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“Tell me what happened,” he prompted gently. “That day.”
Tears freely rolled down her cheeks, and she had trouble collecting her breath. He cuddled her cheek in his hand, thumbing her tears away. Lavinia leaned into his touch, feeding off his calloused fingertips that scratched against her skin. She opened her eyes but didn’t dare look at him as she spoke.
“My father had a habit of drinking. And when he was drunk, if he was lucid enough and could stand on his two feet, he always sought me out. He came up with some transgression I supposedly committed, whether that was true or not, and he punished me. It’s been like this forever.
“Sometimes he didn’t need a reason. The fact that I was a daughter, not an heir, was enough. The fact that I was clumsy and uncoordinated was enough. The fact that I was… well, me. It was enough.”
Sebastian sat up, engulfing her in his reassuring heat. He cupped her face between his palms and placed a dry kiss on her forehead. Her lashes swept down again, her voice trembling as she spoke. “But when Matilda came into our household, things changed. For a while, he stopped drinking as much and he seemed… calmer. Dare I say, happy. I thought that maybe he’d changed. Perhaps we would become a family again. But my hopes were shattered when I realized why beating me was no longer his main amusement.”
Lavinia shook her head, dispelling the horrible memories.
“Your stepmother.” Sebastian’s voice was hoarse.
He ran his hands down her arms in calming sweeps. Lavinia let out a shaky breath. She needed to continue. She needed to tell the story once and for all because she would never have the strength to do it again.
“She is only six years my senior, you know. When she came to our house, I thought she was a wise adult. But she was just a bright-eyed debutante. So young. And as years went by and she didn’t provide him with an heir, things got incrementally worse every passing day.”
She paused to regulate her breathing. It was getting difficult to speak. His reassuring caresses fell like lead on her arms because she knew they’d disappear as soon as she told him the truth. She looked past him with an unseeing gaze when she spoke again.
“A few weeks ago… It was just like any other night. He got angry with Matilda for making a conversation with some gentleman during a ball. He accused her of infidelity and took us home early from the function. It wasn’t unusual. He was always like this. But that night, something was different. His eyes… he looked like a wild beast.
“When we came home, he hit her so hard that she fell against the stairs and hit her head. She wasn’t moving. The terror I felt inside was something I never thought I could feel. My father didn’t stop yelling at her. As if he didn’t notice that she wasn’t moving. He was standing over her—” A hiccup left her throat.
Sebastian moved to envelop her in his embrace but she reared back.
“No, please.” She placed her hand on his chest, to keep him at arm’s length, but couldn’t take her hand away. The strong, reassuring beating of his heart calmed her rioting nerves. She curled her fingers into his shirt, drawing strength from him. “I thought he was going to kill her,” she whispered.
Suddenly she was back in that hall at Birch townhouse.
Her father, menacing and large, threw a shadow over Matilda as she lay unmoving on the stairs. He kicked her in the stomach, as if not noticing that she wasn’t moving. He continued yelling insults at her and threats.
One more blow and he’d kill her.
Lavinia’s first thought, however selfish, was that if Matilda died, there would be nobody to draw attention away from her. As young as she was, Matilda was Lavinia’s constant protector. Her only protector. If she died, Lavinia would be next.
Lavinia shook in terror, her feet frozen to the floor, but she knew she could not let Matilda die.
The next thing happened like in a foggy dream. Her legs moved of their own volition. Her hands picked up a decorative statue from the banister. And then she hit her father on the head.
He turned slowly and looked at her with fury in his eyes. Lavinia stepped back, tripped, and fell. The statue fell from her hands with a loud crash. She squeezed her eyes shut and covered her head with her arms, expecting her father to strike her. But the blow never came.
She opened her eyes and looked around. Her father had fallen down the stairs and lay in a heap on the stone-cold floor.
Lavinia stood and rushed toward Matilda. She was still breathing. She was alive. Thank God.
Matilda cracked open her eyes. “What happened?”
Lavinia looked back at the prone body of her father on the stone-cold floor.
“I killed him,” Lavinia said to Sebastian as she concluded her story. Her mouth dry, tears were rolling down her cheeks.
The next moment, Lavinia was embraced in Sebastian’s arms and cuddled to his chest. He caressed her hair, ran calming circles on her back, murmuring soothing nonsense in her ear. Lavinia cried, all her strength leaving her. She felt like a little girl who just needed to be held. That’s it.
She didn’t need reassurance or acceptance. She didn’t need anything as long as she was wrapped in his warm embrace.
Nothing was expected of her at that moment. She didn’t need to be brave or clever. She didn’t need to justify herself or cry in anger that she did what she had to. For the first time in her entire life, she felt as though she was allowed to simply exist. Just be. And she still felt safe and protected. And she’d never felt this way before.
Sebastian kissed the top of her head. “You keep saving my soul,ma petite.Because if you didn’t kill your father, I would have had to do it myself, for all the pain he’d made you suffer. And it wouldn’t be an easy death either.”
