His amusement evaporated and she saw he regretted revealing what little he had. “I’m not proud of this, Sidonie. Leave it.”
No. No, no, no. This was the first time since this morning’s kisses that she’d managed to breach the shield around his emotions. She wanted to know everything about him. Not so that she could hate him. She was tragically aware that she’d moved past the point where she could ever hate him. So much for her brave claim to despise the entire male sex.
“Jonas, tell me what you did,” she said quietly, subsiding onto the sand under the headland and gesturing for him to join her. She wasn’t sure he would, but after a hesitation, he sighed. He looked sad and tired. Whatever he had done—and she couldn’t believe he’d really killed thousands—weighed heavily on the conscience he claimed not to possess.
He didn’t answer for so long that she began to think he wouldn’t. Then he sighed again and started to speak in a bleak, empty tone as if he described another man’s experiences. “I’ve spent a lot of my life angry, Sidonie. Angry at being a bastard. Angry at the shame dogging my father, dogging me. Angry at William’s blind arrogance. Angry at…” He paused and she watched his hand rise toward his scars before he lowered it again. “Well, you can imagine.”
“You had reason,” she whispered, but he hardly seemed to hear her.
“Even though my father was a rich man, I was avid to amass the kind of fortune that erased any stain of bastardy and scandal. I’ve since discovered there isn’t that much money to be had. But I was young and still hopeful that if I couldn’t gain respect as Lord Hillbrook’s heir, I could gain it as a man who through his wealth held the fate of nations hostage. I wanted to be so rich that the world could never hurt me again.”
Sidonie remained silent. The revelation that he’d defied his fate was no surprise. He was a fighter. She admired that about him but knew he was in no mood to accept praise. What he said indicated that he’d been scarred before he reached full adulthood. Curiosity about his disfigurement stirred, but she stifled questions. If she interrupted Merrick now, she’d never learn about his past.
“I wasn’t too fussy about where I invested my money or where my enterprises found markets.”
“You broke the law?”
He shook his head. “No, I was canny enough to stay on the right side of legality. But I transgressed a thousand moral laws.”
“How?”
He shrugged. “So many ways. To give you an example, I aided the Ottomans in their oppression. They had gold. I had the materials of war. If I didn’t consider consequences, the match was made in heaven. However, if I did consider consequences, the match stemmed from hell.”
Profiting from the horrors of war. She could imagine how that weighed on his soul.
“What made you stop?” She didn’t doubt that he had stopped.
“I went back to Greece after my father’s death. I saw at firsthand what use my armaments were put to. When I returned to the village where I’d first tasted baklava, there were only ghosts to greet me. A Greek patriot had taken shelter from the authorities and the local Sanjakbey had executed every man, woman, and child in the place in retaliation.”
How appalling. How sickening. Sidonie didn’t bother pointing out that Merrick wasn’t personally responsible for the bloodshed. Nor that he couldn’t be sure his munitions had done the damage. That would be fatuous. “I assume you made reparations.”
He stared out over the thundering sea, his eyes blind as he revisited old guilt. “You still try to see me as a better man than I am.”
She realized that somewhere in his accounting, she’d reached for his hand. She tried to withdraw, but his grip closed with a firmness that belied his outward calmness. “Did you make reparations?”
His tone remained cold and detached despite the tension in his body. “What recompense can you make for a
murdered family, a lost community? I stayed long enough to locate the scant survivors hiding in the hills and smuggled out those who wanted to leave. I send money to the few hardy souls who stayed. It’s not enough.”
“It’s something. I assume you never again sold implements of war.”
“I’d had graphic demonstration of the result of my rapacious greed. I decided I could live with less spectacular profits. The munitions factory in Manchester is now the world’s largest fireworks producer.”
Despite the seriousness of the moment, she couldn’t restrain a gasp of admiring laughter. “Oh, that’s wonderful, Jonas.”
He stared at her with complete disgust. “Didn’t you hear a word I just said?”
She frowned. “Of course.”
He shook his head as if despairing of her good sense and stood, brushing the sand off with his free hand. Sidonie told herself to make some attempt to assert herself. At least pull her hand away from his. She tightened her grip. He clearly believed his confession would make her despise him, whereas so much of what she’d heard had been true to the man she knew. Right down to the final flourish of imagination in turning a factory forging tools of death into a firm producing materials of beauty and happiness.
How was she to resist him? Jonas Merrick was a man such as she’d never known.
From her place curled up on the library’s window seat, Sidonie eyed Merrick where he stood before the shelves. This room was, in its way, even more seductive than yesterday’s Turkish bower. Elegantly furnished as if transported whole from a gentleman’s residence in London. Stacked floor to ceiling with books. Polished mahogany furniture. And circling the space high in the air, a charming balcony edged with a delicate gilt railing.
The dilemma tormenting her on the beach had given her no rest since they’d come inside an hour ago. One thing was clear. She must tell Merrick about his legitimacy. Roberta’s plight was appalling but it didn’t justify stealing this man’s inheritance. Sidonie would have to devise some other way to save her sister. Misery weighed her down as she recalled that in Roberta’s eight years with William, the marriage lines had offered the first chance of rescue. Nonetheless that wasn’t Jonas’s concern. By keeping the secret, Sidonie condoned William’s theft of the rights and privileges of the viscountcy.
The door swung open and Mrs. Bevan stumped into the library. “ ’Ee has a caller, maister.”