for a second, he’d said,” and I was too confused, too young, to understand. He pinned my arm to the bed and pressed the metal iron to my skin.”
Gabe’s muscles went hard as steel. I could hear the harsh intake of his breath. Even as I remembered the unbearable pain, I had the urge to comfort him. I’d had time to deal with the memory, the horrors. This was new to him.
“When I started to scream, he dropped the metal and clamped his hand over my mouth.” I pressed my face to his chest again. I could hear his heart beat loud and fast. “I thought he was going to suffocate me. But just as my lungs burned and I thought I would die, he released me.”
“No one noticed the injury?”
I didn’t miss the way his voice trembled. I shook my head. “We had a horrible, horrible nanny who terrified us all. She wrapped the burn, and demanded I tell no one. She said that if I did tell anyone, what had happened to my kittens, would happen to my brothers.”
“Christ.”
I wrapped my arms around his waist, holding him tight. He was the anchor I needed. “I didn’t remember the incident until I arrived here that year ago, and it all came rushing back.”
He hugged me closer, holding me almost too tight. I could barely breathe, but I didn’t mind. “And you kept it to yourself?”
“I didn’t want to upset them. I want it gone, Gabe.” I pulled back, desperately looking up at him. Begging him. “Please, take the fireplace poker and—”
“Stop.” He gripped my shoulders and shook me slightly, as if knocking sense into me. “Ginny, no. For God’s sake.”
Tears stung my eyes. “Please.”
He cupped the sides of my face. “Ginny, I know you hate that mark, but listen to me: without that mark, your brothers never would have found you. As vile as it is as a reminder, it is also that scar that led you home.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my face to his chest again. Damnation, he was right, but it didn’t make it any easier. I felt exhausted, completely spent. My mind muddled, my body ached. I wanted to sleep, for days. I wanted to forget. How many more secrets would I be forced to uncover?
“It’s just a scar,” I whispered. “He did so much worse to other girls. So why do I feel wrong…dirty?”
“No. Don’t.” He scooped me up into his arms, cradling me to his chest. “What happened to you, shouldn’t happen to anyone. Don’t you dare feel as if you did something wrong. None of this was your fault. He was a monster who preyed on your innocence, and the very people who were supposed to protect you, failed. But you survived. You grew stronger. You broke away. You live, while he rots. Do not let him control you from beyond the grave.”
Reaching the bed, he let me slide down his body. When he started to unbutton my bodice, I was too tattered and destroyed to care. Everything he said was true, so why couldn’t I believe it? Numb, I stood by, staring at the flames in the fireplace, while he undressed me.
“I…I remember this place,” I whispered. I was almost naked, wearing only my shift and corset, but the cold did not bother me now. If anything, it helped me forget the pain. “We came here when my stepbrother was being horrible.”
“We’ll be safe here, Evie,” Oliver had said, leading me into the cottage by the hand. I’d been four or five. “James and Rafe will bring food. William will bring clothes and blankets.”
“After the incident with my stepbrother, when my father refused to do anything, they tried to hide me here. They left me alone. I was so scared. So very afraid and alone.”
“You don’t ever have to be alone again, Ginny. I swear it.”
I shook my head. “It was bad enough remembering the incident with my stepbrother, but to realize now that I’m a bastard… Gabe, I don’t even know my own father.”
He knew all my secrets now. All was out in the open. Yet…yet, he wasn’t running away. “You don’t have to be with me, Gabe. You have a family to think about. You have a reputation to uphold.”
He brushed my hair from my face in a gentle caress. “Do you think any less of Izzy because she was born out of wedlock?”
“Of course not!”
“Then why would you think less of yourself?” He released a harsh