She nodded, her usual poise back in place. “He could undress me with his eyes just as well as you can.”
Rorrick laughed. “I don’t think Johnny and I have ever been compared thusly.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, barely perceivable, but he saw it. “But you are not your brother, are you, Rorrick?”
Her tone, the sudden look in her eyes and the complete loss of levity told him this was no ordinary question.
This question was serious. And she needed a serious answer.
Rorrick sighed. Life was always complicated where Johnny was involved. Apparently, that had not changed when his brother had moved to England. Other than the occasional comment about him, Cass had never inquired about Johnny during their weeks on the ship. That she did so now, days away from landing, unnerved him.
To purchase a moment, he pulled a flask from his coat pocket and freed the cap, taking a healthy swallow. He let the last of his good brandy slowly snake down his throat before setting his attention on Cass. “In most ways, no, I am not my brother. But in some ways, we are one. We always have been.”
“Which ones?”
“Loyalty—that trait rules all. Stubbornness. Occasional intelligence.”
She paused as she lifted her tea cup for another sip, studying him. “Yes, I can see those qualities in you.”
“Johnny raised me. I never had a father I remembered, and after our mother died, my younger sister, only a babe, was taken in by a couple from town. They lived in a fancy house. Black shutters, scalloped red roof tiles that swooped down along the front of the building.”
“You still recall the house?”
He nodded, looking down to his knee and picking off rogue bits of lint from his dark trousers. He never talked of his sister. Never. Aside from Johnny, he couldn’t think of one person that knew they had a sister. “I stared at that house for days after they took her. In the rain. In the sun beating down. It was summer. And it was hot. But I just stood across the street, staring at the house, trying for the life of me to imagine what I could say to them to make them give her back to us.” He swallowed hard. “Or what I could say to make them take me and Johnny in too.”
“How old were you?”
Rorrick glanced up at her. She had settled the tea cup down into her lap, her hands clutching it, her focus solely on him. Her honey-brown eyes were wide, glistening with genuine empathy.
“I was six. Johnny was eight.”
She blanched, her creamy skin turning noticeably whiter.
“Maple Avenue. That was the street where I learned how to not hope for things I cannot have.”
Her skin managed to drop another shade. “How did you do that?”
He shrugged. “I don’t hope for anything.”
Her brow furrowed.
“From then on, it was just Johnny and I. He fed me. Found a place for us to live. He was scrappy beyond belief. Anything he could do for a coin, he did. He raised me. For better or worse, he raised me.”
“That…from what little I knew of your brother…I would not have presumed any of that of him.” Her hand flew to her mouth, her head shaking. “I apologize. I meant no offense.”
Rorrick shrugged, setting the stopper of his flask back in place. “No, it is true—who Johnny was as an adult was…different.”
“Why did he change?”
“Why does anybody change?”
While he wasn’t expecting an answer, Cass nonetheless paused, her head slanting to the side as she seriously pondered the question. Her eyes followed the movement of the deckhands on the far side of the quarterdeck until her look travelled back to him. “I imagine we go about our paths until something drastic happens, some impetus that forces change—forces us to change—whether we want it or not. Whether it is for the good or the bad.”
“I imagine you are right on that score.”
“So what happened to Johnny?”
“What happened was that I see life in shades. My brother never did. He was always black or white. There was no in-between with him. Loyalty was everything to Johnny, and I betrayed him. That was it. And that was all. That was what changed him. Changed us.”
“You betrayed him?” The instant disbelief that crossed her face was both reassuring and disquieting.
“I did. We were still young—or at least I was—nineteen. Johnny had gotten us into mining in the mountains, it paid well enough for a time, and then we had discovered our own vein of gold ore. We set claim on it and that became our life—became our everything—and we followed that vein deep into the ground in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It took forever—we were learning as we went—the explosives, the chiseling, the tons of rocks we moved out of the shaft. We were stupid at times, but we had brawn. We had will. It was just the two of us working that vein for almost a year, and the tunnel was solid and the vein kept going deeper and deeper and winding into the mountain.”
Rorrick wedged off the cap of the flask and set it to his mouth, tilting it upright to demand the few discounted drops still within fall into his mouth. He set the cap back in place. “We followed that vein until we blew through into another mine shaft. Rock exploded, and we knew right away it wasn’t a regular blast—that there was nothing but air on the other side. When the dust settled, we were looking at Tom Martin—a friend, a man we grew up with. A man just as scrappy and hardworking as we were. But we had all been working the same vein, just opposite ends of it, and we knew Tom’s claim to the vein was filed earlier than ours.”
Her delicate eyebrows arched. “What does that mean?”
“It meant that our tunnel, our work, our vein were now his by mining law. He found the vein first. He claimed it first. So the vein, no matter where it led to, was his. All of it was his. All of our work. Johnny and I were just working the wrong end of it.”
“Oh.” Her hand lifted, settling flat onto the bare skin of her upper chest. “That seems most unfair.”
He shrugged. “There wasn’t any argument against it. We all knew the miner law. Knew what it meant, the three of us standing there, staring at each other. The blast echoing in our ears. It meant the loss of everything.”
