Chapter 37 Sebastian
Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
Dust coated everything in the cramped office.
Ledgers sat in piles beside a broken quill and a once-polished brass scale.
I pulled a book from the shelf and cracked it open, the pages brittle as dried leaves.
At first the entries echoed the Company’s official manifests: indigo, saltpetre, textiles.
Then, near the back, I uncovered a second column marked only with initials and vague destinations.
Crates doubled. Revenues unreported. Worse still, opium, silver, and private commissions tied to men whose names I knew well.
My grandfather’s among them. And Colonel Grenville’s.
I recognized Hugh’s handwriting.
This was not careless bookkeeping. It was a parallel trade network, a second fortune siphoned from Indian laborers, unregulated, unrecorded, and unpunished.
A curse slipped from my lips.
I had been deceived, paraded before Parliament as a respectable front, even sent to argue with Wilberforce and Carey, never imagining my own grandfather could sink so low.
Finally, the connection between the two old men—tied across the continent through vice—made sense.
Colonel Grenville had saved my grandfather’s life and demanded payment for his silence. Later, he had stumbled across my grandfather’s operation and demanded a cut, ensuring that Kitty would become one of the richest heiresses in England.
No wonder the Iron Colonel had kept her hidden from every lord and fortune hunter who might sniff out the truth.
They needed a Company man to preserve the empire they had built. They needed a fool like me.
I had been too wild, too drunk, too much a rakehell to see what was happening right under my nose while Hugh and Julien likely knew the extent of the Sinclair enterprise.
Perhaps Hugh hadn’t died because of me . . . Perhaps it had been due to our family’s smuggling.
My only consolation was having Kitty as my wife—a divine twist if there ever was one. I would never regret her.
Nausea and rage bubbled at the knowledge that we had been intentionally misled.
A startled cry echoed through the cavernous storage area and pierced my chest. I dropped the ledger, my heart nearly stopping at the sound of Kitty in distress. I rushed from the room and pulled out a pistol, then forced myself to slow and tread carefully.
There, at the end of a row of stacked crates ready for delivery to the docks, stood my wife, her chin raised as she stood before Julien . . . and my grandfather.
I raised my pistol and took aim, my pulse hammering in my throat as Julien held a gun pointed at Kitty.
“I know you’re there, boy,” Lord Sinclair called. “Come forward, Sebastian. We shall handle this as a family matter and discuss it as gentlemen ought.”
“Gentlemen?” I couldn’t keep the irony out of my voice. “Is that what we Sinclairs are? Gentlemen?”
My grandfather stepped into Kitty’s candlelight, a pistol in his hand as well. “Good heavens, I insist you put that gun down immediately.”
I hesitated.
He motioned with his own gun. “I won’t let my grandchildren hurt each other. Down, both of you.”
Julien also hesitated, hatred flashing in his eyes before his hand dropped and he handed his pistol over to Lord Sinclair. I placed mine on the ground and moved forward.
How brave Kitty appeared. My pulse sped as I considered how to remove her from the situation.
“You and Colonel Grenville have been siphoning from the Company,” I accused when I halted beside her.
“All men come to India for their fortune. As a second son, I had no inheritance waiting for me in England. Same for Katherine’s grandfather.
” My grandfather spat the words like a justification.
“I built an enterprise over decades. Tea, indigo, opium—legitimate exports. But the ledgers had to balance, and the Company never asked too many questions if the profits flowed. Do you think we are the only men of the Company to take what we need?”
He cast a glance at Julien, who watched in silence, his jaw tight.
“I never meant for Grenville to know of my operation. Somehow that blasted man stumbled across one of my transport manifests—one I never intended anyone to see.”
“So he blackmailed you,” I said coldly.
“He negotiated,” my grandfather corrected, lips thinning.
