The Steel Rogue: A Valor of Vinehill Novel

by K. J. Jackson

  “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.”

  “Why not?”

  “You were the one most harmed in the fire.” She leaned back on the bench, her hand lifting away from Torrie’s. “Far too many people can never move past their own anguish to see the light of the day above them.” Her head angled to the side as she looked at Torrie. “But you have managed to do so.”

  “It was not without much cajoling.”

  “Robby?” Sienna smiled. “Yes, he always could be charming when he wanted to be.”

  “He was more patient than charming.” Torrie looked to the brothers still in battle at the water’s edge. “Quietly giving me everything I never knew I needed.”

  “Which was?”

  “Someone like me. Someone on the outskirts. Someone that never fit into their place in life.”

  Her gaze stayed trained on Roe, watching the muscles in his arm tense as he blocked a blow that angled dangerously close to his forehead. The strikes of steel were just as brutal as they had been at the start, neither one of the brothers slowing. “Roe made that fact of my life okay because he is the same as me. I wasn’t empty, wasn’t alone for the first time since the fire. Yes, I had been married and I had my cousins, but I was still alone that whole time. Drowning in it. He found that lonely place I existed in and moved himself into it.”

  Roe shoved his brother away from him, his entire body exploding in power. A wicked smile crossed her face. “Not to mention he’s sinfully handsome. It was hard to ignore that.” She looked to Sienna. “As is the duke. How is it that the heavens managed to make both brothers look like Greek gods cracked free from Praxiteles’ marble?”

  Sienna sipped her lemonade, hiding a grin. “You remind me of just how very handsome my husband is. One tends to forget these things when his is the face I see every day.”

  Torrie chuckled. “Well then, I look forward to my chest not coiling up every time Roe walks into a room.”

  Sienna laughed. “Oh, that still happens daily for me with Logan. I am lucky in that way.” She looked at Torrie, her eyes going serious. “Dare I say, Torrie, that you already believe in Roe more than you know? You must, in order for you to set aside the constant suspicions of what happened that day of the fire.”

  “I know he didn’t start the fire. Of everything that has happened, that is the one thing I know.”

  Sienna nodded. “Then you know him—aside from all these silly nuances like titles and estates and things he should have told you but didn’t. You believe in him. And you might just be exactly what he has always needed.”

  “Which is?” The question left Torrie’s lips, breathless in curiosity. For all that she had learned of Roe, for all that she had felt between them, there were so many shades of him that were a mystery to her.

  Sienna smiled at her. “He needs someone who loves him unconditionally. Is free to love him unconditionally. That is all he’s ever needed.”

  { Chapter 17 }

  “This is the new curve I done on it.” The boy, maybe fifteen and lean as a whip, held the horseshoe up to Roe. “Mr. Garner show’d me the cross angle to hit, course, he got it in two strikes—it took me sixteen.”

  Roe chuckled as he grabbed the black iron from the boy’s hand and studied it, turning it over in his hands. “Sixteen turns into fourteen turns into ten turns into seven turns into two. You’ll get there. And then you’ll have Garner’s bicep to prove it.”

  Torrie stopped at the far edge of the stables, close enough to the blacksmith’s building to hear Roe and the boy talking, but behind Roe far enough to be out of sight.

  “I hope so, sir. I want to bring my sister to the area when I get a shop.”

  “She is at Rising Giles?”

  The boy scratched the back of his head, his thumb running along the side of his soot-filled face, smearing the darkness. “She is—learnin’ with Madam Hatfield. She’s hopin’ t’be a governess, but I’d rather she come live with me.”

  Roe nodded. “You miss her?”

  “Awfully, so, sir.”

  “I can imagine. How old is she?”

  “Twelve.”

  Roe handed the horseshoe back to the boy. “For as hard as Mr. Garner says you’ve been working, I’m sure she will be back with you soon. Have they identified where would be a good place to set up shop?”

  The boy shrugged. “The smithy died at Washbourne last year, but Garner said the village of Hatfield is much prettier and they need a smithy in the area what with the new factory in place there.”

  “You don’t care which one?”

  “I care as far as a roof and food for me and my sister is secure.”

  Roe nodded. “It’s a good business for you. You have the build for it, now you just need to add a few stones of muscle onto those arms and chest.”

  The boy laughed. “I’m workin’ on it, sir. Cook is swattin’ my hand away from the leftover food all the time.”

  “She should be letting you eat.”

