He gave a short laugh. “Abducted seems like a more appropriate word. My case was unusual, you see. The ship captains were not foolish enough to snatch important men, and they generally wanted men who already knew how to sail. Merchant sailors and such. I was not press-ganged exactly, Amelia. I truly was abducted. My abduction was arranged.”
“And the bullet wound?”
His steps faltered for the first time. He stared over her head, suddenly unable to look her in the eye. His back stung with phantom lash blows, but worse than that, the bullet wound in his back, so dangerously close to his spine, throbbed. It had long since healed, but at times, on cold days, he could almost feel the shot tearing through him once again.
“We were on land,” he said, the words jerking out of his mouth. “I heard a kitten cry. It was a wretched, mewling thing. Terrified. Since the night had fallen, I decided to risk crawling out of our shelter to rescue it. I never heard the shot coming. I was shot by a man across the river. It caught me in the back, near my spine. A bad wound, but not as bad as he intended. I lay there, in pain and half-conscious, as the man approached. I’d thought he was an enemy, but no, he was an Englishman. At first, I was relieved. I thought it was all a mistake. Then he began to talk.”
“He shot you deliberately?”
“He said that the man who would be Viscount St. Louis had sent him,” Stephen bit out. “He had assumed I was dead, drowned, or lashed to death in the first months of my capture. When he discovered I was alive, he sent his spies to end me. The fellow said…” He paused, chuckling. “The fellow said that he was sorry, that he hated to murder me in cold blood, but that Lord Harry Holt had told him that if he killed me, he would be brought home. Saved. No more fighting.”
“Harry,” Amelia breathed. “My brother arranged to have you killed? Abducted?”
“That’s right. Harry,” he whispered, his voice catching. “My friend. He was left behind, and I was taken. An accident, I thought. A lucky escape for him. We had so much in common, Harry and I. I would be a duke one day, and he… he would be a viscount. I had no idea how much he hated me.”
Amelia bit her lower lip. He watched the blood chase away from under her skin.
“Why did he do it?” she asked.
“Does it matter?”
“No, I suppose not. You want him dead, then?”
Stephen sighed. “No, I want tolive. But I can’t do that anymore, can I? I’m not free, and I don’t believe I will be until this matter is dealt with. You see, because I was abducted and kept prisoner aboard that ship, forced to work and fight and obey, I was not there when my father died. I loved my father, and he loved me, and he never knew what became of me. Your brother took that from him. Do you want to know what happened to the man who shot me, Amelia? The man who put that bullet in my back?”
Her eyes were fixed on his face. If he didn’t know better, he would have said that she was entranced.
“No,” she breathed.
“I killed him,” Stephen whispered. “I killed him with my bare hands. He wasn’t the first man I killed, nor the last. But that man, the one who was going to kill me, represents the moment I lost myself. Up until then, I had killed to survive. If I had not killed those people, I would have died. But that man? No, I wanted him dead. I wanted to kill him so badly I could taste it on my tongue. He told me that my beloved friend had betrayed me in the worst way. I’m not sure that I was killing that man at all, not really. No, I was killing Harry. I truly became a murderer.”
“You are not a murderer,” Amelia said at once, with a vehemence that surprised him. “You had to defend yourself. You said yourself that if you hadn’t killed him, he would have killed you. You should be kinder to yourself. What… what happened to the kitten?”
“I saved the kitten, of course.” Stephen shrugged. “Named him Dust. Brought him aboard our ship.”
Her fingers tightened on his shoulder. “There you are, you see? Murderers don’t save kittens.”
He met her eyes squarely and felt as though something was crushing his chest. Perhaps it was.
“Still, you deserve better,” he said simply.
The music continued, but Stephen dropped her hand, stepping away.
“I don’t believe you need any more lessons.” His voice caught when he tried to speak. “You dance the waltz as it’s meant to be performed—push and pull. I chase you, and you draw me in and push me away at the same time. It’s a difficult balance to keep, but you manage it admirably. Congratulations.”
She blinked at him, her eyes wide, and seemed to struggle to form a response. Before she could, he turned and addressed the man at the pianoforte.
“Enough, no more,” he called, and gave a wry smile. “‘Tis not so sweet now as it was before.”
The man paused and gave him a tired smile. “Twelfth Night?”
“There’s nothing like Shakespeare to kill romance,” Stephen chuckled.
He executed a quick, mocking bow and strode away across the ballroom floor, his footsteps echoing.
Amelia didn’t follow him, and he could not decide whether he was relieved or disappointed.
CHAPTER 23
