His hard look softened and the overbearing set of his shoulders eased as he pulled away from her. “Ah, yes.” He turned alongside her, resting his forearms on the railing and looking out to the water. “That would do it. I imagine you’ve gathered that’s not a topic to bring up with him?”
“I have now.”
“Good.”
He stared out at the sea, silent, in no apparent hurry to move from his position next to her. For how quickly he had approached her after Des left her, it was clear he was loyal to his men. She had to give him that due.
Her fingers clasped in front of her and the question came to the tip of her tongue, the one that had been gnawing on her mind during the past three days—ever since she’d been inundated with conversations all around her about Captain Roe. Cap’n Roe this. Cap’n Roe that. Roe said. Roe did. Roe wants. The man’s name was said so much by the crew it was now impossible to think of him as Mr. Lipinstein.
She looked to him. “How did you do this?”
“Do what?”
“Become captain of this ship? Make money at it? You’ve not been out of prison that long—two years—certainly not long enough to make captain of your own ship.”
He glanced at her, then shrugged, his gaze going back to the sea. “When I stepped onto the Firehawk I was nothing. Didn’t want to be anything. I just wandered aboard. But Captain Folback watched me—tested my mettle—far too many times. I came aboard for death, but he was quite happy to be alive and to keep his crew the same.” He gave a soft chuckle. “I expected I would sink, and sink fast out here on the sea, but he never expected it of me. He expected me to rise to the occasion of whatever task he asked me to do. Slop buckets. Risking life and limb again and again on slippery spars to untangle rigging in the middle of storms. Covering his back when he got out of control in waterfront taverns. I cannot count the number of times I should have broken my neck or had a blade slip between my ribs.”
“A blade? Why would you be attacked?”
His eyebrow arched as he looked to her. “You do know what kind of a ship this is, don’t you, Torrie?”
She shook her head.
“This is a privateering ship.”
Her jaw dropped. “You’re pirates?”
“Privateers. We get a target from the crown, and we go after it.”
“Still…” She paused, looking over her shoulder at the hands on deck. She’d noticed it earlier, that these sailors were thicker…taller…stronger than the sailors she’d encountered in the past. She hadn’t thought much about it. But now it made sense. The riches her investigator had discovered Roe had made at sea. And the men around her—these men weren’t just sailors, they were warriors.
Her gaze traveled to Roe. “This is dangerous work you’re in, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “It can be.”
“What happened to Captain Folback? Did he retire?” Her stomach sank, for she was already guessing at the answer.
“He retired as much as any captain like him could.”
Her eyebrows lifted as she studied Roe’s profile—at the hard line of his jaw and his strong nose that had a noticeable bump in the middle, as though it had been broken more than once. His steel grey eyes focused on the waves, not veering toward her.
It struck her in that moment. The man was handsome. Wickedly so. The crook in his nose the only thing keeping him real to this earth and not solidifying him to the mythical beauty of the Greek gods. She’d known what he looked like for years, yet she’d never once thought of him as handsome.
She didn’t care for the revelation. Not at all.
Her head went straight and she focused on the smooth water, her fingers tightening along the railing. “What happened to him?”
Roe expelled a long sigh. “I had his back when we attacked ships. He liked that about me, my ability to fight, my instinct for it. He trusted me for that.” His hand lifted up and he rubbed his forehead for a long moment. “His trust in me was misplaced. He died because I made a wrong move, shot the wrong man in a melee instead of the one that had a dagger aimed at his chest.”
“He died and you became captain?”
His feet shuffled backward and his torso shifted downward, his face dropping between the white sleeves covering his upper arms. “I didn’t want it. I actually abhorred the thought of it. A third of us were wiped from the earth that day. So much of their blood—it had stewed into a stain on my hands that took weeks to fade. I had no intention of staying on the sea after that day. But the men that were left demanded I step up to it.” He looked up with a slight shrug. “So I stayed.”
Her look narrowed at his profile, at the still fresh torment reflected on the side of his face. “Do you like the sea?”
“No. But I’m honor-bound to stay on the Firehawk a while longer.”
“Until when?”
“Until I can right a very specific wrong.”
