She inhaled sharply as understanding began to dawn. “Are you saying that you somehow coerced him into allowing you to take my mother away from Eastlake Hall?”
He smiled, flashing white, even teeth. “There was no coercion involved. I told your father what was happening, and when I extended the invitation to your mother, she gladly accepted.”
His explanation still didn’t quite make sense to Sybil. Not knowing her father and his penchant for control. He adored nothing so much as keeping those weaker than he was beneath his thumb.
“But my father would never allow something like that.”
“He has no choice in the matter. I’ve made that more than apparent to him.”
“How can you have done so?” she asked, searching her husband’s eyes for answers.
And finding them.
She gasped. “What did you do?”
Riverdale—Everett, as she must remember to think of him now—shrugged. “I merely demonstrated to him what it is like when someone stronger and more powerful than you are abuses that strength and position. I’m afraid he didn’t care for it very much, not that I gave a damn if he did.”
Her mouth fell open. “Did you harm him?”
“He’s still well enough.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
He inclined his head. “Would you care if I did?”
“I…no. Yes. I don’t know.”
She was confused. Her father was not a kind man, and he had brought much pain to her, physical as well as emotional. Her heart bore the scars that her skin would never show.
“I struck him with my riding crop, if you must know,” her husband finally said. “I don’t regret a moment of it, save that I didn’t hit him more or with greater strength. I ought to have done the bastard more damage.”
Riverdale had ridden through the night to confront her father.
On her behalf.
And instead of leaving her mother behind to face his wrath alone, he had settled her mother in a carriage and was bringing her here.
Sybil was astounded. “Why?”
“Why what?” He frowned down at her, then brushed at his coat sleeves as if he required the distraction.
“Why would you do such a thing?”
“You are displeased with me?”
“No.” She shook her head, still trying to make sense of his actions, to make sense of how they made her feel in response. To understand what it all meant. “I’m not displeased at all. My father is not a kind or gentle man.”
“He’s lower than dung for raising his hand to you and your mother,” her husband countered sternly. “He deserved far worse than what I gave him, I will tell you that much. He’s fortunate I didn’t thrash him to within an inch of his miserable life.”
“You still haven’t answered my question,” she pointed out. “Why?”
He stared at her solemnly, his pale gaze unreadable. Everything made sense now, from his rumpled riding clothes to his wearied state, to the scent of the outdoors that clung to him like a shadow. He had indeed been riding through the night.
And all, it would seem, for Sybil.
For her mother too.
“Because it had to be done,” he said simply.
