plate with stew, as if the action could anchor her in normalcy.
There was nothing normal about this. Grey’s very blood ran cold at the thought of her enduring whatever her uncle—her uncle, for God’s sake—had dished out. “So he . . . never touched you.”
Her back went rigid. “Well, of course he touched me. But he always tried to disguise it as . . . perfectly natural. A hard hug that pressed my breasts against him, a ‘friendly’ slap on the behind, a lingering kiss to my cheek so he could get close enough to look down the front of my . . . gowns.”
“Gowns? So he made a regular practice of such attentions.”
“Oh yes,” she said in a guilt-ridden voice that infuriated him on her behalf.
When she fell silent and came over to place a heaping plate of stew opposite hers on the table, then stood there slicing bread to add to his plate, he resisted the urge to pepper her with questions.
“Tell me everything, sweetheart.”
When she continued to say nothing, he approached her from behind. It disturbed him that she wouldn’t look at him. She had no reason to be ashamed.
He curled his hands into fists, wishing her uncle Armie wasn’t dead so Grey could beat him to death. “How old were you when it started?”
“I don’t know—sixteen? My grandmother was still alive.”
She’d been only a girl, for God’s sake. Grey could hardly bear to think of it.
“After his wife, my aunt, died,” she went on, “it was just me and him most of the time. And the servants, of course. Grandpapa was gone, Joshua was posted abroad, Grandmama was consumptive, and Uncle Armie was lord of the manor in every way you might imagine. It made it hard for me to escape him.”
So the bastard had used his power over her to try forcing her to his will. Grey’s every feeling revolted to think of what she’d suffered, but he kept silent, wanting to give her the freedom to talk about it. It was important to discuss such things. He’d never had that chance during the time his aunt and uncle had tried bending him to their will. He’d felt all alone . . . until Vanessa had grown old enough to listen.
Even then, he hadn’t told her everything, not wanting to poison her feelings for her parents, since they’d never treated her ill.
He shook off the memory. This wasn’t about his suffering but Beatrice’s, which he genuinely wanted to understand. He said nothing, but simply laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“It started with him commenting on my clothing—whether it enhanced my breasts, whether it showed my . . . bottom to good effect.” As Grey swallowed his disgust, she left him to roam the kitchen like a caged sparrow seeking a way out of her prison. “Then he began . . . trying to kiss me on the lips, but I mostly managed to avoid that. He was, after all, a good bit older than I, so I was usually able to evade his . . . attentions.”
“You shouldn’t have had to.”
“No. But he was my uncle. He had me . . . under his thumb, so to speak.”
Other questions occurred to him. “Didn’t your grandmother try to put a stop to it?”
“I didn’t tell her.” She stared down at her hands. “Grandmama already thought me a ‘naughty saucebox,’ so I was afraid she would blame me for what he did.”
“And that would have been wrong, too,” he said hoarsely.
Startled, she glanced up at him. “Do you truly think so?”
Her reaction made him want to weep, and he’d never wept in his life, even when Uncle Eustace had been at his worst. “His behavior was intolerable, sweetheart. And he forced you into hiding it by making you think that knowledge of it would wound his mother, your grandmother.”
“It would have,” she said with her usual bluntness.
“Perhaps. But from what the servants told me, his wife had known about his ‘dalliances.’ So your grandmother might already have known, too.”
She poured claret in a glass and set it by the plate. When he ignored it, she drank some herself. “The maids suffered much the same treatment as I, so she might have seen that. Though he was careful to keep his behavior toward me from being seen by anyone.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” he said softly. “One of the maids told me your uncle wasn’t ‘circumspect’ about his dalliances. And when I remarked that he surely