visit in the stables.” He smiled briefly. “There were four, and she named them after us, her four brothers.”
I could not resign myself to the idea of a small Ginny here, in luxury. It was too hard to contemplate, knowing what she had gone through, what she had lost. I wanted to ask questions, demand answers. But I held back, refusing to interrupt.
“She said that they were scrawny, flea-infested, fighting all the time, but when you cleaned them up, quite sweet.”
I smiled, I couldn’t help it. It so sounded like the Ginny I knew. Oliver didn’t seem to notice. He continued to sip his drink, staring out onto the snowy moors. A feeling of dread weighed down on me. My amusement faded. “What happened to them?”
“We found the kittens, all four, hanging, dead.”
My stomach flipped. “No.”
“My stepbrother.”
“Dear God.” My hands clenched the armrests of my chair, my nails biting into the wood. “You sent her away because you were protecting her from your stepbrother?”
He nodded. “I sent Helen and all the money I could find, to the city. Stole it from my father. I told her to take Evie…Ginny. That we would come for them when it was safe. I thought…I thought it was the only way.”
“There was no one here who could protect her?”
“No. James tried, but at times he went away to school. We even all slept hidden in the attic at one point, until my father found out. We were children, no one would listen to us. Our father and stepmother took our step-brother’s side. Always. I think my father appreciated the fact that my stepbrother would do anything to get what he wanted. He was cruel, but fierce, and determined. My father appreciated that.”
“I see.” Feeling flustered and restless, I stood and moved to the sideboard. It was in the past, her stepbrother was dead, there was nothing I could do. But it didn’t prevent me from wishing he lived, so that I might kill him with my own hands. Hell, I needed a drink. “Did he ever…hurt her?”
It was the way Oliver paused before answering that made the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. With a glass of gin in hand, slowly, I turned. Oliver moved to the chairs near the hearth. He appeared defeated in some way, younger than his years. Oliver, the man who seemed to care about no one, suddenly looked guilty.
He settled in his chair. “She doesn’t know; doesn’t remember him at all.”
“Go on.”
He took in a deep breath. “There were rumors that our stepbrother was doing things to young women, even girls, in the village.”
I settled in the chair across from his, trying to maintain my composure. “Doing things?”
“Touching them, torturing them. He seemed to be happiest when he gave others pain.”
I felt ill. My parents were horrible, greedy people, but this…this was true evil. I took a long drink. My hands were trembling. “Did he…”
Oliver shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. But we noticed him touching her more and more often. Pulling her into a hug. Tickling her. Making her sit on his lap, despite the fact that she would cry.”
My stomach churned. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill their father. Hell, even their stepmother. The woman still lived in London. I would hunt her down. Would see she paid. I would…
“When James complained, our father ranted about how our step-brother could do no right in our eyes, that we were jealous. He said he wished Ervin had been his true son.” He shrugged. “Not that it hurt our feelings, we wished the same thing.”
“Does anyone else know about this?”
“James knows the most. And, of course, my stepbrother’s victims. It was when James saw the burn mark, that he knew for sure.”
I sat up straighter. “What burn mark?”
“Evie…Ginny, she had an x burned into her wrist. It’s small, but still there.”
The room round me spun. Hell, it was true. All of it.
“That’s how he marked his next victim.”
I sank back into my chair, feeling ill. “He branded her? The bastard branded her.”
“James had gone into town, and saw that a few other girls had the same mark. A couple of them admitted what had happened. Ginny never told us how she’d gotten the burn. But James put the pieces together. When he returned home, he told our father. But…he didn’t care. Said James was being absurd, and had never liked our stepbrother.”