“If by touchy you mean ready to pummel you with my fists, then yes.”
Will grunted. “As ifyoucould pummelme.”
“Care to have a go?”
“Lads,” Kent said from behind them. “Can the bickering wait until after we catch the criminal?”
“He started it.” Will jabbed a finger in Alaric’s direction.
“For Christ’s sake.” Blowing out a breath of disgust, Alaric resumed the watch.
The street was crowded with people and hawkers’ barrows. Rowdy customers stumbled in and out of the tavern in a steady stream, their drab clothes making them nearly indistinguishable from one another. Luckily, the streetlamp by the entrance shed light on their faces as they passed. No sign of the scarred shooter as yet.
“Perhaps we should check in with Cooper,” Alaric said.
Cooper and other guards were posted at the back entrance. Alaric was taking no chances at letting Palmer escape. Initially, he’d proposed storming the tavern, but Kent had pointed out the risk in taking on a building full of drunk, armed cutthroats, and Alaric had conceded the other’s point.
Kent lifted the whistle that hung on a string around his neck. He’d equipped the guards with similar devices. “Cooper will sound the alarm if he has the suspect. Right now, he’s watching and cooling his heels like we are.”
Alaric did not like to wait. Especially not in this cesspool of an alley.
Will smirked. “Perhaps you’d be more comfortable in the carriage, your grace?”
“I’m fine where I am,” he said curtly.
Silence fell again. Kent took up the main watch, and Will and Alaric hung behind him. Standing beside his brother, Alaric returned suddenly to another time they had waited together in the dark: at their father’s wake. At sixteen, Will had cried openly by the side of the casket, his grief streaming free; Alaric hadn’t shed a single tear, pain and anger bottling inside him.
Why didn’t you care for me, Da? Why wasn’t I your son, too?
Now, to his surprise, he found that his father’s indifference had lost much of its sting. The impact had faded through the years until he bore only the invisible bruises of acceptance. What did feel fresh, oddly enough, was his brother’s grief. The younger Will’s brokenhearted expression haunted Alaric here in the shadows. He knew his brother’s loss had been intensified by his refusal to take Will back to Lanarkshire with him after their father’s funeral.
At the time, he hadn’t wanted to explain his reasons. Pride had made it impossible to explain to the golden boy, the perfect son, that rejection had followed Alaric all the way to Strathmore Castle. That there must be something so despicable about him that he invited cruelty wherever he went. Nay, he hadn’t been able to say the truth aloud, so he’d done the next best thing: he’d protected Will—by pushing him away.
The old duke’s cold eyes pinned him, the belt raised.You deserve to be punished, you deficient weakling!Even as Alaric’s gut knotted in memory, Emma’s voice reached him through the darkness.
Family forgives,she’d said.
His guardian and parents were all dead. His closest living kin was his brother.
Alaric glanced at Will, who was monitoring the street with an eagle eye. Who was trying to protect him despite all the bad blood between them.
Taking a breath, he said in an undertone, “It wasn’t because I didn’t want you at Strathmore.”
“What?” Will’s gaze swung to his.
“The regiment was the safer place for you to be.”
“Why do you speak of this now?” Even in the shadows, he could see his brother’s incredulous expression. “After all this time?”
Alaric wasn’t quite sure himself. He gave a slight shrug. “You deserve to know.”
“Know what? That facing down enemies with bayonets, scouting enemy terrain,” Will said with rising ire, “thatwas safer?”
Alaric’s fists clenched, yet he kept his voice low, for Will’s ears only. “Compared to living under the duke’s tyranny and suffering his brand of punishment? Aye,” he said roughly.
Will stilled. “Our uncle, he... hurt you?”
“I’d rather have taken on an entire battalion,” Alaric said succinctly.