Her head tilted to the side. She didn’t like any part of this conversation. Didn’t care to think of him past the riches she knew he’d amassed at the end of a subjective sword. Didn’t care to think of him as anything more than one of the men that killed her family. “I had assumed you did this for the riches.”
“That is the least of it. Yes, the business of it has made me rich, but at the cost of good men.” Hanging past the edge of the railing, his hands clasped together, his knuckles turning white. “I cannot reconcile that trade off—not anymore.”
“Yet you once could?”
“Could what?”
“Trade a good man’s life for riches without consideration?”
His left hand lifted, rubbing his eyes, his fingers collapsing to pinch his nose for a moment before dropping away from his face. “Not a good man. But a bad man, aye. I honestly never thought twice on it back in the day.”
Her eyes dipped down for a long moment. “I forgot about the trade you were in before prison. You were a smuggler—or so it was said?”
His grey eyes swung to her, not hiding any of the truth. “Smuggling, stealing, strong-arming shopkeepers, blackmail rings out of whorehouses—any and every thing that makes St. Giles a miserable spot of land to exist in, I was part of.”
Her jaw dropped. “You did all of that?”
“Smuggling—the very thing that had brought me up to Scotland to your family’s farm—it was the least offensive scheme I was in.” His eyebrows collapsed together and he looked directly at her, his gaze slicing into her. “Make no mistake on my person, Torrie. I come from the lowest of the low. The dirtiest beings St. Giles has ever seen. The things I have done in my life—I’ve lived five lives over mired in the worst choices a man can make. The hand of the devil on my shoulder since I was three.”
She reeled slightly back. “What happened when you were three?”
His look shifted from her eyes to look over her shoulder. “My father died and we moved to the squalor of St. Giles. Moved into the realm of a man named Bournestein. He ran a corner of St. Giles, ran it with fire and an iron cane. But he was infatuated with my mother and she traded away her life to him—her sanity—so that her boys could eat, could sleep under a roof. But there was nothing in St. Giles for us except for destruction, the most abhorrent of humanity, day in, day out. The people we broke. The friends we watched being broken. We were brutally strong and brutally helpless at the same time. No way out.”
“You said boys—you have a brother? More than one?” Her investigator had been adamant Roe had no family.
“Just one. Older.” His eyes squinted slightly as if he were watching a long ago memory. “He was the one that escaped—escaped the hell mouth of our youth the most unscathed.”
His gaze wandered to her face. Whatever he saw in her eyes made him jerk upright and take a step away from the railing.
Without a word he spun from her and stalked toward the stairs of the quarterdeck, swinging out and descending the ladder with ease.
She watched him until he disappeared toward the bow of the ship, out of her si
ghtline. The stride of his long legs told her everything she needed to know.
She’d asked too many questions. Questions he didn’t want to hear, much less answer.
Yet he’d still done so, answered her questions. Peculiar.
With a sigh, she looked about the deck at the men still tossing glares her way. As though she didn’t have enough cross looks coming her way on the ship, she’d just added more. Dared to upset their mighty captain.
She’d stumbled into aggravating everyone around her without even knowing it.
Not her best day.
~~~
Roe took a sip of his port, trying to still his bouncing foot under the small table he’d had brought into his cabin. He usually ate standing up, and sitting at a proper table had sent his trapped legs into bedlam.
Torrie had disappeared after their conversation on the deck and by all reports she had hidden herself away in his room for the rest of the day. So he’d brought dinner to her. With the winds still stagnant, there wasn’t much else to do.
Whereas she still had half a plate left to eat of salted pork, peas, cheese and a biscuit, he’d finished eating more than ten minutes ago—a remnant from his days growing up, from his days in prison. Eat as much as one can as fast as one can, lest it be stolen from under one’s nose.
He hadn’t had a meal stolen from him in years, but the habit of it was hard to quell. He was always the first one done eating amongst his men. The first one moving on, ready for more work that would quiet his mind.
He and Torrie had been eating in silence.
His own making.
He hadn’t meant to storm away from her without a word on the deck, but he’d had no other recourse. It was either that or tell her things he’d rather stay buried in the past. He kept his mouth shut. He always had. But with this woman words manifested on their own without thought or control.
Stay far away.
