Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“ Y ou nasty little pricks,” George spat out through heaving breaths.

“You all right, Ambrose?” Ezra asked his friend, ignoring their captor’s insult.

“Not really,” Ambrose grunted, gently holding a rag to his broken nose. “Barbara really is going to kill me.”

Ezra chuckled dryly as he remembered Barbara’s threat to Ambrose and turned back to George. They’d found him along the road shortly after nightfall, heading away from the brothel and toward Bath in an unmarked carriage. It had been pure luck that the man had chosen to open the curtains as Ezra and the others had ridden by on their horses. He had gotten in one solid hit before they had ridden back and dragged him out, and unfortunately, it was to Ambrose’s face.

Morgan, in his usual suave if not comical manner, had flashed a fistful of pounds in the carriage driver’s face, and the man was all too happy to forget what he saw and take one of their horses back to the brothel. Morgan then climbed up onto the driver’s seat and drove the carriage to the gaming hell while Ezra, Duncan, and Ambrose began with their questioning.

George now kneeled across from them, hands bound behind his back and his face and shirt bloodied as the four dukes all stared down at him.

“All right, Georgie boy,” Ezra sighed, giving him a bored look, “Calling us little pricks is not going to make this situation any better for you.”

Arrogant cucks,” George sneered, blood and spittle dripping from his lips.

Before Ezra could react he saw Duncan’s foot fly out and kick the man directly in the chest, making him gasp and cough as he was thrown backward. From the doorway, Colter and Terrence snickered but otherwise continued guarding the door.

“That was not very nice,” Duncan mused, his tone taunting.

“The next one is mine,” Ambrose said, his gaze deadly as he looked at George.

“Why did you kill our fathers?” Morgan asked, getting straight to the point. “You were their business associate and their friend. What did you need from them so badly that you simply could not ask them?”

George’s rueful laugh twisted into a cough as he turned his feral glare toward them.

“Yes, your fathers were such glorious, righteous men, weren’t they?” he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Ezra threw a furtive look toward his brothers, noticing how they all shifted subtly in their seats.

“No man is perfect,” Ambrose said carefully.

“Obviously,” George seethed, nodding his head toward the room they were in. “I see you’ve followed in their footsteps and immersed yourselves in the dirtier sorts of business to finance your lavish lifestyles.”

Ezra watched Ambrose’s gaze harden.

“So, what? Did our fathers cut you out of a deal?” Ezra asked dully, not allowing them to lose track. “Chose not to include you one time when they’d promised they would?”

“They cut me out of the deal!” George snarled, glaring directly at Ezra. “We worked for years putting together a setup that would make us millions, and when it was time to finally get a payout, they cut me out! I am an earl, a nobleman just like you, and yet it was I that had to get my hands dirty for the good of the deal and then dropped for doing what I had to do!”

Ezra’s stomach twisted. His businesses were not exactly pristine; The gaming hell, his share in the flesh market, the illegal barters and trades. He could certainly not judge others in similar lines of business.

“You need to stop acting like a blathering idiot and give us specifics,” Ezra demanded, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “What were the five of you up to?”

He coolly met George’s glare, unfazed by his obvious hatred. Something shifted in George’s gaze as they challenged one another. It wasn’t regret, but something akin to it.

“We were providing passage to the Irish,” George grumbled, finally breaking his stare. “To the Americas.”

“Which passage?” Ezra asked slowly, a memory pinging in his mind. A horrific event in the papers; thousands of innocent people died. The boats they were on had just broken apart like toys.

George looked back at Ezra, his gaze wary.

“They named it the Irish Drowning in the papers,” George answered begrudgingly. “We spent as little money as possible to construct a fleet of ships to bring the passengers across. According to the two survivors, when the first storm hit, they were…”

George went silent for a moment as he shook his head.

“Obliterated.”

“You are lying,” Morgan snarled, rising so fast from his chair that it fell backward.

“They had buried our real identities from the beginning, disguising them in false business names and forged papers, so no one was going to tie the catastrophe to them, but me. I had done the dirty work. Traveled to Ireland to sell the trip as a luxury travel experience; talked these people out of their money. It was my face they saw that promised them a new future. My face that the survivors would remember when investigators came to speak with them.”

“I recall reading that the two survivors died in an infirmary the day after they were rescued,” Ambrose said, speaking into his clenched fist. “I remember reading about it. That was you?”

