Run Wild (Escape with a Scoundrel) - By Shelly Thacker Page 0,73
us in. Welcomed us with open arms. He told us not to worry about our inheritance, our land, our money. He took control of everything.”
“You mean he stole it from you?” Nicholas guessed.
“Jess and I were both so innocent, so trusting. We thought we would be safe with him.” She looked down at the ground. “But we had only been there a few weeks when Uncle Prescott began... doing things.”
She pulled out of his embrace, shivering, and somehow Nicholas knew not to reach for her, not to touch her. Not now. He let her spill the rest out, like poison from a wound that had festered too long and needed to heal.
“He would stand very close to me. Look at me in ways that didn’t seem right. Didn’t feel right. I didn’t understand at first. Even when he came to my bedroom one night.” She lifted her head, staring up into the dark sky. “I was so naive that it was beyond my ability to comprehend what he could possibly want. He was my uncle. I never guessed—”
“Samantha,” Nicholas interjected gently, “hadn’t your mother ever told you anything about men and women? Anything at all?”
She shook her head, her voice wavering. “Mother always said that when we were older, on our wedding day, she would explain everything... but she never... she never got that chance.” She wiped at her eyes again. “Uncle Prescott told me that he was concerned about me, that he wanted to tuck me in. When it became clear what he really wanted, I fought him. He kept telling me he wouldn’t hurt me.” Her voice became a whisper. “I fought him so hard that he broke my arm.”
Nicholas clenched his fists, filled with a violent urge to kill this son of a bitch.
“It threw him into a panic. He told me to explain to everyone that I had fallen—and he threatened that he would throw me and Jessica out if I breathed a word, to my aunt or to anyone.”
“So you left,” Nicholas concluded.
She shook her head. “I was sixteen,” she whispered. “I was afraid. If I’d had only myself to worry about, I wouldn’t have spent another night in that house... but I had to think about my sister. Jess was only fourteen, and she was so fragile. I knew she wouldn’t survive on the streets. And we didn’t have any money—he controlled every shilling of it.” She ran a hand along a tear in her skirt, over and over. “I was always the strong one. I had to protect my sister.”
Nicholas stared at her, stunned at what she had been willing to face for the love of her sister. He had always considered her gutsy, for a woman.
But he had never suspected the true depth of courage and caring she possessed.
“When my arm healed, he started again.” She sighed as if wearied by her story, by the telling of it, by the weight of her memories. “Then that winter, Jessica fell ill. I wasn’t strong enough for her this time. I couldn’t help her.” Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. “She died, so quickly. And I was... alone.”
The way she said the last word tore through him. He knew exactly what it was to feel alone, desolate. Somehow her pain made him feel his own more vividly than he had in years. It was as if her anguish, her grief, poured through his blood, his heart.
She didn’t protest this time when he reached out and pulled her into his arms. She sagged against him, letting him hold her.
“I-I tried to slip away the next morning, but Uncle Prescott tricked me. He locked me in his library while my aunt was out, and he... he cornered me. He had me down on his desk, and he almost...” She couldn’t speak for a moment. “But I grabbed a pen-knife and used it to defend myself. I stabbed him.”
“It was self-defense,” Nicholas said adamantly. “You stabbed him in self-defense.”
“The warrant,” she said bitterly, “reads attempted murder. I was covered with blood. My uncle yelled for the servants and told everyone I had gone mad with grief, that I should be put in an asylum. He tried to have me arrested. But I managed to get away before the marshalmen came. I ran and...”
“Never stopped running,” he finished for her. He knew the rest.
She was crying again, exhausted, weary tears. The tears of a woman who had spent too many years running.