Page 46

“Aye, but it is,” he replied, his eyes glinting with mischief. “I can’t watch him forever, you know. It’s becoming harder and harder for me to leave this place.” He looked around the room. So, he did live here. “I need to pass the responsibility on to someone else.”

“I’m not responsible for a man,” she said, irritation flaring.

“You are responsible for each other.” He held up a finger. “Key difference.”

“It’s not what I want.”

“Really?”

Did this man not know when to quit? “I’m done with this. You had no business poking your nose into my business.”

“Yet I don’t care. You’ll find I was right, in the end.”

“Unlikely,” she replied dryly. And she began walking back toward the door standing between her and Ollie.

“Wait.” He sounded desperate. But surely, that was wrong.

Evelyn clenched her teeth and spun around. “What now?”

The thief hesitated briefly, but then he took off his hat. And then, slowly, he reached up to the mask and lifted it off, finally revealing the face beneath it.

It took a moment for her mind to comprehend what she was seeing. Evelyn gasped and her hand flew to her mouth.

*

Ollie swore out loud. What in the blazes were they doing in there? He could hear low, murmured talking, but not what they were saying. Evelyn was annoyed, and the thief was amused by it. That was all he could figure out. He banged on the door again, but it was no use.

At least she wasn’t in distress.

Finally, after what felt like ages, the door clicked, and he straightened. Evelyn appeared in the door opening, as white as a ghost.

Immediately, the world around Ollie disappeared and he cradled her face in his hands. “What’s the matter? Did he hurt you?”

She only shook her head.

“Did he say something to upset you?”

But she shook her head again, still silent.

“I’ll kill him,” Ollie growled out in a dangerous voice. The thief had done something to her, and he would murder the man for it. With long, heavy strides, Ollie crossed the room to the man standing before the portrait of the black-haired woman, his back to Ollie.

Funny, the thief had black hair too.

Wait.

His hat was off. Ollie looked around. The tricorn hat lay on the floor.

And so did the mask.

“What the blazes did you do to her?” Ollie demanded to the thief’s back. “If you laid a finger on her, kiss your life goodbye because you’re a dead man.”

“I didn’t do anything to her.”

“Then why is she so terrified?”

“Because she saw my face.”

Ollie immediately thought about Dantes. The way his brother had often hid his face because of the deep scar.

The pain it had caused him all these years later.

Too many times, Ollie had heard people snicker at Dantes.

People thought the man didn’t care about his scar because the rest of him was big and powerful.

He was a famous pugilist, after all. But Ollie had seen the pain it had put in his brother’s heart.

He had seen the pain it had also caused Victor, who, like Ollie, couldn’t help his suffering brother. They could only watch from the side.

In thinking about them, Ollie found he missed his family.

A little.

“What is it about your face?” Ollie decided that was the gentlest way to ask.

The thief ignored the question. “May I ask you something?”

Ollie glanced over his shoulder at Evelyn, who stood off to the side watching them, her eyebrows pulled together severely, her lips pursed.

He put his attention back on the thief. He could force the man to turn around, if he wanted to.

But as much as he hated to admit it, he was a bit afraid of what he would find.

When Ollie didn’t respond, the thief continued. “Are you happy you married Evelyn?”

Ollie looked back at Evelyn again and she looked away.

He swallowed hard. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Answer the question, please.”

“Oh, well, since you said please ,” Ollie replied, buying time.

Why would he admit anything out loud for everyone to hear?

What purpose would that serve? They had already made a decision.

He wanted to give Evelyn what would make her happy, and a separation was what she wanted. “No, I’m not happy I married Evelyn.”

It felt as if a deep crack had divided his heart in two.

The thief was quiet a long time, as if contemplating Ollie’s response. “Do you know who this woman is, in the painting?”

“No, nor do I care. Why did you get that wedding set up? Why did you put together a ceremony for us and have us show up there not realizing what we were walking into?”

“I thought it was what you needed.”

Ollie scoffed. “Is that any of your business to decide that?”

“Actually, yes, it is.” The thief, in his dramatic nature, chose this moment to turn around and reveal himself.

Ollie stared with his mouth open, his brain stilling along with his heart. But once he was able to recover from the shock, he pointed at the thief and shouted, “You!”

