into his thoughts, the interruption a welcome one. “I saw a Wanted poster. You look too much like it. You need to get rid of that beard.”
Sean just stared. He had used Connelly’s blade but it hadn’t been of a good quality. McBane was right. He needed a real razor, a brush, well-milled soap.
And his mind had become intent on mayhem.
Silver eyes, bright and pleasant, stared back at him from a looking glass. A handsome, dark-haired man was reflected there, shaving in the morning. In that reflection, velvet draperies were parted. Outside, the sky was brilliantly blue and the overgrown lawns were fantastically green. The ruins of a tower were just visible from the window. So was the sea.
Sean! Are you going to dally or are we riding to the Rock?
“Are you all right?” McBane asked.
Sean tensed. He could not understand the question. What was happening to him? He could not think about the ancient past. When he married Peg Boyle, hoping to one day love her and determined to be a father to her child, as well as to the child she carried, he had made his decision. The only woman he had to remember was Peg. Now, he deliberately recalled her lying in his arms, battered and beaten and bleeding to death.
“Look, Collins, I understand you have been through hell. We are on the same side. I’m an Irishman, just like you. I heard it whispered that you’re noble by birth, which gives us a common bond. You don’t look well. Can I be of some help somehow?” McBane seemed perplexed but he was also concerned.
Sean could not find any relief in the present now. He found his voice but made no attempt to raise it. “Why…are you doing this?” He had to know why a gentleman would risk his life for him.
McBane started. “I told you. We are countrymen, and I am a patriot. You fought for freedom one way. I fight for it another way—usually with my pen—but sometimes I aid men like you.”
Sean forced his teeth to bare, trying to smile, but McBane flinched. “Thank you,” he heard himself say roughly.
“Is there anything else that you need?” McBane asked.
Sean shook his head. All he needed was to sail far away to a different land, a different life. Once he did that, maybe his mind would stop trying to torture him with glimpses of a life he was afraid to recall.
McBane leaned across the table. “Lie low then, until the Hero departs. I am leaving Cork tonight, but I can be reached at Adare. It’s only a half day’s ride from here and our mutual friends can get word to me there.”
Sean knew his body remained perfectly still, but his heart leaped with a painful and consuming force. He felt as if McBane had just stabbed him. Was this a trick, after all? Or was his mind cruelly teasing him again? Had McBane just referred to Adare?
McBane stood. “Godspeed,” he said.
Sean, stunned, did not reply.
McBane made a sound, and something like pity flitted through his eyes. Then he started through the crowd. Sean remained seated, paralyzed. He should let McBane go, otherwise he knew he was going to lose the last of his iron will. But what if McBane was a part of an elaborate trap?
He was not going back to prison and he was not going to hang.
Sean followed McBane with his eyes. He waited until he was almost at the front door. He had been correct to assume that McBane would not look back. Sean leaped up, grabbing the satchel, and reached the door an instant after McBane passed through. Then he followed him into the night.
McBane walked down the narrow and dirty street, his strides long, even jaunty. Making certain that he was soundless and invisible, Sean followed, his longer strides taking him closer and closer to his unsuspecting prey. And then he reached out, seizing him from behind, turning him face-first into the nearest wall. McBane stilled, clearly understanding that a struggle would be futile. “You…do not…go to Adare,” Sean rasped, fury now uncoiling within him. “This…is a jest…or a trap.”
“Collins!” McBane gasped. “Are you mad? What the hell are you doing?”
Sean jerked on the man’s arm, close to breaking it. “What…do you intend? What kind…of clever ruse…is this?”
“What do I intend?” McBane gasped against the wall. “I am trying to help you flee the country, you fool. We should not be seen together! My radical anti-British views are well-known. Damn it! There are soldiers everywhere in town!”
Sean pushed him harder into the wall. “You cannot be going to Adare. This is a trick!” he cried. Speaking a whole sentence without interruption caused his entire body to break out in sweat.
“A trick? You are mad! I heard they had you in solitary for two years. You have lost your mind! I am going to Adare as a friend of the bride and her family.”
And Sean lost all control.
Adare was his home.
The green lawns and abundant gardens of Adare were so spectacular that summer parties from Britain would request permission to stop by to visit them. Huge and grand, the visitors would often request a tour of the house, as well, and it was usually allowed, if the countess or earl were in residence.
He was shaking. No, Sean O’Neill had been raised there. He was John Collins now.
“You are as white as a sheet,” McBane said. “Would you mind releasing me?”
But Sean didn’t hear him.
During the morning, there had been lessons in the sciences and the humanities with the tutor, Mr. Godfrey. The afternoons had been spent fencing with an Italian master, rehearsing steps and figures with the dance master and learning advanced equestrian skills. There had been five of them, all young, handsome, strong, clever, privileged and more than a bit arrogant. And then there had been Elle.
“Collins.”
He came back to the present, to the street in Cork where he continued to hold McBane against the brick wall of a house. The damage was done. He had dared to allow himself the luxury of recalling a piece of the past to which he no longer had any rights. He loosened his hold on McBane, wetting his lips. He had to turn around and go back to his flat over the cobbler’s shop. He did not. “There…is a wedding?”
“Yes, there is. A very consequential wedding, in fact.”
Sean closed his eyes. He did not want to remember a warm and verdant time of belonging, of family, of security and peace, but it was simply too late.
He had a brother and sister-in-law and a niece; he had a mother, a stepfather and stepbrothers, and there was also Elle. He could not breathe, fighting the floodgate, struggling to keep it closed. If he let one memory out, a thousand would follow, and he would never elude the British, he would never flee the country, he would never survive.
He was overcome with longing.
Faces formed in his mind, hazy and blurred. His proud, dangerous brother, a fighting captain of the seas, his charismatic and rakish stepbrothers,
