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He’d never been much for casual flirtation. Miss Witherspoon was purely his mother’s doing. He’d planned a long engagement not because Sir Gonson didn’t approve of distractions, as he’d told his mother, but because he hadn’t been keen to marry. That had all changed.
The thought occurred to him that Jacqueline might not wish to leave this place. It was her whole world. Perhaps once she had a home and a child of her own, she’d be willing to leave the school’s management in someone else’s hands. He would never demand that she cease all involvement, of course, but that was a discussion for another time.
Time. On cats’ feet he tiptoed to Jacqueline’s door. Wary of making too much noise, he scratched at it. Almost at once, it opened.
Stepping inside the brightly lit room, he waited until she’d closed the door before speaking quietly. “I don’t want you to think me impulsive. I’ve—”
“You need not explain yourself. Tonight is about me explaining to you why I cannot accept your offer.”
Her back was turned to him, and for a moment he just stared. She was no longer wearing a gown, but had donned a wrapper. Her slim ankles stuck out below its hem. Anger seared him as he noticed they bore the same sort of marks as her wrists. He wrenched his eyes back up and forced his mouth to make speech. “You tell me you cannot accept me, yet you greet me in a state of undress?”
“I greet you thusly to prove my words. When I told you of my past, I spoke no lie, but I withheld the worst of it from you.” Her voice broke. “I could not bear to reveal the full truth. Now…I must. It’s the only way to convince you to leave off your pursuit and redirect your misplaced affections.”
“Misplaced?” Scowling, he took a step toward her just as she turned.
“Stop!” she commanded. Her eyes were red, and her face was wet with tears. “You said my scars mean nothing to you, but you have not seen them to judge. That is why I brought you here, and why I lit every candle and lamp in this room. I would have you fully comprehend the truth.”
She turned away again, her back stiff as a poker, and he heard her inhale deeply. Then he watched, astounded, as she let the wrapper slip from her shoulders and slide down her back to pool at her feet.
Neither the sight that greeted his eager eyes nor his involuntary reaction to it were expected. The breath tore from his throat in a rush, and the desire that had begun to stir in his loins vanished.
This was no seduction—
it was a testament…to pain. Pain such as he couldn’t even begin to imagine.
Pity and rage consumed him as his gaze slowly traveled over her. A latticework of long, thin scars crisscrossed her back—the marks of a whip. Clusters of circular, rose-colored burn marks, each about the size of a pence, marred her flanks. Marching down the backs of her arms from shoulder to elbow were row upon row of evenly spaced white lines showing where her skin had been carved with soulless premeditation. Other jagged, haphazardly placed scars were the clear result of uncontrolled animal brutality.
Jacqueline slowly pivoted to face him, her head high in spite of her trembling chin and brimming eyes, and he saw that, like her back, nearly every inch of her front had also been marked by violence. Her beautiful, shapely figure was a map of silvery-pink scar tissue.
Only her breasts and those areas of her chest, shoulders, and upper back that would be visible in a ball gown had been left untouched. Whoever had done this to her had been precise, careful to preserve her outward beauty.
Even as he wondered who would possibly commit such violence against another human being, his gaze fell on a large letter F branded into the flesh of her upper right thigh.
Bile rose in his throat, and he had to close his eyes and force it back down. When he opened them again, his sight was blessedly veiled by tears. “My God,” he finally choked out. “Who did this to you?”
“He is long dead, and his name is unimportant,” came her hollow reply. “What matters is that now you understand why I can never marry.”
Blinking back his tears, he focused on her face. “I would never hurt you. Surely you must know it.”
“You would not mean to cause me pain, but I would always know.”
“Know what?”
“That I repulse you. Even if we made love in total darkness, I would know.”
“Repulse me?” Going over to her, he gently touched her face with hands that shook as with a palsy. “I’m not repulsed by what you’ve shown me. I’m enraged by it. That anyone could do this to you is…” He swallowed to ease the tightness in his throat and drew a shuddering breath. “He was not human. But you are still you, and my feelings for you remain unaltered.”
The look of resignation in her eyes gave way to one of such grief that it tore his heart. “You say it now,” she quavered, “but in your heart you’ll always know I was once another man’s whore.”
“No! You were never that. Never,” he repeated with vehemence. “Boucher and the beast who did this to you took advantage of a vulnerable young woman. That you managed to survive is a miracle.”
“I can never have children,” she blurted, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks. “I became pregnant. I thought he would be pleased and stop hurting me, but instead he paid a surgeon to remove the babe and cause me to be barren so it would never happen again.”
“Jacqueline, I—”
“And because he took the life of my unborn child, I killed him.” Her ashen face contorted. “It was by my hand that he died—I shot him. An eye for an eye.”
It all fit now. The missing puzzle pieces dropped into place, and he saw the whole. His vision of a happy family with her at his side crumbled into dust.