Because Ollie was staring at…well…himself.

A shorter, slightly older version of himself, that is. The man’s hair was a few shades darker, like Victor’s hair, and his eyes were brown and not green. But otherwise? They were twins. It was like looking in a mirror.

“You were in my pub!” Ollie continued, now furious.

But why was he furious? Why was anger burning through him as if he were dried kindling?

He rushed forward and grabbed the man’s shirt with a death grip.

He wanted to hit the thief, he wanted to scream at him, shake him, do all kinds of ghastly things to the man.

Evelyn shrieked and ran forward, trying to pull Ollie away.

But the thief didn’t react. He took it all, as if he’d expected this reaction.

“Ollie, stop it!” Evelyn choked out as she pulled at his sleeve. “Let go of him!”

Ollie immediately let go and felt his throat go tight. “Who are you?” he asked. “ Who are you? ”

The thief held a guarded, blank expression. “I’m your uncle, Eamon Lydon. I like to tell the police I’m Bollocks, though.” He grinned a sickeningly familiar grin.

Ollie, however, did not find this funny in the least, and his attention went to the painting of the woman.

In the moment, looking upon her helped calm him a bit. “My brothers—they know about you, don’t they?”

Eamon’s humor fell away. “Aye.”

“They never told me about you. They said we had no Irish family in London.”

Eamon didn’t respond.

Realization hit him. “They kept you away from us.”

“No, they kept me away from you .”

All this time, Ollie had had more family.

Family that looked like him. Throughout his life, he had commented on the way he didn’t resemble Victor or Dantes, both of whom strongly took after their father.

And they’d never once said anything about it, knowing they had an uncle who looked almost identical to Ollie.

This was far worse than Victor banishing him from his own business.

Ollie’s insides felt like they were being shredded apart. “Why?”

Eamon let out a sigh. “When we were children, you always followed me around.”

Ollie shook his head, confused.

“I was in the same street gang as you, boyo. I was the baby of my family, and your mum was the oldest. There were seven siblings between us. Our parents—your grandparents—and many of our siblings died from cholera not long after your dad died. The rest, who were all adults like Honora, went back to Galway, where we’re from.

” He nodded over to one of the green, painted landscapes.

“She took me in and I lived with you and your brothers. Then she died, and the four of us—you, me, your brothers—joined that street gang, as we had no one else to look out for us.” Eamon paused.

“You and I went everywhere together. We had a grand time.” Eamon grinned widely again.

“Wee baby Oliver toddling after me. Even when I didn’t want you to.

You’d wail if I went anywhere without you. But I mostly enjoyed it.”

Ollie frowned. It bothered him that his uncle had been such a big part of his early years, yet Victor and Dantes had hidden his existence from him.

“That still doesn’t explain why no one told me about you,” Ollie added.

Eamon shrugged. “If I had to assume anything, that was all Victor’s decision. Jealousy, maybe? Concern?”

“Why would he be concerned?”

Eamon gave him a sad smile. “I often went into the rich neighborhoods with you, and we would lift whatever we needed from their homes. Food, clothes, money. Jewelry.”

Ollie rubbed his forehead. “I have a few very hazy memories of going into those types of houses and taking things. I thought that was with Victor.”

Eamon shook his head. “That was with me. I even taught you how to pick locks. You followed me everywhere and it drove Victor mad. And then I guess a few times, he took you to places that he’d lift from, and it distressed him seeing his baby brother’s wee hand taking things without a thought.

Not long after that, he tracked down your dad’s family. ”

Ollie stilled. That wasn’t the story he knew. “They always told me my grandparents found us.”

“No. But Victor lied about that to Edmond—sorry, Dantes—too. Victor wanted to get you especially out of Whitechapel. He saw how it had turned your brothers into street rats and he saw you were becoming one, too. Victor told me he contacted your grandparents, and that you all would be gone for good and I couldn’t go with.

Then he pushed me and told me to stay away from you forever. ”

Ollie clenched his jaw.

“Of course…” Eamon’s face became filled with mischief. “My sister, when she started spiraling not long before she died, told me to keep an eye on you if something happened to her. And so I did both. I watched you grow up, watched you make a fool of yourself at Oxford with the ladies.”

Ollie shook his head at himself and hoped Evelyn hadn’t heard that part.