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Her gaze drifted from Torrie for a long breath, watching the men until Roe sent her husband to the water’s edge.
She looked back at Torrie. “If you cannot do that. If you cannot believe in him as much as he needs you to. If you’re not strong enough. If the questions you have about him are more important than the man standing in front of you. Then let him go. Remove yourself from him. There is no shame in it.”
Her mouth suddenly dry, Torrie cracked her lips, the most honest words she’d ever said in her life drifting off her tongue. “I don’t know if I can let him go.”
Sienna’s mouth pulled back in a strained smile, her blue eyes aching at what she saw reflected in Torrie’s face. “Then believe in him. Above all others. Above his own idiocy. Above his own quick-jerk reactions that have always gotten him into trouble. Above the secrets he thinks he needs to keep so he doesn’t lose you.” Her words went hard. “Believe inhim.”
“But the things he has not told me. The things I cannot even imagine he hasn’t told me.”
Sienna’s head tilted to the side and she pondered Torrie’s face for a long breath. “If you’re questioning whether or not you can believe in him, you have to know his childhood.”
“Why?”
“Who he was. What he came from. What he was forced to do.” Her look dipped to her lemonade and she took a sip, buying a moment of time. “Secrets that find their way to the light always destroy things. He knew that—lived that—from the start. So he keeps secrets. He tells very little, for he never knows what will destroy what he’s worked so hard for.” She looked to Torrie. “He told you that we grew up together?”
“He did.” Torrie nodded, her look inquisitive on Roe’s sister-in-law. The one he had loved. He’d never admitted it, but Torrie could tell as Roe told her the story on the ship of their youth, that he had adored Sienna above all others. “He also told me how you and Logan managed to escape St. Giles—his part in it.”
Sadness flashed across Sienna’s blue eyes, the unique azure streaks sparking. “Yes, but that was at the end. What you need to know is the before.”
“The before?”
Sienna’s look drifted away from her and settled on Roe as he circled around Logan. “The first time Robby killed someone he was eight.”
A gasp Torrie couldn’t control filled the air between them and her left hand fumbled from her lemonade glass to cover her mouth. “He—he was eight?”
“Yes. It was a situation where it was kill or be killed. He survived only because of his innate instinct to live. You have to understand…the London streets that we lived on deemed it was only a matter of time before it happened.” Her gaze moved to her husband. “Logan, he was always in control, could always manipulate those around him with words and his glare. But Robby, Robby was wild, no control, and angry, so very, very angry—it was a dangerous combination. The grace of time only lasted for a few years before he was faced with it. With the jackals that surrounded us, it was a miracle that it didn’t happen until he was eight, not to mention a testament to how Logan was able to interfere on Robby’s behalf, time and again. But Robby, he was his own force. He can survive anything—has survived more than a human possibly should.”
“Aye. He’s alluded to that.”
Sienna glanced at her. “But that moment in time…that was when it happened. When Robby was eight and he came in from the fight, bloody and broken. He didn’t want to tell Logan what happened, that he’d killed someone. He didn’t want the disappointment he’d know his brother would set down upon him.”
“And Logan set his wrath upon him?”
“He did. Logan didn’t see it in Robby, he was so mad at his brother. He thought he’d lost Robby for good—his brother had gone past the dark line and would never recover.” Her mouth closed, pulling to a tight line. “Logan was harsh. Too harsh. But I saw—I saw how it destroyed Robby, how he thought of himself before he killed that boy, and how he thought of himself after. He became worthless in his own eyes. He didn’t deserve life and he lived that mantra to the fullest after that day.” She shook her head and her lips pulled inward, helping to fight the tears that brimmed in her eyes.
The echoed wounds of their collective youth could still strike agony in Sienna’s face. So much so it made Torrie’s heart hurt for them, for all that they had survived.
Yet Torrie knew she was drifting into waters she had no way to navigate, to understand. Her own childhood had been comfortable, easy, with her cousins that loved her.
“No matter how hard Logan would try to rein Robby in, keep him on a path that would have us escaping St. Giles, Robby fought him.” Sienna paused, taking a drink of her lemonade as her look stayed fixated on Roe. She cleared her throat. “As agonizing as it was to watch, Robby descended onto a dark path that we couldn’t save him from. That was the hardest part. Losing him in that way, even though we still loved him. He is Logan’s blood, my family when I had none. He always will be—but those were hard, hard years.”
Sienna gulped a deep breath, her look shifting to Torrie. “The only thing that veered the course of destruction for him was the fire to your family’s farm—going to prison for it.”
Torrie’s eyes snapped wide open. “But no—he didn’t do it—he didn’t set the fire.”
Sienna’s eyebrows lifted. “You believe that?”
“I do. He was there for the brandy and silk they were smuggling through the barn, not to kill my family.”
Silent, Sienna stared at her for a long breath. “You believe that?”
“I do.” There was the slightest thread of doubt in Torrie’s voice—doubt that hadn’t been there for more than a week. Doubt that wasn’t there a second ago before Sienna questioned her twice on it. She didn’t care for it.
Sienna leaned in, setting her hand on Torrie’s. “Then you are a remarkable sort.”
“I am?”
“I knew Robby wouldn’t have set that fire. I’ve always known it. For all the darkness Robby slogged through during our childhood—for how he knew what being helpless and at the mercy of others meant—there were lines he wouldn’t cross. Hurting an innocent was one of them. That has always been in his core. Your family was innocent. The fire was a tragedy, and my heart hurts for your loss, but Robby had no part in creating it.” Sienna squeezed Torrie’s hand. “But that you believe it so fully you didn’t hesitate to defend him is…” The edges of Sienna’s blue eyes crinkled curious on Torrie. “It is indeed, remarkable. I did not expect that of you.”
