Page 64 of Her Dark Seduction
“William never recovered.”
I let out a low cry.
“Please, Lisetta, it was not his fault. He suffered greatly over William’s death. Father threw him out, but what hurt him most was our mother’s rejection. He left that night, and we did not see him for some years. After a while we thought he was dead. When he returned he was a changed man; scarred and hardened. The brother I knew no longer existed. Lily persuaded me to take him in. She has always seen the good in him. But he did not stay. He would disappear for months at a time. The last time was almost three years, before he returned with you.”
“What happened to…” I struggled to speak her name “…to Elizabeth, and her child?”
Jack’s voice hardened. “She married an acquaintance of her father’s, someone prepared to take her though she carried another’s child. She died in childbirth and took the child with her. The first time Valentine returned, I took him to her grave. He stood by the headstone and spat on it, declaring all women deceitful whores and that he would never fall prey to one again.”
He laughed bitterly. “Little did that bitch know, Valentine eventually became everything she’d wanted. Her rejection of him was like the stone being thrown into a pond, sending out ripples of events, leading him to become the man he is.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“De Beauvane knighted him.”
My eyes widened. “A knight? I thought him a mere servant.”
“Yet you still married him.”
“I had no choice.”
His eyes narrowed. “Would you have been more willing had you known he was a knight?”
I shook my head. “No, Jack. It would have made no difference. I have spent most of my life subject to the authority, and whims, of lords and knights. Yet only during these past sennights in your house, have I understood how a man can be kind, even when he has nothing to gain by it.”
He eyed me curiously. Anxious not to talk about myself I changed the subject.
“Does he still think of her?”
Jack sighed. “Nay, he does not, though it left him with a bitterness toward women.”
“All women?”
“He loves Lily as a sister; she defended him against my father, more so than I did for I was grieving for William at the time. But as for other women—he was a changed man. ’Tis a pity.”
I lowered my head, feeling the heat rise in my face. Jack took my hand.
“Forgive me, Lisetta. He has a loving heart, but conceals it.”
He lowered his voice to a whisper while he caressed my hand. “He is much like you. I think you care—and love—a great deal more than you wish the world to know. Why is that?”
I shook my head, but he persisted.
“Do you think me blind? Your manner may be aloof but even if the tears you shed last night did not betray you, your eyes show a great deal. They contain fear but also deep sadness—and I see their expression when you look upon my brother. Do not try to convince me you are incapable of love…”
“Please, Jack, say no more.” I pulled my hand away.
“Why do you not reveal your feelings?”
I stood, but he caught my wrist where Vane had crushed it the night before. I groaned in pain and struggled against his grip. My body belonged to Vane as much as it had belonged to my father and Mortlock, who had abused and controlled it. But my mind and soul—I wanted to believe they were free, still mine to control. Yet Jack, who I had trusted, was probing my thoughts, wanting me to reveal myself to him.
“Please, let me go!”
He released me and held his hands up in a gesture of appeasement. “I will not touch you if you don’t wish it. Sit down and finish your porridge.”
I backed away, rubbing my wrist.
“Are you so frightened to trust us?” he asked.
