Dalton had the good sense to check with Mars, who was in a bloody killing mood right now. He had no idea what Dervil wished to say and he didn’t care. Still, he nodded for Dalton to leave. Then, once the door was shut, he coldly asked, “What the bloody hell do you want?”
Dervil had the gall to smile. “For one thing, to thank you for not shooting me.”
“The day is still young.”
“I won’t stand waiting like I did this morning.”
“And what else?”
Dervil set his hat on a side table on top of the books that yesterday morning Clarissa had pulled off the shelves. She was a greedy reader. She wanted them all. He said, “I want to clear the air between us.”
“You can’t.”
“Hear me out.”
Mars shook his head. “You bastard, you shot my father under the same circumstances as this morning. I could have taken your life. I didn’t. And do you know why? Because I’m a damn decent person. And you can credit my wife with any improvement I have made.”
Any humor in Dervil’s face vanished.
Instead, he appeared haunted. “You are right. I deserved for you to shoot me. It would be a blessing. I—”
He stopped, sat up, his elbows on the armsof the chair, his hands dangling. And then he spoke. “I didn’t mean to kill your father that morning.”
“For not meaning to, you did a fine job.”
“He moved.”
Dervil acted as if that answered everything.
“You shouldn’t have shot at him,” Mars said. “You were sleeping with his wife.”
“His unhappy wife. She told me he abused her, that he had a foul temper. I was actually more full of myself back then.”
“I didn’t know that was possible,” Mars responded.
“I saw myself as her champion and I was infatuated with her.”
“Tigers need more protection than my mother does. Father could lose his temper but he never raised a fist against her that I saw. And often, she was the instigator.”
Yes, he remembered his parents’ rows. His parents had not been happy together. And for the first time, Mars realized how much their unhappiness may have weighed upon him. Marriage had never seemed to be a pleasant state. It was full of distrust, anger over small issues, tension. Oh, yes, there had been so much animosity that even a lad, who only spent school holidays with his parents unless he was in trouble, had noticed.
This new awareness about the past teased him, begging the question, could he have been wrong about what he had believed?
He rarely spoke about his father’s death.He’d said more to Clarissa than even to Balfour or Thurlowe.
And now, he was curious. “What happened?” he asked Dervil, not knowing if the man would be telling him the truth. “And why did you delope this morning?”
“I deloped because you had grounds for grievance. You should protect your wife’s honor.” For a second, he reacted as if he’d felt a stab of pain. He rubbed his face before looking squarely in Mars’s eye. “The greatest mistake I made was to allow Priscilla Comstock to slip away. I’ve spent a lifetime, two marriages, and a ridiculous number of lovers trying to recapture what she gave me. When Priscilla first disappeared, I searched for her, Marsden. You must believe me.”
“I have no doubt you did.” This was a side of Dervil Mars had never thought possible, or even believable.
Dervil shifted his weight. “I would be a different man if Priscilla was alive. She didn’t take her life,Itook it with my uncaring ways. And she gave me a daughter.”
Mars refused to touch that statement. He had a feeling he knew what the man wanted, and Mars had no idea how much contact Clarissa would want with Dervil.
“We men are fools,” Dervil said.
“Speak for yourself.”
