“I’m going, but I want to share a few things I learned first.”
He nearly groaned. He didn’t even want to imagine what this clever woman might have learned, and aboutwhat, but there was no stopping her. So she told him she knew that he had risked his own life to save Lilias, and before he could disavow her of the notion that he was honorable, she told him in a triumphant tone she also knew that Callum had left Constantine originally because he had not wanted to subject her to a life of poverty when he thought she would lose her inheritance upon wedding.
“You love me,” she said, the hope in her voice a knife in his gut.
His mind raced with what to do, what to say, how best to protect her. There was only one way. “I did,” he finally admitted after a long pause.
She frowned, and he could see plainly she had not truly been prepared for him to confess it.
“Yes.” He nodded. “I did. But I no longer do.” The words were like acid on his tongue. “It is as you said: love can be destroyed.” She had gone white as snow, but he had to press on. “That man is dead. My time in the asylum killed him.”
“Oh.” She swayed, and he had to curl his hands into fists by his sides to prevent himself from reaching for her. “Oh,” she said again, her voice a threadbare whisper. “I—”
He watched her struggle to collect herself. He wanted to fall at her feet and beg her to stay, but he needed her to go.
“I think I’ll go to my bedchamber now,” she said.
He nodded, nearly folding into himself when she turned away and walked silently out of the room. She shut the door, but for a moment he could hear her feet padding across the hardwood, and then silence consumed the house. A tic started at his jaw as he methodically dressed and then proceeded downstairs, ignoring efforts by both Peter and White to speak with him.
He secured his horse from the mews wordlessly, and then, once he was far enough away from their home, he began to rage at what he had done to her, at what had been done to him, at what might be irreparable. When he had quieted, he set his mind firmly toward vengeance and his horse toward the Orcus Society. Callum needed a good fight to clear his head before he went to confront his cousin. If luck was on his side, Beckford would be there and be willing.
“Still think you were lucky to find me here?” Beckford asked with a grin right before he sent his fist flying into Callum’s nose for the third time in a row, devil take the man. Bone crunched again and more blood flowed. His nose was most definitely broken, but at least the ghosts of the asylum were temporarily quiet. If only he could silence his thoughts of Constantine.
Callum dodged to the left when Beckford shot his arm out again, and he managed to finally connect a right hook to Beckford’s jaw. But Beckford wasted no time retaliating. He drove his fist into Callum’s side two times, stealing Callum’s breath.
Beckford danced backward out of Callum’s reach, meaty fists raised, a half-smile twisted on the lip Callum had cracked at the start of the fight, and his cool blue gaze trained on Callum, waiting for his next move. “You’re off your game, Kilgore,” Beckford said, hopping left and right.
“I’m aware, thank you,” Callum snapped, his own fists up, but his movements slow and sluggish. It was slowness brought about by his body’s slow recovery from the opium craving, little sleep, and his head being firmly on Constantine and not in this ring. Thank God there were no other men here to witness his humiliation. His pride had already taken a beating. “I assure you that the next time we enter the ring, I’ll be more competition.”
“So you don’t want more today?” Beckford taunted.
“Not today.” Callum stilled and lowered his battered fists. “I need to save some reserves in case I have to pummel my cousin.”
Beckford grinned. “That sounds like an entertaining afternoon. I’ll come along in case you’re too weak.”
“How generous of you,” Callum said dryly, but in truth, he didn’t mind having Beckford with him. The man had not only survived life on the streets but he had flourished. Beckford likely had some talents that could come in handy. “Are you stealthy?”
Beckford gave him an affronted look. “I’ll not dignify that ridiculous question with an answer.”
Callum chuckled as he made his way over to a table with linens upon it. He picked up one of the pristine white linens and held it up in question. Beckford nodded, took one himself, and wiped the blood away before throwing the linen into a large, empty basket and indicating Callum to do the same.
“I’m going to see Ross,” Callum said, “to secure information he doesn’t mean to give me. I harbor little hope that he’ll willingly admit anything, but perhaps one of his servants might know something. If you could—”
“Try to get information out of them,” Beckford supplied, smirking.
Callum nodded.
“My pleasure. I’ll tell you the truth. I’ve never liked your cousin. Something about him has never sat right with me. I cannot say exactly what, but he has a smell.”
Callum frowned. “A smell?”
“Of desperation,” Beckford supplied, pulling a bell cord for a servant. His serious gaze held Callum’s. “I know desperation because I’ve lived it.” He shrugged. “Probably why I smell it on men and you don’t.”
Callum thought of the asylum, of how desperate he had felt there, and he absently rubbed at the scar on his left wrist. “I’ve known desperation, but not truly until this last year. I wonder if I will smell it on him now, too.”
Beckford shrugged. “It smells rancid—of sweat and piss.”
Just then, footsteps on the stairs filled the room, and a stunning woman with flaming-red hair appeared.
