The blinding agony didn’t spare a single nerve in my body. It devoured all thought and stunned me into a sobbing pool of snot and tears.
Pain was all that existed.
It lasted longer than I thought I could survive. “No more. I beg you to stop. I’ll do anything. Anything! Please!”
I needed the torture to end. I needed my father. I needed mercy, and I pleaded for it, screamed for it, willing my soul unto any god who would have me in exchange for a moment of relief.
Nightfall wrapped the forest in shadows, and my cries lost strength. Blood soaked my broken fingernails, and dirt coated my cracked lips.
When the cane finally dropped to the ground, I couldn’t move, couldn’t think past the dense, trembling misery.
Until he touched me there.
Inside my center.
Then I was screaming, kicking at the legs that crawled between mine.
He grabbed my waist and pulled my hips to his naked groin.
“No! Don’t do this!” I twisted and slid through the dirt, dragging my chest through vomit. All the rolling and wriggling moved my body toward my bound hands until they were caught beneath me.
That was when I felt it. The hilt of the dagger in my sleeve.
A spark of hope.
As he wrestled my lower body into position against his, I pulled the blade free. But with my arms tied at the wrists, I couldn’t cut through the rope.
“Not like this.” I adjusted my fingers around the hilt. “Turn me over. Please, my lord?”
He rubbed invasive fingers between my legs and groaned a vile sound. “As you wish.”
The trumpet-shaped sleeves of my gown concealed my hands. I pinched the folds of fabric around the blade and pointed it outward as he rolled me.
The instant my back hit the ground, he dove between my legs.
And landed directly onto the dagger.
My heart pounded as I thrust with all my strength, piercing the soft meat of his abdomen.
He stared down at me, eyes wide. His jaw opened in a soundless scream, and ropes of red-tinged drool stretched from his gaping mouth and plopped onto my cheek.
I pushed harder on the blade with both hands, my fingers slipping through wetness as I carved a line toward his chest.
A choking sound gurgled from his throat. His body spasmed, sinking onto the dagger before collapsing on top of me.
I strained to hear his breath, but my heart beat too loud, banging in my ears. And the trembling… By the grace of almighty God, I couldn’t stop shaking.
But he didn’t move.
His stillness avowed his departure from this world. I’d plunged a blade into his belly and sent his soul to hell. I couldn’t bring it back. Nor did I want to.
Relief rode in on waves of exhaustion and horror. My mind lagged, struggling to process, as my stomach retched in great dry heaves.
By sheer will, I managed to push the body off me. It landed in a lifeless heap of limbs, breeches unbuttoned at the waist. The protrusion of male flesh flopped to the side like limp seaweed.
The periwig hung off-center, revealing the skull beneath. Bald, not gray.
With a shudder, I went to work on the rope around my wrists. Endless minutes flogged me as I twisted one hand free, ripping skin in the process. The bounds unraveled, and I shoved knots of crusty hair from my face, scouring the trees for the horses.
My eyes refused to adjust in the dark, and the forest blurred around me. My insides didn’t feel right. It was the coldness, the shivering, the constant twitching.
My shoulders jerked in tight convulsions. Spasms attacked my eyelids, throbbing swollen skin. My fingers didn’t work, the joints kinked from prolonged clenching.
An attempt to stand sent me spinning, stumbling, and plummeting to my knees. I rose again and forced my numb feet over the ground, propelled by a single imperative.
Save my father.
If I reached a horse, I could guide it back to the beach and find Charles Vane.
Every step shifted the gown against my backside, blazing agony across my skin. I cried out and reached blindly for something to grab onto. My hands grappled air, and I turned my ankle on a rock. The startling pain sent me wheeling back to the ground.
I sobbed in frustration and sprung back to my feet, pushing my body beyond its abilities. Everything hurt, and the uncontrollable trembling threatened to suck the last of my strength.
I twitched forward, centering my mind on each dragging step.
Twitch. Step. Twitch. Step.
Every branch in my path was a test of coordination, every uneven bump beneath my feet a challenge to overcome. My balance wavered, teetering on the edge between awareness and oblivion.
At last, my legs gave up, but I didn’t feel the ground hit me. I might have blacked out.
Sprawled on my side, I rubbed dirt from my sightless eyes and crawled on my belly. My thoughts tried to abandon me, but I held on, kept moving, determined to reach my father.
Until I couldn’t move at all.
The abyss pulled me into its yawning void, and as I fell, part of me hoped I would never wake again.
Of course, I woke. Life was too cruel to grant me a permanent reprieve from the pain. I lay face-down, my body a single pulsing ache wrapped in the welts of my mistakes.
I’d failed, and my shame took on a horrifying new meaning in the silver light of dawn.
With my cheek pressed to the leaf-littered ground, I blinked the grit from my eyes, disoriented by the view before me.
A pair of dirt-coated slippers peeked out from a hem of lavender silk. I twisted my neck, following the wrinkled skirt of a gown, up, up, up to the glaring visage of the countess.
She stared down at me, hands on her hips, scrutinizing the remains of a dress she’d worked so hard to make.
Guilt crushed my chest.
“Mother…” My voice burned in my throat, raw from screaming and parched from dehydration.
“Don’t.” She simmered in her stillness, her jaw quivering in unholy rage. “I don’t know what I did to invite such vile disrespect and hatred, but I will not hear your excuses. Not this time.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“Not another word!”
A brown mare whinnied behind her, and the sight of it confused me. That horse didn’t belong to the marquess.
Had my mother ridden it here? This deep into the woods before dawn? Alone?
I returned my attention to her face, her complexion drained of color in the frame of fallen, untamed hair. She looked so disheveled and tired, nothing like herself. And she was still wearing the gown I’d last seen her in yesterday morning.
“You came for me?” I rolled to my back and regretted it instantly.
A violent burst of pain blazed through my body, plaguing every muscle and joint. Dizziness mottled my vision, and I gasped through the torment, squinting at her ghost-white expression.
“Whose blood is that?” She pointed a trembling finger at my chest.
“Not mine.” I sat up sluggishly and scanned the thick grove for the Marquess of Grisdale.
How much could I tell her? Had news already traveled to the house about the arrest of Edric Sharp? I’d never so much as mentioned his name in her presence. If I told her everything now, would she stop me from rescuing him?
She stepped over me in a rustle of silk and made a beeline through the shadows of the trees, ducking under branches and yanking her skirts free from thorns.
A few paces away, she stopped with a gasp. Her hand fell to the bodice at her stomach, and she bent at the waist, heaving for breath.