Morgan shook her head. “Surely, no person is so monstrous that any price is acceptable for their defeat.”
“No? No, you say? You don’t know what he did.”
“Then tell me.” Her words were a cry, but the next part came softer. “Tell me. Please.”
He looked at her again to find pleading eyes and discovered he could not resist them. He needed to tell someone. Why not his remarkable new friend?
“When I was eighteen, I fell in love with a tenant’s daughter. Or so what I thought was love. My father raised me to believe that anything I desired I could own. And I desired her.” He began walking again, this time back toward the inn, and Morgan followed. “My father learned of my interest and took drastic action. He sent me away to distant kin as winter took hold. Upon my return four months later, I immediately went in search of my love, only to learn that my father had expelled them from his lands during the teeth of winter, leaning on the recently passed Enclosure Act as his legal right to do so.”
He paused, recalling what had happened next, unable to bring forth further explanation. Morgan waited for nearly a minute. “What became of your love?”
An expectation of disaster weighed down her question. He breathed deeply to gather strength. “The winter proved particularly cruel. Food was scarce. The lodging the tenant family secured was poor. By St. Nicholas Day, every member ofthe family had fallen ill with fever. By Twelfth Night, all but one had died—including my love. My own father was the instrument of her death.”
He stopped speaking, certain he would cry out otherwise. Morgan again gave him a brief respite to gather his emotions.
“What did you do,” she asked finally, “When you learned of her passing?”
“I confronted my father and have not seen him since.”
She blinked tears, clearly overcome. “Can…can you tell me what happened?”
Steadman began to deny her request but abruptly found the need to tell her. Perhaps then she might better understand his necessary actions. Perhaps she might forgive his zeal for retribution. Perhaps she might even find a way to love him.
“I found him in the fields, casually depleting the local pheasant population…”
***
“Lord Atwood!”
Young Steadman shouted across the field at his father, who seemed blithely unaware of his crimes. The man turned with his Brown Bess musket cradled in an elbow. His brief smile flickered into memory as Steadman approached.
“You killed her! You killed the whole family!”
“What?” His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Killed who? What nonsense are you on about?”
“The Atkinsons. My Mary. You killed all but one.”
His father still appeared confused. “I did no such thing. They were hale and hearty when departing the estate. Whatever became of them afterwards is none of my concern nor responsibility.”
Before Steadman could restrain the surging anger, his hands were closing around his father’s throat. The gamekeeper and footman attending his father pulled him away. Initially bewildered, Lord Atwood’s expression melted into one of righteous wrath. He raised a trembling finger at Steadman.
“Heir or no, I will send you away! I will cut you off!”
“You need not bother,” Steadman shouted back. “For I am leaving willingly and now. I will forsake this cursed house and not darken its doors again until I return to make you pay for your heinous deed or bury your corpse.”
His father stood ramrod straight, clearly disbelieving his son’s threat. “How, boy? How will you make me pay? You are still a child with little sense and no purpose.”
Steadman clenched his jaw and matched his father’s posture. “You will learn, Lord Atwood. I am more capable than you believe. I will bring retribution on all of you.”
“All? All of whom?”
“Every pampered nobleman who seeks to use and discard common people. Every ingrate of high station who believes the suffering of those beneath him is his birthright. You will see. Soon, all of Britain will know my name and the justice for which I stand!”
A cold smile broke across his father’s features. “Is that so? I think not. You will be back here in a month groveling for forgiveness and a decent meal.”
The certitude that gripped Steadman congealed into stone, immutable and without regret. “I will not. I vow to become the man that you are not nor could ever be.”
He turned to walk away, satisfied only that his father appeared utterly stunned.
