“I will always come,” he said simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “That is not something you should ever have to question again.”
She pressed her face back into his chest and said nothing, because there was nothing adequate, and because she was finally, for the first time in as long as she could remember, willing to let someone else carry the weight for a while.
He held her closer, and then slowly and reluctantly let go.
Only then did he give himself a chance to look at Kit, who was leaning weakly against the table. His face was covered in bruises, and his wrists were red and swollen. He was wiping blood from a split lip. The Duke’s eyes narrowed on his brother-in-law, and Juliana went rigid as she anticipated another fight. The last time they were in the same room, they had been rolling on the floor. Would they finish everything here?
“And you, Kit,” Cassian roared, half-limping, half-lunging toward Kit. He gripped his cane tightly, as if he would swing it at any moment, but he did not. He was in severe pain. “Give me a good reason I should not kill you. Just one. This is not the first time you have placed Juliana in danger.”
Kit met Cassian’s gaze head-on. This time, he looked serious, not sarcastic. He looked tired. Juliana could even see a hint of shame. Was it finally time for him to make himself accountablefor all he had done?
“In any other circumstances, I would have gladly welcomed death at this point. I have not been living, not really, not for years. But now that I know Marta is alive…” her brother whispered, his voice cracking. “Please give me a chance to explain everything.”
Chapter 27
“Explain.”
It was just one word from Cassian, but it carried so much weight. Everything hinged on what Kit would say.
Kit looked at them both—his former friend and his sister, standing amid the wreckage of a room that smelled of blood and rot. For once, he did not reach for charm or deflection. He simply looked tired. Older than his years. A man who had run out of roads.
“You might not believe me, but I knew nothing about the illegal nature of the business. I was led to believe it was legitimate. I was floundering and needed something quick to earn Hawthorne some gold,” he began.
“That might be true, but I am certain the money never reached the estate,” Juliana interrupted, crossing her arms.
The time to coddle him was over. Although she never wanted him dead, she would no longer tolerate lies. No more.
“Yes, I know. I ended up using the money to gamble. The debts I was supposed to pay kept growing until I thought I was drowning. I was overwhelmed with how much I had to pay.”
“And your solution was to gamble some more,” Juliana finished for him, her voice flat with the particular weariness of someone who had this conversation in her head a hundred times and was only now saying it aloud.
The anxiety he had put her through crashed down on her all at once. The years of it. The letters from creditors she had intercepted before their grandmama could see them. The sleepless nights. The careful, exhausting arithmetic of making something from nothing. It was difficult being the female Hawthorne, even though she was the responsible one.
“Precisely what I did,” Kit admitted, his voice without excuse, only acknowledgment. “But I truly did not know I had ended up involved in something illegal. I am not a criminal! I swear on our father’s and mother’s graves, Juliana.” He pressed his lips together. “I know what that sounds like. I know I have given you very little reason to believe anything I say. But I swear it.”
Kit slumped against the wooden table, no longer caring about its filth and cracks. He looked faded, like the dying candle perched in the corner, burning down to its last inch with nowhere left to go.
“They tricked me,” he continued, his shoulders shaking as he stared at the wood as if confessing to it. “I thought everything was legitimate. I was happy to earn something, anything, that might slow the bleeding. Yes, I know I was not paying all my debts with what I earned, but I thought more was coming. I kept telling myself more was coming.” He exhaled. “I know it was foolish. When the collectors came knocking on our doors, Ihad an answer for them, and I thought that was enough. Then, when I finally realized what the business truly was, I was already drowning in interest. They had their hooks in me. I could not pull myself free without a sum I did not have, and every month I waited, the sum grew larger, the men grew less patient, and I—” He stopped. Pressed his hand flat against the table. “There is no good reason for any of it. Only the reasons I had, which were not good enough.”
Silence settled over the room, broken only by the distant sounds of the tavern beyond the ruined door.
Kit straightened himself and looked at his sister. What Juliana saw in his face was not the managed remorse of a man trying to talk his way out of consequences, but something rawer and considerably less comfortable. Genuine shame had a particular look to it, she had learned, and it looked nothing like the performances she had watched her brother give for years.
“I would not have had you involved if I had known it was dangerous,” he said, his voice low. “I thought it was simply a delivery of goods. Parcels.” He shook his head. “I… I never thought. That has always been my particular failing, and you have always been the one to pay for it.” He looked at her then, and she saw his eyes were bright. “I am sorry for having you go through all of that. I am sorry for being a worthless brother and for making you clean up after my mess when it was my job, as the older brother, to clean up after yours. You never even got to make mistakes of your own.” His voice cracked. “You spent your whole youth being my mother when you should have been my sister. I am so sorry, Juliana. I am so deeply sorry.”
Juliana felt the truth and weight of his words. She had rehearsed her anger for so long that she had forgotten there might be something else beneath it. It was true. She had not gotten toenjoy her youth.
But she had time now.
It almost felt as if Kit selling her to Cassian had been a blessing in disguise.
Still, the intention behind it stung.
She pressed her lips together and said nothing, because she did not yet trust herself to say the right thing. For once in her life, she was going to wait until she did.
Meanwhile, Cassian stood a few feet away, still and watchful as he had been since Kit began speaking. He had let the siblings speak without interruption, which had cost him—she could see it in the whiteness of his knuckles around the head of his cane and in the careful set of his jaw. His face was unreadable, but the tension in him was undeniable.
Kit finally turned to face him.
