The Irishman looked as though he’d been stabbed through the heart with a knitting needle. “I didn’t kill her.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Lucien said loftily, and gave a dramatic sigh. “You didn’t need to. But you did kill Brown, you were convicted and sentenced to hang, and it was only your friend John Adams’s brilliance that got you out of the noose in an appeal that should never have been made.”
O’ Devir flushed with rage. “Ye know nothin’ of what happened.”
“Oh, I know all of it. Have you told my sister about this particular little…tidbit of your past?”
By the dawning horror in Nerissa’s face, he had not.
“I think we’ve all heard enough,” Brendan said, nodding for his wife to join him as he took the duke by the elbow and tried to force him away. “Some things are over and done with, and that’s one of them.”
“Ah, well…always best to know everything there is to know about a person before you marry them,” Lucien murmured. His smile was pitiless and cold. “You’re correct, Merrick. It is time to leave.”
Chapter 31
The walk back to the house seemed to take forever.
Nerissa was reeling from shock. A baby, which certainly explained her nausea these past few days and her sudden penchant for tears. Lucien showing up here in all his high-handed glory, Lucien who had once said he would never again meddle in another’s life after his manipulations had nearly killed his wife and taken the life of his unborn child, Lucien who did not seem to have changed one iota, not one damned bit.
The tears clawed at the back of her nose, prickled her eyes and began to spill down her cheeks.
But Ruaidri….
He walked beside her, silent, bleeding, enigmatic.
“Is it true?” she asked, as they reached the anchor at the bottom of the drive where Brendan’s family lived.
He would not meet her eyes. “I was going to tell you when the time was right.”
“So it is true, then.”
“Aye. All of it.”
“You murdered your best friend? And killed a woman?”
“I didn’t kill her. She’s probably not even dead for all I know.” He looked away, his face closed-up, his eyes dark with pain. “She was like that, ye know. Came and went. Attached herself to the hero of the moment, fell madly in love with him and the moment his star began to set she moved on to someone else.”
“I… I can’t believe you didn’t tell me any of this,” she whispered, her world crashing down around her.
“I told ye, I was waitin’ for the right time.”
“To tell me you murdered someone?” her voice was high and thready. “People who love each other don’t keep those kinds of secrets, Ruaidri!”
“Well, lass, ye weren’t exactly forthcoming about things yerself.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Ehm…a baby?”
“I didn’t know. It was Mira who put it all together, not me. Besides, if I’d known I would have told you. It’s not like I deliberately kept something from you!’
His jaw tightened, and she saw him take a deep and steadying breath. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“When were you planning on talking about it? Next year? Next decade? Next century?”
“Ye’re makin’ a scene.”
“I can’t believe this!”
“Believe it. It’s true. Josiah Brown was my best friend, a former shipmate and eventually fellow captain. I killed him. Shot him dead. Your brother was wrong about a lot of things, but he got that one right.”
“So you don’t deny it, then?”
“There’s nothin’ to deny.”
She walked the rest of the drive up to the house and sat down heavily on the steps. This man that she had married, this man whose past was as known to her as what lay beyond the moon, this man who had not quite lied to her but who had withheld a critical truth, moved to catch up. He reached down for her and tried to touch her cheek. She turned her head away.
“I can’t believe you kept this from me,” she said, dabbing at her eyes.
“I didn’t murder him, Nerissa. Murder is intent. I never intended to kill him. It was an accident.”
“An accident?”
