“You do not have a void inside of you any more than Reggie did.” Sinclair’s voice was harsher and fiercer than he intended, but Rose seemed to understand that the rawness was not directed at her. “My brother could be irreverent at times and loved a practical joke, but he was as sentimental as they came.”
“Love,” Rose said, rubbing her forehead. “I’d forgotten that part.”
“What part?” Sinclair asked. His brain was already saturated with emotion, and he could not follow her logic.
“Your brother had told me that his purpose was about love. I mentioned lovers, and he corrected me and saidloved ones.”
“Aye.” Sinclair rubbed at his chest as the pressure in his heart became almost unbearable. “That sounds like Reggie. He always cared deeply.”
“He said he was fighting for those we let into our hearts.”
The poetic words were exactly something Reggie would have said, and the shock of hearing them caused tears to burn in the back of Sinclair’s left eye. He clenched his hands into fists, letting his blunt nails dig into his flesh—as if the external pain could distract him from the internal.
“Reggie was always protective of who he loved.”
He knew Reggie had never forgiven himself for not stopping the earl from pushing Sinclair into the fire grate that fateful night.
Disobedient whelp.The earl’s slurred words shot into Sinclair’s mind. Suddenly he was no longer sitting beside Rose on the settee but standing in front of Mar, using his thin ten-year-old body to block the large brute’s way.
Sinclair had not spoken—as he’d long since learned that the earl never really heard his words. They only made him angrier, as did any lift of the chin. So Sinclair just stood there, firm, his eyes downcast. He molded his hands into fists, but even though he was already a proficient fighter against lads older than him, his defensive maneuvers never deterred Mar.
The first blow sent Sinclair reeling backward, and his mother screamed. Somehow, he managed to stay on his feet. But he didn’t the second time. He pitched to the side, pain exploded in the right side of his face, and everything went dark.
And then there was Reggie at his side, crying, helping him up. Sinclair didn’t think he could move, but Reggie wouldn’t let him stay down.Hurry, Sin. He won’t stay asleep for long. We’ve got to get you away from here. You and your mother.
They’d never spoken of that night again—never mentioned how the earl hadn’t been sleeping but passed out from too much drink. Again. And most of all, they never discussed how Sinclair had lost his eye. But neither of them had ever forgotten it.
“The twenty-third of November, 1902,” Sinclair gasped out. Even saying the phrase physically hurt, but if Reggie wanted to choose a date that Sinclair would remember, that was it.
Dimly, he watched as Rose blinked away her own memories and reached for the pad of paper. She didn’t ask him about the date. She must have realized from the tone of his voice that it was something he did not wish to share.
Slowly, methodically, Rose worked. Although Sinclair followed the movements of her hand, he did not actually see the letters she wrote.
“We ... we have the first two words,” Rose said, her voice shaky, as if she also had too many emotions boiling inside of her to fully grasp the enormity of what they were about to accomplish.
“How did you use the numerals?” Sinclair did not ask the mundane question out of curiosity but because hearing something mechanical, mathematical, would give him space to wrestle back the past.
“I wrote down the date the way you Brits do: twenty-three, eleven, 1902. For the first letter, I moved back two spaces in the alphabet, three for the second letter, one for the third letter, and so forth.” Rose’s words were efficient, as if she, too, needed the distance from her emotions.
Sinclair barely heard Rose’s explanation as he forced the old ugliness back where it belonged—buried deep within him. He’d rather purge it from him entirely, but that was not possible.
“Are you okay?” Rose asked, her voice so low and soft.
“I will be.” He cleared his throat and rolled back his shoulders several times. Rose’s hand slipped up his arm, resting on his bicep. She gave him a squeeze, and a bit of his equilibrium returned. He hazarded a glance at Rose and found her golden-brown eyes boring into him. She was worried. About him. It was odd having someone fuss over him.
“What ... what are the words?” Sinclair asked. He hoped he was ready to hear them.
“Puddle rumpus,” Rose said.
Sinclair shook his head, trying to clear everything from it so that he could focus. “That makes no sense.”
“That’s why we need the codebook,” Rose said. “The words are standing for something else.”
The codebook—the one Rose thought only he could find. It meant more soul-searching he didnotwant to engage in.
“Perhaps,” Rose said as she started to rise from the settee, “we should take a little break, maybe even have a sip or two of whiskey for figuring out the cipher.”
Sinclair knew Rose’s suggestion had nothing to do with celebrating and everything to do with her concern about him. She might not understand the nightmares plaguing him, but she sensed them.
