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who didn’t care that millions were dying.
    She crossed to the bed and lowered herself down onto the unsteady frame, her corset creaking slightly. She stared at her own bread for a moment before putting it aside, her stomach roiling with sadness and suddenly a good dose of anger at how cruel life was.
    Matthew’s gaze flicked to her grain-stuffed bread, a wary beastie considering a leftover bit of feed. Wondering if he could get it or if it belonged to another in his pack. “Are you not going to eat that?”
    She bit down on her lower lip, sucking back a cry of fury that he had come to this. She needed to hear what he’d done back in Ireland, but she couldn’t deny him a bit of food first. Not when he looked like a starved hound. “No, Matthew. I’m full to bursting.”
    As soon as he choked down the last bite of his bread and cheese, he reached for hers. Drawing in a slow breath, he turned the slice over in his palms, and then his face creased into a mask of sorrow. It was a horrible thing to behold, her brother’s face twisting up. Tears slicked his lashes and then tumbled down his cheeks. “Oh Christ, Mag Pie.”
    The use of her nickname nearly undid her. It was all she could do not to throw herself down to the floor and pull him beside her so that they might cling to each other. But she stayed on the bed. Still. Unwilling to break. She’d be strong for him and she would not cry. She’d never cry or wail again. Her mother’s carryings-on had taught her the futility of such madness. “What is it?” she whispered.
    He turned that piece of bread over and over until at last it began to fumble apart. “I—I—”
    “Get it out, Matthew,” she said harshly. She’d learned so long ago that a soft touch and a loving word changed so little and often kept the sufferer in their suffering. No. It was better to face up to the ugliness of the world.
    He nodded and wiped the back of his hand over his eyes. “I killed someone.”
    She said nothing. She was not surprised. She’d seen his temper flare. And yet her stomach dropped to the floor, her innards heavy as stones.
    “You remember the Boyles?”
    She gave a small sound of acknowledgment. She didn’t dare do anything more. She could only recall old Danny Boyle. He’d survived the famine to see two of his sons, ten and twelve years old, transported to Australia for stealing corn. After that, he’d barely been able to work his fields and feed his other six children.
    “The new lord over at Axely Hall . . .” Matthew swallowed several times as if the bread was stuck in his throat. “He came in and decided to clear. The rents just don’t match the price of cattle.”
    She choked back her own anger, knowing it wouldn’t serve her. “And?”
    Matthew lifted his face, the tear tracks glistening in the weak candlelight. “He sent in the army to evict them.”
    It was nothing she hadn’t heard before. But she felt the fury building within her. A fury that did her no good, but it was there all the same.
    “The youngest, Nancy, she’d been sick with the consumption. Poor girl only had days . . . Couldn’t barely catch her breath for the coughing. And I’d come to lend my support. She was such a sweet little thing. And—”
    Margaret closed her eyes. “Whom did you kill?”
    “A lieutenant. He knocked Nancy down when she couldn’t move fast enough. Called her a lazy, stupid cow. They burned down the cottage.” Matthew’s face whitened with the memory. “And the rage. It just came upon me. I fetched up one of the cottage stones and dashed it at his head.”
    “Oh, Matthew,” Margaret gasped. With one blow, her brother had ruined his life . . . Not that he hadn’t already been on a dangerous path.
    Matthew’s hands curled into fists. “You can’t say I didn’t do right in helping Nancy. In fighting injustice.”
    She wanted to scream. Her entire body was trembling with anger and helplessness. “Will it help them?” she forced herself to