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“So you claim cowardice instead of being a murderer?”
“Yes. I own that. I’m a coward, not a killer of innocents. That is my failing, my sin, what I’ve had to bear of myself since that day.” He leaned forward in his chair, setting his elbows on the table as he clasped his hands under his chin. “I liked your father. And your mother always made me eat her mutton pie when I stopped by their farm. She was a fine cook.”
Her green eyes went wide. “You knew them—my parents—you talked to them?”
“I did. They were fine people. And the cut of the money that they earned for storing the contraband goods kept that farm alive for far longer than it would have been otherwise.”
Her mouth drew into a tight line. “Don’t twist your derelict smuggling activities into some kind of quest for heroic magnanimity.”
“I don’t.” Ire spiked through his chest, but he squashed it as quickly as it flashed. It’d been a lifelong struggle, learning how to suppress his anger before situations spiraled out of control. Only in the years since Newgate had he gotten half good at it, but Torrie was testing his capacity for calm. “I’m only telling you the truth of the matter. I knew what I was doing smuggling goods. Your father did too. But it worked for both of us. Across the line of law, but more things than not should survive beyond that line drawn in the sand.”
“Then you’re a coward—so what?” Her hands flashed upward. “Why lurk in my life? Why lurk in Lachlan’s? In Sloane’s?”
“I owe it. To you. To your cousins—I owe it.” He ran his hand through his hair. “My cowardice demands it—it’s how I live with the choice I made that day. I lurk because I want assurance that the day of the fire didn’t ruin any of you beyond repair. I lurk to make sure your lives are as easy as possible. I lurk because the guilt of that moment in time—when I walked away from the inferno—refuses to let me go.”
A deep sigh and he grabbed his glass, clutching it with both hands in front of his chest as he leaned back in his chair. “But I’m not the only one that has lurked—am I? Hiring an investigator to follow me? You hate me, yes, but why have me followed across England?”
She met his look, her green eyes assessing him for a long breath. “For the exact opposite reason. To make sure your life is not easy. I want your life to be miserable, as horrid as mine was when I was engulfed by flames.”
He nodded. “That, I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, actually. More than you know.” He took a sip of his port. “But I have one question of you.”
“Which is?”
“Do you still want that for me?”
“Aye.” The word blurted out, no question in the force of it. But then her gaze dipped, watching her hand as she spun the fork in her fingers, the tines clinking on the plate. Her look lifted to him. “Or it is possible I don’t know what I want. For everything I know of you. Everything I hate of you…”
“Yes?”
She sighed, dropping the fork to the table. “I have seen nothing of it. Not since I’ve been on the ship. Not since I followed you to Cornwall. Nothing to hate. Your men respect you. You’re fair with all those around you. You’ve been more than respectable to me. And frankly, I don’t know what to do with all of that. I’ve hated you for a number of years, Roe. And I had intended to hate you for many more.”
He chuckled. “Fair enough.”
The chuckle echoed in his chest, not able to leave him for he had just heard the most interesting thing of all.
She’d called him Roe.
{ Chapter 7 }
Her arm jostled.
The motion morphed into the dream she was having—dancing, she was dancing and then her arm flew out from her partner. It jostled again.
Her arm moving was real, not a dream.
Her eyes flickered open only to be greeted by darkness. Blackness tinged by the slightest bit of moonlight streaming in through the window above the bed.
Now she was confusing her dreams with reality.
She craned her neck to look at her arm only to find Roe standing above her, his hand nudging her bare upper arm.
“Roe? What are you doing? It’s dark out.”
“I know. But I can see you and you can see me. It’s enough.” He grabbed her hand and tugged her upright on the bed. “I need you to come with me.”