“I could not have them tracing me back to the ships,” George confessed, shaking his head. “Your fathers knew it needed to be done and did nothing to stop me.”

“So, you were the one who had the most to lose, and you are now the only one that has blood on his hands, and when our fathers cut you out of the payoff, you snapped,” Ezra stated, ignoring the growing disgust in his stomach.

“They had already given me two insultingly small payments, but the final time we had arranged to meet at the wharves was when they were supposed to give me my last big payment. I had already decided that once they had given me my share I was done. I would have had enough money to sail a ship to Barbados and disappear into the exotic finery there.”

George’s face slowly twisted, making him look more beast than man as he stared hard at the ground.

“But they showed up empty-handed. Said it was my fault the ships blew apart and that I had put them all at risk. They threatened me, told me if I ever tried to come after them they would get to me first. I knew then it was true; knew that if I left the wharf without doing anything, I would never get another chance.”

“I don’t believe you,” Duncan stated, removing his mask. “I was there. You may have been there, I could not make out many faces, but there were others there too.”

“I was not an idiot,” George snarled, glaring up at him.

“I had a feeling they were going to betray me, so I prearranged some. If they paid me, my men would leave with me, I’d pay them for their time, and off I would go. If they did not, well…”

George’s voice trailed off as a hateful smile drew across his bloody lips.

“Well, you know better than anyone in this room what I did, don’t you, boy?”

Duncan shoved himself out of his chair so fast that Ezra was only able to get to him after he’d punched George twice.

“Easy, brother,” Ezra, urged, wrestling Duncan back a few steps.

“Did you stay?” Duncan snarled.

Panting, George slowly rose back up to his knees.

“What?”

“After you set the fire. Did you stay?”

George squinted his bruised eyes, studying Duncan’s scarred face.

“ No .”

Duncan lunged for him again despite Ezra’s hold, and this time Morgan rushed forward to help keep him back.

“I have heard their dying screams for nearly two decades!” Duncan roared, “I have had the stench of their burning flesh… of my flesh in my nostrils; the taste of human ash forever on my tongue!”

“You should not have been there, boy,” George roared back, baring his bloodstained teeth.

His gaze slowly drifted from Duncan and settled on Ezra.

“You should have, though.”

Ezra felt his wall of numbness and his newfound emotions slam together violently; waging a war as to how he should react.

“We need him alive,” Ambrose warned, taking a step toward them.

“ What did you just say to him?” Duncan asked, his tone deadly as he glared at George.

“You ruined her life. Both of you,” George went on, not breaking his stare from Ezra.

The hatred in his gaze began to shift into sadness and despair.

“She was a beautiful woman once. Pure, inside and out,” George went on, his voice beginning to tremble. “She was mine before your father made that deal with her.”

Ezra’s heart stopped.

“What deal?”

A pathetic laugh left George’s bloodied lips.

“You should know. You made the same one with your own wife.”

Bile burned in Ezra’s throat as his mind began to unravel. No.

“Sophia was… magnificent. Beautiful, kind, and humble; her patience and manners were beyond reproach. She came from wealth and it showed in her dress and presence, but she never forced it into conversation like so many do. Everyone fell in love with her when they met her, everyone. And yet somehow, she loved me.

“That is until your father discovered her. No one at that time knew how much debt he was accruing or that he had a black heart; he hid them both under his handsome looks and charm. Sophia fell for him at once, heart and soul, and I lost her.”

“Someone better than you came along,” Duncan said bitterly.

He had stopped straining against Ezra and Morgan’s hold, and now the three of them stood frozen and stared down at their fathers’ murderer.

“He used her!” George snarled, “He took everything good about her and drained her of it until she was a vain, useless husk. Years later, when she offered to share her bed with me, I felt as if it were my chance to rescue her, to take her away and breathe the old Sophia back into her body.”

George paused, his face crumpling as he shook his head.

“She was still so beautiful,” he whispered, then gritted his teeth. “But she had become so cold and cruel. She loved to watch me plead for her to leave him; smiling pitifully at me the whole time like I was a helpless bird stuck in her claws.”

“I do not need to hear of my mother’s conquests,” Ezra stated, not able to take any more. “I do not share much with you, but I will attest to my mother’s cruelty.”