“Gone in an instant.” Her head shook as the edges of her eyes crinkled. “So you had to just walk away?”
“Yes. That should have been what happened. We should have walked away. But instead, that was the moment I lost my brother. Johnny wasn’t going to let it go—let all of our back-breaking work go for naught.” His fingers tightened around the flask in his hand. “I had already turned and started to walk out of the tunnel when I saw Johnny lift his pistol. He’d had it cocked and ready the second we realized we blasted into another tunnel. I tackled him in the instant he pulled the trigger.”
Her eyes went wide, her jaw dropping. “He was to shoot your friend?”
“Our friend—Tom was a friend to both of us—and steadfast at that. And yes, Johnny was about to shoot Tom dead to make our claim on the vein valid. But I forced Johnny into the tunnel wall, sacking him to the ground. The bullet ricocheted around the rocks as we wrestled in the muck of the tunnel. Johnny almost killed me.” Rorrick’s hand ran over his eyes. “Hell, I almost killed him. My brother—he raised me—the one person I had in the world. And he was going to murder a man over what? Some ore? Some shiny rock?”
He paused, shaking his head. “By the time I knocked Johnny’s head into a rock, knocking him unconscious, Tom was gone—disappeared out of his tunnel. Smart man.”
“Rorrick—”
“I left that day. Left my brother in the sludge of that mine.” His look went past the far side of the deck to the ocean to stare at the dark blue waters. “I knew he would never forgive me. Knew I would never forgive him. So I left.”
“Do you regret it?”
Rorrick sighed. “To this day I don’t know if I made the right decision. Loyalty was everything. Everything. Everything to me.”
Silence settled between them for long breaths before Cass’s soft voice broke the air.
> “Did you ever see Johnny again?”
He shook his head. “No. I received a letter from him when he left for England to take the title. That was all. And now I have only a grave to talk to.”
He sighed and slid the silver flask still gripped in his hand into his inner pocket. He looked to Cass. “And ever since I arrived in England, no one has told me directly what happened to him.”
Cass jerked slightly, her back straightening. “You don’t know? What…what do you know?”
“A duel—I know Johnny was in a duel that he lost. That is all I know. I have suspicions. But I haven’t been able to find one damn man to tell me what happened. I don’t even know who the bastard is that I need to hunt down.”
A frown settled deep onto her face. “They close ranks amongst themselves—the ton, the peerage. You are an outsider.”
“That is an understatement.”
She nodded. “Do not hold it against them. Most in society are wary of anyone new—of any new family—they have spent thousands of years protecting their wealth and privilege from usurpers. And Americans are the ultimate usurpers. So they don’t understand you. They don’t understand how you think, what you value.”
His gaze locked onto her. “Do you understand?”
Her chest lifted in a deep breath before she met his look.
She nodded, her head giving the slightest bob. “Yes, maybe…I am beginning to think I do.”
{ Chapter 9 }
It was the gloves.
Cass glanced to her left, taking in the strong lines of Rorrick’s profile for far too long of a moment. At an intersection of two busy Charleston roadways, his focus was solely on orientating them.
If it hadn’t been for the gloves, she could have escaped this whole adventure without falling in love with the man.
He would have helped her find Ashita and her son, she would have signed the Vandestile land back to him, and they would have parted ways. It had been so simple in her mind when she had first concocted the plan in London.
Stepping off of the ship early this morning, she had still held onto the frayed threads of that plan—even knowing that the last shreds of simplicity had become slick, slipping out of her grasp.
But the second Rorrick had led her to the glover’s shop near the waterfront, all simplicity was truly lost. He wanted to replace her ruined gloves before they did anything else—before they checked into an inn. Before they started their search for Ashita.
Gloves were the most important thing to him. Gloves for her, because she didn’t have any and he didn’t want to forget.
Gloves.
For as much as she had set herself hard against his inherent charm—hard against his weeks of insinuations that they would do quite well as a match, especially in bed—her defenses had shattered in that moment he had wiggled a wool-lined, doe skin leather glove onto her right hand for proper fit. It was an unseemly glove designed for functionality at best—but also the warmest article of clothing that had ever graced her fingers.
The gesture of the gloves—so small, yet so profound—had sent a lump into her throat. She hadn’t asked for it, hadn’t wanted it, but for some reason, she had become his concern, his responsibility. And if there was one thing she had learned of Rorrick over the past weeks, it was that he did not take his responsibilities lightly.
Rorrick pointed to the right, then set his hand on her elbow and ushered her along a wooden walkway abutting the frenetic street.
“Down to the next alley.” The clomping and clanging of horses, wagons, and carriages jockeying for space along the cobblestone street drowned out his voice. He leaned down to her ear as he stepped beside her, his imposing form clearing space among the people on the walkway. “They changed the name of the cross street since the last time I was in Charleston, but it should be this way.”
Within minutes Cass stood staring at the thick black paint on the door of the boarding house. The paint was thick, bumpy as though the last coat had peeled, and instead of scraping it off, someone had just dribbled a bucket of black paint over it to cover the mess.
Unlike the other six boarding houses they had visited this morning, this one’s entrance was obscure, halfway into an alley, and the house was constructed haphazardly between the rear sides of two large buildings.