Ruaidri sat down on the step beside her. She stiffened, angry with him and deservedly so. “An accident,” he repeated. And then he drew a deep breath, put his bruised and aching head in his bleeding hands, and forced himself to go back through the years, to a tavern in Boston after he’d lost his ship, the people’s acclaim, his pride following his humiliating capture as the Irish Pirate. A time when Dolores, who was little more than a courtesan but whose buxom beauty and bold eyes had been his undoing, still loved him. But Josiah’s sun had risen as Ruaidri’s had set, and Dolores had dropped him like an anchor in harbor, quickly hitching her wagon to the new hero instead. The pain at being betrayed by both his lover and his best friend had eviscerated what was left of his pride and happiness. Yes, he had loved her, yes, he’d been angry, yes, he’d accepted the challenge at daybreak thrown down by Josiah after Dolores, who was thrilled to have two of the most famous men in Boston fighting over her, drove them into a duel with a few well-placed taunts and lies in Josiah’s ear.
“It was daybreak and there she was, standin’ under a tree watchin’…and she was smilin’,” Ruaidri said. “We both turned and fired at the same time. Josiah was tryin’ to kill me, because that’s what love does to a man who thinks he’s been insulted, who thinks the woman he loves has been wronged. His shot winged my arm. Mine was meant to miss him and didn’t. I spun and fired just as he did and he lunged to the left as I pulled the trigger, tryin’ to lessen the target he made. And I’d jerked the gun to the left to avoid hittin’ him. He and the ball collided. He took it in the stomach.” Ruaidri sat slumped and looking down at his boots, his bloodied knuckles thrust up through his hair and curling to grip it in hard fists. “He died in agony, cursin’ me in his final breaths. And now ye know.”
“And Dolores?”
“She left. Just turned around and walked away and I never saw her again. Probably ended up on a ship somewhere, tryin’ to get her hooks into the next probable hero. She liked sailors. I don’t know what happened to the manky bitch and I don’t care.”
A long moment went by, with neither of them looking at the other.
Blood ran steadily down Ruaidri’s knuckles, seeping into his hair.
And Nerissa suddenly felt exhausted.
She looked over at him. “Why didn’t you tell me, Ruaidri?”
He straightened up and looked off down the drive, toward the river. “Because I was scared, Nerissa. That’s why.”
“Scared of what?”
“Scared that ye’d leave me if ye knew the truth.”
She looked down, tears filling her eyes, and fingered a knothole in the steps. “It hurts me that you didn’t trust in my love enough to confess something so important.”
“I’m sorry, Nerissa. I made a complete hash of it.”
“Yes, you did. My brother hurt me terribly with his actions. And now you, by your failure to confide in me…you have hurt me as well. At the moment, I don’t think I can trust anyone anymore.”
“I’m still the same man I was before ye learned any of this.”
“You may be the same man, but I’m not the same woman. An hour ago, I believed in you. You were my hero, my knight in shining armor. Now I’ve been wounded by two of the people I love most in this world. Both of you treated me as though I was something fragile, breakable, unable to handle the truth or even make my own decisions. Both of you have let me down.” She got to her feet. “I need to go rest.”
“I’ll come with you. We’ll talk.”
“No, Ruaidri. I wish to be alone. Go back to Tigershark. Get Jeffcote to stitch you up before you bleed to death all over again.”
“Nerissa, please—”
“Better yet, go take Andrew down to Adams and get i
t over with so that he can move on with his own life and get back to the woman he loves. I need time to think, to make sense of all that I’ve learned today, and the last two people I want to see right now are you and Lucien.”
She got up, opened the door, and without a backward glance, went inside.
The door shut with a hard, final thump and for Ruaidri, it was the most awful sound in the world.
* * *
Nerissa trudged upstairs, head down to conceal her damp eyes as Mira’s father Ephraim was coming down, frowning as he tried to set the watch he carried in his hand. He muttered a greeting and continued on, and she slid quietly into the room that she and Ruaidri had been given.
The bed where they had made love just an hour or so before lay as she’d left it when she’d thrown back the covers, gone to the window to watch her husband melt away into the darkness, and seen shadowy figures move out from behind the trees at the end of the drive and begin to follow him. It surprised her that anyone would be watching the house in the last hour before daybreak. It didn’t surprise her to find out that it had been her own brother.
