Forever My Love (Berkeley-Faulkner #2)(122)

“What is it, Guillaume?” she asked quietly. “You’re here because you want something from me.”

“I… I don’t know how to start.”

Somehow they had switched roles. It seemed as if she were the older one and he was the younger, dependent one. “Start by telling me what happened after we parted,” Mira prompted. “You had become involved with a gang—““An organization—Stop Hole Abbey. I’ve been with them ever since you left me. Over the past five years I have become an important man. I started out by doing little things—”

“Ah, little things,” she repeated coldly, “like trying to kidnap Rosalie five years ago? And using me to betray her and Lord Berkeley?” Guillaume seemed surprised by her hardness. What had he expected of her? Mira wondered angrily. That she would run to him with outflung arms and tears of gladness? Had he expected that kind of reunion after what he had done to her? He reminded her of a child who knew that he had misbehaved but felt no real remorse.

“I had to do that,” he said. “Dieu, they promised me so much, Mira. I had to do it. They said I would . be rich someday, and I was going to share it all with you.”

“You don’t seem to be very rich,” she observed, looking up and down his lean, ill-clad form, and suddenly his dark brown eyes flashed with resentment.

“But you are. Married to a Falkner. How did you do it? What trick did you use, or was it luck? You were always very lucky… you were my charm. When you left me—”

“I didn’t leave you because I wanted to. I was forced to make a choice between going and staying and sinking down with you.”

“I didn’t sink,” he said indignantly. “Far from it. I’m an important man in Stop Hole Abbey now. I have special responsibilities—”

“What kind of responsibilities? Things as bad as what you and I did—tricking people, taking their f money, hurting—”

“What we did were merely children’s games,” he said scornfully.

She nodded slowly. Children’s games—that was a; good way to put it. While other children had been playing jackstraws or looking at picture cards, she hadbeen picking pockets. But she and Guillaume had always stopped at certain unspoken limits. How far would he have gone, she wondered despairingly, after crossing the threshold of those limits? She looked away from him, trying to swallow the ache in her throat. “Do you want to know what I do?” he asked, his expression taunting. “I’m in charge of a whole group of men. I became friends with the leader of Stop Hole. He makes all the decisions and knows everything that goes on. He can have anything he wants, and he put me in charge of his special project. My men and I collect girls, right off the streets… sometimes from their homes, sometimes we even whisk them right out of the shops they work in. Only pretty ones. And we sell them and send them away to—”

“Don’t tell me!” she cried, shuddering. “Why are you here? Why are you telling me this—to frighten me? What do you wantV

“I have a problem. Only you can help me. I had a few debts… I skimmed off a little money from Stop Hole’s profits to pay them off. But now a few men in the organization are suspicious, and it’s only a matter of time before they find out that I took the money… and when they do, I won’t have a chance. If you don’t give me the money to replace what I took from Stop Hole, my death will be on your conscience.”

“No. You’ll find some other way to get the money, but you won’t get it from me. It would never stop… you would come to me over and over again, always asking for more.”

“So you’ve become greedy, petite soeur. You have more money than you could ever spend, and you’re married to a powerful man, but you won’t spare a cent to save my life. I’ll just have to ask your husband for help.”

“What?” she whispered.

“I’ve heard that the Falkners take care of their own… and since I’m your brother, surely I must havesome claim… yes, I’ll have to talk to Lord Falkner about everything… explain my troubles… explain about our background.”

“You think you can blackmail me,” Mira said, feeling a burst of inner panic, panic that she could not let him see. “But why do you think I haven’t already told him everything? Including the part about Maman.”

“You wouldn’t have—I know that about you, if I know nothing else. But if you’re telling the truth, then you’d have no objection to my discussing it with him, would you? You may expect me to call later on this evening. We’ll laugh about it together… the biggest joke in England. With all the women he could have chosen, Alec Falkner married a French whore’s daughter.” “No.”

“Should I tell him that Maman took care of her customers right in front of you when you were a baby?

That you and she lived in the same room until you were old enough to move to the corner in the kitchen—”

“Stop it!”

“---and then I’ll tell him that if I hadn’t taken you away after Maman died, you would have become a whore too—you would be in that brothel today, spreading your legs for anyone with a pocketful of francs.”

“No!” Mira wailed, covering her face with her hands and bursting into tears. She wept uncontrollably, turning away from her brother and hiding the sight of her fear and guilt from him. After the storm had subsided to gulping sobs, she staggered to a slender tree and leaned against it, unmindful that its bark was digging into the side of her face. She did not look at Guil-laume, but she knew that he was still standing there, patient, watchful, waiting. “I have some money,” she whispered, “but I can’t give you more than a few hundred pounds in cash.” “Jewelry. Surely he’s given you plenty of that.” “Yes.““Then bring it out here tomorrow and show it to me. I’ll only take what I need.”