“It is information concealed,” she countered.
He stared at her. He shook his head. “No.”
She tried again. “You are my husband, awakening me in the night with tortured screams. I have asked to know something, and you have said no, I’m not to be told. I suppose the one difference is you’re not making up some lie about it. As far as I know. Is this progress? Or more of the same?”
“What good is it to impose these memories on you?” he asked tersely.
“So that you might more easily bear them,” she shot back. “One way to protect someone from pain is to keep the pain hidden—I’ll grant you that. But another way is to share the burden with someone else. Remember when I explained to you the slow-bleed death of Ivy Hill? How the quarry in Maidstone aimed to blot out the town? It was a sort of relief to tell you about it. Even if you could do nothing to help—and I know, I know. You’ve set me up in this mansion so that I might hire half the town, but I had no notion of that when I told you about it. You asked, and I explained it, and it felt as if the burden of safeguarding my neighbors and my community was... wasless. If even for five minutes.”
He dug his hands in his hair and dropped his head.
“In hindsight,” she said, “you didn’t ask about Ivy Hill out of curiosity. You didn’t care—not really. You were simply chatting me up so you could race me down the aisle. I know that now—but I didn’t at the time. I thought you...” She took a deep breath. “I thought you wanted to know about my life. And I was glad for it. At the time.”
“Ididwant to know about you,” he corrected. “At first glance—from the moment I saw you. I didn’twantto want this—to wantyou. You were meant to be petulant and terrible and French. You were never meant to be clever, or interesting, or alluring, but I couldn’t look away. I could no soonernothear of your plans for Ivy Hill, or Eastwell Park, or the parish hall, than stop breathing.”
She laughed, a bitter scoffing sound.
“Oh yes, laugh at my helplessness in the face of someone so articulate and full of life and... bloody...radiantthat you made me forget my pain, Danielle. What was I to do but listen to you? And stare at you? I was so incredibly out of my depth. You speak of lesseningyourburden? For the first time since the attack, I was able to think of something other than death, and revenge, and how in God’s name I might recover Linus. Instead, I allowed myself to be captivated by you. I felt guilty for indulging in the irresistible distraction, I felt like a bloody traitor to my crew, to Linus who is, even now, as I sit in a bed next to the most beautiful woman I’ve ever encountered, rotting in a dungeon, but God help me,I’ve not been able to stop.”
Dani held his gaze, heart pounding, his words swirling in her head like a cool wind. She could turn her face to it and allow it to carry her away; or she could turn her back to it and run.
“Well, then,” she said, “you do know about sharing a burden. So now you may tell me about the dreams.”
“No.”
“Yes.” Her braid rested on her shoulder and she snatched it up, playing with the end.
“No.”
She laughed.“Yes.”
He closed his eyes. He exhaled. He opened them. He said, “My crew was keelhauled. One at the time. While I watched—while every man watched until it was his turn.”
“Keelhauled?”
“Yes. Do you know what that means?” His voice was loud and hard.
She dropped her hair. She shook her head.
“It is a barbaric and, I’d thought, long-retired form of torture at sea. Surcouf bound each man at wrist and ankle and tethered them with a long rope. Then he pitched them into the sea under full sail, dragging their body against the boat until they drowned; but not before the barnacles on the hull of the ship cut their skin to ribbons; not until their bones and skull were bashed.Thatis what he did, man by man. My friends since boyhood, many of them. Waiting their turns for certain, terrible death. Meeting it with grim, defiant courage.Thatis what I see when I dream. AndI shout and wail because of how very terrible it is—it was. So. Now you’ve heard it. I’m a blaggard for introducing this horror to your young and innocent mind—but you asked for this, didn’t you? Whythisis the honesty you called out, I have no idea.”
“Just to be clear,” she said, “I have called out every honesty. This is the one you’ve consented to share.”
“Fair point. I did say I was a blaggard.”
“But how did you survive? As captain, did they not bind you, did they not toss you overboard?”
“Of course. I was second to last to go, so that I might bear witness to the drowning of my crew.”
“But how did you escape it?”
He shrugged. “I had a blade secreted in my sleeve, between my wrists. By the time I was pitched overboard, I’d sliced the bindings at my hands to only a thread. When I hit the water, the only thing left to do was separate my ankles and climb the main line that tethered me to the boat. When I was close enough, I caught hold of the bowsprit and held fast. They assumed I had drowned and so they moved on to the last man, who was Fernsby. When he was thrown, I dove to cut him loose. Then I fought the waves, straining to see that Surcouf did not give the same treatment to Linus. When it was clear he would not—God knows why—I stopped swimming and gave myself over to the storm. My only goal was to hold fast to Fernsby and keep our heads above water. When Surcouf’s lugger sailed away, I made an informal bet with the viscount’s unconscious form: How many minutes can we stay alive? Minutes turned into hours, hours turned to morning. A day and a half later, we were discovered. We were saved. I was lauded a hero. I was awarded a princess so I could go after the French captain who calls himself an officer and a gentleman, but who is, in fact, a sadist. I could go after Linus and bring him home. Andthat, in case it’s not perfectly clear, was the only thing on my mind when I reached Ivy Hill and encountered you. At which time—meaning, the moment my defeated carcass clapped eyes on you—my revenge plot and recovery mission was shot to hell.”
“Am I meant to apologize here?” she asked.
“Of course not. You are innocent. My crew was innocent. Linus Welty is innocent. Everyone is innocent except Vincent bloody Surcouf and myself.”
He ran a hand over his mouth. His breath came in heavy gulps and his brow was wet with perspiration. He wouldn’t look at her. He shoved from the bed and stalked around it, coming to the side closest to her. He looked into her eyes, his expression painful, his breathing hard.
