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“No need to thank me. In case you hadn’t noticed, I enjoyed it immensely.” He kissed her upper arm.
“I never even imagined… I mean, I’m hardly innocent. I’ve been reading…literature for ages.”
“Literature?” He smiled.
“Well, perhaps no
t literature in the finest sense…”
“How on earth would such a lovely young lady get her hands on such things?”
She laughed. “Oh, you’d be surprised. My maid, Millicent? She had quite the collection. Mother and Sophie never knew, of course, but she shared it with me. Well, she did after I stumbled upon it and demanded to know where it came from or I would tell Mother. I read about Fanny Hill and Justine. And then there were the papers…”
“You little rascal!”
“I suppose I had my moments. But I had to have something fun to do to exist in that environment.”
His features softened. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“I don’t like to talk about it.” But for some reason, her mouth stayed open, words tumbling out of it to this kind man who had given her such a lovely gift. “When Sophie and I were young, we used to hear Mother crying at night. Father would come home drunk and do God knows what to her.”
“Alexandra…”
“Once, I got up and went to her bedroom. My father was on top of her, and he turned to me and ordered me out or I’d be beaten with a broom handle. I couldn’t have been more than five or six at the time. Sophie was two years older.” The memories crashed into her, the anger, the fear, the hopelessness, the invisible worms crawling over her skin. She brushed them away.
“You don’t have to say any more.”
But she wanted to. She needed to. “Do I have your confidence?”
“Of course. Always.”
“She tried to fight back, I found out. I overheard her talking to Auntie Lucy about it after she and your father announced their engagement. My father beat her and told her if she didn’t succumb to his desires, he would turn to Sophie and me.” Tears clogged Ally’s throat. “I’d always thought she had a weak spirit. I was so wrong. I feel terrible about that.”
“My God, your father never—”
“No, no, thank God. What I thought was her weak spirit was her protecting both Sophie and me. The man was horrible. I’ve no doubt he would have raped us if she’d refused him. The beatings were bad enough.”
“My God…”
The sting as the belt hit her bottom. The cane on her shoulders. The slaps and punches to her cheeks and nose. The blood… She winced. “I took more of it than Sophie. He started on her when she began blossoming into a woman. I was nearly as tall as she at that time. She was such a little thing. And so timid. It killed me to see her get beaten and to hear her sobs. So I began deliberately provoking him. And he turned on me.”
“My God. You did that to protect your sister?”
She sniffed. “Yes.” How good it felt to say the words! The pain she’d endured had been nothing compared to the cries of her older sister. They’d cut at her heart like a jackknife. She’d stopped hearing her mother cry after a while. That had been hard enough to bear. But her shy sweet sister? No. She hadn’t been able to take it.
Who knew Evan would be the one she confided in? Just days ago she’d thought of him as a stuffy aristocrat interested only in convention. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.”
He lightly stroked her arm. “Keep going, if you’d like. I’ve nothing better to do than listen. Well, I suppose there’s something, but you need to rest.” He smiled.
She couldn’t help a laugh. “I guess I’ve nothing better to do. And I have to admit, it does feel good to finally talk about it.”
“You’ve never told anyone any of this?”
“Sophie and I never talked about it much. She begged me to stop provoking him, but I couldn’t. If I did, he’d turn on her, and I knew I was the stronger of us.”
“You’ve an amazing strength, Alexandra,” Evan said. “We’ve been here without food for longer than a day, and you’ve hardly complained. You’re not the usual lady of the peerage.”
She shook her head. “That is for sure. Though I’m still looking forward to finally eating.”
