I stared unseeing at the earth between my parents’ graves. I’d never realized he was keeping them away. I’d simply thought my family had been too busy with their own lives, too preoccupied to visit me.
“It didn’t matter,” I replied, my voice rough as sandpaper to my ears. “Sir Anthony was my husband. He had all the power. The only good you or father’s confronting him would have done was to cause a scandal. He would have won any dispute placed in front of a court of law.” And taken out their meddling on me. I didn’t speak the last aloud.
“Perhaps. But we still should have tried.” Trevor grabbed my arm, turning me to look at him. “It wasn’t right that we did nothing to stop his treatment of you. That we didn’t force you to confide in us.” Brackets of pain formed around his mouth and eyes. “I will regret that for the rest of my life.”
“Trevor, no.” I shook my head. “I am not going to let you take this on yourself. I should have been brave enough to tell you or father what was going on. I . . . I should have had the courage to defy him.”
“Why didn’t you?”
I blinked up at him, surprised by the question.
“Why didn’t you trust me enough to tell me?” His face twisted with agony. “Did you think I wouldn’t believe you? That I would stand by and let that brute treat you that way?”
“Oh, Trevor, no.” A tear slipped down my cheek at the pain I’d unknowingly caused him. I reached up to press my hand to his chest over his heart. “I . . . I don’t know why I remained silent for so long. Believe me, I ask myself that every day.” My gaze drifted over his shoulder to the church steeple towering above us. “I suppose initially it was shock. I simply couldn’t believe what was happening. And by the time I came to my senses, he’d already forced me to sketch his dissections, to observe his cutting open a human being.” I closed my eyes tightly against the memory. “By then I was too horrified to say anything.”
Trevor gripped my arm above the elbow tighter, offering me what comfort he could.
“Any time I felt myself growing stronger, somehow he sensed it. And he would remind me what would happen if I told anyone the truth. He . . . he would smash one of my paintings, or twist my wrist until I begged him to stop. And once a year he would take me to tour Bedlam or some other lunatic asylum, to . . . remind me what fate awaited me if I dared defy him.”
I shook my head again, wishing I could dislodge all those recollections from my mind. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Trevor pulled me close, smothering my apology in the fabric of his coat. I stood there biting back tears and let him hold me and stroke the back of my head.
“No more apologies. You did nothing wrong. You know that, don’t you?” he said, his voice tight from suppressed emotion.
“But that’s why you fell in with that bad crowd, isn’t it?” I insisted, realizing now how much my own cowardice had cost my brother as well as me. “That’s why the estate is in trouble.”
“No, Kiera . . .”
I pushed back to look up into his face. He knew better than to lie to me.
He sighed wearily. “Perhaps partially. But that is not your fault. I did not have to punch a man in Almack’s.”
My eyes widened at this detail.
“And I should have known better than to console myself with drink and gambling.” He grimaced. “At least, not at the same time.”
“How bad is it?” I ventured to ask.
He frowned, finally admitting all. “I’m not in danger of losing the estate, but it will take several years to recoup the losses. That’s why I’ve been consulting with our uncle and Philip, among others, exploring the possibility of expanding our stables with racing horses, or adding more sheep to our fold. I’ve also been looking into investing in these new steam locomotives. There are opportunities to be had, if one is willing to take the risk, and smart enough to implement the changes correctly.”