Shaking her head, she took a nibble from the meat pie. “I’d have had at least one chaperone in tow.”
“I could have pitched balls at bottles and won you something.”
She looked over at him. So masculine and bold, sitting there with one leg raised, his wrist draped over his knee, the tankard gripped in his strong hand. Lifting it, he took a long, slow swallow and she was rather tempted to remove his cravat, so she could watch the muscles of his throat working to quench his thirst. “You gave me Sophie. That was the gift of a lifetime. I needed nothing more.”
“But I wanted to give you more anyway.”
He’d given her so much more than he’d ever know. “I don’t know that it’s wise to traverse back into the past. We were so frightfully young, naïve. I’d have never imagined something as glorious as what we shared could have brought such pain. I can’t stop thinking about how awful it all turned out for you.”
“Could have been worse.” He said it as though loving her hadn’t cost him everything.
They sat in silence for long moments, eating their meat pies, sipping their beer. He’d had to pay extra for the loan of the tankards. The money would be given back to him once the pewter was returned. She’d never given any thought to how affairs such as this were managed. She’d simply enjoyed them.
“Why don’t you return home?” he asked. “You’d have a better life there.”
How to make him understand? He’d shared his horrors with her. Could she share hers with him?
“I know you’re concerned your mother will make you marry someone you don’t want as a husband, but you’re no longer a child.”
“It’s more than that, Finn. My mother is an incredibly forceful woman. I didn’t realize how forceful—” She squeezed her eyes shut, fought back the stinging tears. Her chest tightened, her stomach knotted. Opening her eyes, she took a large, unladylike gulp of the beer, wondering if she could find solace in the brew, if it could help her relax, open up. “If I tell you something, you have to give me your word that you will not confront my mother.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why would I want to?”
“Just promise me. Not you, not your brothers, not your sisters. None of your family goes near my mother.” She was not willing to risk his going to prison again, and she feared he might be angry enough to do something stupid.
“I give you my word.”
“I will hold you to it.”
He gave a brusque nod.
Taking another deep swallow of beer, she formed her thoughts. “About a year after you and I had planned to run off, I found myself in a position where I could no longer remain in residence. Mother and I had been having rows, you see. One night I lost control and slapped her, quite forcefully. I began packing to leave and she called for some footmen to take me in hand. My parents decided I had become too unruly, too wild. I needed to be brought to task, to be taught a lesson that they would not tolerate misbehavior. I was delivered to a madhouse.”
The rage that swept through him robbed him of breath, of words. He was barely aware of the tankard he’d been holding tumbling to the ground as he enfolded her in his arms, held her close as though he could protect her when it was far too late for that. “My God, Vivi.”
He rubbed his cheek along hers, aware of the slightest trembling in her body as she clutched the sides of his coat.
“It’s all right, Finn,” she whispered softly. “Like your time in prison, it was long ago.”
“But it never leaves you, not completely. Jesus, Vivi.” It seemed taking the Lord’s name in vain was all he was capable of at the moment. Then something occurred to him and he leaned back, studying her features. “What about Thornley? What the devil was he doing during all this? Why didn’t he stop it?” He was going to have a quiet word with his brother-by-marriage. A quiet word and a hard punch.
“He didn’t know. No one knew. Not even my brother. Mother told them I was traveling the continent with an old aunt. It wouldn’t do at all for it to be known their daughter had gone mad. Thorne wasn’t responsible for me yet, Finn. You can’t blame him.”
“How long?”
“Three years.”
Three years. Dear God. He knew exactly how long three years were when they were lived with no freedom. If her father weren’t already dead, he’d meet with him tonight and put him in the ground. “Thornley didn’t find it odd that you were away for three years?”
“He was in no hurry to marry, was sowing his oats. I think he rather found it a relief that no serious courtship was yet called for.”
“If I’d known—”
“What could you have done, Finn? From prison?”
He’d have found a way to escape, to save her. Having never felt so impotent in his entire life, he skimmed his knuckles along her soft cheek, searching for solace for them both. “How did you even survive something like that?”
“It wasn’t quite as bad as it could have been. Oh, there were the occasional ice baths and restraints. But as long as I was quiet and calm, I seemed merely to baffle the alienists. They couldn’t quite determine what was wrong with me. And I learned to fight, because while I might have tried to remain docile, not everyone did.”
