Tender Mercies - By Kitty Thomas Page 0,35

any trace of doubt in him seemed like the highest betrayal. So she kept it inside.

“Go put some shoes on. I want to show you something while there’s still enough light to see it.”

He let go of her hand and she went to the closet and slipped sandals on, then he took her down to the garden. It was tucked away next to the house, where the grass still grew before sloping into sandy beach.

“I thought you could take over some of the gardening. William can teach you. It’ll get you outside in the sun more. I want to start you off gradually. Just a few minutes a day until your skin gets used to it.”

She’d expected a lavish and well-manicured garden as lush and perfect as the rest of the house, but there were piles of perfectly good uprooted flowers and lots of dirt. Had he not liked the flowers William planted?

“It’s time to move on,” he said.

Looking from the pained expression on his face to the uprooted garden, she guessed it was about the other slave. Had it been a garden for her? Too many memories, maybe?

“Have you ever done any gardening?”

“No, Master.”

“William still has to clear all this away and add some nutrients to the soil, but in a few days it should be ready. We can get you some books so you can decide what types of flowers you want. I’ll mark everything we can get and grow here.”

She searched his eyes for hints of dishonesty, but it still seemed real. It still felt like he meant all of this. The idea of working outside with a gentle breeze and the salt air and sound of the waves was so much freedom, so much more than she thought she’d ever get to taste again.

Seven

Grace tried to get comfortable, but she couldn’t. The cold, damp stone of the cell made it impossible, and the holes in the blanket kept her from being able to get warm. The faucet over by the wall wouldn’t stop its incessant prattle. Drip. Drip. Drip. The dog whined and scratched at the cell door. She could hear him sniffing from behind the thick, weathered wood. Her blood ran cold.

Not again.

The door opened and Lucas stood there with an evil gleam in his eyes as the dog started sniffing his way over to her like a bloodhound. Then he was trying to get at her naked skin with his tongue through the holes in the blanket. It wasn’t the dog’s fault. Lucas had trained him that way.

Her master just laughed. She’d long ago stopped seeing Lucas as handsome. The permanent coldness in his dark eyes made it impossible to remember what she’d found attractive about him at all.

His features had a statuesque perfection, and that was what he reminded her of. A statue. Cold, emotionless marble that she was incapable of moving toward a humane action with even her most desperate pleas or cries for mercy. He moved with purpose, his heavy shoes thudding over the stone.

Then hands were on her, shaking her. “Wake up.”

The nonsensical words coming out of his mouth, and the even more nonsensical concern in his tone, jolted her out of the dream. Grace looked frantically around her, but she wasn’t in the dungeon. She was in Asher’s bedroom. In Asher’s bed. The bedside lamp was on.

For one terrifying slice of time, she’d thought Asher had been the dream, that she’d woken there, returned back to her real reality. But it had only been a nightmare.

She remembered now how she’d gotten here. After the garden and walking down to the ocean, they’d had dinner on the terrace. When it was time for bed, she’d gone to her room, thinking she’d sleep on the sofa, but he’d guided her to his room instead.

“You sleep with me,” he’d said, his tone possessive.

So that was why she hadn’t had a bed. She should have thought of that option, but the idea he’d actually allow his slave to share his bed had seemed so ludicrous, she hadn’t seriously entertained it. The thrill and novelty of sleeping in a bed with her new master, of this being the permanent plan, had been almost more than she could process. But he hadn’t moved to touch her, and she’d drifted into a troubled sleep, worried she’d said or done something wrong, that he was somehow displeased with her. Those fears had translated into other, more awful things in sleep. Even though he swore he’d never return