Mark of Caine Trilogy: Book One: Hidden in the Shadows (Victorian Villains) Read Online Free

be so I should think. You
always were the lucky one of the two of us.”
    “Where have you been, Tanner? The last I
heard, you were in the Navy.” Branson’s voice was clipped and dry.
    Tanner crossed his arms over his chest. “Where
did you hear that? I thought you never left the hallowed halls of commerce in
London.”
    Branson ignored the barb. “Why did you give
it up? I should have thought you would enjoy following in your father’s
footsteps.”
    “I might’ve done, but I was dishonourably discharged
for reasons I do not wish to go into.”
    He hesitated for a moment as though making
up his mind about something. And then:
    “Did your mother ever tell you how your
father died?”
    “He was drowned at sea, a common enough
hazard for a sailor. Why?”
    “There is more to the story. Our fathers
were on the same whaling vessel when it went down. There were four of them; my
father, your father Tobias Reilly, and two others. They were trapped in the
cargo hold when the ship took on water. The seawater was rushing in around
their ankles and they climbed the crates and barrels, pounding on the floor
above for someone to rescue them. But no help came. It was your father who
proposed then that they take an oath. They were facing death and each of them
had a son who would be left fatherless that day.”
    “Allow me to guess. The oath stated that if
one of them lived he should assume responsibility for the other sons. And your
father was the lucky survivor.”
    “No, none of them expected to live. The
water was up to their necks when my father remembered there was a hatch for
loading rum barrels cut into the side of the boat. It was hidden behind a stack
of crates; they had to swim down to reach it. He thought his companions were
right behind him when he escaped, but they were not. Bartholomew Caine watched the boat sink, dragging his cohorts to the
bottom of the sea. The water was frigid; he was convinced he was about to join
them in death when a small fishing vessel came into view. My father was
rescued.”
    “Where is all this leading?” Branson asked
impatiently. “I have no desire to relive your father’s past history. I wish it
was him at the bottom the ocean and not Tobias Reilly. The knowledge that my
father called him friend only makes me hate Bartholomew Caine even more.”
    “Why—do you fancy your father was morally
superior to mine? You have not asked why four sailors were shut up in the cargo
hold of a whaling ship in distress. They were prisoners , Bran. They’d been caught stealing, and one of them had
committed murder to cover up the crime. All four were being transported to back
to England where they would stand trial. The murderer in the bunch was your father—Tobias
Reilly.”
    Tanner fixed his black soulless stare on
Branson. “You are no better than me. You may fool yourself with family and
respectability for a time, but you’ll revert to your true nature. What is bred
in your bone is the same thing that is bred in mine. Those four criminals on
the whaling ship swore an oath in their final hours. Unrepentant to the end,
they vowed their sons would follow in their footsteps. Murder, greed, and
ruthlessness are the gifts our fathers bestowed on us with their dying breaths.
We have inherited their evil. We have been baptized with a curse.”
    Branson grabbed Tanner Caine by the lapels and shook him. “You are lying. You are your father through and
through—as vicious as he ever was.”
    “As you are like yours,” he spat. “You have
one or two bodies to your credit, do you not? I attended your mother’s funeral.
Did you not sense me there? I learned of her death through a notice in the
paper. I kept well out of sight. She was my mother too for six years; the only
mother I’d ever known. But she had taken you and left me behind. She chose you. Even so, I loved her. After
my father died, I thought she would send for me. You call Bartholemew Caine vicious. What was Ida Reilly when she