“He was no fool. A soldier with no prospects, no title, but ambition as strong as any Parliament man. I gave him a portion in exchange for his silence. He could do what he liked so long as he stayed in the dark. And he did. Richard Grenville bought land in England, wed an heiress, and fathered a son who proved . . . problematic. The wife died soon after, which left him free to pursue other ambitions. The son, however, refused to fall in line.”
Kitty gasped beside me and my gut roiled.
“You killed my father!” my wife cried out, sounding strangled.
“Aye. He no longer held to our interests. Developed a conscience and threatened to expose us to the nizam and the world. It was all too easy to slip him poison, despite Colonel Grenville’s protests that James could be turned.
I knew better. Everyone assumed it was simply another act of war between the French and the British. ”
“And then,” I said quietly, “Grenville demanded his grandchildren.”
My grandfather didn’t flinch as he met my wife’s gaze.
“He said they would be kept hidden, away from scandal. But when you began asking questions here in India—I knew you would ruin everything no matter how many years had passed. Asking for your mother in Hyderabad proved a mistake, child. My spies tell me everything, and I could not have the nizam assume I was responsible.”
A slow dread chilled my bones. The stranger following us in the market, the rifling through our home had been ordered by the man I had most tried to please.
I shifted closer to Kitty, my gaze on Lord Sinclair, who held a gun on me. “You were willing to marry her off to me to keep the bloodlines quiet and keep the money flowing between the Sinclairs and the Grenvilles.”
“It was your chance at redemption,” my grandfather snarled. “You were an embarrassment. This arrangement gave you a path forward. Clean hands, and a wife with a massive dowry to bring into our family. The money I gave Grenville returned home at long last.”
I stared at him, revolted.
“She was never your pawn,” I growled. “Nor am I. I will expose every last lie and send reports to the governor—unless you bribed him too. I will formally apologize to William Wilberforce and return to Parliament and share what I’ve seen directly if no one will hear me.”
“I told you Sebastian would prove incapable of stepping into the next director’s role,” Julien said as he edged forward.
“I have no desire to be director,” I said.
“You think you can walk away from this?” Julien barked. “You think either of you can expose what we’ve built? I won’t let you destroy everything Grandfather and I have tried to build. This ought to be my company.”
“Eventually the truth will come out,” Kitty said. “You cannot hide these sins forever. Why would you want to hurt your family in such a manner? Does Sebastian mean nothing to you?”
“I need no family, no mercy, and certainly no sanctimonious brother playing at righteousness,” Julien spat. His hand slipped inside his coat. The gleam of a second pistol flashed as he drew it and twisted toward Kitty.
I fumbled for mine as a ringing reverberated through my ears. But I was too slow. In that split second I saw his arm swing, the barrel rising toward her heart.
With a rush of instinct, I leapt in front of her and tugged my second pistol free just as the shot rang out.
Pain ripped through my side, heat blooming across my ribs. I staggered, the warehouse tilting. Kitty’s scream was the last thing I heard before the floor caught me.
Through blurred vision, I saw Lord Sinclair’s face twisted in horror—not at me, but at Julien.
Their eyes locked, decades of rot rising between them.
“Come to think of it,” Julien added, his expression dead, “I don’t need you either, Grandfather.”
“Foolish boy!” my grandfather roared. His arm snapped up, pistol aimed squarely at Julien.
Julien fired again, and the room exploded with sound—a blast reverberating as Lord Sinclair jerked, clutching his side. Almost in the same breath, my grandfather’s pistol answered. Gunsmoke thickened, sharp with the scent of metal.
Julien collapsed without a word, blood seeping into the wood. My grandfather swayed, his skin ashen, and then he slowly crumpled to the floor.
Two hands drew my face away from the fallen house of Sinclair and guided my gaze to the angelic image hovering over me. Kitty, biting her lip, her eyes shimmering.
“Foolish, beautiful man,” she whispered through tears as she cradled my head in her lap. “You would take a bullet for me.”
I wanted to speak—to tell her how much I loved her—but fiery pain cut into my ribs, stealing my breath, and my vision faded to black.