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“Pleasing? No, cariad—what you did was steal the soul right out of my body.”

Reassured, she slid an arm around his neck as he leaned down for a kiss. “Well, then . . .” she said just before their lips met, “. . . you know how to take it back.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Forgive Us Our Trespasses

As children, we view the world with simplicity: People are either good or bad, brave or cowardly. As adults, however, we can’t escape the uncomfortable truth that everyone we admire has done something awful, and everyone we despise has done something kind.

It’s tempting to toss out a piece of the puzzle that doesn’t seem to fit, but without it, we can never see the whole picture.

That was more or less the course of June’s thoughts as Mad gave Alan a bath in the scullery sink.

Alan, who hated baths, wriggled and repeatedly tried to shake himself off, flinging water in all directions. Mad was patient, however, and kept up a constant stream of encouragement. “You’ll be proper tidy after this. Now it’s time for the undercarriage, mate—up ye go—there’s a good lad—”

June smiled to herself as she made sugar biscuits for teatime. After pressing the dough into a tin lined with buttered paper, she scored it into rectangles with the tip of a knife and sprinkled the top with crushed sugar.

Not long ago, had someone told her the terror of Millbank Prison would be washing a sausage dog in her kitchen, she never would have believed it. But here he was. And he’d turned out to be the hardest man with the softest core of anyone she’d ever met.

As she watched Mad bathe little Alan so carefully, she reflected that the hands of a convicted criminal were the same ones that had learned to grasp a pencil without breaking it. They were hands that had held her in tenderness and not fondled or molested her when she’d spent the night in his bed.

She’d been wrong to call Mad a slamkin at the beginning. It wasn’t the right word for him. In fact, there wasn’t one word that could contain him. No one thing he’d ever done could define him. There wasn’t a day in anyone’s life when they were magically preserved in one moment and would never become anything else.

Idly she wondered how everyone in Nether Wallop would react if she brought Mad for a visit one day. He’d turn heads, for sure. Ma would probably be proud that her daughter had caught a coachman. The vicar would love him once he discovered Mad was willing to sit and listen for as long as he wanted to talk.

June wasn’t going to mention anything to them about Mad’s prison term. Especially not to the vicar, who had accumulated a vast store of knowledge about the hellfire awaiting sinners. The Bible banged on a lot about forgiveness—forgive your enemies, turn the other cheek, seventy times seven, and all that. But there was a fair lot of smiting in it too, and judging by his sermons, those were the vicar’s favorite parts.

Her family didn’t need to know about Mad’s past—it was part of him but not all of him.

Mad was pouring warm water over the dog. “Steady, Alan, we ain’t done yet. No harm in a bit o’ soap. Ladies like it when we wash. So I been told.”

June’s lips quirked as she carried the tray to the oven and set it on an iron grate inside.

Oh, how she enjoyed the sight of Mad leaning over the sink in his shirtsleeves. The black straps of his braces crossed snugly at the upper middle of his back, emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders and the tight, tapered lines of his waist. Not to mention a fine, hard backside.

“Tell me when you want the towels,” she said.

“No need, I already—” Mad paused, glancing at the empty counter beside him. “What happened to the ones I set there?”

“I put ’em on the warming shelf, is what.” June went to take stacked towels from the shelf built into the range and brought them to him.

Looking amused, Mad shook his head. “Alan, you lucky little tosser.” He wrapped the glum, dripping dog in a warm towel and lifted him against his chest. “He’s doubled his weight after how you been feedin ’im. Good thing I ain’t taking him back to Whistlin’ Will, or he’d charge extra for bringing him back fat and lazy.”

“You ain’t taking Alan back? Never?”

“Miss Martin told me to find out how much it will cost to buy him outright.”

June smiled and told the dog, “You are a lucky tosser.”

After Alan was towel-dried, June gave him a bit of the fried bacon they’d had for breakfast, and he trotted to his corner bed to lounge near the heat of the stove.

Seeing that Mad had returned to the scullery sink, June drew closer to him. He was using the remaining towel to blot his neck, his arms, and the wet front of his shirt. The flex of his shoulders beneath the braces was too tempting to resist.

She grasped the upper straps of the X and brought herself against him, molding to his back. Wishing she were tall enough to kiss his neck, she settled for pressing her lips between his shoulder blades and breathing through the fabric of his shirt.

Mad held still, as if inviting a wild creature closer. “What are you holding those straps for?” he asked over his shoulder.

June tugged on the braces as if they were a horse’s reins. “Breaking you to saddle,” she said against his shirt, and felt a ripple of laughter run through him.