Page 118 of The Bastard's Iberian Bride
She freed a hand and smacked her forehead. “They were smugglers.” The gift had been misdirected to Cornwall, one smuggler to another, before finding its way to her. “Why could she not tell me that?” She took in a deep breath. “I want to meet them.”
“Your grandparents are gone,” Kincaid said.
“I see. How?”
“Your grandmother died when your mother was young. Your grandfather died when he returned to the Peninsula.”
“Well, that was suitably vague.” Bink’s voice rumbled up deep and angry. “We’re getting but lies and half-truths, Paulette.”
Her stomach tensed. She’d hidden a secret from him also, hadn’t she?
Kincaid’s gaze drilled hard into her husband, sparking darkly. “Ye’ve not asked about your father, Paulette. How he died. It was in Spain, outside Talavera. He was beaten to death.”
She nodded numbly. “By a big Englishman. Jock told me that.” He’d watched from the bushes as her father entered the parley, before heading out with her father’s messages for Paulette and her mother. Only later had he learned Paul Heardwyn had been killed.
Her husband twitched in his chair, his hand growing tight around hers.
“You’re…you’re hurting me,” she whispered.
His face paled and he yanked his hand away. She reached for him, holding both his hands in hers, and turning back to Kincaid.
“A big Englishman,” she said.
Of course. Papa had something that Agruen wanted. Agruen was a big man compared to Jock. “Was it Agruen who killed my father?”
Kincaid turned the dark gaze on her and gave a terse nod. “Agruen, aided by the fists of a British soldier.”
Numbness poured into her, locking her in place, and she couldn’t say why. Her legs, hands, arms twitched with a need to move, and her empty stomach turned inside-out. The room went dark, except the pinpoint eyes of Mr. Kincaid. Spies’s eyes. Calculating eyes.
She choked in a breath. She’d believe it of Agruen, but who was the soldier? And Kincaid surely knew more. Perhaps he knew what she was supposed to have that Agruen wanted.
“Why? Why was he killed?”
Kincaid swiped a hand across his face and stalled, like he regretted telling her, but that couldn’t be right. A calculating man like him would never err.
“There was a woman.” The words came from beside her and she turned. Sweat coated Bink’s unshaven face and threatened to drip. He contemplated her hands, still clutched around his and…trembling. Only the shaking was coming from him.
“A woman?”
His eyes glowed golden with their own sheen of moisture.
“What, Bink?” she whispered.
Nearby, someone cleared a throat.
He stared at her hands, but his gaze was carrying him far away, and she knew.
He’d met Agruen in the war. He’d slipped back to Spain, and he was seeing all the horror again, anew. She’d seen moments like this with Jock.
She squeezed Bink’s hand, wanting to do more but sparing his pride in front of these other hard men.
Kincaid leaned in and took up the thread. “Agruen beat the woman half to death and your father fought him.”
“And the soldier?”
“Stumbled into it.” Bink’s voice sounded strained. “Found the woman. Was told by Dickson the man had beat her.”
“Yes.”
