-blooded murderer.
The devil himself.
And why shouldn’t she? She’d seen him there at the farm. Seen him with a torch in his hand. Seen him turn away.
This was his reckoning for walking away as he did.
