A Secret Ambition

XXXIII

"Our brains are wired for connection, but trauma rewires them for protection. That's why healthy relationships are difficult for wounded people." Ryan North

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XXXIII.

"I do not pretend to be educated anywhere near as well as I ought to be considering that I am a member of the House of Lords. But I do have some knowledge of the struggle in Ireland."

The duke had taken Callan's silence as an invitation to go on, and he had quite accurately picked the root cause of what had made Callan the man he had grown up to be.

But his anger pricked up. He could feel this. He knew just what to feel when he thought about a rich man pretending to feel something for the poor in Ireland. Feeling angry was easy for Callan.

Lily was still lying frozen on the table between them, too cold to wake. Feeling angry was better than feeling terrified. Callan could cope with anger. He could not cope with heartbreak, and he would not cope with loss.

"Please do not insult my intelligence, Your Grace," Callan sneered. "The English have never concerned themselves with the Irish. Our land, yes, but not our people." He stopped himself, before adding with bite, "That's a lie, I suppose. You are concerned with soliciting our backs for labour at half the wage you would give an Englishman.

"Were you waiting for the opportune moment?" he snapped, the heat rising in his chest. "Were you waiting for the perfect moment to take from me? Did you want to use me for profit, and to take my gains?"

In a part of his mind that felt very far away, Callan knew that he didn't care about this. He knew that the last thing that he was concerned with at that point in time was the fact that the Emerald Eyes was currently in her watery grave. He didn't care if he never made another penny in England.

All that he cared about was lying on the table before him.

And yet spitting venom was all that he could muster to do.

Callan wanted a fight. He was baiting the duke, hoping for a fight. He wanted to spar. He wanted to channel his fury into an argument and let it consume him. Anything to stop what was happening to his heart.

But the duke did not flinch. He barely batted an eyelid. He sat there quietly and calmly, as he had in every interaction that he had ever had with Callan. He remained holding his daughter's hand, rubbing circles on the back of her palm with his thumb, as he watched Callan with sympathy.

"I am very sorry for what has happened to you, Mr McCarthy," he murmured. "I know, more than most, I feel, just what cruelty man are capable of."

Callan's ire was nearly all consuming, and the only thing stopping him from storming from that room was the fact that his body would never release Lily's hand. Callan was enraged at this man pretending to know cruelty, while simultaneously incensed with himself that his behaviour had taken Lily's father's attention from her.

Unfortunately, his rage of the former won out. "How ever did you cope buttering your toast with a steel knife instead of a silver one, Your Grace?" Callan questioned sarcastically.

The duke was not baited. He could not be. His even temperament, given the circumstances, was almost ominous. "Sadly, a lack of quality silverware is the most many gentlemen of my rank have suffered," he returned calmly, "but I was speaking the truth. I know the cruelty of my kind because I have seen it with my own eyes, Mr McCarthy. I have seen the wickedness of the slave trade. I have seen oppression, and marital brutality. I have seen the result of merciless neglect on the innocent." The duke's voice wavered then, before he swallowed, and uttered, "And I may yet know the unthinkable pain of burying a child.