Page 29 of The Blood of a Baron

“Yet you bought a house here in London. Why did you do that if you never intended to come back? You know half of the ton and must bump into people from your past—the address of your townhouse would ensure that.”

“Because I had the means to buy the house and it seemed like a good investment.” His head tilted to the side as he shrugged. “And since I have been in town—I like the looks in their eyes when I cross paths with an old acquaintance. The way they pull on their cravats, their mumbled words and red faces. I am a reminder of how little spine the lot of them have.”

Her mouth pulled to a frown. “Everyone abandoned you before you abandoned the whole of us?”

“Aye. There was no one at the end. I boarded theFirehawkleaving nothing and found a new life that fit me.”

“How did the ship—you—gain such riches?”

Wes picked up his tumbler. “Several of the ships we took down were especially lucrative and we had a fair captain—everything was split equally after the crown’s share.”

“Did you like the life?”

“Yes and no.”

“Tell me the yes.”

He contemplated her green-flecked amber eyes as he took a sip of the cognac—an acquired taste from his time in Mediterranean Sea ports. So many questions. She’d always been like that. Wanting to know everything of him.

There was a time that he liked telling her everything about his life. No more.

Yet his cheek lifted in a half smile as he thought about standing on the forecastle deck of theFirehawkon a warm summer day, the sea spray coating salt onto his lips. “I liked the anonymity. I liked the fighting for how angry I was.”

“And the no?”

“The men I’ve had to kill. The mates I’ve lost. The boredom of the ship on still waters.”

She slightly nodded. “I wondered on it, where the cruelty you’ve had for me has come from.”

His eyebrow cocked. “And just where has it come from?”

Her shoulders lifted. “It makes more sense now—what killing men has done to your soul. Hardened it.”

His gaze stilled on her. Was she calling him jaded?

For all that she had set into motion, she was daring to call him jaded?

He looked down to the papers on his lap. Silently, he set his glass down and picked up the top sheet without reaction. She was either trying to bait him into an argument, or she truly meant the words.

She thought he was jaded, damaged.

Maybe he was. Maybe everything that had happened—the men he’d killed in battle—had stolen a piece of his soul and taken the slice of him that had held all the good and ground it into dust.

Or maybe she had been the one that had done that to him.

He shuffled six more papers into appropriate piles before she shifted, setting her glass down and going back to the dwindling piles around her.

Another page for the ledger books. Another mark of debt.

He flicked to the last piece of paper on his lap, unfolding the thirds the vellum had been folded into.

Bloody hell, what was this?

Morton’s handwriting. A letter to Laney.

His eyes quickly scanned the letter, fire setting into his bones with every word he read.

Without lifting his head, he glanced at Laney. Her head was down, as she flipped through the pages of another book.

---