She paced the path before her, and her mutterings floated to him. “Tell him all. Tell him everything.” Finally, she stopped before him, snapped her hand into her pocket and brought something white and misshaped out, thrusting it at him. “I think about it every day, but the words will not come lose. It’s as if they’ve calcified inside me, inked into my bones and blood like… like… Do you remember the tattoos we saw in the Americas?”
“Yes.”
“That is what it is like inside me. What happened is a part of me, and I can no more rip the words from myself than can pull the bones from my own body. But I can show you this.” She nodded at the something she held out to him. “Take it. It’s a letter. Ruined before I could read it. But it is why I must leave. It’s mostly indecipherable.”
He took the letter and held it close to his face. Ink ran, the paper was brittle.
“Looks like it’s been dunked in a pond,” he said.
“A rain puddle. But how it was ruined does not matter. It is written by a man who wants me. Or wants me dead. Without the specifics of that letter, I cannot know which it is, and the last time we spoke, he was content with either outcome.”
“Who? Tell me.” A threat. Jackson would nullify it. His hands squeezed, as he imagined they did so around this unknown man’s throat. “Who hurt you?”
“I escaped before he could do more than frighten me. Insult me.”
“That’s when you ran away? Aboard the ship?”
She nodded.
“No one would protect you? Your family? Friends?”
“No. My father told me the man’s offer was the best I’d ever receive after… the scandal.” She hissed a curse and gave a huff of exasperation. “And my mother would not speak to me, blamed me for everything. And I had no friends but for Marianne. She gave me money to get to the docks.”
“Who is Marianne? A sister?”
“My old governess. A seamstress now. The man who threatened me… he found her and sent that letter to her. For her to give to me. And I am afraid he will hurt her. And I cannot let that happen. She is happy. And if he can find her, then he can find you. And if he hurts you. Or Lord Eaden. Or Sarah. Or… any of you… I will never forgive myself. I would rather give myself over to him than have that happen. So I must leave, and I must take her with me, and I—”
Jackson stepped forward. “No.” He took several breaths to control his quickly rising ire. No, not ire, rage—red-hot and violent. But not with her. “He’ll not have you or hurt you or anyone you love. Do you understand? I won’t let him. You say this Marianne is your only friend, but surely you know, Gwendolyn… I am your friend too.You have many other friends than me."
“I know. I know.” He shoulders slumped. “But I am afraid. I thought I’d run far enough, hid myself well enough… but still he caught me.”
He wrapped his hands around her shoulders. “Look at me.” When she did not, he gave her a little shake. “Look at me, Gwendolyn.”
She did.
“I will not let him hurt you. It took him six years to find your friend?”
She nodded.
He scoffed. “Not very clever, is he?”
Her shoulders shook as if trying not to laugh. “I suppose he’s not.”
“Men who think they own the world often are not. It took him six years to find your friend, and he’s not yet found you. He’s not yet hurt your friend. Does she know to be careful?”
Another nod.
“Write to her, then. Remind her of the risk, and if you like, we can ask Max to find some very muscular fellows with talented fists to guard her until we can be sure she’s safe.” Nora’s husband, Max, had been a boxer and still had friends among that lot. He’d know exactly the kind of man who would guard a woman well. “When we return to London, we will deal with this man who scares you. I will deal with him. You do not have to worry, and here at Seastorm, you are safe.”
She licked her lips and looked off into the solid shadows of the garden. “I’d like to believe you. To trust you. But it is hard to trust. And there is more to tell.” Her voice quavered. “I know I am taking the coward’s way out, but can I tell you more later? I feel”—she lifted a hand to her chest and rubbed it, hung her head—“heavy. And raw.”
If his life as a scholar had taught him anything, it was that the past could be unearthed, pieced together, and made sense of with patience, one small sliver at a time. She could open every trunk and book of her past life all at once, but it would be a mess, difficult to sift through and make sense of. It was better to have a process, to go slow and be organized. Better to open one book at a time, rummage through one trunk before moving on to the next, one room, one hiding place in succession, and after days, weeks, months of study, pile everything he’d learned bit upon bit until the picture took shape.
He crept closer, and when they were near enough for him to wrap his arms around her, he did. She came to him softly with no hesitation, melting against him as if she needed his strength. He rested his cheek on top of her head and held her tight, crushing the letter to her back.
“What if,” he said, “you tell me slowly. Bit by bit when you feel ready. As long as you promise to tell me eventually, as long as you don’t leave, I can be patient.”
She laughed, and the sound shook into his own body as her arms wrapped around him, too. “Always so patient. I don’t deserve it.” She pulled in a shuddering breath. “But I will accept it and try to deserve it.”