The Devil May Care (Brotherhood of Sinners #1) (25 page)

She wished she could get a clear look at his eyes; this was like trying to talk to someone standing behind a waterfall. On a moonless night.

He led her quietly away from the main square, through a maze of back alleyways, until they reached a stucco building that stretched for most of a block. It had the look of a school, or an orphanage perhaps.

They reached a little wrought-iron covered door.

A sign on the doorpost read “
Privado
,” but the Giant strode straight up and tapped his knuckles softly on the wood. It hardly seemed loud enough to summon anyone, but within a moment, a man answered the door, wearing a brown robe and hemp belt that marked him as a Franciscan.

The monk looked at Rachel first, glancing in some horror at the low-cut emerald-green finery she was still wearing from the night before, and he nearly closed the door in her face. But the Giant caught the edge of it in his palm. The monk turned to him, clearly ready to protest in tones promising eternal hellfire, but then his eyes widened as the Giant lifted his hat to show his face, and the monk’s expression smoothed. “
Signore, perdonne
,” he said, in Italian, of all languages. “
Bienvenuto
. Very good to see you again.”

The Giant gave a small nod, and the monk turned and led them down a small, cool hallway to an ornately carved wooden door. A small plaque was set above that door, with new-painted gold letters reading “Cappella della Signorina Angela Delarosa-Aguirre.”

“Angela Delarosa-Aguirre? Who is that?”

“No one,” the Giant said quietly. “There is no such person. Enter, please.”

Beyond the doorway was a place of perfect peace and calm: a small chapel, hardly larger than a sitting room, and quiet and cool. It was mostly in shadow except for the subtle glow of sunlight beaming through an arched window cut into one stone wall. The window’s shape suggested it was made to hold stained glass, but it was fitted with a casement instead, which was flung open to the air.

In the center of the room, a small stone fountain streamed ribbons of water, which splashed into a tiled pool beneath. There were plants—ferns in celadon pots—ringing the pool, adding to the sense of misty moisture in the air. She’d never before seen living greenery inside a chapel.

Against one wall stood an old wooden table, very simple, like in a peasant’s kitchen. Time and thousands of touches had worn it to a subdued gloss. A linen cloth of spotless white lay across the top, covered with perhaps a hundred glass cups holding glowing candles.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“What do you think it is?”

She looked around. The open window, the greenery, the flowing water. What might have been closed and dark and airless was full of life and movement. Peaceful, but suggestive of freedom.

Oh, Lord
.

“It’s for
her
, isn’t it? For Sarah.”

The Giant nodded, his hair screening his face. “For Sal.”

“Why? Who—who made it this way?”

He gave her a meaningful glance. “Who do you think?”

No
. It couldn’t be. But there were very few options for him to be referring to. “You don’t mean Lord Gar—Lord Hawkesbridge? The man has all the tender sentiment of a scorpion.”

The ghost of a smile touched his lips again. “You’re wrong about that.”

“I’ve seen all the evidence I need. And why should you defend him? I thought you disliked him. The two of you nearly came to fisticuffs the first time I met you.”

“I told you, I’ve known him since we were boys.” He paused, and the muscles of his mouth shifted, seemed to catch, like a seldom-used machine forcing its way against rust. “He
learned
to be the cold thing he is. When I first knew him, he was . . . like a wild creature. Uncivilized, and quite out of control.”

“
Sebastian
? Wild?”

“Broke every rule he could, no matter how they beat him afterward.”

“Beat him? Who beat him? He’s a
marquess
.”

“Now he is. Then he was a ten year old child, whose father had just died.” The Giant’s mouth stilled again, seemed to catch on grit. Clearly, he was not used to making such revelations. “The father had been a rebellious sort, as I understand. Lived to outrage the old marquess, who was apparently easy to anger, and impossible to please.
Most hated man in the south counties
, I heard Sebastian call him once—the grandfather, I mean. He’s never spoken much about it, but from the bits he’s let slip, I gather Sebastian lived those first ten years with his father in a farmhouse on the family land.”

“
That
man? Grew up in a farmhouse?”

“Happily, too. It become obvious a few years ago when we had to hide out in a barn one night, and it turned out Sebastian knew how to deliver a calf.”

“He didn’t!”

“He did. I’ll never forget the sight of him, smeared with muck, holding that little wet creature. And he had the most enormous grin on his face.”

Sebastian, smeared with muck. And happy about it
. She shook her head in disbelief. All the hidden layers she sensed in him, this was not one she expected. “So what happened? When his father died?”

“It was bad. A bad death. There’d been a storm, and a sodden riverbank gave way beneath his father’s horse. A broken thigh bone, I think it was. The leg was amputated. He survived that, but not the infection that followed.”

“Oh, God.” A bad death indeed. “And Sebastian was left at the mercy of the old marquess.”

“Aye,” said the Giant. “And the nasty old rotter was bound and determined to make a proper civilized gentleman of his heir. Hence the permission given the masters to beat him as cruelly as they wished. But even those bastards couldn’t break him.”

“Masters? What masters? His father died when he was . . .
ten
, you said. So this was, what? A boys’ reformatory? Or were you all precocious enough to have landed yourselves in prison?”

“Close enough.” The Giant stretched one of his enormous hands above the rustic tabletop and touched his fingertips to one of the glass candleholders. He circled around its rim, then let his fingers drift meditatively back and forth above the dancing flame. “We were all troublemakers of the worst sort,” he said, his voice falling lower than ever. “Damaged goods. If it weren’t for Mawbry, we’d probably all have ended up being flayed alive.”

“Mawbry again! Sebastian said he was the one who recruited him for—for what you all do.”

