His mother stiffened but nodded. “What do you want to know?” she said in a calm voice that did not match the rest of her body.
“Well . . . I guess I wanted to know if you knew what Vincent’s last name was?”
Mrs. Hudson’s brow furrowed. “His last name?”
“Yeah, like how our last name is Hudson. And your name before you married Dad was Bonnaire. And Captain Vincent’s last name is . . . ? Pretty sure it’s not just Vincent, is it?”
Mrs. Hudson shook her head. “I never knew his surname.”
Matt found that hard to believe. Was she lying to him? To protect him or spare his feelings?
“I know that seems crazy considering how . . . well we knew each other,” his mom said, her cheeks coloring a little. “But if you understood Vincent’s history, it’s not so surprising. He hated his family. He was all too glad to shed his family name and never speak of them again. So he was always just Vincent to me. Or Vince. I never suspected anything deceitful in it. I, too, had things I never wished to speak of in my past.”
“What do you know about Vincent’s past? His family?”
Matt vaguely remembered Wiley telling him something about Vincent not getting along with his brother, that he had run away from home and that was when he’d met Belamie Bonnaire, Matt’s mom long before she was his mom.
“I know some,” Mrs. Hudson said. “Vincent didn’t like to speak of his family or his past, but he shared bits and pieces every now and then when his guard was down. Vincent was born in Cornwall, England, the second son of a wealthy lord. His father always compared him to his older brother, and Vincent always fell short. He came in second at everything. Vincent’s relationship with his father had always been strained, but it was worse with his brother. When his parents died and his older brother inherited his father’s title and estate, he took pains to make Vincent miserable. He withheld the living promised to him by his father, and just to add salt to the wound, he stole the girl Vincent had loved all through childhood. His brother didn’t care for the girl one whit, but he knew it would drive Vincent mad if he married her. So he courted her, and he being the elder brother with the lands and title and money . . . well that’s just the way things were. She was young, and her parents of course saw it as the superior match, so they became engaged. Vincent left before his brother’s wedding. He joined the Royal Navy, and we met a year or so after that. The rest you know well enough.”
Matt wondered how different things would have been for him and his family if Vincent’s brother had treated him differently, or better yet, if he’d had no brother at all. If he’d been his father’s heir, he likely never would have left home, never would have met Belamie Bonnaire and gotten so entangled in all their lives.
“Did he ever see his brother again?” Matt asked.
Mrs. Hudson hesitated a moment. She seemed uncertain as to whether she should share what she was thinking or remembering. “Only once that I know of,” she said. “After we’d been together for a few years, Vincent learned that his brother and his bride had both died. He didn’t tell me how or when it happened, or even how he had learned of it. He grew quiet and reclusive. I left him alone. I thought he was mourning the loss of his first love, and maybe even his brother a little, even if they didn’t get along. I thought maybe he’d forgiven him, because if they hadn’t quarreled Vincent never would have left home and so he never would have met me.
“One day, shortly after he’d gotten the news of his brother’s death, he asked me to take him to his brother. He told me he wanted to make amends with him, before his death. We knew he could do nothing to prevent it, but perhaps he could mend the breach between them. I thought it showed strength of character. I never would have believed he was capable of what he actually did.” She shivered and closed her eyes as though trying to block out the memory.
“I didn’t go with him,” she continued. “Vincent said he needed to go alone, and though I worried about him, I wanted to be respectful of his wishes. So I stayed with the rest of the crew on the Vermillion, as a ship at the seaside, just below Vincent’s family’s estate. I waited for him late into the night and grew increasingly uneasy. I worried something might have happened to him. I still didn’t know the details of his brother’s death, and what if Vincent was in danger? Just before dawn, I decided I had better go after him. That’s when I saw an orange glow up on the cliffs. Vincent’s family estate was engulfed in flames.
“I shouted for the crew to prepare for travel. And then I saw him. Vincent was standing at the bow of the ship, sipping a goblet of wine, watching his own family estate burn to the ground as though it were a beautiful sunrise. He smelled of smoke and kerosene.”
Matt was starting to get the picture pretty well, but his mom continued.
“I asked him what had happened,” Mrs. Hudson said. “And he told me he’d gotten wind that his brother and new bride died tragically in a fire on their wedding night, and he realized that it was he who set the fire. Just as I had been responsible for my parents’ deaths, he would be responsible for his brother’s death, only in his case he would enjoy it. Why not be the one to light the match