Her hand tapping on the side of her skirts, she glanced up at Rorrick.
The tarnished brass knocker broken, he banged his fist on the door again.
They didn’t have time for this. Not only did her feet ache, they still had four other boarding houses in the area they needed to visit before sundown, if possible.
They had started searching at the boarding houses closest to the inn where Mr. Peaton had discovered Ashita and her son had stayed one night. He had lost her trail there, and after reading Mr. Peaton’s report, Rorrick had determined Ashita would have most likely moved on to one of the twelve boarding houses within a mile.
Rorrick looked to her and his brow arched. Just as he lifted his fist to bang on the wood again, clunking and then the clanging metal of the latch opening shook the door. It cracked open a hand’s width, and a thin, sallow woman dressed in black filled the narrow opening.
“What yer business?” The pallor of her face an odd yellow-grey, her cheeks sunken, she looked back and forth between Rorrick and Cass. She pointed at Cass. “You. You we can take in.” Her boney thumb flicked out to jab at Rorrick. “But not the man. Only women ‘n children ‘ere.”
For a moment, Cass looked at her with a polite smile pasted on her face as she worked through the woman’s quick words. “Oh, you mean you can take me in to lodge here? No, I do not need a place to stay—” She stopped, glancing to Rorrick. They had actually not discussed where they were to sleep that night or where her trunk was delivered. “Do I?”
He shook his head. “I have rooms secured at an inn.”
Cass looked back to the landlady. “Actually, we need your assistance if possible. We are looking for a woman I need to find.”
The landlady crossed her arms in front of her, leaning along the doorframe as her colorless grey eyes squinted at Cass. “Ye be lookin’ fer someone? What if I not be in the mood to be talkin’?”
Cass swallowed back a groan. Every single landlady or landlord had said the exact same thing. So predictable, she and Rorrick had already fallen into an easy pattern. He talked to the men and she talked to the women, and Rorrick always had coin ready for payment—each interaction went much smoother and faster as a result.
She smiled at the landlady. “Oh, of course, we will pay you for your time. We just need an honest answer on whether you remember the woman we seek. Have you been the keeper of this”—Cass’s right hand flitted upward at the ramshackle building—“boarding house for long?”
“Ten years. Since the mister left.”
“Excellent. I am looking for a woman by the name of Ashita.”
The landlady’s head tilted, her eyes lifting upward. “Ashita?” She shook her head. “I don’t rightly recall.”
Rorrick pulled a few coins free and stepped forward to grab the woman’s hand, pressing them into her palm.
Her look dropped to him and then her eyes went to Cass. “Ashita? What else ye know of ‘er?”
“She had dark hair, a foreigner. She had a boy with her—he would have been three or four at the time. It would have been several years ago. I regret I do not know her family name—possibly Monroe?” Cass winced as the name crossed her tongue. Her name. Her husband’s name.
“Ahh, Mrs. Monroe. Foreigner with a name like that. I do recall ‘er.”
Cass’s knees went weak. Finally. Finally.
“That boy. He didn’t look like her.”
“No.” Cass remembered that about the child. He had looked like her husband.
“She be quite pleasant. She had plenty o’ coin and was looking fer better lodging. I seen the money. Made ‘er show me, by the by. T’was the only reason I let her stay.” The landlady wrinkled her nose.
“Yes. The coins looked odd, but they bit right.”
Logan. Of course he hadn’t sent a defenseless mother and child off with nothing. Of course he’d had compassion where she’d been merciless.
Cass looked to the landlady. “How long did she stay here? Is she still in the area?”
The landlady snorted. “Heaven’s no. She ain’t been here fer years. A month, maybe two after she get here—she came back after being out all day and said she’d been robbed. Looked it too. Said she had nothin’ and needed to work.” She flipped her fingers into the air. “That woman ain’t good fer any job—she never worked a day in her life. Knew it the moment I seen ‘er. But she paid up fer that first month and she stayed the second even though she couldn’t afford it. Third month I kicked her out.”
Cass’s head jerked backward. “You kicked her out? A destitute mother and her child?”
The landlady’s voice took on a hard edge. “I don’t run a charity house, miss.”
Cass’s voice rose and she took a step forward. “How could you—”
Rorrick set his hand on her shoulder, cutting her words as he forcibly pulled her slightly toward him.
She took the message exactly as intended.
Don’t be a hypocrite.
She wasn’t allowed to judge a total stranger for doing the exact thing she had done to Ashita in England.
Cass shuffled a step backward, her mouth clamped shut. She had been the one to kick Ashita out without two pennies to rub together. She had been the one to send her down this path.
The landlady bristled, standing straight, her hand on the door and ready to slam it shut.
No, no, no.
Cass looked up to Rorrick, desperate.
His foot slipped forward, wedging against the open door as he motioned with his head at Cass to remove herself to the end of the alley.
A quick glance at the landlady ready to spit fire at her, and Cass stifled a sigh, turning from the doorway. She walked to the end of the alley, her eyes focused on the blur of carriages and horses and wagons speeding by.
Of Risk & Redemption: A Revelry’s Tempest Novel Page 8