  “She does, she just don’t like me scrappin’ from others’ plates.” A mischievous smile cracked through the dark soot cov
ering the boy’s face. “She insists on movin’ the food to a new plate for me.”

  A deep laugh shook Roe’s chest and the boy chuckled. Roe gave him a hearty pat on his bare arm. “Keep at it, son, you’ll be there soon enough.”

  The boy inclined his head. “Thank you, sir.”

  Roe turned from the boy and instantly spotted Torrie. “Tor.”

  A smile went wide on her face and she walked to meet him as he strode up the slight hill toward her. “I was told this was where you had disappeared to.”

  “It is.” He held out his elbow to her. “Walk with me?”

  Her hand lifted, curling into the crook of his elbow as she motioned her head to the blacksmith’s building. “Do you know that boy?”

  “I just met him.” Roe led her away from the stables onto a foot trail that dipped into the woods. The branches of ancient oaks curved shade above them, the cool scent of moss filling her nostrils.

  “You just met him?” she asked. “But it sounded as though you knew him well.”

  “He’s one of the orphans that had been staying at Rising Giles. He moved up here four months ago to apprentice with Logan’s blacksmith since the last boy just moved onto his own shop outside of Gale Harbor. Young Tommy will get no better education than with Mr. Garner. He’s one of the finest smithies in the country.”

  “Tommy was quite taken with you—relaxed.”

  “It’s odd, but it’s the instant connection they have with me.”

  She looked up at him, watching his profile as they walked. The boy wasn’t the only one relaxed. Roe was relaxed—the most she’d ever seen him. The line of his jaw easy, his grey eyes weren’t wary on everything they saw, a smile playing along his lips with nothing to drag it down. This place had done this for him. Set an ease into his shoulders that she’d only caught glimpses of on the ship—and only immediately after they’d coupled.

  She liked him like this. He was right—he was born to be on land, not on the sea.

  She squeezed his arm. “The connection? What is that?”

  “Boys like Tommy, they don’t have a place in this world—or they didn’t. They’ve been on the periphery, scrounging, muddling through life but never belonging. That feeling never goes away, not completely. And they connect with it instantly in people who have walked their path, whether or not they know it.”

  She nodded, her gaze going forward as he stretched in front of her to lift a branch out of her way. She ducked under it. “That is what happened with us?”

  He chuckled. “I hope what happened with us has been a bit more than identifying a like spirit.”

  She leaned into him, her temple resting on his shoulder. “True, I would agree it has been a tad more than that.”

  They walked in silence for a stretch, Torrie reveling in the quiet of the forest. For the first time since leaving Scotland six years ago, she longed for the land of the north. For the quiet solitude she could find so easily at Vinehill, the forests and the lochs and the silence that was always alive with life and magic if she listened close enough.

  They reached a small clearing where two trails split off from the one they had been strolling on. Roe abruptly pulled away and turned to her, his hands at his sides.

  “I wanted to get you out here in private—far from the ears in the main house.”

  Her head flickered back, her eyebrows lifting. “What is it?”

  His look dropped to the ground for a long second, then lifted slowly to her. “You’re staying here at Culland Hall. I don’t trust anyone other than my brother to keep you safe, so I need to have you here.”

  “What?” Her jaw slowly dropped. “Why would I need to stay here? Stay safe under your brother’s watch? Unless you plan on leaving?”

  “I am. I need to go after Bockton and take him down for good.”

  Her hand whipped out, grabbing his forearm. “No. You don’t have to go after him—that is only pride, Roe—a misplaced sense of vengeance that you don’t need to be bound to.”

  He glanced down at her hand on his arm. She tightened her hold.

  “It’s more than that, Torrie—far more than that.”

  “No, it isn’t—unless you’re running away—running away from me. Either way, you don’t need to go. You cannot. You cannot put yourself in that danger.”

  “But I need to.” He sighed, running his free hand along the back of his neck. “I didn’t tell you everything you needed to know about Bockton.”

  “What else do I need to know?”

  He flicked his arm free of her grasp and took two steps away from her, his gaze on the upper branches of the trees surrounding them. “You need to know what that bastard did—what he’s capable of. Why I have to take him down.”

  His arms clamped across his chest. “What I didn’t tell you before was that Bockton had captured Captain Folback’s wife before the captain was killed. The Minerva and the Firehawk had had several run-ins throughout the years—before I ever joined the crew. Battles where there was no clear victor. But Bockton is a vengeful demon. He stole Captain Folback’s wife from their home and he goaded Captain Folback into attacking the Minerva far before we were prepared to do so—not enough men, not enough firepower aboard.”

