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“What happened?”
“My brother, Logan, had saved enough to take him and Sienna—my sister-in-law—out of St. Giles. He was going to board a ship for the Americas and take her with him. I loved Sienna just as much as he did. We grew up together in her father’s whorehouse doing everything we shouldn’t—stealing, fighting—learning to survive in the wretched world that is St. Giles. Both of our mothers had died when we were young. So the three of us were family.”
He paused, rolling over onto his back, his head clunking onto the floor as his right hand shifted to rest on his forehead. “I didn’t know Logan had been squirrelling away coins. Hiding away enough to escape. But then I found the money and a schedule of ships leaving. He was leaving—leaving me behind. The both of them leaving me behind. The only two people in the world that mattered. All I had were Logan and Sienna. My family. So I reacted without thinking. I always did in those days.”
His sudden silence hung heavy in the cabin until Torrie prodded him on. “What did you do?”
“First, I got drunk. Then I told Sienna’s father that they were planning to escape. He took to Logan with an axe and I dragged Sienna away from them—I was in another world—a blurry, horrid betrayed world. I thought I was about to be abandoned and the anger of it took me over. I hurt—or I think I hurt Sienna—I know she was fighting me. Logan got free of her father and saved Sienna from me. And they left. Left London. Left me behind, just as I feared. Just as I knew they would.”
His eyes closed. “But I made them do it. It was my fault. Logan had never planned on abandoning me—he had enough for passage for all of us. We were to escape together—the three of us—to start new lives far away. I only learned the truth of it a few years ago when I got out of Newgate.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Yes, even though I didn’t want to. Logan doesn’t lie. Never did.” His thumb and forefinger went to rub his eyes. “And I ruined my chance for escape, just as I ruined everything I touched in those days.”
The raw regret in his voice shook her, making her belly clench into pain for how horrific life must have been for him as a child. The hardened steel of his eyes made sense—they held a lifetime of anger and disappointment. Everything he held hidden from the world behind those molten grey eyes.
She exhaled a long breath, her gaze locked onto his profile, onto the tip of his nose, the distinct hard line of his jaw.
What he’d seen and done in his life set hers to the pale. Her family—Jacob and Lachlan and Sloane—had been mischievous and adventuresome, but always in control. Always surrounded by staff that loved them, that instilled respect and order into their lives.
She had family. She had always known love and still knew she had unfailing support from both Sloane and Lachlan.
Roe had lost everyone long ago.
That he lay there now, captain of this ship, a crew that respected him to no end, friends that had his back—it was testament to how he had come through his life and ended with valor on his side.
Yet it sent cracks through her heart that he still lived with such darkness. That he could still get lost within it.
Her left arm extended out past the bed again, her fingers twitching, outstretched to him. This time she knew it was her reaching out for him. To touch him. To feel his wounds, to live them, just as she lived her own.
His fingers dropped away from his eyes and he looked to her. “The fire, Tor. There’s something I need to tell you about the fire.”
Her hand stilled and her body froze in place. Her eyes wide, she parted her lips, her words a cracked whisper. “What about the fire, Roe?”
~~~
Her instant reaction to his statement told him volumes.
Doubt.
She still didn’t trust him. Still didn’t believe him—not to her core. She wanted to believe that he hadn’t set a torch to her family, but deep in her soul, there was still doubt.
Doubt that was not going to be helped by what he had to tell her.
But he had decided it last night—she needed to know everything of those moments. Everything of what he had done in those minutes when the world was in flames around her.
“Roe?” His name came from her lips, choked, as she pushed her torso upright from the bed.
He sat up, spinning toward her and leaning his back against the wall next to the door of his cabin. “I didn’t lie to you, Tor. I had no part in setting your family’s farm ablaze.”
She blinked, relief washing across her pale green eyes. With a deep breath, she nodded. “Then what is it?”
He pulled his knees upright, resting his forearms on the top of them. It took several breaths for him to meet her look. He had to face her when he told her this. Had to take the brunt of her reaction straight on. “When you were on the ground in flames, writhing in pain. Our eyes met—you saw me and I saw you.”
She nodded, her lips pulled tight.
“I didn’t want to walk away from you, but I had to. I had to turn away from the horror of it, and it didn’t have anything to do with the pistol aimed at my back. I turned my back on you by my own volition.”
