Page 13 of Coming for the Champion
“Yes.” He’d traded on his champion status for years. In simple terms, people overlooked that he didn’t look like them once they knew, and he understood deep down how that wasn’t ideal, how they only saw him as one of them because he was themodel example of excellence. Sometimes he just wanted to be ordinary, to be allowed to fail and still continue like the white men around him.
“I thought you’d forgotten about it.” Tommy’s frown made Malcolm ponder. He breathed in deep as it came to him.
“And by extension, you thought I’d forgotten about you.”
“Yes.”
“No, I could never. I’ll always remember where we came from and how we got here, and how we supported each other. I let my foolish pride get in the way of our friendship. I wanted you to always see me as the champion, The Colossus, not the old broken injured man I am now.”
“Oh that’s not fair...” Tommy bit his bottom lip, frowning. “Actually, you might be right. Damn it, Malcolm you were my hero, the one of us who achieved what we’d all been told we could do. And you were my friend. I’ve been so proud to call you my friend that I’ve been a terrible friend.”
“Tommy.” Malcolm couldn’t help but be impressed at the way Tommy finally stopped fighting him and did some introspection. He probably should be relieved.
“Does this mean you’ll listen to us now?” Rory asked.
“Rory, that’s not exactly fair either.”
“No, none of this is fair. It’s an impossible tangle.” Rory leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. A blaze of heat filled Malcolm’s heart—he knew what Rory looked like under that jacket with his strong forearms and long torso—and he swallowed.
“What do you both really want?” Tommy asked, pulling Malcolm back into the discussion.
“I—” He stopped since Rory had spoken at the same time. “You first.”
“I want to hear from the Long Laird. Why are you here? What do you want from Bennington?”
“I want what every peer wants. Money, connections...” Rory stared at the ceiling.
“I think that’s a lie.” Malcolm was tired of this game. They couldn’t resolve this if Rory was forever obscuring his truth.
Rory sighed. “It’s not a whole lie. Fuck it. Both of you have seen my worst. Why is this so hard to talk about?”
“You shouldn’t be embarrassed that seeing my training shed reminds of your experience. You would be heartless if you could box again after killing a man.” Tommy’s compassion was why Malcolm was a bad friend. He might have strong opinions about what Malcolm should be doing, but at his core, he cared for people.
“I am embarrassed. I’ve been dragged through the courts, called a filthy Scotsman, and I ran away from my responsibilities when my father needed it most.” Rory clapped his hand over his mouth as if he hadn’t meant to say that. Malcolm wanted to pull him into a hug.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning? You are with—” He stopped before he said friends. “We are boxers too. We understand.”
Rory fussed with his jacket sleeve and Tommy was about to speak again, but Malcolm held up his hand to stop him. A tension hung around Rory as if he was mulling whether or not to talk.
“My father, Laird Cockburn, was the Salt King. I grew up in a castle, surrounded by servants, the epitome of privilege. My father produced all the salt made in England and Scotland, he had a captive market to sell it to the English. I was the typical heir to the wealth, a rake in certain circles, a boxer. And when I started winning, well, of course, I was owed that too. I was insufferable. Then my whole world collapsed like a badly built mineshaft.”
Malcolm shouldn’t have sympathy for someone who described himself in such terms. He’d been passed over for promotion countless times by young men exactly like Rory described.
“Davey Johnson died. You didn’t kill him, you know that.” Tommy’s reassurance barely floated into the confusion in Malcolm’s head.
“He’s still dead. The courts decided that I hadn’t murdered him, that it wasn’t on purpose, but I still killed him. And I was a coward, I fled, when I should have gone home to help my father.” Rory ran his hands through his hair.
“From the way you’ve described him, he didn’t need your help.” He didn’t expect Rory to glare at him for such an obvious statement. The man was rich, what help would he need?
“During my trial, Lord Bennington enacted the Salt Laws. He’d tried to invest in my father’s business and had been revoked, so he passed laws through parliament removing the taxes on imported salt. Cheaper products from the continent flooded England, decimating my father’s business. He couldn’t compete. It’s expensive to make salt in Scotland, it has to be evaporated over coal fires and coal mines are expensive to run. His entire business, our family’s income, relied on the import taxes to ensure that the price of salt here was profitable.”
“Bennington? You are here for revenge?”
Rory shook his head. “No. It was likely his father, not him.”
“It’s simple. Turn up to the fight and embarrass him.” Tommy’s matter of fact solution sounded like it might work. Rory would get his revenge, maybe not on a grand scale, and neither of them would have to fight.
“I don’t want revenge. It’s not in my character. When I first met Bennington, I thought he could squire me around town and introduce me to someone to invest in my coal mines. But then I got to thinking, Bennington’s father once wanted to invest inmy father’s business, perhaps Bennington might be the right investor for me. The mines on my land have been idle for years, but now with Watt’s pump and the new steam engines and potential for rail travel, there’s a growing need for coal. If he invests, I can rebuild my family’s fortunes and the people who relied on us for work will get work again.” Rory squared his shoulders. “But to do that, we need to fight. We need to give him what he wants and it’s impossible.”
