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“Who kidnapped you, and why?” she asked. Her eyes held only curiosity, not pity.
He couldn’t believe he was telling her this. But she’d been so brave and she listened so intently. The desire to unburden himself was overpowering.
Not everything. He couldn’t tell her everything, but he could admit one small slice of his fear, just a swallow, and then he’d restore order to this room, this conversation, and to his life.
“My captor was a tenant farmer seeking revenge on my father after he lost his leasehold. He was desperate. He kidnapped me to put food on the table for his six children.”
“How did they capture you?”
“I was at Eton attending the celebration for King William’s birthday. There were speeches, cricket, and a procession of boats. Large crowds on the banks of the river. A messenger approached me and said that my mother had been taken poorly and I was to come with him immediately. I didn’t think too hard about it. If Mother was sick, I must go to her. I climbed into the carriage willingly. He stuffed a gag in my mouth and placed a blindfold over my eyes so that I didn’t know where he was taking me.”
He stopped talking. One small admission—not a damned book.
He glanced down at her and their gazes met. The connection and the release of it crashed through his mind like a chunk of granite cliff breaking off and falling into the sea.
It feltgoodto talk to Wilhelmina Penny. More than good... it felt necessary.
And that scared him more than entering the shadowy chasm behind the bookshelf. She wanted to know more about him. She might even learn to care for him.
And he knew what happened to people who cared for him. He disappointed them. Left without a word of good-bye and stayed away for five years.
He withdrew, retreated, abandoned them because everything in London, even his family, reminded him of the dark memories.
Walls the color of a bleeding, beating heart.
Memories of his weakness, his vulnerability. He’d needed help and no one had come.
He could feel one of his attacks coming on, the drumbeat of dread advancing from the past.
This is why he couldn’t talk about it—couldn’t show his vulnerability.
He might lose control. He had to warn her.
“Ever since I escaped I’ve been damaged, Mina.” Call her Mina now. Not MissPenny. They were here together in this giant bleeding heart. They had to get out. “I don’t feel things in the same way other people do. I felt nothing when my father died. I don’t know how to grieve.”
He’d had to find ways of shielding himself, of managing the irrational fears that gripped his mind.
He’d given his warning and now this connection had to be severed.
“If you ever want to talk more about it, one of my talents is listening,” she said earnestly. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about grief and the absence of grief. When my parents died, the chief emotion I felt was anger. They were always traveling—and I was hurt and angry that they’d died before I had a chance to really know them.”
“But you’re not damaged, MissPenny. You’re all shining eyes and open heart. You wear your heart on your sleeve.”
That was why he had to end this. She hadn’t built defensive walls around her heart and he hoped she would never need to.
And she was uniquely adept at threatening his defenses.
He set her off his lap and rose to his feet. He extended his hand. “It’s time to go and find my sister and forget you ever saw this room.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to unsee it,” she said with a bright smile. “And you know I’m not going to leave until I look inside the lacquered cabinet.”
“Please don’t.” They had to leave now.
“Just a little peek.” She tossed a cheeky grin back at him as she walked to the cabinet and opened Pandora’s box.
She stared at the contents. Then she turned toward him, jaw slack. “Why? Why would Lord Rafe use one ofthose?” She pointed at the row of ivory and polished wood phalluses of assorted sizes and shapes. “Doesn’t he have one of his own?”
“I assume so. At least he did when we were boys and went swimming together in lakes.”