Her blood running cold, she had charged from her room. She’d raced past Brendan as he’d been coming up the stairs with a breakfast tray, told him what she’d just seen and flown outside, trying to catch up to her husband and his pursuers before it was too late. And it almost had been. She saw again the vicious fight, both men so well matched, heard the brutal blows and seen again that awful moment as Lucien, insane with rage, had held a knife to her husband’s throat. Nerissa knew her brother. She knew the depths to which he would go, the lengths to which he had gone for other members of his family to protect those he loved.
And she knew that he would have killed Ruaidri right then and there if she had not been there to intervene.
She sat down on the rumpled bed, her eyeballs aching from lack of sleep, exhaustion, and grief, and the still surreal claim on Mira’s part that she was pregnant.
Pregnant.
Could she be? Well, why not. She and Ruaidri had consummated their marriage on the day they’d exchanged vows a month and a half ago. They had come together often on the voyage across the Atlantic. It was how babies were made. It was how babies had always been made.
Pregnant.
And it certainly explained the fact she her menses were late. Very late. It probably explained her unexpected and sudden tears, her jealousy and high emotions when Ruaidri had refused to discuss this Dolores-creature, and the fact that her nipples felt tender and raw, as well.
Again, the image of Lucien and the knife, Ruaidri half-conscious and about to die, rose up in her mind.
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Nerissa said woodenly, hastily wiping away her tears.
She’d half-expected it to be her husband. But it was Mira Merrick, her hair down around her shoulders and one hank of it tucked behind an ear. She came and sat on the bed next to Nerissa.
“Life ain’t always easy,” she said quietly. “And sometimes it gives us surprises we aren’t quite ready for.” She reached out and took Nerissa’s hand. “You didn’t know you were breedin’, did ye?”
Nerissa shook her head, feeling the tears squeezing past her eyes despite her best efforts. Mira’s gentle compassion and empathy were about to open the floodgates on her emotions. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
“I wasn’t quite sure myself, but the bloom in your cheeks, the way you weren’t eating, and that bullcrap about land-sickness… I put it all together and made a wild stab in the dark. Didn’t know if I was right or not, but at least it got those two men of yours to quit killing each other by knocking them both over the head with it.”
Nerissa knuckled another tear.
Mira squeezed her hand. “Can I say something?”
Nerissa nodded.
“I think ye’re bein’ too hard on yer man.”
Nerissa choked back the sudden lump in her throat. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me.”
“He didn’t tell ye because he was afraid he’d lose ye.”
“I’ve never seen my husband afraid of anything. Not even Lucien when he was about to kill him. The word ‘afraid’ is not part of his vocabulary, Mira.”
“It is when it comes to you. He loves you.”
She sniffed and with unladylike despair, wiped the back of her hand across her nose.
“We were talking about settling here,” Nerissa said plaintively. “There’s you and Brendan, and the connection we both have with Amy makes me feel that you’re already family. We talked about building a home. And now…now, I just feel sick at heart.”
“Still think ye’re being too hard on him.”
Nerissa sniffled again, and felt the tears coming again.
“That man loves you to the end of the earth,” Mira added. “I know a fair bit about fighting, and I can tell you right now that he was holding back when he and your brother were going at each other. Brendan told me all about your husband, how scrappy a lad he was, how tough and cunning he is. They grew up together in Connemara. Do ye think he didn’t have a reason for letting your brother beat up on him like a dusty rug? He could have killed him and didn’t, because he knew what that would’ve done to you.”
“He was no match for Lucien.”
Mira made a noise that was half-guffaw, half snort. “Well, family loyalty is all well and good, but you ought to open your eyes once in a while and try lookin’ at the truth that’s standing right in front of you. Anyhow, doesn’t matter, does it? You’re sitting in here crying with a baby brewin’ in yer belly, that good-looking man ye married is off buying provisions to sail out of here with Andrew, and my husband, who’s recovering from a fall that nearly killed him not three months back, is getting Kestrel ready to take your other brother down to New York to deliver him safely into the hands of the damned British.” She chewed at a hangnail. “Kind of a mess, don’t ye think?”