“Oh, yes. One of his forebears served Walsingham under Queen Elizabeth, and since then all heirs are trained from birth for the job.” His fingers still hovered over the candle, and he began passing his fingers, one by one, through the fire itself. It was unnerving to watch.

She wanted to grab his wrist, pull his hand back. But she felt afraid of him again, suddenly, as huge as he was—like a dog that had chosen to be friendly, but might savage her if she came at him wrong. She held her ground, licked at her lips. “Sebastian said Mawbry did him a kindness of some sort.”

The Giant’s odd, rasping laugh sounded again, and he lifted his hand from the flame. A line of black soot stained his fingers. “A kindness? Is that what he called it?” He glanced directly at her for a moment, his expression wryly amused. “Let’s just say Mawbry has a knack for seeing into people. Seeing potential. He took Sebastian aside one day, and they came back an hour later, both bloodied, with their lips and cheeks split and their clothing torn.”

“They fought?”

“And looked damned pleased with themselves about it. And after that—Sebastian seemed to settle in. And seemed eager to master every skill he could, civilized and otherwise. I’ve no doubt Mawbry held out the promise of interesting adventures once they were grown.” He ducked his head once more so his hair completely obscured his face. “Mawbry saved a great many of us. And we work to return that favor. He calls us his Brotherhood of Sinners.”

“His
what
?”

“It’s an apt name, believe me.”

Was he serious? He certainly seemed to be.
Brotherhood of Sinners
—good Lord. A thousand questions crowded her mind, but she wasn’t sure how much more the Giant would be willing to tell her. So she settled for a practical one. “Where in heaven’s name was this?”

The black hair swung back as he lifted his head, and mischief sparkled in his eyes. “Eton.”

“
Eton
?”

“Not always as civilized a place as one might expect.” His expression resumed its usual seriousness. “And you must believe there’s more to the marquess than he shows the world. He arranged for the friars to have this chapel consecrated. He pays a small fortune to have prayers said here throughout the day; the candles are kept burning around the clock.”

Rachel looked around, trying to bring all the strange pieces of this story together in her mind. Sebastian had arranged this place. For
Sarah
.

He’d made it exactly as she’d have wanted it, as only someone who truly knew her would be able to do.
Oh, damn it all
. It was so much easier to let herself believe Sebastian had a lump of marble in place of a heart. It was what he
wanted
her to believe, what he worked so hard to convince her of. But she knew better. She knew better. She’d seen his tender side too many times, hard as he tried to hide it.

All at once, a great well of emptiness and grief opened in her chest, and tears filled her eyes. “Sarah,” she said. “Was she . . . is she buried here?”

The Giant shook his head. “Not inside. She’d never have wanted to be kept inside. There’s a small courtyard in the center of this building, with a garden. There’s an orange tree, new-planted.” He broke off, his eyes suddenly hooded again, and he drew in a rattling breath. “It’s a good place,” he said, once he blew the breath out again. “She’d have been pleased with his choice.”

Her tears swelled and began to spill; her throat felt half-choked and raw. “Why did Sebastian not tell me of this? Why did he not bring me here himself?”

“You know why. It reveals far too much. Besides, he won’t step foot on sanctified ground if he can avoid it. Neither of us has much right to such places. It’s astonishing a thunderbolt hasn’t struck me down by now.”

“But you
have
come here. That monk recognized you at the door.”

The Giant turned his head away again.

So he had layers of his own. Layers and layers beneath all these men.

“Sarah was important to you, too?” she dared to ask.

The Giant went still as stone. “We should go now. Sebastian will discover you’re missing before too long. I don’t mind him suffering a bit, but he’ll tear apart Vigo if he can’t find you.”

“No, wait. You knew my sister. Please. Tell me . . .
something
. Anything. I want to understand what happened to her.”

He stepped backwards, his fists clenching at his sides, his chin pointed squarely at the floor. He was shutting her out, his method different from Sebastian’s, but just as stubborn.

But then, to her surprise, he spoke. “Your sister was a good person,” he said softly. “You should understand that above all.” He faltered then, his fists loosening, then squeezing shut again, and his enormous body went rigid as though with a spasm of physical pain.

“Of course I know that.”

“She—she knew how to be kind. Even to those who didn’t deserve it.”

That sounded like a confession. “And you didn’t deserve it?”

He went silent again.

“Were you—” She didn’t even know how to ask what she wanted to ask, what she needed to know. None of the terms of this world seemed familiar. “Did you know Sarah well?”

“Yes.” He hesitated, then lifted his head to look her directly in the eye.

Without the veil of hair, his pitch-black eyes were strikingly bright, not cold as she’d first believed them to be. There was a molten heat in them, emanating from the very core, and some deep well of emotion, some great and terrible pain.

Fear prickled at her, and now she was the one who wanted to look away, but he held her gaze.

“Your sister was kind to me,” he said at last. “At a time when I’d have gone mad without a little kindness.”

With a quick toss of his head, the sort a horse might make, the Giant dropped the shield of his hair between them again.

“Sal was not afraid of monsters,” he commented solemnly from beneath that shelter. “And neither, I suspect, are you.”

He paused, then turned, and not towards the door they’d entered through. He moved to a different door, one that faced the internal courtyard. The orange tree. “Come on, then. You should see this.”

The courtyard was lovely too, with paving stones the color of sand, and another fountain in the center in which small finches hopped and flicked at the water with their wings. Winter-blooming roses climbed all along the walls, above thick fragrant masses of lavender.

Lavender
. Of course. Sarah must have told him how much she loved it. The soft scent soothed the air here, softened all rough edges of emotion with a sense of tranquility.