Again, and nothing. Her blood might as well have turned to ice. All she knew was his touch.
And fear.
Terror.
“It’s all right. Take all the time you need. I’m here.” Those tender hands touched her hair and back soothingly. “You are safe. I’m right here.”
She shook her head side to side and then inhaled deeply.
And then, after nearly a year of locking it away, she spoke the words of her nightmares. “I killed a man.” They scraped past her throat, a ragged whisper. She cleared her throat. “I killed a man.”
His motions stilled for the briefest of moments before starting up again. His throat moved against her forehead. “Tell me.”
He hadn’t pushed her off him yet.
Later, when all of this was over, she’d allow the numbness to take over her heart forever. She’d accept her fate. Her punishment.
She pulled away and met his gaze. “The day Harold fell.” God, she’d never forgotten that day. Likely, he wouldn’t either. “Later, I went to Sophia’s room, and she wasn’t alone. I found her with her brother, her stepbrother. Dudley Scofield.”
Justin shook his head. “I was unaware that Her Gracehada brother.”
She did.
Shehad.
A stepbrother. A horrible, horrible man. A person who ought to have been her protector, her champion, who’d instead tormented dear Sophia.
“He hadn’t arrived until later that day. And when I found him in her room, he was… harassing her.” Rhoda couldn’t go into the details of what Dudley had done to Sophia. That was Sophia’s secret alone. “I offered to escort him to the rescue efforts. And, of course, he couldn’t very well refuse, could he?”
Rhoda remembered the late afternoon sunlight clearly. Long shadows and the slightest hint of a breeze. That unique hint of seawater had been in the wind. Every muscle in her had ached at the time from weeping over Lord Harold. But she’d needed to go to Sophia. She’d needed to see for herself that Sophia was going to make it through the horrible accident. She needed to hold her friend. She’d wanted to comfort her. And when she’d entered Sophia’s chamber…
“I don’t suppose he could,” Lord Carlisle affirmed. And then he waited for her to go on.
She had to continue. She had to tell him. She had to tellsomeone! Surely, if she kept this inside much longer, like a poison, it would eat her alive.
Rhoda had manipulated Dudley Scofield into coming outside with her, so that he could work with the rest of the search party. But by the time they’d exited the castle and worked their way along the path, the sun was already setting. “When we reached the cliff, the search effort had been called off.”
“St. John and Dev feared the cliff posed too much danger for the rescuers. The tide had come in… without the sunlight…”
Justin’s finger threaded through her hair. She felt his lips against her forehead.
“Mr. Scofield accused me of bringing him outside for some other purpose. And then he… grabbed at me.” She remembered Dudley’s sinister snarl. His breath had reeked of decay and cheap wine.
His hands had squeezed at her breasts and then violently sought the crease between her legs.
“I pushed him.”
She’d said it. She finally told somebody.
“You pushed him? Away from you?” Justin’s voice sounded so reasonable, so matter of fact.
“We were at the edge of the cliff. The ground was muddy from the rescue efforts. I pushed him, and he lost his footing. And then he fell. Off the cliff.” She needed him to understand. So many times since, she’d wished it had been her who’d fallen into the sea. But no.
The memory of that moment haunted her. She’d dropped to the ground but been afraid to crawl to the edge, to look over. Afraid he’d climb back up and attack her again but also afraid that he wouldn’t.
The mud. So much mud. And the wind. She never wanted to breathe in salty air again.
“What did you do after?”
