Then he’d pulled out a cigar and asked for help lighting it.
I was sick again, even though there was nothing left in my stomach. When I finished, I looked back up at the three of them. “I’m sorry,” I said, feeling lightheaded and unsure about what I was apologizing for.
“Don’t be.” David’s voice was soft, his hands brushing away the tears that streaked my face.
Garrett walked to Julia’s table, wetted a cloth, and gave it to me. “Don’t worry,” Garrett said while I scrubbed at my face and hands, trying to wash away the images of that younger version of David in pain. “None of us are going to hang because of him. He’s done enough damage already.”
Julia handed me a ginger candy, and I sucked hard on it. The sharp taste did nothing to distract me from everything I’d just learned. I couldn’t look at any of them, not without leading to a rise of more tears.
“Why did he do it?” I asked, looking down at the floor, knowing there would never be an answer that made any sense.
Garrett sighed deeply. “Our father was always a violent man, but when I was very young, he managed to hide it quite well. I’d seen him injure servants, but he was always so certain it was the right way to train his employees that I didn’t question him.” Garrett jammed his hands into his pockets. “Sometimes I worry about what kind of man I would have grown into if it weren’t for our mother.”
The only thing I knew about David’s mother was that she’d died a few years before I’d come to visit Breckenridge.
Garrett took a deep breath before continuing. “He hid that part of him from her, but one day, about a year before David was born, she saw him beat a servant savagely, and she never looked at him the same after that. He tried to explain his reasoning to her as he had to me, but Mother wasn’t a child—she knew depravity when she saw it. And after a few months of trying to convince her he wasn’t that kind of man, he gave up and no longer felt the need to control himself.”
“I was born at a time when my father knew our mother didn’t love him anymore.” David continued Garrett’s story, his voice soft and careful. He knew how close I was to breaking. “He always questioned my birth. At first, he would talk about it as if he wasn’t certain he was my father, but as the years progressed, he became more and more convinced I wasn’t. And because of that, I became a tool to discipline the children he knew were his.”
“Do you actually think ... ?” I couldn’t ask the question, David’s anger at Dr. Clarke’s questioning my virtue making a lot more sense.
“No.” Garrett’s voice was firm. “Our mother was heartbroken about who our father ended up being, but she had almost no contact with anyone outside of our family, and she didn’t have the heart of a deceiver.”
“Besides,” David said firmly. “She would have told me if it were true. I wished for a different father and begged her to tell me I had some other man’s blood running through my veins. But she couldn’t. Lord Murphy is my father, but nothing I can do will ever make himbelieve it. He’s built his whole life around that hurt in order to excuse his actions.”
I forced my head up, and just as I feared, tears coursed down my face when I caught David’s eyes, so tender, so loving, and so full of a hurt he’d hidden for the whole of his life. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled myself to him. Needing to hold him, needing to let him know I saw his worth, his pain, and his heart, needing him to know I loved him. Not in spite of those things, and not because of them. I simply lovedhim.
His hands went around my waist, and we sat on the floor, my arms not letting go of him and his gathering me into his lap. The room was silent, save for our breathing, for several minutes before Garrett eventually coughed softly.
“We need to arrange a way to get you away from the house,” Garrett said. David loosened his hold on me but only slightly. I glanced up to see Garrett giving us an extremely apologetic look. “One of your servants, a Miss Mortensen, who I assume must be one of Obadiah’s daughters, was able to catch me on the stairs to let me know she was taking Mrs. Atwood to her house.”
I nodded. Bless Maren for seeing a need and immediately taking action. It couldn’t have been easy to convince Mama to go.
“Yes, she is one of Obadiah’s daughters,” David said.
I was trying to catch my breath and make sense of everything around me. Meanwhile, the three of them were already moving forward with plans, making me appreciate the businesslike tone in which their family communicated when faced with Lord Murphy.
Garrett nodded. “That’s good. Father wouldn’t set foot in a tenant’s home.” Garret caught my eye. “As far as I know, our father doesn’t even know your mother was ever in the house.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You will have to thank Miss Mortensen when you see her next,” Garrett said. “It was all her doing and quite brilliant of her. Now wejust need to find a way to get the three of you away from here without him knowing.”
“All of us?” David asked in surprise. “You don’t think Anna should go and I should stay here?”
Garrett looked at his brother like he was an idiot. “She’s your wife. If she leaves, you need to go with her.”
“But I told you—”
Garrett brushed a hand through the air. “That was hours ago, before I saw the two of you together and long before you walked in here disheveled after obviously showing her some of your scars.”
In a different world, I might have been embarrassed by Garrett’s comment. David hadn’t actually shown me his scars; he’d stopped me from opening his shirt. Embarrassment simply felt like too weak of an emotion after everything we’d just been through.
David slid a hand down my hair. “Do you still want me to come with you?” he asked, looking around the room to remind me of what had just transpired.
“Yes,” I answered as firmly as I could. “Of course I do.”
“It is decided, then,” Garrett said.
