Tender Mercies - By Kitty Thomas Page 0,32

entrance into a room that wasn’t really hers. So she just stayed silent and waited. She hadn’t heard much of the argument, but she’d heard enough to know William was against slavery, which made him seem safer. The door bumped open and the butler smiled kindly at her.

“I brought you some homemade potato and corn chowder and grilled cheese.”

Her mouth watered at the sight of the tray. Fresh, warm food. Not cold scraps. It was still a hard thing to get used to. A wonderful thing to get used to, but hard. William’s extreme reaction against Asher caused her to hold out hope that she had an ally in this house and that maybe she wouldn’t have everything good stripped away, that it wasn’t some game.

She couldn’t believe that after only a few hours out of Lucas’s dungeon, she was hoping for something better, allowing herself to believe in it for even a moment.

William set the tray on the elegant table in front of the couch. “If you need anything else, you can use the call box.” He pointed to a little rectangle set into the wall beside the flat screen. She hadn’t noticed the intercom, but then she hadn’t spent much time in the room to explore every inch of it. She’d spent most of her time inside her head since she’d gotten here.

When she didn’t say anything, the butler turned to leave.

“He didn’t hurt her . . . I . . . I mean me. Earlier. He didn’t hurt me.”

He stopped in the doorway and gave her that look people give abused puppies and trauma victims, as if they’re so damaged they can’t possibly know their own minds. It made a little part of her way down deep inside––angry. Angry that someone thought she didn’t know her mental state and couldn’t express her own feelings correctly. But the thought quickly receded because defiant thoughts hadn’t been safe for a long time. And Lucas had trained her well.

“It’s none of my business, of course,” the butler said.

But it was suddenly very important to Grace. “He didn’t hurt me,” she repeated. “If you knew the things she endured in that dungeon with her other master . . . you wouldn’t . . .” She’d lapsed back into the third person speech without realizing. Even though she’d written two hundred and forty sentences in which she’d written I and my so much they should have stuck. But she was running on emotion right now, not careful thought.

“I apologize if my words upset you,” William said.

It took a moment for her to process that someone had actually issued an apology to her. She could have spent the whole day in awe over that one thing, but she had to get the rest out. “If he could . . . if he could be like this, like he is now, most of the time . . . this sl . . . I mean I . . . could maybe be okay.” Then she asked the question she had to know the answer to because it was the one thing that made her fear Asher might be worse than Lucas. “Did my master kill his last slave? There were rumors he did.”

The butler’s eyes widened a little. “How did you hear about that?”

“Lucas. Is it true?” She had to work to keep her voice from shaking and the tears from falling again. “Did he kill her?”

William shook his head. “She died, but it was an accident. Not by his hand. He was a wreck for months. Barely left his room. Barely ate. He’s just now gotten his weight back to normal.”

The butler could be lying. She knew that. It wasn’t as if she was a stranger to convincing lies. But something in his eyes, coupled with the argument she’d overheard, made her want to trust him. If it were true, she might be safe, and not as part of some ruse to make breaking her again more fun. Really, truly safe. For the first time in Eleu.

The sobs that wracked her body then were sobs of relief, gratitude, and hope. Asher may have just saved her, for what reason she didn’t know, but she couldn’t stop the emotion as it bubbled out. The butler was still standing in the doorway, watching her crack up. He had a confused look on his face, as if trying to flip through everything that had been said to see what set her off.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean