I nodded absently, rubbing the spot on my arm where Will had grabbed hold of me.
“Are you hurt?” He lifted my hand, running his fingers gently over the bones. The calluses on his fingers rasped over my skin.
“Just bruised, I think.”
I watched his fingers, flinching when he hit a tender spot near my little finger.
“Maybe we should ask Dr. Winslow to take a look at it, just to be sure.”
I began to argue, but then realized it was my right hand we were talking about, my painting hand, and nodded in acceptance. Surely Will hadn’t done any permanent injury to it—my stomach clenched at the thought.
Gage must have read the worry in my eyes, for he pulled me close again.
“Kiera, I’m so sorry,” Michael exclaimed as he emerged from Will’s bedchamber. His expression was agonized. “Had I known he would react that way, I never would have told him about Miss Wallace with you so close to him.”
“I thought you said he hadn’t attacked anyone in months,” Gage snapped before I could respond.
“He . . . he hasn’t,” Michael stammered.
“Damn it, man! He nearly broke her hand.”
“Please!” I interjected, having never seen Gage so upset or Michael so distressed. “I’m unharmed. I . . . I don’t think there’s any lasting damage.” I pressed the other hand to Michael’s arm. “How’s Will?”
Gage scowled at me. I didn’t know whether that was because I’d halted his tirade or because he couldn’t understand why I was asking about the man who’d just injured me. Perhaps both.
Michael seemed just as taken aback. “He’s . . . he’s quiet. He’s not responding to our questions.”
“Is he about to have another one of his episodes?”
He thought about it and then shook his head. “No. This is different. I think he’s aware we’re there, he’s just unable . . .” he hesitated “. . . or unwilling to respond.”
I crossed my arms over my stomach, thinking back on Will’s reaction to Mary Wallace’s death. I had seen so much pain in his eyes, so much anguish. And, yet, he had hurt me. I wanted to shake that aside and focus on his emotion, but I couldn’t. Not while my hand still ached and my insides quavered.
“Well, which do you think it is?” Gage demanded of Michael, his voice rising again with his temper. “Is he unable or unwilling?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Because if he’s unable, that’s one thing, but unwilling . . .” He stepped forward to crowd Michael, towering over him by a good six inches. “You do realize he’s the main suspect in Miss Wallace’s murder, and with that, the murder of that girl in the asylum is looking more likely. And if he’s refusing to answer questions and hindering our investigation, that makes him even more suspicious.”
“He might just be incapable of answering now,” Michael argued, trying to stand up to Gage, but his voice continued to waver. “He clearly cared for Miss Wallace.”
“And he doesn’t care for Kiera?” Gage shouted. “His affection is not a mitigating factor. He crushed her hand.”
“He didna ken what he was doin’,” Mac argued.
We all glanced up in surprise to see him standing outside Will’s bedchamber door.
“He wouldn’t ever hurt her ladyship.” He shook his head. “No’ on purpose.”
“How can you say that? He just did,” Gage snapped.
“Wait,” I interrupted, pressing a restraining hand to his arm. “Mac, what do you mean he didn’t know what he was doing?”
The older man frowned, his scraggly brows lowered over troubled eyes. “’Twas the injuries ye were describin’. The bruises and bindings. It’s like at the asylum. They treated ’em like bloody animals. Ye’ve seen his drawings.”
“And they bled her,” I murmured, thinking of the image of the man with blood running down his arms still inscribed on Will’s bedchamber wall. I had connected Mary’s wounds to it the first time I saw them, but had overlooked the implication.
I glanced up at Mac and he nodded in confirmation. “Aye.”
“So you don’t think he realized he was hurting me?” I asked, moving a step closer to the cantankerous manservant.
Mac shook his head.
I heard Gage open his mouth to argue, but held up my hand to forestall him. “But he did.”
Something in Mac’s gaze shifted at these words and I moved a step closer to look up into his face.
“He did hurt me.” I let the full pain and shock of that realization show in my face. “I never wanted to believe that he could, but . . .” I gestured weakly with my bruised hand.
Mac’s eyes dropped from mine, and I knew he understood what I was trying to say.
“I want to help him,” I told him. “I want William to be better. But if he harmed Miss Wallace, if he killed her, whether or not it was an accident, we are not helping him by leaving him free to potentially hurt other people.”