Page 158 of Her Beast

“He wasn’t?” Malcolm said, his eye widening with mock surprise. “Why, he must have escaped. I shall have to discipline my men for that. I would imagine Tommy might want to watch his back if Carl is on the loose.”

Brian swallowed, and whatever he forced down looked both unappetizing and painful.

“Tommy will take care of it,” he finally assured Malcolm. “But he would be able to focus on the problem better if he could have his daughter back.”

“Hisdaughter?”

Brian flinched but nodded. “You should let the girl go, Malcolm.”

“You came all the way to London to tell me that, did you?”

“You don’t need to keep her; Tommy will do what you want, but it will just take time. You can trust me on this. The poor girl must be frightened out of her wits being held hostage—it would be a kindness to just let her go.”

“Why are you so concerned about her? She told me that you haven’t seen her in fifteen years—it sounds as if you’ve been a stranger to her.”

“She told you that?”

“Among other things.”

Brian didn’t know how to take that, so he left it alone and reverted to the reason for this visit today. “The marriage—her and Basingstoke—it’s more important than you think, Malcolm.”

“How so?”

Brian’s eyes crawled slowly over the leather that covered Malcolm’s left side. He swallowed yet again, as if he couldn’t assemble the right words.

“You mean the marriage is important because Tommy has made some rather poor investments and needs the military contract the Duke of Angleton is dangling in front of him?”

Brian gaped.

Malcolm laughed softly. “I can’t imagine that his grace will take kindly to a cit’s daughter jilting his son. What a disaster it would be for Tommy to alienate such a man, wouldn’t it?”

Brian briefly closed his eyes. When he opened them, they pulsed with raw fear. “I know you think destroying Tommy is exactly what he deserves, but…” He stopped, as if he’d hoped Malcolm would interrupt him.

“No, please—do go on,” he urged. “I am utterlyfascinatedto hear why I shouldn’t destroy the person who murdered my wife and unborn child. Well,oneof the people.”

Brian looked terrified, but not startled by that information. “I swear to God that I only found out about what Carl and Nadine did a few days ago. I was… shocked and devastated.”

Malcolm ignored the egregious lie; he would come back to it later. “But you knew that Sukey was pregnant back then—she told you, didn’t she?”

“No! Tommy just told—”

“Lie to me again and I will kill you right now—and I will take my time doing it.”

Brian’s throat worked convulsively. “I didn’t know for certain—I swear, Mal! Neither did Sukey. You know how long she’d wanted to have a baby and it always ended in heartache. She wanted to wait to tell you until she was certain. Besides, you’d been working so hard on the deal that she didn’t want you to worry.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about it when you came to see me in the hospital—before you left?”

“I—I thought it would only make things worse if you thought she’d been pregnant.” He hung his head. “God, I’m so sorry that I left you like that, Mal.”

Malcolm’s jaw tightened at the sound of his pet name on this traitor’s tongue.

“That’s quite all right—I told you to leave, didn’t I?”

He’d told Smith that, too. But Smith had refused.

“You did,” Brian said, assuming a martyrish expression. “Even so, I shouldn’t have left you while you were… like that

He laughed and Brian flinched at the harsh sound. “Don’t fret yourself, I didn’t blame you. Much. We were lovers, but we were never really close, were we, Brian? It was Sukey who brought us together and held us together. And without her … well, we were like the pages of a book without the binding.” Malcolm was enjoying watching the other man’s Adams apple bob up and down, up and down. He liked to think of all the things Brian was swallowing and wonder which words he’d finally set free.

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