“My father died in February,” Sabine said. “Dryden installed himself after the funeral. He and I have been at odds since then.”
“At odds?”Stoker choked.
Sabine touched her swelling eye. “We do not get on.”
He allowed this incredible understatement to resound between them. Finally, he said, “Is this the worst of it?”
“There was a broken rib, I believe. Or two.” Sabine hadn’t realized the relief of actuallytellingsomeone. Especially someone she did not know and who would leave here in five minutes. She’d hid the worst of the abuse from her mother and her friends. She was so very ashamed—and what could they do? The helplessness was as terrible as the pain.
Yet, here she stood, telling this man.
“But his attacks,” asked Stoker, “do not extend to—?” He stopped, ran a hand on his neck, and began again. “That is, he does not...?” Another pause. His flat tone had taken on a stratum of something harder, something decidedlyless calm.
She shook her head.No. Thank God. Not that.
Stoker nodded and looked away. He took a deep breath. “You cannot remain here,” he said.
Sabine could not know it, but Jon Stoker had rescued hundreds of girls over the years—not because he’d married them, but because he’d beaten down doors or stabbed oppressive men or stolen them away under the cover of night.
Some said he’d been born a hero; others said he fought in memory of his desperate mother. Stoker said he was in the wrong place at the right time. All too often.
Regardless of the reason, regardless of their prisons, he always said these same words.You cannot remain here.It was routine.
Sabine raised her chin. “I am in the process of cataloging my father’s legacy. He was a cartographer of some merit, and he was scheduled to publish a collective of maps when he died. There are surveys and drawings and text—much of it out of order, all of it unfinished. There are apprentices living here at Park Lodge to curate the work, but I had taken the lead since his death. And my mother is not well. We are lucky to have a devoted caregiver, but her health is tenuous at best.”
“And how effective are you at these endeavors when you are under the dominion of this man?” Stoker asked.
Sabine looked down at her hand. A bruise shined from her smallest finger, a remnant of the week prior, when Sir Dryden had come upon her at the drafting table and pressed a paperweight into her hand.
“The truth is,” she said, “I cause my mother fresh grief the longer I remain. She cannot bear to see me hurt.”
“This is why you advertised your dowry?”
Sabine looked at him. There were reasons, and then there were fantasies made up by well-meaning friends. The advert had been a fantastical, made-up thing.
“My friends engineered the advert,” she said. “I have no wish to marry.”
“Ihave no wish to marry,” countered Stoker.
It was not what she expected him to say. He’d been asking for ten minutes if the advertised proposal was still on. He stood five feet away, feet planted. Leaving seemed the furthest thing from his mind. He studied her as if she knew the solution to a problem that could change both of their lives.
For the first time she allowed herself to look at this man, toreallylook at him. He was large, of course. Sir Dryden had not fought him because Jon Stoker was large and her uncle was a coward. Not simply tall, however. Stoker was broad-shouldered, with a substantial chest, flat middle, and long, thick legs. He had the physique of a farmer, someone who lifted heavy things, who plowed and chopped. His face was tan and weathered. He was older than she was but not so very old, ten years beyond her own twenty-three years, perhaps? He had black hair, rather like a pirate.
A farmer pirate?
Later Sabine would scold herself for standing before him, wounded and embarrassed, and inventing the labelfarmer pirate. Vigilante stonemasonandblacksmith warrioralso came to mind. Had she hit her head in the cupboard?
Stoker broke the silence. “What is your reason?”
“I beg your pardon?” Only a lunatic could follow this conversation.
“Your reason for not wanting to marry?”
“Oh. That. Well, I’ve realized in the past six months that I’ve no wish to live under the dominion of any man. Not ever. And I am very occupied with my father’s legacy, as I’ve said. I haven’t the time to tend to a husband. Or the desire.”
He nodded, and she asked him the same question. “What is your reason?”
He paused, studying her, almost as if he weighed the benefits of answering.