  “After you had taken down that Turkish ship?”

  Roe nodded. “But I don’t blame the captain. The Minerva was within our sights and he knew his wife was aboard. We all wanted to get her back for him. So we attacked.”

  His voice dropped off, the thick silence of the woods enveloping the clearing. With a deep breath, Roe shook his head, his words vicious. “That bastard Bockton knows no bounds—I told you how he tortured our men? It was nothing compared to what he did to Captain Folback’s wife. Her wails were earth shattering. They are the ones that still haunt my dreams—the shrieks that would echo off the water, pulling us in, closer and closer—and we could not sail fast enough. By the time we caught the ship, she was dead, her naked body strapped high to the main mast. By then it was too late. Captain Folback was the first to board the ship—he was not turning back and I couldn’t control him—no one could. The best I could do was be second across and protect him as long as I was able to.”

  “Roe—”

  “Bockton is pure evil, Torrie. And men don’t think straight around evil. Especially when evil is directed at the innocent. She was dead, and we should have never attacked—but we did and we lost the captain and a third of the crew. Good men. All of them.”

  His sharp words paused and he drew in a heavy breath, then turned to look at her. “So here is where you’ll stay while I go after him. You’re not going anywhere near the water. Anywhere near the Minerva. Anywhere not under my brother’s watch. Not until Bockton is wiped from this earth. I’ll not take the chance.”

  Her mouth pulled into a tight line. “And neither should you.”

  His grey eyes pinned her. “Some things need to be finished, Torrie. Some things cannot lie in rest. This is one of those things. The evil that Bockton continues to unleash onto this world needs to be stopped.”

  She took a step toward him. “But why do you have to be the one to do it?”

  “Because I can.” He shrugged. “Wiping this man from the earth is more important than my life.”

  Her head dipped down, her gaze on the sprigs of moss jutting up from the dirt in front of her toes. “More important than me.”

  “You wouldn’t want me if I ignored my duty to see this finished.”

  She looked at him, at the hard set of his jaw, of his eyes. Relaxed Roe of a few minutes ago was nothing but a mirage. “I would. I would want you no matter what. But I want you alive. Not a lifeless body returned to me.”

  “Then I will attempt to stay alive.” The right side of his face lifted in a lopsided grin. “They haven’t been able to kill me yet. I have to believe my luck will hold out.”

  She took two more steps forward, grabbing both of his arms. “If you loved me, you would stay. You would drop this nonsense of vengeance.”


  “It’s not nonsense and you very well know that.” His eyes closed for a long breath and when he opened them, the look of hardened steel had flooded his irises.

  Cold. So very cold.

  He flipped his arms, flicking her grip off of him. “And you’re right. I can’t love you. I cannot let you mean anything to me. Not if I’m to do what I have to do.”

  Air sucked in with her gasp, choking her. “No. You don’t mean that. You do love me.”

  He shook his head, his top lip curling into a snarl. “I didn’t want to have to do this, Torrie.”

  “Do what?” Her look narrowed at him.

  “I didn’t want to have to tell you the truth. I had hoped to spare your feelings because I like you, care for you, I’ve been obsessed with you, but I don’t love you, Torrie.” His hard look bored into her, setting ice to her veins. “I feel a responsibility for your safety, but I don’t love you. I realize that now.”

  “But…but what you said—everything—you said I was everything.” The ground was swaying beneath her, parting, anxious to swallow her whole.

  His look went into pure callousness. “I told you what you needed to hear in order to get you safely to Culland Hall. You would have left me otherwise, and I couldn’t have that.”

  A wicked blow to her gut, taking the air out of her more than his fist ever could.

  She gasped a breath. Another. Another. Her feet shuffling backwards, searching for stability, searching for ground that would not swallow her hole.

  Her hand went to the front of her neck, holding it for lack of any other way to force breath down into her chest. One last gulp for air and it made it deep into her lungs, swirling with a fury she’d never known.

  Her heel caught a root and she tripped, falling flat on her backside, knocking out the little air she had in her lungs.

  Roe didn’t say a word. Didn’t move one pinky to help her.

  Air. Air. Another gasp deep into her chest.

  Her face jerked upward to him, her eyes looking to slice him into a thousand shreds. “You took me in and made me trust you—you twisted everything I thought I knew and now you’re leaving me.” The words hissed out of her mouth, the low hum of an angry hive. “How could you do this?”