He was proving to be quite dismal at putting that concept into action.
Even with his plate empty, he couldn’t bring his tongue to utter the words to excuse himself. So he sat, staring at Torrie and sipping his port but not truly tasting it, though it was of the finest vintage.
She took his scrutiny without pause, going about her meal with fluid, practiced motions. He imagined she would be good at that, for all the stuffy ton dinners she must have attended with her husband.
Still clutching her fork, she set her right hand down next to her plate and looked up at him, meeting his stare. “I have a question.”
He inclined his head to her. “Yes?”
“Why did you go to Vinehill Castle in Scotland and then to Wolfbridge Castle in Lincolnshire after you last arrived in England? You went to both of my cousins, yet you didn’t approach them. Why?”
Roe stilled, his glass poised halfway to his mouth. A deep breath, and he set the glass onto the table and leaned back in his chair, his look skewering her. “How do you know that?”
“I had you followed. I’ve had you followed since you got out of Newgate.”
“You what?”
“I wasn’t about to let you wreak more destruction in your path. When I found out you were released, I set an investigator on you.”
She said the words so nonchalantly it took him aback—as if hiring an investigator to trail a man was as common as requesting afternoon tea.
That solved one mystery. He’d wondered why he’d caught glimpses of the same face again and again in his travels during the last months. It’d been peculiar, but as the man never approached him, not odd enough to worry on.
“Do you not find it curious that you did that, Torrie?”
“Have you followed?” She jabbed her fork into a chunk of pork. “Certainly not.” She popped the morsel into her mouth, her green eyes intent on her plate as she chewed.
“So they followed me about for the week in London and then to Scotland and back?”
“Yes—wait.” Her look snapped to him, alarmed. “You were a week in London?”
“I was.”
“No. You were only there two days before leaving for Scotland.”
He shook his head, his brow furrowed.
“You were in London for a week? Why? My man did not report that to me.”
“I was, for you were my first stop.”
The tines of her fork slammed down onto her plate. “Your first stop—you followed me? Watched me?”
He nodded, reaching forward to grab his glass, and he took a sip of port. “I did.”
“Where?”
“In Hyde Park. You were there early in the morning, just as dawn broke. You were walking oddly—I should say, you walked normally to the long field, and then you walked oddly. Long strides. Dipping low with each step. You did that strange dance for more than a half hour.”
“You—you saw that?” A blush tinged her cheeks, just enough for him to realize her embarrassment was genuine.
“I did.” He set his glass down. “What were you doing?”
“I—I—” Her shoulders slumped slightly and she attempted to clear her throat. Unsuccessful, she took a sip of her port, then looked at him. “I have to—walk like that often, I mean. But I need space to do it properly and no one is in the park to witness me doing so that early in the morning where I go. Walking like that, it stretches the skin on my legs—the scars. If I miss even a day, my skin starts to tighten and it makes it hard to walk. My limp becomes more pronounced.”
“But you don’t limp.”
“Not if I can help it.” She shrugged. “But my skin has already tightened from the days on the ship.”
“I saw the scars when I removed your boots and stockings.”
A slight wince and her chin jutted out, defiant. “I presumed it was you that removed my stockings.”
“I only mention it because I could see how stretching the skin would be a necessity.”
“I’m sure you found my legs distasteful.”
“Not particularly. I’ve seen much worse in my day.” He said the words simply, as they were true.
Her head turned and she looked at the wall for a long moment, her jaw shifting back and forth.
For how much he knew she wanted to hate him, she was waning. He’d noticed it during the past day. Doubt in her ironclad belief that he was the devil.
Her look swung to him. “Why did you follow me in London? And why did you go to Vinehill? To Wolfbridge?”
“It’s complicated.”
“So explain it.”
He sighed, pausing to pour more port from a carafe into his glass, then took a long sip. He set the glass atop the table, his index and middle finger drumming on the battered wood. “My sins may not be what you think they are, Torrie. But they’re still sins. I still hold onto the cowardice that I showed that day of the fire. If I hadn’t turned from you—you were in bloody flames, for devil’s sake—if I hadn’t done that—hadn’t walked away—who knows what would have happened.”
“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 g
otten 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.”
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