“What happened to him?” For some reason the answer seemed vitally important.
“We forced him to walk with us into the final battle. I saw him on the battlefield. I thought it was my fault, because he was my brother and he had put the family at risk. But I’ve realized he’d made his own choices. I could’ve killed him, but I chose to walk away. I’ve ended a lot of lives, but I’m relieved I didn’t take his. He wasn’t among the dead when we were done, so he’s still out there somewhere.”
Richard bent to look into George’s eyes. “Your father made his own destiny, and the weight of it crushed him. He was fated to die here, by his own hand. No regrets, George. No guilt, no shame. Leave it here on this beach. If you carry it, it will poison you. Come. We must get back to the ship.”
Richard led him back into the boat. They sped across the harbor back to the ship.
George stared at the water. He hurt, and he cradled that knot of pain in the pit of his stomach and tried to grow a callus over the wound.
RICHARD stepped onto the deck of the ship. Ahead of him George ducked into the cabin. Richard turned and looked at the inferno claiming the island. Orange flames raged, sending plumes of greasy black smoke into the sky. Distant screams echoed, some of fury, some of pain. A ship sank slowly to the left, the lone vessel that had attempted to escape the slaughter. Jason’s cannons had fired a single shot from the fort, and the glancing blow had crippled the stately yacht. The magic-operated pumps had managed to keep it afloat, but they were slowly losing the battle, and now the elegant vessel careened, serving as a warning to anyone else contemplating a quick escape.
This is what hell must look like.
A small flotilla of boats departed from the docks and sped across the water, their magic-fueled motors leaving pale trails of luminescence in their wake. Jason’s crew was coming back.
The door of the cabin swung open behind him. “Richard!”
He turned.
Charlotte marched at him, buoyed by anger, the outrage so plain on her face, she nearly glowed. She had drained all of her reserves on the island. She couldn’t have recovered in the scant fifteen minutes it took them to ride to the beach and back. Worry squirmed through him. If she wasn’t careful, the exertion would kill her.
“Did you let that child kill his father?”
He marveled at her fury.
“Answer me, you heartless bastard!”
This place, this hell on earth, should’ve broken her. Charlotte should’ve given up by now, beaten down by the horrors and fatigue. But she must’ve seen the pain in George, and it propelled her to confront him. She would never compromise herself, Richard realized. She would never become jaded or lose her resolve. No matter how many dead bodies she walked by, it would always bother her. She had the nobility of spirit to which he aspired and which he so sorely lacked. She wasn’t naive or blind; she simply chose to do what was right, no matter the personal cost.
He wanted this woman more than he had wanted anything in his entire world. Life with her would never be easy, but he would be proud of it.
He wanted her so much, it almost hurt.
In his mind, the ship split, she on one end of a chasm, he on the other. Between lay all the things he had done and she had seen him do. They had too much to overcome. It would never happen. When all was said and done, she wouldn’t want a hardened killer with blood on his hands. She would want someone who’d make her forget this hell.
“Richard, don’t just stand there. I deserve an answer!”
“John Drayton took his own life,” he said. “George had no part in his death. He did witness it. It was good for him. It brought things to a conclusion.”
She looked at him for a long moment, her gray eyes bright, almost silver. Maybe there was some chance of something . . . ?
“I’m a heartless bastard,” he told her, wishing he could close the distance between them. “But even I wouldn’t let a child murder his own father. Is that how you see me? Am I a complete monster in your eyes, Charlotte?”
She turned and walked away. He closed his eyes, inhaling the smoke from the funeral pyre that was the Isle of Divine Na. Well, there it was. He had his confirmation.
She would be free of him soon. They had the ledgers. It would all be over in a matter of days.
“Richard!” Charlotte called.
He turned.
She stood by the cabin. “You’re not a monster. You’re the most noble man I’ve ever met. In every sense of the word. I wish . . .”
His pulse sped up.
Jason Parris bounded onto the deck. “Am I interrupting something?”
Charlotte closed her mouth.
Gods damn him. He would strangle that moron and throw his lifeless body overboard.
“Yes.”
Parris grinned. “Well, too bad. We need to haul ass out of here.”
Jason’s crew flooded the ship, lowering the nets to haul up bags of plundered goods.
“If I had fifty extra men, I could own this island.” Jason swept the burning city with his hand. “I’d make it into my own Tortuga.”
A pirate port of the Broken. He’d read about it in books. “Adrianglia would hardly tolerate Tortuga so close to its shores. What are you planning to do when the Adrianglian Navy blockades the island and starts pounding it with carriage-sized magic missiles?”
“Duck and cover?” Jason flashed his teeth. “What happened to your arm, old man? Did the mighty Hunter actually get hurt this time?”
Charlotte’s knees folded, and she slid along the cabin’s wall to the deck.
He shoved Jason out of the way, cleared the distance between them, and dropped to his knees. “Charlotte?”
She looked at him, her eyes clear. “Well, this is embarrassing.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Mortified, but fine. I shouldn’t have marched out here. I’ve overextended myself. I don’t think it’s anything life-threatening, but I’m probably going to lose consciousness. Please don’t leave me here on the deck.”
“I won’t.” He wrapped his right arm around her. She leaned against him, her forehead resting against his cheek. He couldn’t believe he was touching her. “I promise.”
“Look at the two of you,” Jason said above him. “You’re a sorry-looking mess. Maybe after this, you should plan something less tiring. A tea party or a book club or whatever you senior citizens do in your spare time. Look at me—six men dead, the city looted, and I’m good. Look at my crew. Are y’all tired?”
“No!” a dozen people roared.
“See? Fresh as daisies.”
Richard growled low in his throat. One day . . .
Charlotte caressed his cheek. Her lips brushed his, and he forgot where he was or what he was doing.
“Thank you,” she said.
He held still for a full minute before he finally realized that she had drifted off into sleep.
WHEN Charlotte awoke, she was lying on a cushioned seat, under a blanket. Around her, the polished walls of the horseless phaeton glowed in the sunlight filtering through the gauzy curtain. Sealed behind smooth, transparent pseudoresin, the structure of the phaeton consisted of gears and delicate metalwork, with glowing, hair-thin threads of magic running through it all. Faint lights of warm amber-and-green magic slid along the threads once in a while, melting into the metalwork, like man-made will-o’-the-wisps. Drowsy and comfortable on the soft seat, she watched the soothing interplay of magic and metal. It occurred to her that she had no idea how the phaeton actually worked. She had ridden in them a hundred times and never thought to find out.