Untouched

She caught herself just before the admission emerged. She sought a safer alternative. “There’s so much I don’t understand here, so much that puzzles me.”

He ran one hand through his mass of fine hair. “Damn it, Grace…Mrs. Paget…”

The sound of her Christian name in that rich, deep voice sent a frisson of perilous pleasure through her. Her ready blush rose but she didn’t look away. “You’ve seen me sick. You’ve seen me in my nightgown. It’s absurd to stand on ceremony.”

“Grace, then.” He looked squarely at her. “My uncle decided to arrange a mistress for me after I escaped last year.”

This was the last thing she expected. Slowly, she rose to her feet, dropping the trowel and stripping off the rough gloves. “You say escape is impossible.”

Again that wry smile. “With good reason.”

“But you got out.”

“Three times in eleven years. But I’ve never stayed out. The first time I was eighteen. Even after the worst of my illness passed, it took four years before I could speak or read. I could hardly walk. I took occasional fits.”

“No longer?” Her mind conjured the specter of the helpless lunatic that his uncle had summoned yesterday.

“Not since before that first escape.”

She took the step that brought her to his side. “Seven years health means you’re well,” she said softly, wanting to take his hand, then noticing she had.

“I don’t know.” For once, he sounded young and uncertain. Instead of rejecting her, he turned his fingers in hers and gripped hard enough to hurt. The heat of his touch seared her to the core. “Sweet Jesus, I don’t know.”

She realized the fear he constantly lived with. Fear not of his uncle’s cruelty, but that his mind might turn traitor, perhaps this time forever. His strength overawed her. His pain broke her heart. How could she bring herself to destroy this remarkable man?

He drew her down to the old wooden settle under the greenhouse eaves. “My uncle’s men caught me within three miles. They thought I’d lost my mind again and tied me down for a few days. I was so angry, I probably was mad.” He rested their linked hands on one muscled thigh. Grace tried desperately not to notice the heat and strength that radiated through the buff breeches. “After that, my uncle had the walls treated. It’s like trying to clamber up glass.”

“I know.” She recalled her own futile attempts to climb out. “But you got away again.”

“Yes. Two years later, Monks cut himself on an ax so I only had Filey to worry about. I tricked him into the kitchen and locked him in, then I just walked out. I got as far as Wells before the Bow Street Runners found me. There are no locks on the estate now except for the gate.”

She’d found the lack of locks frightening until she realized that Lord Sheene would never beat at her bedroom door and demand entrance. “Still you hoped.”

“Yes, foolish, stubborn hope. Perhaps madness persisted.”

“No,” she said with certainty. “What happened last year?”

“I learned the error of my ways,” he said bitterly. Pain and shame shadowed his face. “I stole a horse and made it to the family seat at Chartington in Gloucestershire. I knew people there would hide me while I worked out how to prove my sanity.”

“They turned you in?” she asked, aghast.

His fingers flexed hard on her hand. “I wish to God they had. My nurse had married one of the estate gardeners and they were overjoyed to see me. But my uncle knew where I’d go.”

“You were punished again?”

“No, damn my uncle to hell.” Lord Sheene paused, visibly fighting for control. His voice was steadier as he went on, although rage still roughened his tone. “He’s the local magistrate and he transported M

ary and her husband to New South Wales for harboring an absconded lunatic. My uncle made sure I saw their letters begging for mercy. He’s kept any other news to himself. It’s possible they didn’t survive the journey. Mary was expecting a child and she hadn’t been well.”

He wrenched away and surged to his feet. The eyes he turned upon her were dark with guilt and self-hatred. “If I hadn’t taken advantage of their kindness, they’d be safe. My uncle will use his power against anyone who aids me.”

As she looked into his tormented face, an old memory surfaced. When her brother was sixteen, he’d winged a wild hawk with his gun and carried the wounded bird back to Marlow Hall. He’d had some idea of training it to hunt. But while the bird’s injury healed readily enough, Philip could never tame its spirit. The hawk had starved in its cage.

Grace had begged Philip to release the bird but he was stubborn. The hawk had died, its fierce yellow eyes staring hatred at her until the end. For a long time, that inimical obstinate gaze had haunted her.

When she looked at Lord Sheene, she saw that same wild spirit. She saw the same will for freedom above all. And when freedom became an impossible dream, life slowly faded.

He extended his arm. The gesture wouldn’t have looked out of place in Hyde Park during the fashionable hour. “Walk with me?”