Page 7 of The Blood of a Baron

Most likely the latter.

Laney had disappeared through the front door minutes ago, but the scent of her still wafted about him.

Citrus and lavender.

He cringed whenever he saw the purple flower stems dried and hanging in a port town and he’d never been able to stomach eating an orange all those years at sea. On theFirehawkthey’d once had a shipment of dried lavender on a leg of a journey and Wes had spent the entire month deep in his cups, swinging at everything and everyone around him on the ship.

It’d been good of Captain Roe not to throw him overboard.

And now her blasted smell clung to him, pine tar on his hands that he couldn’t escape.

The revenge—the whole reason for this debacle—was almost his. A few more weeks, and he could walk away from the Gruggin estate, vengeance securely in his favor, never to think of Morton or Laney ever again.

Not that his first moments here at Gruggin Manor were as he’d anticipated.

Mercy had not been on the docket.

No. Crushing the woman that had ruined everything in his life was supposed to be his first course of action.

Pain—sending Laney deep into pain—had been the goal. And he’d already bungled that one.

He’d wanted—fantasized of her suffering. In pain just as he’d been.

Yet he couldn’t let her see her brother’s body. Morton’s face had been half sliced off by that blade. Beaten to shreds. A sight he himself had a hard time stomaching, and he’d seen the worst of the worst in his days at sea.

Weak.

Nearly a year on land and he’d gone weak. He’d thought his spine would hold, but five minutes in Laney’s presence and he’d been undone. All designs of vengeance dissolving, wisps of smoke.

Maybe it’d been her puffy eyes, the skin about her unique amber eyes raw from salty tears. Or the red splotches along her fine cheekbones that had always marked her as a highborn lady. But most likely it’d been her determination to seek out the very thing that would destroy her. For seeing her brother in the state that he lay in in that coffin would crush her.

He knew how much she’d adored her brother.

For all of Morton’s misdeeds and poor decisions, Laney loved him.

Wes’s gaze swung to the casket at his left.

Pity. It had to have been a momentary lapse of pity.

He’d looked at Morton, verified it was him in London. And he had done it so Laney wouldn’t have to carry the burden of seeing her brother’s body in that state. As much as he despised her, Wes wasn’t about to curse her with that memory of Morton, the image of his mangled head.

She’d fought him, as he knew she would. She’d never shied away from a fight with him, and that she acquiesced so easily was testament to how exhausted she was—how devastating Morton’s death was to her.

Perfect.

He wanted her exhausted. At her lowest. His job here would be that much easier.

For he was done with pity.

It was time to start what he came here for.

A twinge flickered in his chest. A twinge he ignored, even though he knew what it meant.

Doubt.

Doubt he wasn’t about to court.

It scared him sometimes, how quickly the hate had replaced the love he’d had for Laney.

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