“But you said security got lax after your father left. You must have spoken to some of those women.”
“Disguised as Mrs. Fairfax,” he says with a shrug. “Edward was always close by, making sure I followed the script.”
I nod, remembering how quickly Rochester showed his face that first morning. It was exactly when I was trying to get the truth from what I thought was the housekeeper.
“And the night visits?”
Pain flickers across his features like lightning. “I tried warning the first woman. Edward made sure I didn’t warn the second.”
He lifts his beard, exposing a thick white scar on the base of his neck. I hiss through my teeth. Rochester slit his throat. That bastard could have killed his own brother.
“Oh, God... That’s...” I shake my head, unable to muster up words to describe the pain, the helplessness, the guilt. It makes what I suffered with Brother Matthew look like a spat. “Rowland, I’m so sorry.”
He hangs his head and nods, every line of his body radiating shame. It’s like he can barely admit to enduring so much torture. “I never gave up, though,” he says, sounding so earnest that my heart aches. “I put on the ski mask, tried to frighten them at night, but it only drove them into Edward’s arms.”
“Weren’t you afraid he would punish you again?”
Rowland raises a massive shoulder. “Edward learned after the first time not to be sovicious.”
I wince at the implication that Rowland ensured even more torture trying to do the right thing. “You even tried to frighten me.”
“But it didn’t work.” He gives me a sidelong look.
“No, it didn’t.”
“You didn’t scream like the others. You didn’t run to him for protection. You seemed to like it when I took hold of your foot.”
Heat floods my cheeks, traveling down my chest. It tightens my nipples and seeps low in my belly. I squirm in my seat and gaze up at him through my lashes. “Put it this way,” I murmur. “I didn’t know my feet were so sensitive.”
A shy smile breaks across his features, making him look less feral. “I became addicted to you.”
My breath catches. “Why?”
“No woman ever showed me kindness except Mrs. Fairfax.”
Warmth fills my chest. In a world full of darkness and pain, the thought that I could mean anything to him steals my breath. “Oh, Rowland.”
His face crumples, and he bows his head. Tears roll down his cheeks, and his massive shoulders heave with sobs. Seeing this huge man cry cracks something open in my chest. I place a hand on his bicep.
“Rowland, what is it?”
“Mrs. Fairfax told me something before she died.” His voice cracks.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“She was our mother.”
I reel back, my mind conjuring up the corpse rotting in the attic. “She said that?”
His features pinch with agony. “Father used her as aservant. Never acknowledged her as a wife and mother. He worked that poor woman to death.”
My mind races from the attic, to the notebook of victims. All those women. Used up and thrown away like broken appliances. All this time, Mrs. Fairfax was the original. Was Edward trying to replicate his mother’s trauma?
“Was she also a prisoner?” I ask.
“She couldn’t leave with me chained up in the attic. Even though she knew Edward was dangerous, she couldn’t bear the thought of him in an asylum.”
“That wasn’t fair,” I whisper, pulling him into a hug.
