He leaned forward in the circle, meeting and holding the gaze of each of the men before he spoke once more. “Theone person, theonly personto benefit from getting rid of me is my cousin. I’m not such a fool to believe there are not men who want me dead. I’m certain there are, but no one—I tell you, no one—would go to the trouble of having me put in an asylum besides Ross.”
“I agree,” said Valentine. “And I’m damned sorry. I failed you.” Valentine shook his head. “I allowed myself to be duped when I should have dug deeper. I, above anyone, know what Ross was capable of in the past.”
It was the most emotion Callum had ever seen his friend display for anyone or anything other than his wife, and it put a knot in Callum’s throat. He accepted Valentine’s apology with an inclination of his head. Valentine would have never believed Ross if Callum had not taken the string of dishonorable actions that he had those years before, so he could hardly hold a grudge now for what he himself had caused.
“If only my ring had been taken,” Callum continued, “I might have considered it was possibly someone else.Possibly.But only Ross would benefit from my being declared dead, and to ensure that, he needed to make everyone believe, beyond a doubt, that it was actually my body that was found. Thus, he took my ringandmy clothes. He could allow no questions, no suspicion, if he was to get my title, my money, my land.”My wife.
“Who took your finger?” Beckford asked casually, as if he were inquiring about a new carriage.
Callum’s hand reflexively curled inward, and for a moment, he felt his finger as if it were still there. “One of the guards at the asylum cut it off,” he said, looking down at where the stub remained. “They didn’t like my trying to convince them I was the Marquess of Kilgore.”
I’ll show ye what happens to men who won’t accept who they now are.The Enforcer’s voice was loud in Callum’s ear before Callum could stop it, and on the heels of the man’s voice came a wave of bone-deep tiredness. He was exhausted still from the seemingly never-ending recovery. He had aches that were maddening, but what he no longer had, thank God, was the gnawing desire for the opium. There was a dull wish for the moment of euphoria that it brought, but then he had but to recall the horror after the euphoria to remember he didn’t want to feel anything but the need for justice, because that was the one thing that offered any hope of his ever having another chance with Constantine.
“Is there anyone from the asylum who we could question?” Valentine asked.
“Yes!” Carrington said. “Proof there that we could gather and use to—”
Callum shook his head. “When I escaped and let out the other prisoners, they destroyed the place. Burned it to the ground. There was only one guard who admitted to me more or less that he knew I was the marquess and not Mr. Selkirk, but he’s dead.”
“Did you kill him?” Greybourne asked, studying Callum.
“No,” Callum replied, “but neither did I aid him. And the other guards… Well, I tried to stop the prisoners, but they wanted nothing to do with mercy. You see, each man there was imprisoned unjustly.” He quickly told them about White and Peter, and when he finished, he inhaled a long breath. “I don’t feel obligated to tell you all the horrors I went through.”
“Then don’t,” Carrington said. “No man here is judging you.”
Callum nodded absently and then held up one of his arms and jerked his coat and shirt up to reveal the scars from the chains they’d used to bind his wrists. “They chained me, and then the guard, called ‘the Enforcer’—” Callum offered a tight smile while staring past everyone’s head at the wall “—well, he promised to break me, and he did. And the others watched, from guards to the so-called doctors, who I came to believe were there only in case someone should show up and ask questions.” Callum rubbed absently at his chest where his heart thudded, threatening to pound right out of its cage. “If you’ve never been broken by another man, there is no way I can explain to you the utter hatred you would feel.” He would not say aloud the other things he felt. Endless black rage. Self-loathing. He swallowed. “The apathy one feels for whether a man lives or dies by the hand of others he has wronged is shocking. I don’t expect you to understand.”
Silence stretched for a moment, and then Beckford said, “I understand.”
Callum looked to the man, and in Beckford’s cool blue gaze, Callum saw the proof of the man’s words.
“I wanted to kill Pierce,” Carrington said quietly. “I wanted to kill him when he took Guinevere, and I do believe I would have had she not been there to stop me.”
Greybourne cleared his throat. “I must echo what Valentine said earlier and say I’m sorry that we did not continue to pursue your cousin and that we swallowed his lies.”
“I imagine they were easy to swallow,” Callum said, thinking of Constantine now, “given the sins in my past.”
“What can we do?” Valentine asked.
Callum focused on Beckford, though. Something the man said was lingering in his head. “Did you speak to Shepherd’s woman?”
Beckford nodded. “I did, but I admit Miss Delilah Dubois was none too pleased to converse with me. In fact, as I’ve been sitting here, I was thinking about the night I found her. She was hard to track down, and she was downright edgy. I assumed it was because the man who was her protector had died, and it could have been that, but it could also have been that she was worried about speaking to me. I can try to locate her again so you can speak to her.”
Callum nodded. “That would be good.”
“I wonder,” Carrington said, “if the man whose identity they gave you—this Selkirk—was a real person. It would seem to me he could have been. If we could find anything about him, it may lead somewhere. Shall I do some digging?”
“I’d appreciate that,” Callum said. “I’m going to confront my cousin tomorrow. I doubt he’ll reveal a thing, but I intend to make him bloody uncomfortable every day.”
“What shall I do?” Valentine asked.
“Why don’t you look for information about Mr. Selkirk at the madhouse here. Maybe he was a patient here. Maybe my cousin found him, did something to him, and then they used his name in Scotland. I don’t know. Carrington, if you don’t mind, you can contact those you know in Scotland for information.”
Both men nodded their agreement.
“What do you want me to do?” Greybourne asked.
Callum did not even need a moment to think about his response. “I want you to keep my wife and her fellow SLAR members out of trouble. I’ll be trailing my cousin over the next sennight.”
