Page 28 of The Last Crimes of Peregrine Hind
“And so you became a fearsome highwayman entirely incidentally.”
Peregrine leaned his head back against the wall, watching the rain sluice down the small window’s warped panes. “It was the only thing that felt right,” he admitted. “I had no farm left, no family, and I couldn’t make myself go back to the army. And I liked how it felt, taking from these people who had so much and giving it to the people who had so little. Soon others joined me, Lyd—your relation by marriage, you know—joined me too.”
“Lydia,” Alexander breathed, shaking his head against Peregrine’s chest in disbelief. “I hadn’t seen her since she was a girl, but I should have known it was her. No wonder she was so excited to rob Judith.”
Peregrine made a noise of assent.
“I know it means very little in the face of what you’ve lost, but I couldn’t be sorrier for what Reginald has done to you and those you loved,” Alexander said. “And thank you for telling me what happened, even though I’m probably the last person you want to share your past with.”
The rain was so loud, so insistent, but it was almost soothing now, like it was washing away everything that wasn’t this moment, that wasn’t Alexander cuddled sweetly against Peregrine’s chest.
“You’re the only one I’ve ever told the entire story to,” Peregrine said. “I don’t know why I’ve never told anyone else—I suppose because it hurt so much to think about. It hurt to think that I sailed off and left my family at the mercy of the world. I never even had the chance to apologize for how I failed them. Their graves were already sprouting grass by the time I’d returned.”
“Oh, Peregrine,” Alexander said softly. “It wasn’t your fault. If you’d been here, you wouldn’t have been able to stop Reginald either. In fact, you might be dead of that same fever too.”
Peregrine had to concede that this was true.
“And,” Alexander added, “perhaps it hurts precisely because you haven’t told anyone. You’ve been carrying it alone, when no one should carry something like that inside their own minds and nowhere else.”
“That’s very wise.”
“Well,” Alexander murmured, tucking his hands inside Peregrine’s coat, “people have always said that wisdom is my greatest virtue.”
“They have not.”
“You’re right,” Alexander said, clearly fighting a yawn. “You’ve already had my greatest virtue spending all over the wall of your family home.”
Peregrine snorted, and together they subsided into a gentle silence, which was all the gentler for the harsh rememberings which had come before it.
Peregrine was used to the past feeling like a broken mirror inside him, like what had happened existed only in shards and splinters in his memory, glinting and ready to cut. But this was the first time he’d ever told the entire story aloud, with all its crimes and abuses, and in the order that they’d happened. It slotted all his memories into their proper places, and now that he’d fitted the pieces of the mirror together, he could finally see what it reflected. Still horror, still pain—but it no longer felt like it was slicing him with every step he took.
He was still angry, yes, but now the anger was inside him, and not the other way around.
After four years, it was like a gift and being unmade at the same time. He felt picked apart at the seams; he felt like an unstitched doll, or the pieces of a coat laid out on a tailor’s table. He didn’t know what to do with himself. The only thing he did know was that the unstitching was all to do with the man in his arms, the man who’d made him smile and laugh and—and hope—after these many years of living in his broken-mirror world.
He held his lover, who’d now drifted all the way off to sleep, tighter and tried not to think about what would happen if Alexander left him. If he couldn’t keep this sweet, spoiled rake for his own.
The rain died down a few hours later, and Alexander stirred as Peregrine carefully extracted himself from their embrace and went to ready the horse. The younger man was yawning in the doorway as Peregrine approached with his saddled mount.
“We should go back to the priory,” said Peregrine.
Alexander blinked at him. His cheeks were flushed from sleep, his hair tousled, and his eyes pupil-blown from the dim interior of the longhouse. “Am I still your prisoner?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” Peregrine said, just as quietly. “Will you try to escape again if you are?”
“Yes,” replied Alexander. “Will you try to catch me again?”
Peregrine looked at him. “Do you want me to?”
Alexander looked at the ground, his lashes long against his cheeks and his breathing deep as if he were confronting some uncomfortable truth. Finally, he answered. “Yes.”
Peregrine’s own breath stuttered and then filled his lungs, as if Alexander’s answer were the only air he needed to breathe. Whatever was between them wouldn’t end now, thank every god and spirit who’d ever been worshipped in these lonely hills.
With heady relief and an even headier greed coursing through his veins, Peregrine held out his hand to take Alexander’s, and with hands linked, they began to walk down the lane, Peregrine leading the horse behind them.
Ten
Peregrine