“You don’t know a thing, boy,” George laughed bitterly. “After you were born? When she saw she had given birth to such a cold, lifeless thing, that was what truly broke her.”

“So, you could have killed me back then,” Ezra said coldly, “Why wait until now if you have hated me since my birth?”

George grunted.

“Because as much as I hated you I could not blame a child. Your mother loved your father, but he never loved her, and somehow part of me knew that would become evident after your birth. You seemed doomed to repeat your father’s life and that seemed like punishment enough,” he replied.

“How kind,” Ezra retorted blandly.

“Then I heard you were getting married to one of Owen Knight’s girls. One was in love with the son of another friend of mine. I saw everything that had happened start all over again and I knew I could not let history repeat itself. It was only after I tried to come at you the first time that I discovered that my original information was incorrect, but at that point, I did not care. You needed to die, just as your father did.”

Coldness poured into Ezra, filling him from foot to head. Being told that he deserved to die did not bother him. It was the possibility that George was right. That had always been his fear, had it not? That he was twisting Lydia into something as dark and wretched as himself?

He could not imagine his mother being kind or pure to any degree, but up until a few days ago, he would never have imagined Lydia sweetly threatening to stab a woman either.

“Look at that,” George chuckled wickedly, “You know it is true. I see it in your eyes, boy,”

Ezra slowly raised his eyes back up to George as he felt his body move forward of its own volition, but he was caught by all three of his friends.

“We now have enough to make a formal arrest,” Ambrose said, his tone full of authority as he held Ezra’s right shoulder tightly. “I think it is time we let him shut up.”

“Why, it is just getting interesting,” Ezra spat out, but he did not fight or argue when Colter and Terrence came forward to stand George up.

“Wait a minute, you cannot have me arrested,” George said, suddenly fighting against the two men’s grips. “I will deny everything!”

“Your man will not,” Morgan replied bitterly. “We have him, and we are certain we can persuade him into a confession.”

“No,” George said, beginning to fight harder as he was yanked to his feet, “No, I am not done talking. That is not the entire story. It is not just me!”

“Then you can tell that to the constables,” Ambrose retorted.

“I will tell them!” George began to yell as he was dragged away. “I will tell them of this place!”

“Go ahead,” Ezra drawled, regaining his composure, “We will all laugh about it when they come in for cards next week.”

He looked over to Ambrose then and nodded.

“You were right. It is time he stops talking.”

He turned to Terrence, sliding his hands coolly in his pockets.

“Terrence, be a good lad and gag him, would you?”

“No, no, no, no,” George began to pant and tried to pull away from the gag, “You are making a mistake! You are making a huge mist… mmppphhh!!!”

George’s words dissolved into muffles as Terrence shoved a cloth into his mouth and then bound another across his lips. He lunged one last time at them as he was dragged to the door, but when Colter’s fist connected with his gut, he finally stopped fighting and let himself be dragged from the room.

“Ezra, Duncan, sit,” Ambrose demanded, shutting the door as both of them walked toward it.

“I need to get back to Frampton,” Ezra said.

“I need to see, Lydia.”

“We all need to get back there,” Ambrose agreed, “But you two need to hear some things first.”

Ezra and Duncan exchanged a look as if they’d simultaneously recalled the years of chastising they’d received from the oldest orphan and sat down.

“Duncan, no vengeance you put into George will ever equal what you so painfully survived. Your hatred is valid, but you must allow this to be handled properly.”

Duncan glared down at the floor, his scarred face still exposed. Then, after a moment of silence, he reached for his mask, pulled it over his face, and then nodded.

“Ezra,” Ambrose said next, turning his attention to him.

Ezra met his eyes numbly, but inside, he felt the conflict between detachment and emotion waging war once more.

“You are not like your father. None of us were. As good or as bad as we thought they once were, we know now that we could never be like them. You are not him, Lydia is not your mother, and you are not destroying her by being her husband.”

Ezra’s fingers dug into the arms of the chair.

“You all thought like him once,” Ezra stated objectively. “You thought I would ruin Lydia.”

“That was a mistake,” Morgan mumbled, guilt etching his face.

“A horrible one,” Ambrose agreed, “One we will all happily pay for over and over if necessary.”

Despite the war waging inside him, Ezra felt the sincerity in his friends’ words.

“I hope you are right,” Ezra said, standing up. “But there is only truly one way to know. Come, it is time we all get back to our wives.”