“Like you?” she asked.
Peter nodded.
“And me,” came White’s voice from behind her.
She slowly turned to face White. “How long were you in the asylum?”
“Twenty years,” he said, that twitch of his head to the left starting again. His face flushed as he obviously struggled to form the words he wanted to say.
“Take a moment, Whitey,” Peter said, coming to the man who was at least three times bigger than Peter. It was odd but sweet to see the boy comforting the giant. “Inhale slowly, like you know helps you.”
White nodded. After a moment, he said, “My elder brother put me there after our parents died, the dirty rotten bastard!”
“White,” the physician chided, “there is a lady present.”
“He can’t help it, Doctor,” Peter said. “He just blurts things.” The boy paused and looked up at White. “May I tell them your story?”
White nodded, looking relieved not to have to do it himself.
“White’s affliction embarrassed his brother,” Peter began. “He was a tea merchant who eventually owned stakes in the ships he used to trade tea in. He got important in Society and White embarrassed him.”
“Is he dead?” Constantine asked, glancing at White.
“Dead to me,” White answered. “Dead, dead, dead.”
A huge knot lodged itself in Constantine’s throat, and she had to swallow past it to say, “I’m sorry,” to White.
“You’ll not seek him out,” she guessed. “Now that you are free?”
“No, no, no.” The man violently shook his head. “He’d put me back if he knew. C-Cal promised to protect me.”
Her gaze strayed to Callum. That was the sort of promise a man of honor would make, a man like the one she’d once believed Callum to be. Her chest squeezed.
“There were a lot of people at the asylum whose families simply didn’t want to deal with them anymore,” Peter said.
“Were?”she asked.
White and Peter exchanged a look. Peter cleared his throat. “When Cal broke free, he started an insurrection.” Peter grinned. “Cal taught me that word.”
“Do go on,” she murmured, her mind reeling.
“The inmates broke out and overtook the asylum, killed guards, killed the doctor that signed the false papers saying we were all insane, and they would have killed the owner of the asylum, but he fled. White and I came with Cal because we didn’t have anywhere else to go, and he said we could come live here, and he’d protect us.”
“Cal said ye weren’t staying,” White blurted, “but I like ye. I hope he lets ye stay. He needs ye.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Callum, who was still sleeping. Her husband had been in an asylum. He’d endured God knew what, and he’d made vows to protect men. Only an honorable man would do such a thing. “He does need me,” she agreed. And God help her, she wanted to be here for him. Just how much, much more than the simple bargain she’d offered, frightened her.
“Ye’re pretty,” White announced, “and ye have nice eyes. Friendly ones. Cal will be mad at me.”
He sounded like a worried child, and her heart squeezed again for this man. He seemed to have a mind that was not caught up with his age. She stepped toward him, saw him jerk, and she held her hands out, palms up, to reassure him that she wasn’t going to hurt him. Then very slowly, she set one hand on his forearm and gave him a gentle squeeze. “Callum will be furious. But with me, not you.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” White chanted, shaking his head. “He loves ye. He—”
“Whitey!” Peter snapped. “Quit talking if you know what’s good for you.”
White snapped his jaw shut, looking chagrinned, but it was too late. She’d heard him, and her heart had nearly leaped out of her chest. “Did he… Did he tell you that?” she asked, feeling her face heat at the audacity of asking such a question.
“No, no. He quit talking about ye. But before, when he was chained, when he was—”
