That made him smile. “Sentimental, are you?”
“Yes. This cabin, too. I hope it stands for a long, long time. This is where you made me clean in a way all the scrubbing could never do.”
Remington sucked in a breath and he knew Phoebe felt it because she lifted her head and looked at him.
“I was raped,” she said. “Is that something you want to know?”
Chapter Twenty-three
Remington stopped cradling his head and used his hands to take Phoebe by the shoulders. He pushed her back while he sat up. “Why didn’t you tell me, Phoebe?”
She did not shrink from him but her voice was hardly more than whisper. “I was afraid it would make a difference. It was selfish, I suppose, but I wanted to be with you. I never thought I would want to be with anyone, and then there was you, and it felt right to want something for myself.”
“It is right. Of course, it is.” He circled her with his arms, drew her close. “You should want something for yourself. Always.” He held her that way, one hand at the small of her back, the other at the back of her head. His fingers slipped into her hair.
Phoebe rested against him, supported and reassured by his embrace. She laughed softly, a bit unevenly around the lump in her throat. There was an ache behind her eyes. “I think I’m going to cry, Remington. In fact, I’m sure of it.”
“That’s all right, then. You don’t have to announce it.”
“I was w-warning m-myself. I-I’m n-not the w-wee-pi-pi-ing s-sort.”
“I know.” She did not cry long or hard, although he would have understood if she had. She wept silently; tears that she didn’t knuckle away fell on his shoulder. Once, she lifted her head and began to apologize for them. He settled her head back where he thought it belonged just then and would not let her wipe them away.
Neither of them carried a handkerchief, so after Phoebe swallowed the last sob and sniffed, she tore one of theruffles off the bottom of her knickers and blew her nose loudly and inelegantly into that. When she was done, she ripped a ruffle off the other leg and used it to wipe her eyes and clean her face, then she balled up both ruffles and tossed them into the stove. They flared briefly as they caught on the embers. She took advantage of the fire and shoved one of their few remaining logs into the flames.
She turned to Remington. “My face is splotchy, isn’t it? Puffy eyes? Red nose?” When he nodded in answer to all of those things, she sighed. “Fiona cries quite beautifully. Have you seen her?”
“No.” He added firmly, “And I will count it as one of God’s little favors if I am able to avoid it.” The smile Phoebe turned on him was a little watery. He said, “I don’t think I would believe Fiona’s tears.”
“I know,” she said. “Sometimes it is all artifice, for effect, but there are those times when it is so real that she’s liable to break your heart.”
“She’s broken yours?”
“Too often to count.”
Remington acknowledged Phoebe’s frank gaze. “Not only because she’s wept real tears, I bet.”
“That’s right.”
He considered that, considered that her expressive eyes remained candid in their regard, and considered that she was waiting for him to throw open the door that she had left ajar. He said, “Does Fiona know, Phoebe?”
“Yes and no.”
Her answer confused him, but it was also the sort of response that raised his slightly slanted smile. “You’ll have to explain.”
“Mm. She knows about the first time. I never told her about the other two.”
Remington had no words. It was all right, though, because she accepted his silence as an invitation and told him everything, and when she was done, he had words, none of which adequately expressed his empathy or his rage.
“You don’t have to say anything,” she said. “You wantedto know, and I told you. You listened. I can’t properly explain how important that was to me, and if I hadn’t thought you could, I would have cut you out.”
“Is that what you did to Fiona? Cut her out?”
“I think so, yes. I believed Monty when he said he would permanently scar Fiona if I said a word to anyone. It occurred to me at the time that he’d heard how Fiona had attacked Alistair Warren, perhaps that he even knew why she had attacked him, and therefore had some reason to be afraid of her. Revenge could have also been his motive. That occurred to me, too. Monty and Alistair were acquainted outside of their association with Fiona, so an exchange could have taken place regarding the events of that night.”
“I understand,” said Remington. “But later, after Montgomery died in that fire, you still didn’t tell Fiona. Don’t you think she would have wanted to know?”
“No. That’s the one thing I never thought.”