Nerissa raised her head. Guilt filled her heart. “Oh, Mira….”
“Don’t ‘oh Mira’ me. You’ve got some hurt feelings to fix, some soothing to do. Now stop feeling sorry for yerself, get off that pampered, well-bred butt of yours and go find and forgive your husband. And while you’re at it, might as well make peace with that high-minded brother of yers, too.”
Nerissa shook her head. “I can forgive Ruaidri,” she said, her mouth tightening, “but I cannot forgive Lucien.”
“Gonna just let him sail out of here and back home to England, then?”
The tears welled back up in Nerissa’s throat, filled her sinuses and burned like fire as she fought to keep them from spilling once more. She couldn’t trust herself to speak, instead just nodding jerkily and looking away—and missing Mira’s calculating stare.
“Have it your way, then,” she muttered, getting to her feet. “But I’m a-telling ye right now, you don’t fix this, ye might never again get the chance and it’s gonna eat at your gut worse than if ye’d swallowed a bucketful of seaworms.”
The other woman stood up, and with a meaningful glance over her shoulder as she went to the door, walked out.
Nerissa just sat there, looking miserably out the window.
Soon enough, Lucien and her brother would be gone from this little town and on their way home to England. How stricken Lucien had looked when she’d told him to get out of her life. It felt good at the time to deliver such a blow to her brother after all he’d done to ruin her life, but now…now, as the dust was settling around Mira’s words and her own confusion and heartache caught up with her, the idea of him sailing away and truly out of her life, brought her indescribable pain.
I can’t forgive him. I just can’t.
She was still sitting on the bed staring miserably at the floor when her bruised and battered husband came quietly in an hour later.
She looked up at him, saw the uncertainty in his eyes, and with a sob, stretched out her arms to him in forgiveness.
He didn’t stop to ask if she was certain
she even wanted to give it.
They made love for a second time that morning. By the time the tide had turned late that afternoon, Lord Andrew was aboard Tigershark and Captain Ruaidri O’ Devir was on his way to Boston to complete the mission on which John Adams had sent him. In his wake was Brendan’s schooner Kestrel, bound for New York to bring the Duke of Blackheath back to the British.
And Nerissa, standing silently at the window and watching the two vessels grow small with distance, was all alone.
Chapter 32
John Adams was all smiles and gratitude upon being presented with Lord Andrew de Montforte and what he assumed would be the substance that would end this war in the Americans’ favor. He and his wife Abigail plied the young nobleman and their favorite captain with food and drink, caught Ruaidri up on what had been going on here at home, and invited him to stay the night. But the Irishman, thinking of his wife back in Newburyport, politely declined. Adams saw him to the door, still smiling—and leaving Ruaidri to wonder how long his high spirits would last once confronted with Andrew’s stubborn defiance. He was glad that his part in this undertaking was over. He didn’t envy Adams one bit.
As he and his brother-in-law parted company, Andrew left him with explicit instructions.
“I was nicknamed the Defiant One for a reason,” he said, holding out his hand in friendship. “I’m as stubborn as they come, but I’ve got nothing on either Lucien or my sister. You’re a good man, Ruaidri O’ Devir, and I’ve seen the best of you. It might not be today and it might not be tomorrow, but when Lucien gets over being a pig-headed arse, he’ll realize you’re the best thing that ever happened to our sister.”
Ruaidri nodded. “And what about you?”
“Oh, don’t worry about me. Adams seems like a fine fellow, but he’ll get nothing out of me and neither will anyone else, including the Royal Navy. I’ve had a lot to think about this past month and a half, seen things I never want to see again. That explosive should never have been invented. Some day I’ll die, and the formula on how to make it will die with me. You have my word.”
The Wayward One (The De Montforte Brothers Book 5) Page 33
