“These make me so curious,” she whispered. “Where did you get them?”
“Different places,” he answered dismissively. “None of them worth your notice.”
“But I want to know.”
She pulled away from his embrace. A fresh gleam of determination lit her eyes. She ran her hand down his shirtfront, then gathered the linen hem and began hiking it, exposing his belly.
His abdominal muscles flinched and went rigid. “What are you doing?”
“Won’t you call me Katie? I like it when you do. Something about your voice when you say it, in that low, dangerous growl.” She gathered the folds of his shirt in both hands now and raised it.
“Katie . . .” he groaned.
She smiled. “Yes. Like that. It makes me warm and tingly all over. Now raise your arms.”
He could deny her nothing, and she knew it. She meant to make use of it.
She drew the gathered shirt over his head and down his arms, then cast it gently aside. Swiveling her body, she angled to face him. Her gaze roamed over his bared chest, and the look in her eyes was a mix of fascination and fear. He felt the urge to hide the truth, the unpleasantness. But it was better that she see this and understand.
She said, “Tell me.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Which was the first?”
“This one.” He turned his shoulder to her, to point out the small rose inked there.
“How did you get it?”
“After I left London—”
“With me. After you left London with me, and delivered me to Margate.”
“Yes.” He swallowed. “I couldn’t go back to the Hothouse, of course. Even if I’d wished to return, and I didn’t. I roamed the countryside, doing odd work here and there, but mostly sleeping in haystacks and living off what small game I could snare. I found I had a knack for it, the coursing. It was as if I lived so wild, I developed an animal way of thinking. I sensed where the hare would be before it appeared, knew which direction it would flee. And the open land and fresh air . . . I think it did me good, after all those years of London soot. I was a dirty, scraggly thing, but I think those months were the closest to happiness I ever came.
“I fell in with a poaching gang, once winter arrived. I brought them game to sell, they made sure I had a barn to sleep in and a warm coat and boots. This mark”—he rubbed the crudely drawn flower—“was how the members knew one another. No names.”
“No friendships,” she said. “No real human connections.”
“I did have a dog.”
“Really?” She smiled. “What was his name?”
He hesitated. “Patch.”
“Oh, Samuel.” She pressed a hand to her cheek and shook her head. “I was so thoughtless. I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “Don’t be. Badger suits him.”
She found the row of numbers inside his left forearm. “And this?”
“Ah. Those mark the next stop in a poacher’s career. Prison.”
“Prison? Oh, no. How old were you then?”
“Fifteen. I think.”
She rubbed the tattoo. “Was this some sort of identification number they gave to all the prisoners?”
He shook his head. “I did it myself, the first month. It’s the date I was due to be released. Didn’t want to risk it being forgotten.”
“Forgotten by the gaolers?”
“Forgotten by me.”
Neither had he been willing to prolong his sentence by accepting any comforts in prison. Bedding, meat rations, the keys to the irons—all of it came at a price, and the gaolers tallied it in ledgers. Sixpence a week for this, a shilling for that. By the time a man’s sentence was served, he might have accrued debt in the tens of pounds—and he wouldn’t be released until he came up with the funds to pay it. Rather than face that madness, he had refused any extra food or blankets.
“How long were you imprisoned?” she asked.
“I was sentenced to seven years. But in the end, I only served four.”
The word “only” contained all sorts of lies. Only four years of sleeping on straw so old it had turned to dust, and so thick with vermin that the dust seemed alive. Only four years of surviving on a penny’s worth of bread a day. Only four years of shivering in irons that never were adjusted, even though he grew bigger and taller every month.
Yes, “only” four years of violence, hunger, ugliness, and animal treatment that haunted him to this day.
“The courts took mercy on you?” she asked.
“Mercy? Hardly. England needed soldiers more than she needed prisoners. They released me on the condition that I enlist.”
“So this . . .” She touched the medallion on the right side of his chest. “Is this the symbol of your regiment?”
“Partly.” His chest lifted in a humorless chuckle. “Don’t go fishing for deep meaning in that one. Just too much rum in a Portuguese tavern one night, soon after we shipped to the Peninsula.”