Page 64 of A Pirate's Pleasure
Lief narrowed his eyes at him. “You know what I’m asking.”
He sighed. “My mother was a maid. I assume that Lord Cooper, the original Lord Cooper, only ever wanted a bit of fun with her. Unfortunately, that bit of fun had consequences. Far-reaching ones. My mother went to him. She told him she was with child and that he was responsible. Do you know what he did?” Baravor didn’t wait for an answer. “He laughed in her face. He told her it wasn’t his problem and that if she had any sense, she would get rid of it, that if she didn’t, she would never see a single coin from him, and that if she was stupid enough to repeat any of her accusations anywhere where it might reach Lady Cooper’s ears, that he would have both her and the child killed in a way that no one would suspect as being anything but a tragic accident.”
“My uncle was a cruel man by all accounts,” Lief said. “It was the reason my mother left Silkdrift and chose a life which many would say paled by comparison. She didn’t care. She just wanted to be away from him. I don’t know what he did to her because she refused to speak of it, but there was no love lost between the two siblings. He must have known where she was. After all, Glimmerfield isn’t a million miles away from here, but he never visited. He sent no correspondence of any kind, or if he did, she kept it from me. You had a lucky escape not to grow up with him as a father.”
“Perhaps,” Baravor said. “But that choice was never given to me.” He leaned forward slightly in his chair. “I introduced myself to him once when I was sixteen. I thought by that age, he’d be able to see the resemblance between us, that his rejection of me in my mother’s womb was probably down to a lack of belief that I was really his. After all, he only had my mother’s word for it. He and his wife had never borne children, so I thought that fact alone would have him looking at things differently.”
“What happened?” I asked. “I’m assuming he wasn’t interested.”
Baravor raised his chin slightly. “He told me I was a bastard, that I wasn’t worthy of his attention, that if I didn’t remove myself from his company immediately, he would have me removed using a method I wouldn’t appreciate.” Bright flags of color had broken out on his cheeks. I might have taken it for embarrassment if it wasn’t for the hard glitter of his eyes. Something clicked into place, something that had me turning to Lief. “How did your uncle die? He wasn’t an old man, right?”
Lief shrugged. “They didn’t say. Just that it was sudden and unexpected.”
The corner of Baravor’s lips twitched. “He got what he deserved. He was overdue a visit from karma and I guess it came knocking.”
“You killed him?” Lief said, his question full of disbelief.
Baravor tipped his head slightly to the side, as if weighing his answer. “Let’s just say that I didn’t mourn his death and leave it at that.”
“And you assumed that his death left you with a right to his inheritance,” I said.
Baravor’s nostrils flared. “No one ever spoke of a sister. His wife was already dead, and he had no other children. As far as I was aware, there was no one except me with Cooper blood running through their veins.” He stared at Lief coldly. “I didn’t know I had a cousin until you turned up one day. Why would I have done?”
At the word cousin, Lief looked like he might throw up. “Why didn’t you come and speak to me?” he asked. “We could have come to some sort of arrangement.”
“An arrangement!” Baravor said it like the idea was ludicrous. “What, like you would have let me reside in the servant’s quarters?”
“Lief isn’t his uncle,” I pointed out. “He wouldn’t treat anyone like that. You should have trusted him.”
Baravor shrugged. “I had no way of knowing that. Besides, I did approach you, remember? You were”—his lip curled slightly—“dismissive.”
Lief shook his head. “You said I was drunk. And I know for a fact that I would have remembered if you’d told me the truth, no matter how drunk I was that night, so I can only assume that anything you said was in code.”
I sat forward and fixed Baravor with a stare. “I assume that was the night you stole his dagger?”
He met my stare with one of his own. “People shouldn’t drink to excess if they can’t take care of their belongings.” It wasn’t an admission, but neither was it a denial.
“And then you killed Erolith,” Lief said, picking up the threads of the conversation, only the slight catch in his voice betraying the sadness he still felt for his friend. “All because you assumed that once they’d hung me and I was out of the way, that your claim to this house would be undisputed, and no one else could stop you from having what you’d always believed to be yours.” Lief frowned. “The only thing I can’t wrap my head around is why you waited so long?”
“Because it festered,” I said before Baravor could answer. “Didn’t it? You thought you could live with the knowledge that even in death, your father still won, but as time went on, you realized you couldn’t. You resented Lief more and more for having what you felt was your due.”
Baravor swept his arm in a wide arc to illustrate the library, his eyebrows knitting together. “What did you do to deserve all this? I’ll give you the answer, shall I? Nothing except be born.”
“We could say the same about you,” I said, Lief having gone quiet. No doubt, he was experiencing some level of guilt for not having asked more questions about his uncle. If he had, he might have learned of Baravor’s existence before the man had taken such desperate measures. Not knowing Lief’s friend, Erolith, didn’t prevent me from recognizing the senselessness of his death and realizing how a better understanding of the past could have prevented it. It was hard to care whether Baravor had killed his father when it seemed he’d deserved it for whatever he’d done to Lief’s mother to make her flee Silkdrift, and for rejecting his illegitimate son on two separate occasions. But I did care that he’d killed Lief’s friend and framed Lief for that murder.
“There are more important things in life than wealth,” Lief said flatly.
Baravor let out a snort loaded with scorn. “A sentiment that is only ever shared by the people who have it.” He narrowed his eyes. “If it’s not important to you, walk away.”
Lief laughed. “And spend the rest of my life running from the authorities? I don’t think so. Not to mention the fact that you murdered my friend in cold blood. Erolith was a good man who deserved better than to be used as a pawn in a game he didn’t even know he was playing. And I don’t deserve to be hung for someone else’s actions.”
“So you’re going to do what? Hand me over to the authorities?” Baravor delivered the words with a sneer. “It’ll be your word against mine. What makes you think they’ll believe you?”
“Because he’s a lord and you’re not,” I said, knowing Lief wouldn’t point out their differences in standing himself. “With no other suspect, they would have hung him without batting an eyelid, but they’ll have their other suspect. And they’ll have a far better motive than someone waking up one day and simply deciding to kill their friend.”
A myriad of emotions crossed Baravor’s face as he processed what I’d said, his fingers drumming restlessly on the chair arm. When he sprang up and made for the door, the only surprise was that it had taken him that long to decide that getting out of here was the best option. I looked to Lief, his nod enough for me to leap to my feet and go after him. Baravor was already halfway down the corridor when I reached the door.
Magic spilled from my fingertips. It was tempting to use lightning, but a dead body would leave us without a witness, and make clearing Lief’s name that much more difficult. Plus, Lief might have something to say about me burning his house down. I shaped the strands of magic into a small typhoon, its frenzied path down the corridor enough to knock Baravor clean off his feet. He tried to get up, and I knocked him down again.