Page 117 of Marry in Secret
Ambrose hesitated and glanced down at the small trunk at Thomas’s feet. “I’ll just take my trunk, then.”
Thomas bent and picked it up. “No, that stays here.” The weight of it confirmed his suspicion that it contained the ill-gotten gains, the money that Ambrose had tried to kill him for, and had almost killed Rose and a young boy for. He would let Ambrose escape with his life, but he was damned if he’d let him take the money as well.
Ambrose hesitated, as if considering whether to fight Thomas for it.
Thomas hefted the trunk onto one shoulder. “You exchanged my life for this money,” he told his cousin. “Now I give you yours.” He turned his back on his cousin and walked away.
Something moved in the shadows. Thomas tensed.
***
Rose stepped into the light. “You’re letting him go? Just like that?”
Thomas blinked in surprise. “Rose? How did you get here?” He glanced around as if in search of an answer.
“I drove,” she said impatiently. “Don’t change the subject, Thomas. You’re letting Ambrose go, after all he’s done?” She’d overheard the last part of the conversation between Thomas and his cousin and was hopping mad. After all Ambrose had done—he’d tried to kill Thomas threetimes! And that after sentencing him to a lifetime as a slave! She wanted him punished, boiled in oil, strung from the rooftops. At the very least beaten to a pulp.
But she understood perfectly well why Thomas wouldn’t do it. She knew all about his fight with Cal and how it had ended. Ned had told Lily, who’d told Rose. Still, he could have him arrested.
“Why did you come after me?”
“I thought you were going to kill him. Which I would have understood perfectly—except that then we’d have to flee the country.” She shook her head. “Don’t look so surprised, my love—I couldn’t let you hang for murder. But I don’t understand, Thomas, why are you letting Ambrose go? He ought to rot in prison at the very least.”
There was a short silence. “It’s complicated,” he said at last.
“It’s not complicated to me.”
He shook his head. “Let it go, Rose. I have my reasons.”
As far as Rose was concerned, it was a wholly inadequate answer. She gazed up at him. His face was in partial shadow, dimly illuminated by distant lanterns farther along the wharf, but there was a world of pain in his eyes. The knowledge that the last person in his family left alive, the one person he’d always trusted and loved, had plotted and schemed so cold-bloodedly against him—for money!
A lump formed in her throat.Oh, Thomas.So much suffering caused by that evil little worm, and Thomas was prepared to forgive him.
I warn you now, I’m this close to killing you anyway for what you’ve put me and my wife through.
She understood why he hadn’t killed Ambrose, and was grateful for it. But to let him walk away, untouched? Impoverished but unharmed, in what was almost forgiveness?
Because that was Thomas, her noble, wonderful Thomas. She ached for all the pain he’d suffered and taken inside himself. She loved him and trusted him, and if he’d decided to let Ambrose go, she would respect his decision.
But Rose was not nearly so noble. Nor so forgiving.
Ambrose still stood at the edge of the wharf, watching them. He was going to get on a ship and sail away. “I’ll just have a quick word with him,” she said, and before Thomas knew what she was about, she ran up to Ambrose. “Cousin Ambrose, I understand you’re leaving the country? So suddenly?”
His mouth gaped open in surprise. He darted a suspicious look behind her, but Rose hurried on in case Thomas was behind her and would try to stop her. “I just wanted to bid you good-bye, and give you a little something to remember me by.” And with that she smacked him as hard as she could across the face. She followed it with a good hard kick to his shins. How providential that she’d worn her sturdiest boots.
He hopped around, swearing. “What the devil—?” Rose smacked him again. Harder. And then kicked the leg he was hopping on.
“Good-bye and good riddance,” she said, and shoved him as hard as she could off the edge of the wharf. There was a loud yell and a large splash.
Rose turned and found Thomas behind her. “Your cousin fell in the water,” she said innocently.
“So I see.”
They peered over the edge of the wharf. In the dark they couldn’t see much but they heard a lot of swearing and splashing.
“Can he swim?” Rose asked.
“Unfortunately, yes—we all learned together as boys. But that water is really filthy. It contains all the effluent of the port and surrounds.”
