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“There you are,” she said, pouring brandy into a teacup and holding it out to him. “Is it hopeless?”
“No. But it’s not worth trying to dig our way out tonight.”
“Then come be comfortable, and save your strength for the morning.”
They nestled into the furs side by side, but not embracing. A long, empty night together stretched out before them. It didn’t seem possible to him that they’d get through it without having a certain conversation, so he decided to confront it head-on.
“So what is it, then? Your answer.” In the ensuing silence, he took an anxious, overlarge swallow of his brandy. It burned all the way down.
She drank, too. Finally she whispered, “I’m still not sure.”
Shaking his head, he quietly swore. This time, he tossed back an even larger draught of brandy. Because he knew it would burn, and he welcomed it.
“Are you angry?”
“Why should I be angry?”
“You have every reason in the world to be angry, Rhys. I don’t know how you can even sit in this place and remain so calm.”
He wasn’t too sure himself. Brandy had something to do with it. He took another drink, then let his head roll back against the clammy surface of the wall.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
“Talk about what? Marriage, or lack thereof? I think we’ve talked that out.”
“Not marriage. About … the past. About this place.”
He kept quiet, hoping she would be clever enough to take his silence as a sign that no, he did not want to talk about it.
“I know he beat you here.”
He tensed his jaw, to keep from growling at her to shut hers. She hadn’t accepted him. She didn’t have the right to keep poking at his wounds, tracing his scars …
“Everyone in service at Nethermoor knew.”
“This pit is soundproof,” he bit out. “No one knew what went on down here.”
“Well, I suppose no one did know, not precisely. But it was impossible not to notice the evidence after the fact. And what do you think he did when you went off to school? Do you suppose he gave up violence for the winter term?”
A hot coal lodged in his chest. He could barely manage to form the words. “Did he hit you?”
“No. No, not me.”
A drop of sweat rolled from his brow to his ear. Thank God. If he found out his father had hurt Meredith, Rhys truly would have lost control.
“My father was very careful,” she said. “He never let me run about the Hall, never would have allowed me to work for the man. But there were others who didn’t have a father looking out for them.”
“And then there was me, whose fatherwasthe problem. No escape.”
“Tell me what happened. Just have out with it, and you’ll feel better.”
He sincerely doubted that. But they were here all night, and he could tell she wasn’t going to let the matter rest. Fine, then. He’d have out with it, and then he’d drink himself into oblivion. And when he woke in the morning and crawled out of this hole, he would leave this place behind. Forever.
He cleared his throat and prepared a dispassionate tone. “The month after my mother died, my father brought me down into this pit. He told me to stand in the empty center. He melted back into the shadows. And then a fist came out of the darkness. Sent me sprawling to the ground. I was stunned. It took me a minute to realize he’d hit me. I thought it had to have been an accident. He told me to get up, and so I got up. And then he hit me again, harder.”
“‘Get up,’ he’d say. ‘Stand, you miserable wretch.’ And so I would struggle to my feet. Only to be hit again. And again, until I couldn’t stand at all. We played that amusing little father-son game a few times a week, for the remainder of my childhood. Me standing just about there”—he pointed toward the dark center of the room—“and him beating me until I could no longer stand. Took longer every time.”
“For God’s sake, why didn’t you just stay down?”
