Page 14 of Devil of the High Seas
“I fell on a sword.” Gavin kept his answer simple. The less his brother knew of the matter, the better. “Josephine stitched it up.”
Griffin’s gaze darted between him and Josephine, his eyes narrowing.
“You should know better than to run with weapons. Father would have boxed your ears.”
“Aye, that he would,” Gavin agreed solemnly.
Josephine opened her mouth but then clamped it shut again, as if deciding not to interrupt their tense exchange. Griffin finally pulled his gaze away from Gavin and looked at the girl beside him.
“Thank you for telling me about my brother. Would you kindly leave us? I need a moment to speak to Gavin, and your father would be furious if he knew I let you stay in the presence of a half-dressed man.”
Josephine looked reluctant to leave, but Gavin gave her a nod.
“Go on, lass. It will be all right.”
Only then did she lift her skirts and quietly slip away from the room. Gavin missed her the moment she departed. She’d been a brief ray of sunlight in this dark room, and yet she hadn’t even said a word. Something about her silence bothered him. She hadn’t been herself just now, he knew that much after being around her for such a short time. She’d seemed... closed off, more like a proper lady respecting the position and wishes of the master of the house, which in this case was Griffin. Whereas last night and this morning she’d been fiery and talkative—alive.
So lost was he in his thoughts about Josephine’s behavior that he never saw Griffin’s blow coming, which struck him hard in the face.
“Where the bloody hell have you been?” Griffin growled, fury lighting his eyes.
Gavin staggered back. The pain was unexpected, and he cursed as the stitches in his shoulder pulled tight. He touched his lip, which had split, and tasted blood upon his tongue.
“I’ve been dead,” he shot back.
“No, Father is dead.Charityis dead. My...” His words broke with anguish, and he looked away, unable to continue.
“Your son is dead.” Gavin finished Griffin’s unspoken words with a heavy finality that held an echo of the grief that he knew Griffin must be feeling a thousand times over.
“I came back a year ago, hoping to make things up to you. I saw the tombstones in the churchyard.”
Griffin finally looked his way again. “So youwerethere. I thought myself mad for weeks, believing that I’d imagined feeling you’d come home.” Tears glinted in Griffin’s eyes. “You left me. You leftus... I can’t forgive you for that.”
Invisible shards cut into Gavin’s throat as he tried to speak. “I’m... I’m not asking you to.” He felt like in that moment he was sailing his ship once more through a storm and praying to see light on a distant shore to guide him home. But all he saw in that moment were flashes, and then darkness fell again in his inner world.
A thousand words hung in the air between them, but neither brother dared to say them. They’d once shared everything, from the moment their lives sparked into being in their mother’s womb. But after all that had happened, something had broken between them, and Gavin feared it could never heal.
“I’ll see you well enough to leave,” Griffin said at last. “I’ll bring you some food and clothes. Do you need a doctor?”
Gavin studied his shoulder, intensely relieved at the change in subject. The skin wasn’t inflamed around the wound. The lass had done a fine job of tending to him.
“No doctor, but I will take the clothes and food,” he said quietly. He didn’t like to fall upon anyone’s mercy, not even his own brother’s, but he’d given all of his extra coin to Ronnie.
Griffin stood there a moment, a silent war playing out on his face.
“She asked for you... in the end. She wished she could have seen you one last time.”
Those words, no doubt kindly meant, were like a dagger to Gavin’s heart. He sank onto the bed, still holding his ripped shirt in his hands. It seemed like a fitting metaphor for the state his heart was in.
“She regretted so much of what happened that night. We both did.” Griffin took a seat on one of the chairs at the table. The waning light of the oil lamp fought the shadows on his face as he stared at the burning flame.
“You never remarried?” Gavin asked.
“Charity was the only woman who will ever hold my heart. But I am to be married again soon.”
A sudden, terrible dread of that answer came rolling in around Gavin like fog.
“To whom?” he asked, his voice a little rough as he struggled not to betray any emotions.
