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“Yes, I’m sorry about that.” He wiped the small smudges of blood from her. “There. Are you in any pain?”
“Not really. I just feel deliciously used.”
He discarded the rag and lay back down beside her. She curled into his arms and snuggled against his shoulder. He closed his eyes and smiled. He couldn’t remember ever feeling quite so content.
* * *
“My lady,” Graves said to Sophie. “I’m afraid Lord Evan and Lady Alexandra have not yet arrived in London. I just got word from a wire.”
“Not yet?” Sophie gasped. Now she really was worried. The rain had ended, and who knew what the weather was like in London? Evan surely would have sent a wire ahead to let the caretaker know if they were to be detained any longer.
“Do you wish to send anyone out to look for them?”
“Whom would I send? Lord Brighton and my mother are gone.”
“Some of the servants would be happy to assist.”
Sophie chewed on her lip. “Darkness has fallen.”
“Yes. I suspect they’d wait to start in the morning.”
She nodded, her nerves jumping. “Yes, Graves. Please have them leave at first light.
* * *
Ally walked briskly toward the informal parlor in the Lybrook mansion. Sophie and Rose were napping, and Lily was gone on her wedding trip. It was nearly teatime, and Ally was famished for a scone with lemon curd. She halted when her mother’s soft voice wafted out the door.
“Yes,” Iris, Ally’s mother, said, “but it’s difficult to tell David everything.”
“You should try,” another voice said. Auntie Lucy—Miss Lucinda Landon, her mother’s best childhood friend.
“It’s so horrid, Lucy,” Iris said. “He might think less of me. The things I let Longarry do…”
“None of this is your fault,” Lucy said.
“You wouldn’t think it if you knew.”
“You can tell me if you’d like. Sometimes it helps to talk. I promise you’ll be no different to me one way or the other.”
“I… I know what my daughters must think of me. They think me weak. And I was. But I did it— I let him do whatever he wanted to me… I was…” She exploded into sobs.
A few moments passed as Iris sniffled and wept.
“What, Iris?”
“H-He, he said if I didn’t succumb, he would turn to the girls. He would r-rape them.”
In the foyer, Ally’s heart leaped into her throat. Her father was evil, but even she hadn’t imagined such…corruption.
Lucy gasped. “My God.”
“I… I couldn’t let that happen.”
“Of course you couldn’t.”
“He had all the power by law. There was nothing… I was so helpless…”
“I know, my dear.”
