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At his non-answer, she took a sip of her wine, then resettled her gaze back on him. “Who was your father?”
“Eugene Huntsley.”
“But your surname is Somner?”
He nodded. “Somner is my mother’s family name and what I go by. She was from a wealthy family in the Netherlands and my father used that connection to procure the barony for me. It was calculated, because he had been a peer and knew the connections one makes moving about in the aristocratic circles were key to our business growing across the continent.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “He was an English peer?”
“He was. His title was stripped when he was driven from England.”
“What was his title?”
“The Marquess of Bockton.”
Her head snapped back, shock and horror instant on her quickly paling face. "Y—your father is Lord Bockton?”
His brows drew together. “Aye.”
“But Roe…he only did what he had to…your father…” She flew up from her chair, her feet pacing across the floor, her head shaking as she rubbed her fingers across her forehead. “Your father was a bad man—a monster. He tried to kill them—kill both Roe and Torrie the night he died. And years before that he almost killed Sloane. And, and, and…”
She collapsed onto the side of the bed, her body bending, both her hands clasped against her forehead as her breathing sped into gasp after gasp like she couldn’t get air into her lungs.
His eyes narrowed at her. “My father did what? Almost killed Sloane?”
His father had never told him of this.
She nodded as she sucked in a few more breaths, then bent down flat against her thighs, hugging her knees. Her breathing started to wheeze out of control, panicked, like she was drowning in the air.
Two steps and he was to her, next to her on the bed, his hand on her back, rubbing up and down her spine, trying to calm her.
It worked, mildly, but not nearly enough for his liking. The wheezing dissipated, but she remained folded as though she was trying to shrink into a tiny ball. His right hand splayed along her spine to steady her and he reached to the front of her shoulder to tilt her upright.
Her body rigid, she fought the motion. Trying to stay small, to hide.
Her panic suddenly became his own. “Vic, what the hell is happening? You have to tell me—what is this?”
She didn’t unfold, but her head lifted slightly and she sucked in a deep breath through gritted teeth. She was fighting hard not to let tears slide. “You asked why I toss and turn at night? Why I have nightmares? That is why.Heis why.”
“What?” Rafe went deathly still.
Her hands came up, and she buried her face in her palms, like that motion could hide her away from the world. But then her words started to flow, muffled though her hands. “I was nine when your father crept into my room at night and tied me up. He was at a party at Wolfbridge and Reiner was looking to trap him—he had all the evidence of a smuggling empire and he was going to send Lord Bockton to Newgate to swing. But Bockton discovered he was trapped and he needed to get out of Wolfbridge—out of England. I was what he needed for that. He found my room and tied me up. He was going to use me as leverage to escape. I was so scared—but I tried to be brave because that’s what Reiner would have wanted out of me, but I was so terrified. I didn’t know what was happening or why and he was so brutal…how he grabbed me like I was nothing. A cut of meat at the market.”
That sounded exactly like what his father would do. A trapped rat that would chew through flesh and bone to escape.
She heaved a gargled breath. “Then Sloane came into my room and saw what was happening. She convinced Bockton to take her instead of me. She lied and said I was worthless to Reiner and he agreed. He knew I was worthless and she was the prize. So he took her as insurance for his passage out of England. He tied me to the bed and left me there.”
“Who found you?” His words choked in his throat.
“Reiner. And I thought Sloane was telling him the truth.” She lifted herself slightly, her hands dropping away from her face, her eyes numb as they swung to him. “That I was worthless, that she wanted Reiner dead. And that terrified me even more than Bockton taking me. I loved her. Loved her so much and I thought she’d been lying the whole time she knew me. I thought she hated me. That she wanted to kill Reiner. How could I be that stupid?”
She paused, heaving a sigh deep into her lungs. “That was when I learned not just what loneliness was—I learned what desolate, soul-crushing loneliness was. I was losing everything.”
“How did she come back?” He pressed upward on the hand still on the front of her shoulder, again trying to drag her upward. This time, she didn’t fight it, pliable like dough.
“Reiner saved her. Bockton almost got away with her on a ship—but she escaped him. She came back and it took her so long to convince me that she had lied to Bockton in order to save me—so he would take her and not me. I know that’s why she did it—deep in my heart and in all the logical parts of my brain—but that hurt was real, and in my dreams…sometimes I’m still tied up by your father, her hateful words raining down on me. Him snickering at me, his hands bruising my arms.”
Rafe pulled her fully into his arms, clutching her to his chest. She let him do that as well.
