Tender Mercies - By Kitty Thomas Page 0,73
the gore. She closed her eyes and listened to the crack of the whip and Lucas’s screams until they both stopped and there was silence.
“Keep them closed. This is messy, kitten.”
“Is he . . .?”
“Oh, yes. Like a doornail.”
She heard the water of the sink as he washed his hands. Then he came back and unlocked the chains from her wrists and the spreader bar from her ankles, inspecting them and running his fingers over the raw areas.
His jaw clenched when he saw her back. “Baby, this is bad. I’d like to resurrect him just to kill him again.” He took off his coat and wrapped it around her.
Grace was startled by sounds in the doorway. She opened her eyes and looked up to see servants with dark smiles etched across their faces, all too happy to help dispose of the evidence. A couple of the men had saws to cut the body up, and a matronly older woman held a bucket with hot water, sponges, and bleach. Asher had obviously given orders on his way downstairs to rescue her. He hadn’t been kidding about their disgust with the master of the house.
The woman set the bucket by the door and held a hand out to Grace. “I’ll make her some tea while you take care of the body.”
Grace looked up at Asher, careful to avoid the mess on the floor.
“Go on. I don’t want you down here while we finish.”
She followed the woman up the stairs, clutching Asher’s long coat around her body, feeling awkward that the woman had known the whole time she’d been with Lucas. But what could she do? The officials wouldn’t have stopped him, and it might have put her own safety in danger. It occurred to Grace that, once on the island, there wasn’t a huge difference between household servants and slaves. Maybe they’d become just as enslaved, depending on the goodwill of their employers for their safety and survival.
The tea was already brewing on the stove, and the woman poured some into two cups and sat at the table. She put a hand over Grace’s. “It’ll be over soon.”
The woman looked tired, as if she’d seen far too much cruelty, even from the fringes. She looked as if she’d been through war.
“I was his nanny when he was a baby, long before we came to this place. He was always so spoiled, but I never dreamed he’d become this.” Her eyes were full of sadness and guilt.
Grace drank the warm brew down, wishing they would hurry with the disposal. “Why didn’t the others help me or those before me?”
“Lots of justification and fear in this house. And Lucas kept us all away. We didn’t know details. It was easier that way to convince ourselves it wasn’t that bad, or that somehow it was consensual. He was the worst with you, I think.”
A little while later, Asher and the men came upstairs.
“Well?” the woman said.
“Incinerated. You can go take care of the clean up now.”
***
The ride home was quiet. Asher held her in his arms, stroking her hair, careful not to put any pressure on her back. He mostly thought. About Darcy. About Grace. About the whip he’d killed Lucas with. He’d finally been able to incinerate it, after he’d used it for something good.
“What if you get caught and go to prison?”
“That won’t happen. No body. No crime. And believe me, those three have so much guilt for not helping you sooner, they won’t say a thing. Plus they helped dispose of the evidence, and they have that nice, big house to live in without an asshole bossing them around all day.”
“But what if it does . . . happen?”
He sighed. Of course she’d worry about this. It was natural after what she’d experienced. “It won’t. But in the extremely unlikely event that it did, my wishes for what to do with you would be honored. Because it’s not a murder of a slave, it doesn’t invalidate my right to ownership. You wouldn’t be resold. You could either stay in the house with William and be free or leave the island. We can draw up paperwork indicating what’s to be done with you if something ever happens to me.”
“Okay.”
When they got home, he ran a warm bath and settled her in it. He winced as he watched her fight the pain to sit in the tub. He’d seen the last marks Lucas had put on her, but only after they’d had time to start healing and closing. Fresh like this, they were almost enough to empty his stomach.
“This is going to sting, but I’ll be as careful and quick as I can, all right?”
She nodded and gripped the edges of the tub. The water was already turning pink.
“How do you feel about what I did today?” He worried after witnessing that kind of violence from him––even with her eyes closed––it would change how she saw him. He didn’t want to become another monster in her mind.
“Happy. Safe,” she said, leaning her forehead against the rim. She hissed as he cleaned around a particularly nasty area.
“I’m sorry, kitten. I don’t want it to get infected. I should take you to the hospital.”
“Please . . . no hospitals.”
“It depends on how well this heals. If there is even the slightest sign of infection, I’m taking you in.” He cleaned her wounds as carefully as he could, helped her out of the tub, and then patted her back with the towel. She sat quietly, only flinching every now and then as he rubbed salve into the torn skin.
“You know, it’s okay to cry.”
“I don’t want to cry anymore.”
“Then you don’t have to.” He taped the bandages to her and took her to the kitchen and made her some scrambled eggs and juice. He’d asked William to keep a distance for a few days to let her get settled.
Asher watched her watching cartoons on the kitchen television while she ate. If he hadn’t listened to his instincts and gone first to Lucas’s estate, she could have been dead. He’d seen the skinning knife and branding supplies on the table. He gripped the end of the counter. If he’d arrived just a few minutes later, that bastard could have left his own mark, and Asher wouldn’t have had the stomach to skin it off her. Things could have been so much worse.
When she was finished, he took her plate and rinsed it in the sink. “Would you like to take a nap with me? I’m tired.”
She nodded, and he took her hand and led her upstairs.
Once in bed, Grace snuggled against his chest. “I love you, master.”
“I love you too, kitten. Get some sleep. There’s nothing left to haunt us now.”
His words had fallen on deaf ears because her breathing had deepened. She was already asleep.
About the Author
Kitty Thomas writes dark literary erotica. Her stories explore the psychology of ownership. This work is fiction and meant for an adult audience. The author does not endorse or condone any of the behavior carried out by characters in her stories.
Inspiration for Kitty’s work comes from many sources including Story of O, Nine and a Half Weeks, and the work of Claudia D. Christian.
Other books by Kitty:
Comfort Food
Guilty Pleasures
For updates on new releases, please subscribe to Kitty’s newsletter via the contact form at her site: www.kittythomas.com
Table of Contents
Prologue
Table of Contents
Prologue