“How do you know her name?”
Chapter 14
Nathan could feel the waves of pain coming off of Abigail, and he wanted to rush to her side. To hold her close. To comfort her. But he also felt something else coming from her, something angry and accusatory, something defensive. So he honored that and stayed at the door so as not to crowd her.
“Don’t just stare at me,” she hissed. “Answer me. How do you know about Ella?”
He cleared his throat. Honesty was best here, no matter what it would cause. “I…looked into your past.”
Her nostrils flared, and for a moment he was torn back in time to the first time they’d met. To how she had looked at him with disdain and dislike and it had been genuine. Seeing it again made him realize how far they’d come…and how far they could fall if they weren’t careful with the delicate relationship they were developing.
“Of course you did,” she said, turning away and going to the window. “I’m sure you were trying to find some information you could use to prove I was the villain you wanted me to be.”
He drew in a shaky breath and took a step toward her. “You don’t know how much I want to give you some flippant answer instead of the truth.”
She caught her breath as she faced him again. “I think I understand that, actually. We have never been open with each other, never trusted each other enough to be. But…as uncomfortable as it is, we must now, or we shall both be miserable. I wasn’t lying to your sister when I said I didn’t want that. So please, just tell me everything.”
She was so earnest in those words. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her so open when she looked at him and it was intoxicating. He never wanted it to go away. He wanted to earn that look for the rest of their lives.
He cleared his throat. “I was so angry with Montgomery,” he said. “And I…I couldn’t believe you didn’t know his true nature.”
He watched how those words hit her. Felt the pain of them, felt the wrongness now that he knew her better.
“Just like everyone else,” she said at last, so softly she almost couldn’t be heard.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I was as wrong and foolish as everyone else back then. But I want you to know that the more I grew acquainted with you, both through my intrusive and wrongheaded actions and from the time I spent from you, the more I understood you were not the kind of person who could ever support that man’s actions. The more I knew that you were a decent person, with a warrior’s heart.”
Her eyes went wide at that response, and he couldn’t blame her. A year ago he wouldn’t have admitted to such a thing. But the world had changed since then. They had changed.
“I thought I was a menace,” she said with the faint hint of a smile. And that faint hint gave him hope. If she could tease with him, that meant she didn’t hate him. At least no more than usual.
“You’re both,” he teased back. Then he drew a ragged breath and reached for her, praying she would allow him to touch her. She did, shivering when he traced his fingers along the line of her jaw, across the curve of her cheek. “But the fact remains, I do know about your past.”
She shut her eyes and leaned into his hand. Her face was lined with more of that pain. “About Ella.”
He nodded. “And once I did know it, so much made sense. How protective you were of Celeste and Pippa, how welcoming you were under the worst of circumstances. I liked you a little more.”
A hint of a smile tilted her lips. “Oh, that must have burned you down to your very core.”
“It was horrible,” he teased, but then he got more serious. “Can you forgive me for what I did?”
She drew a ragged breath. “Once upon a time, not so very long ago, I would have slapped your face for what you just admitted. But I can see now, because I know you better too, that you were doing what you could to defend and protect your sister. I know how much that duty, that privilege means to you. And that, I understand. So yes, I forgive you.”
He let out a shuddering sigh and telling relief coursed through him. “Thank you.”
She stared up at him, searching his face, searching his soul, he thought. Then she said, “Would you…would you like to know more about her?”
He drew back a fraction. “Y-Yes. I would, if you want to tell me. Now or some other time.”
“I think the time is now,” she said on another ragged sigh. “Because the future is coming, isn’t it? And it’s one where we will need to trust each other, at least a little. So I’ll tell you about Ella, Nathan. I’ll tell you everything.”
As Abigail surrendered to what Nathan wanted, his expression softened. As if he knew how hard this was and it meant something to him. As if she meant something to him, though she knew that wasn’t true. He might want her. He might even like her a little, despite himself. But they were no love match. It was impossible that they ever could be.
And yet his approval, his support, meant something.
She sighed, and suddenly she felt so very tired. Like the weight of the last year, of the last few weeks, had finally buckled her knees. “May we sit, though?”
He nodded immediately and led her back to the settee. Only this time he didn’t take a place in the chair across from her, but on the cushions beside her. He took her hand and held it against his knee while he waited, unspeaking, not pushing, for her to tell him about the most devastating pain she had ever endured.
“She was five years younger than I was, but Ella and I were very close. We had to be. Our father was very strict, stern. He was the second son of the Earl of Middleton, and I realize now he was driven to prove himself. He was not loving. And our mother was flighty as a nervous hen. She spent money and bought ridiculous hats and could be fun and play. But she wasn’t very focused on us, and we both knew we couldn’t really depend on her.”
“So you depended on each other,” Nathan said.
“Yes. I think you know a little about that.”
He nodded, but didn’t elaborate or try to take anything from her story. So she continued, “She was eight when the fever took hold. At first no one took it very seriously, but within a day or two, it was obvious she was in danger. My father brought in the best doctors from London.”
She pressed her lips together, squeezed the hand Nathan wasn’t holding until her knuckles went white.
“Take your time,” he said softly.
She nodded. “They were butchers. So many of those men are butchers, with medieval torture practices masquerading as cures. I stood in that room and watched as they tormented her. They bled her, they burned her, they soaked her in freezing water, they forced her to walk, they—” She squeezed her eyes shut and repeated, “They tormented her.”
His hand tightened on hers. “I’m so sorry.”
“I watched them killing her, and I begged my parents to fetch the healer the villagers sometimes spoke about. A woman who lived just outside the grounds of our estate. They refused and refused. Finally the doctors gave up. They packed up and shrugged and said there was nothing they could do. They told us to prepare ourselves.”