Confessions at Midnight by Jacquie D'Alessandro Page A

good."
    "Ain't cheeky to tell the truth," Samuel said, his countenance and tone perfectly serious. "I promised I'd never lie to ye, and I won't. Always the brutal truth is what ye'll git from me, milord."
    "Thank you, although I think we need to work on making it a bit less brutal." He shot the glass a doubtful look. "What is that?"
    "Recipe I learned from the barkeep at a pub in Leeds called the Slaughtered Pig. Weevil were his name. Used to call him Evil Weevil."
    "How delightful. However, I made it a rule long ago to not drink things inspired by people named Evil."
    "Oh, Evil knew wot he was about, milord," Samuel said in that same serious tone. "You drink that and in twenty minutes you'll be glad ye did. Folks at the Slaughtered Pig swore by it."
    "Well, with a recommendation like that, how can I refuse?" Daniel murmured. He picked up the glass then shrugged. Why not? He'd be hard pressed to feel much worse. He took a swallow. And barely refrained from spewing the mouthful across the table.
    "Good God," he managed to croak as a shudder ran through him. The look he treated Samuel to should have skewered the lad to the floor. "I've never tasted anything so vile."
    "Never said it tasted good," Samuel said, annoyingly impervious to the skewering look. "Suck it right down, milord, all at once."
    Not convinced that the cure wasn't going to kill him, Daniel drank the entire contents, then set down the glass with enough force to shatter the crystal. "
Blech
."
    "Ye'll be sayin' 'thank ye' in less than twenty minutes."
    "Excellent. However, I intend to say '
blech'
until then."
    Samuel shot him an unrepentant grin. "A fresh cup of coffee for ye, milord?"
    "Please. Anything that might help chase the
blech
away."
    Daniel watched the young man move toward the sideboard, and the area around his heart squeezed with pride. Samuel was certainly not the same destitute, desperate, and physically ill footpad he'd met a year ago on a cold, rainy night in Bristol when the lad tried to rob him. He had easily foiled the attempt, so easily he'd at first thought his assailant, who could barely stand, was intoxicated. But when the young man collapsed at his feet, Daniel realized that in addition to being filthy and dressed in rags, his assailant was burning up with fever. And looked as if he hadn't had a decent meal in months.
    Sympathy and whispers from the past he'd refused to acknowledge shoved aside his annoyance at being targeted, and instead of turning the ill young man over to the authorities, Daniel carried him back to the inn where he was staying and summoned a doctor.
    The lad hovered between life and death for three days, murmuring in his delirium of abuses he'd apparently suffered, things Daniel prayed hadn't actually occurred. On the fourth day his fever finally broke and Daniel found himself being studied through the narrowed eyes of a weak but lucid patient who, after a bit of coaxing, identified himself as Samuel Travers, age seventeen. It required a great deal of convincing to assure the lad that he meant him no harm, did not plan to turn him over to the authorities, and harbored no designs on him. The assurances Samuel needed convinced Daniel that, sadly, the nightmarish scenario the lad had alluded to during his feverish rantings had indeed happened.
    At first Samuel refused to believe that Daniel had helped him "just fer the hell of it" with nothing to gain for himself, but over the course of the next several days he slowly came to accept it as the truth. While Samuel rested and ate and regained his strength, they shared stories of their lives, and a tentative trust was forged between them. Samuel told Daniel of his mother's death when he was five, leaving him with no one save a drunkard uncle to look after him. Of never having a true home after his mother died. Of being forced to steal in order to eat. Of moving from town to town to avoid the law. Of finally running away at the age of twelve and doing his best to fend for