She buried her face in his chest and shoulder. Her words were muffled.
“I’m a m-m-m-murderer.”
He loosened one arm to stroke her hair and the back of her neck. “No, darling, Albion is alive. And even if he weren’t, he hurt himself. You can’t blame yourself for that.”
She shook her head back and forth.
“I-I k-k-k-killed my m-m-m-mother.”
He held still. Then he pulled himself together and gathered her in even closer.
“I’m sure you didn’t, Caro.”
She began to squirm, trying to break his hold again. “I d-d-did. I’m a m-m-murderer.”
“I still love you.”
“N-n-no, you d-d-don’t.”
He could see the cut on her neck, still bleeding slightly. She needed a bandage.
“Don’t tell me whom I love.”
She was silent.
“I thought your mother fell.”
“L-l-l-let go of me.”
“No. You’ll run, won’t you?”
A sudden shout of “Yeth!” and a push against his chest.
“My legs are too tired to run anymore. But my arms are strong enough to hold you. And my heart is strong enough to hear the truth.”
He had been holding her tightly, but suddenly she was against him of her own volition, as if she was trying to bury herself in him, climb inside his skin. Her whole face was against his neck so when she began to cry, he felt it reverberating through his throat, into his voice box, and it felt like he was crying, too.
It was the most horrible sound he had ever heard.
He held her, in the middle of a field of wheat, her bloodhound circling them as if suddenly transformed into a herding dog, determined to keep them together.
In time, the crying lessened. And then stopped, he thought.
Finally, she spoke, her head still on his shoulder so he couldn’t see her face, and her voice was so flat, so expressionless, that if it were not for her lisp and her stutter, he would have sworn it was not her speaking.
“The d-day my mother died, my father had been to hith club earlier and one of the other gentlemen had r-referred to me ath not being right in the h-head. That man wath the father of one of the young men who had partnered me at the ball. The ball where I met you.”
Her only ball in her only Season. Phineas tightened his grip around her back.
“My father raged at me and my mother. My coming-out wath her idea and my mother had laid the family open to thame by having me go to a ball when I couldn’t talk properly.
“My mother drank more and more wine ath they thcreamed horrible thingth at each other. My father thaid I wath a bathtard and my mother wath a whore who had l-lain with a half-wit to make a child like me.”
Caro was no bastard. One look at her showed she was her father’s blood. The green eyes, the square jaw, the height. The man had either been deluded by his fury or intent on saying the most hurtful thing possible.
“I couldn’t b-bear it. I went out onto the landing. After more yelling and my father thaying he wath g-going to divorthe her and dithown me becauthe I wath more thameful than a divorthe would be, my mother c-c-came out to me. Thee could barely keep upright. I might have gone to my mother and helped her walk to her bedchamber where her maid would have taken care of her. But I didn’t. I hated her. I believed my f-f-father, believed my mother had done thith to me. Made me what I am.”
What you are is the most precious thing in all the world to me, darling Caro.
