“Then he’s a wiser man than I gave him credit for.”
He stood and went to the window, pulling back the curtain to gaze at the cold, heartless moon grinning down at him from its remote perch, high in the night sky. “You may as well ask the moon not to shine, Auntie.”
She shook her head. “You’re Emily’s boy, bless her soul. She was as stubborn a Scot as ever lived.”
He turned to face her. “And you?”
She raised an eyebrow and drew herself up in her chair. “I’m persistent. There’s a difference.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “I know you don’t believe in God, but God bless you all the same.”
She smiled and began threading another needle. “And you—are you a believer?”
“The whole question strikes me as irrelevant.”
“What about the existence of good and evil?”
“I don’t see why God should enter into it. If you are being virtuous only to enter into heaven and avoid damnation, then aren’t you just thinking of yourself?”
“Does your brother share your beliefs?”
He looked at her sharply, but she was concentrating on her work—perhaps to avoid meeting his eye. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“He was such a brilliant young man,” Aunt Lillian said, cross-stitching the hem of the tablecloth.
“He’s a bloody genius,” Ian muttered. “That doesn’t excuse him.”
“Must you be so harsh on your brother? He suffered so when the fire took your parents.”
“And I didn’t?”
She laid down her sewing and put a hand on his arm. “Donald doesn’t have your strength of character. He was always high-strung, overly sensitive. He has your father’s darkness in him. You’re more like your mother—she was the rock in the family.”
“Donald’s far cleverer than I am.”
Lillian smiled sadly. “Sometimes being clever makes it more difficult to be happy.”
“It’s not about being happy—it’s about doing what needs to be done.”
She put down her sewing and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps Donald is doing what needs to be done right now, for him.”
He looked into her clear blue eyes, so full of concern and compassion, and sighed. “Oh, Auntie, if only everyone in the world were more like you.”
“Well!” she said. “I’m glad you finally realized that. And you can tell your boss that I should be delighted to work for him. Now then, how about some more tea?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The man standing alone in the darkened street gazed up at the lighted turrets of Edinburgh Castle, glowing dimly through the fog. His left hand tightened around the silk scarf in his pocket. Sunday, not a good night for hunting—and the rain pelting the city for the past week had left everything soggy and damp and smelling of mildew. Weary of battling the inclement weather, people were staying home. Instead of venturing out to the pubs, they were bundled up in front of their fires, sipping tea laced with whisky or hot buttered rum. Useless sods, he thought as a fat rat scuttled out from behind a trash bin and down a sewer grate.
He stepped into a covered alley as the rain began to spit from the sky again, coming down in thin, sharp shards. Standing next to a rain barrel filled to the brim, he shook the droplets from his coat and leaned against the cold stone wall of the near building. He fingered the scarf in his pocket with longing. Plying his trade on a night like this was too risky; the city was too quiet, and someone was likely to spot him. When the streets were filled with roaming hordes of revelers, he was much less likely to stand out or be remembered. Discretion was part of his code, being very much the better part of valor.
If someone were by chance to see a prostrate form lying in some deserted wynd or close, it might at first appear to be another drunken hoodlum, hardly worth a second glance. He liked to keep a vigil near the corpse, reliving his triumph. And when somebody took the trouble to look closer, he would be there to see the expressions of astonishment and horror as his handiwork was discovered. But by the time the police were summoned, he would be well away—no point in pushing his luck.
He sighed and rested his head against the wall, thinking of the last one. Not nearly as pretty as Stephen Wycherly, but fresh and sturdy and so very strong, like a young ox. Not strong enough, of course—none of them were, in the end. Brimming with anger—oh, how the young man had wanted a fight! He closed his eyes now, feeling the muscular flesh against his as the victim struggled. His groin tightened at the thought of the taut, firm body he had held the power of life and death over. One more twist of the ligature, and he could extinguish that life as easily as blowing out a candle. He almost felt regret, recalling a fleeting impulse to let this one live—not from pity or compassion, but from a desire to prolong the experience.
His groin swelled, pressing against the cloth of his linen pants, his breath deepening as his grip on the scarf tightened. With his other hand, he liberated his engorged flesh, stroking it as he contemplated his latest conquest. He thought about the young man’s breath, so hot and hoarse in his ear, and how he pressed his face against the fellow’s cheek as he twisted the scarf tighter around his neck. Just as his victim was about to lose consciousness, he released his grip, allowing him to breathe for a while before pulling the ligature taut again . . .
Sweetness flooded his limbs, and he shuddered with spasms as his seed spurted out, mingling with the rain as it fell upon the already drenched cobblestones. He watched it trickle into the gutter, to be carried into the city’s underground sewer system to mingle with the sins of an entire populace. A smile lifted the corner of his mouth as he splashed his hands in the water gushing from a spout above the rain barrel.
He closed his eyes again, but this time his father’s voice rang in his ears.
“Useless! How can anyone be so weak and useless?”
His forehead burned with shame at the memory, and he tried to shake it from his brain, but that just made it burrow in deeper, like an evil parasite.
“Why can’t you be a proper man like your brother? What are you? A weak old woman! Pick yourself up and come at him again!”
The alley he was standing in vanished, replaced by the fenced-in yard behind the crofter’s hut of his childhood. He could feel the sod beneath his feet, soft and slippery, so hard to get a firm footing in. He saw the white plumes of his father’s breath in the damp air, heard his brother’s wheezy breathing, as he inhaled the sour smell of his own terror. Wiping the sweat from his clammy forehead, he staggered toward his brother, fists flailing. From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of his mother’s white, terrified face peering out from the kitchen window.
He was eight years old, his brother two years older.
He moaned like a wounded animal at the memory, clutching his head as the darkness threatened to swallow him. Oh, there was so much evil in a man, one hardly knew where to begin . . .
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE