Cordelia gasped. “Howard, please.”
But Gwen’s temper had flared. “Perhaps a lady wanders because she cannot breathe beneath her own roof.”
Howard faltered, caught off guard.
Gwen pressed on, anger burning through every fear she had learned to swallow. “Perhaps a lady wishes for freedom. For dignity. For air not fouled by judgment. You claim to be a guardian, yet you behave as a jailer!”
“Be silent, you trollop,” Howard growled.
“I will not,” Gwen hissed. “I am finished being silent.”
Cordelia’s eyes widened in terror. “Gwen, please. Stop talking. He is furious.”
“I know he is furious,” Gwen said, her voice cracking. “He is always furious. At me. At you. At the entire world. And we tiptoe around him as if he were a glass about to shatter.”
Howard’s eyes narrowed to murderous slits.
“You think I have not noticed?” Gwen balled her hands into tight fists. “That every breath we take must be measured so as not to provoke you? We live beneath your moods. We flinch at your footsteps. We brace for your temper as if it were a blow.”
“Enough,” Howard barked.
But Gwen could not stop. She had kept these words caged behind her teeth for years, and now they poured out of her like water from a breached dam.
“You are cruel,” she spat. “Cruel to my mother. Cruel to me. I am tired of your disdain. I am tired of your insults. I am tired of pretending you have ever once behaved as a father. You have not. You are a bully in a borrowed title.”
Cordelia sank onto the settee, burying her face in her hands. “Gwen, stop. You do not know what you are doing.”
But Gwen did know.
She knew exactly what she was doing.
She was telling the truth.
Howard stood completely still. Stillness was more terrifying than rage. His expression did not change. He did not interrupt. He simply watched her as she emptied years of hurt, fury, and grief at his feet.
“Furthermore,” she added, her chest heaving, “I refuse to shrink myself because you cannot control your temper. I refuse to live with a man who treats us like burdens. If my father saw how you?—”
The slap came so swiftly that she did not see his hand until after it struck her.
Her head snapped to the side. Her vision blurred. A ringing filled both ears, high and sharp like a kettle screaming. Pain exploded across her cheek and radiated down her neck. She stumbled, barely catching herself on the newel post.
Her mother screamed. “Howard, no! No, please.”
Gwen tasted blood.
For a moment, she simply stared at Howard, shock paralyzing her. She had always imagined what it might feel like. She had always feared it. But nothing prepared her for the sting, the heat, the humiliation of being struck like a child, like a nobody, like something beneath the heel.
Howard lowered his hand slowly, as if the blow had cost him nothing. His face was terrifyingly calm.
“Have you finished?” he asked.
Gwen could not speak. The ringing in her ears drowned every thought.
Cordelia rushed forward, but Howard extended one hand, palm outward, and she halted immediately, trembling.
“Do not touch her,” he commanded. “She must learn.”
Through the throbbing pain, Gwen felt a flicker of something unrecognizable. Not fear, but hate.
