She seemed almost surprised when the small fire burned her bleeding fingertip.
It was not long before his wick wa
s spent, the two of them cast into darkness. All night he pressed his ear to the gap in the stone as the wretch spoke a blend of languages that hardly made sense. She was feverish and giddy. He gave her his meager scraps, offered her his paltry cup, watching as she dipped her fingers in then pulled them back to suck.
Every night he would pull the stone away from his side of the wall and listen in the dark. Many times he only heard weak screams until there was nothing but the sick sound of slapping flesh and the loud grunts of a man using her. When it was over, if she could, she had crawled to him. Payne hardly spoke, but he would reach his dark fingers though the stone and her bird-thin bones would touch his.
He was a man of few words, had never found speech useful as no one listened to a slave, but he spoke for her. Payne told the tales of his homeland, the same stories his own mother had shared long ago while the girl devoured whatever food he had stolen from the kitchens.
The small opening between them was too narrow to look upon his neighbor beyond the shine of eyes the candle might show in the dark. But he knew... the shade of green was the same from the painting downstairs, the same eyes that had lost vitality years ago. The captive was Iliffe’s wife.
There was never talk of it amongst cowed servants, but only the blind would have been unaware of what had been done to her. Since Benjamin Iliffe had brought her home, the once beautiful lady had grown sickly, her screams a thing common in the night hours.
Yet no one questioned when the woman was gone. Packed off to Italy, Iliffe had said. That had been six months before the rock fell out of his wall. Six months she’d been in a windowless prison with no light. Six months of the Baron’s sickest game yet.
Her husband would forget about her for days at a time, starve her, deny her water. But Payne gave her everything in his power. Her weeping was his weeping, her suffering his own.
When a fever finally took her and she would no longer approach, he grew wild, paced and felt full of fear. British slaves had yet to be emancipated, his options were limited. If he fled to find help, who would feed her? Who would believe? But if he stayed she would surely die. He had torn at his hair, attacked the rock wall between them in an absolute frenzy as he begged any god to do something for the woman behind the stones.
The gods did not help. When had they ever?
The following morning, it was Payne who’d spooked the prize black stallion at market when the Baron stood near enough for hooves to cleave. The accident had not killed the man, only left him broken and abed. So, Payne finished the job once the doctor had gone to see to his full bladder. Standing large and foreboding over the evil noble who had bought him as a boy and treated him like a dog—who laughed when others used the baroness and still tortured her, Payne’s work roughened palm covered Iliffe’s mouth and nose.
The baron had been too weak to fight back.
The man who had named him Pain in mockery of what his life was to be twitched, wept, and then he died. When the doctor returned to the room and found the baron dead, Payne had dragged the haggard man to the hole where the sounds of a fevered woman’s ramblings could be heard.
The physician saw to Arabella’s freedom.
It was never spoken of in the ton, the state of his baroness Iliffe when she was pulled naked, covered in sores and filth from that room. Why would nobles offer pity to a creature they had mocked and hated from first glance?
The only soul who’d ever understand her was Payne. The one who kept her safe was Payne. But he was getting old...
As if Arabella knew his thoughts, the chant of her reading broke. Eyes the shade of the most brilliant spring leaves set softly upon him, seeing him as no one could.
His personal wraith smiled softly, a rare expression of contentment upon her face.
Payne smiled in return, nodding toward the boy snuggled up to her. “He should have a tutor, my lady.”
Arabella tightened her arm around the child. “I will call upon the parson tomorrow, if you wish.” She fingered the open book on Hugh’s lap, her next words for the boy. “I lack the skill to teach you more than the little I know. Payne is right.”
“Can I learn numbers too?” Hugh’s eyes were wide, the youth excited.
“Arithmetic,” Arabella corrected, “amongst the other things the parson will teach you.”
Payne gave the final order. “Hugh, that is enough for tonight. Our lady is tired. Off to bed.”
The boy scampered off, leaving the two of them alone.
Payne had a knack for knowing what the red-haired witch needed. “Come rest beside me.”
She scooted until her head could lie on his knee. Payne stroked her hair as he spoke softly, gently, “What if I were to go to London? What if I were to kill lord Dalton?”
Arabella jerked under his hand and sat up. “You would be hanged! Do not even think such things. Swear to me you would never do it. It is only for you that I keep breathing.”
“Then I will never die.”
“Never.” Resting her head back against his leg, eyes wide and sad, she whispered, “Never speak of it again, Payne. Promise me.”