“Of course I ask questions,” Evan said, irritated at how quickly his brother could put him on the defensive, even after death. “I still have plenty more.” Susan’s steady fingers twined with his. Evan took a calming breath and started anew. “You went on a secret mission without breathing a single word. Why didn’t you confide in me?”
She glanced somewhere above his head. “He says, ‘Because I had no way of knowing which side you’d take. I don’t even know where you stand now.’”
Evan’s heart twisted. “But you’re my brother!”
Her grip on his hand loosened. “He says, ‘And you’re an excellent actor. I’m not sure I’ve ever known what you were thinking, or if you meant the words you were saying.’ Harrumph. That’s certainly true enough.What?” She frowned at the air. “Fine, no personal asides.” She paused, as if listening intently. Her fingers tightened around his again. “Right now he’s saying, ‘Sometimes you stood aboard ship with the wind in your face and an expression of such pure pleasure, it was as if you were born to the seas. Other times, when you thought no one was looking, I could swear you wished you’d never stepped off dry land.’” Her head angled slightly, and her gaze met Evan’s curiously. “‘You loved it... and yet you didn’t. I had no reason to believe you didn’t feel the same about me.’” She lifted a brow with a wry smile. “You have no idea how much I long to voice my opinion onthatstatement. Respond quickly, or I won’t be able to help myself.”
But he couldn’t respond quickly. He couldn’t respond at all. Timothy had seen what Evan had never admitted even to himself. Hehadn’tbeen happy with his choices. Although every risk he took brought a rush of adventure, the losses he suffered invariably outweighed the gains. To acknowledge that, however, was to admit being wrong. Since he’d burned every bridge he’d passed, there was no going back—and no point indulging maudlin hypothesizing over what might have been.
“I doubt it,” she whispered sotto voce to an area just to the left of her shoulder. “All right, I’ll ask.” She straightened and turned her gaze to Evan as if he hadn’t just overheard her speaking to thin air. She kept her hand in his, as if willing him to have strength for the next question. The sensation of being supported was starting to seem... normal. “Your brother would like to know,” she said, her expression carefully blank, “what role you played in his death.”
“What?” he sputtered, his skin turning cold. “None at all! I didn’t know he wasona secret mission. How could I have murdered him while it was in progress? I swore to kill the villain myself the moment I discovered his identity, and I still plan to put a bullet or two between the blackguard’s eyes.”
Evan cut himself off as he realized a simple “no” might have been better than openly admitting to premeditated homicide to a woman whose faith in him was tentative at best.
“He says, ‘Just checking.’” She paused, then added softly, “and that he believes you.”
“Timothy doubted me? Even for a second?” The realization his own brother thought him capable of such a heinous act sliced through Evan’s heart, rendering him unable to keep the hurt from his voice. Both the people he loved had believed him completely heartless.
Susan shook her head. “He says, ‘Not anymore.’”
“What about him?” he demanded, then remembered he could address his brother directly. “What about you, Timothy? You see no wrong in turning traitor on your fellow jacks, on your family, onme.You were perfectly willing for your own brother to ride backward up Holborn Hill. You know good and well I’d be unlikely to slip-gibbet once you ratted over the crew.”
Susan blinked, then shook her head as if to clear it. “He says he never once intended you to climb the... Deadly Nevergreen?” She cast an exasperated gaze over Evan’s shoulder. “Would you two please speak English?”
“Ha. If that were true, he wouldn’t be so keen to get the contents of that box into the hands of the law.” Oh how he wished he could see his brother’s expression, to look into Timothy’s eyes and see what he was truly thinking. “If whatever’s in that box is enough evidence to bring down a smuggling crew, how could I possibly not go down with the ship?”
“He says—” She broke off, eyes wide.
Evan froze.
Horses.
If a carriage was close enough to hear, it couldn’t be more than half a mile away. With no other town for miles, it wasn’t hard to guess where the visitors must be heading. Why now, why already? Had that insufferable toady Forrester actually gotten someone of import to listen to his talk of smugglers in Bournemouth?
Susan ran to the open door, poking her head outside to listen.
“The Runners are back.” She clapped her hands to her chest. “It must be!”
“The Runners,” Evan choked out, “areback?”
She turned slowly, guiltily, but kept her shoulders squared and her nose high. She removed a folded piece of parchment from a pocket hidden in her skirts and handed him the small square.
He read it silently, then tossed it to the floor.
“Bow Street Runners come on your summons?” he asked incredulously. “Then how did you get this letter back?”
“I found it,” she admitted, not meeting his eyes. “On the first one’s dead body.”
The bloody glove.
He struggled for calm. “Who killed him?”
She bent to retrieve the parchment. “One of your mates, I’m sure.”
“So you sent... another missive?” he asked.After we made love and knowing you were consigning me to death?
She flinched as if she’d heard every word of the unspoken accusation. Then she nodded. “I believe I said, ‘Bring an army.’ It’s not about you,” she added hurriedly, as if any justification could possibly mitigate his connection. “It’s for cousin Emeline, and her mother, and your brother, and—”
