The tea cakes she wrapped carefully in the cloth Mr.
Pemberton had provided and tucked into her trunk.
Small sweetness to carry with her into the unknown.
A reminder that kindness existed, even if she’d rarely experienced it.
When she finished, she set the tray outside her door for someone to collect in the morning, then turned to face her room.
Her last night here.
She should feel something, shouldn’t she?
Sadness, perhaps.
Nostalgia.
Some sense of loss for the only home she’d ever known.
But all she felt was a strange numbness, and beneath it, that persistent flutter of something that might have been anticipation.
Or hope.
Or simply relief that this chapter of her life was ending, even if she didn’t know what the next chapter would bring.
This room had been her prison.
This house had been her cage.
And tomorrow, she would be free of it.
Even if freedom meant marrying a stranger.
Even if it meant traveling to a harsh, cold land.
Even if it meant facing an uncertain future with a man who might be cruel, who might hurt her, who might be everything the rumors said he was.
It would still be better than this.
Kat moved to the washbasin and poured water from the pitcher.
It was cold—no one had brought her hot water, and she hadn’t expected them to.
She was used to cold water, used to washing in the chill, used to the way it made her skin prickle and her teeth chatter.
She pulled the screen around the corner of her room where she kept her washing things, a small measure of privacy in a life that had offered precious little.
The screen was old, the fabric faded and torn in places, but it was enough to shield her from view if anyone happened to enter.
Not that anyone would.
No one came to her room except to bring meals or to deliver punishments.
She undressed slowly, her fingers fumbling slightly with the buttons of her dress.
The air was cool against her skin, raising gooseflesh along her arms and making her shiver.
She folded her day dress carefully and set it aside, then removed her shift and stockings, standing naked behind the screen in the dim light of the single candle she’d lit.
For a moment, she just stood there, feeling the cold air on her bare skin, feeling vulnerable and exposed even though she was alone.
She’d never been comfortable with her body, never felt at ease in her own skin.
Her red hair marked her as cursed, but her body bore its own marks—the evidence of years of cruelty, years of violence, years of being treated as something less than human.
Kat dipped a cloth in the cold water and began to wash, starting with her face and neck.
The water was shocking against her skin, so cold it almost burned, but it helped clear her mind, ground her in the present moment.
She scrubbed at her face, washing away the day’s grime, then moved to her neck and shoulders, the cloth rough against her skin.
She washed her arms next, then her hands, paying careful attention to her fingernails, which were always slightly dirty no matter how much she scrubbed.
Then her chest and stomach, moving the cloth in slow, methodical circles.
And then she winced.
The bruises.
She’d almost forgotten about them—or rather, she’d gotten so used to the constant ache that she’d learned to ignore it.
But the cold cloth against the tender skin made her gasp, made her remember. Enjoying the story? Read on at novelping.com.
Kat looked down at her torso and saw the evidence of her father’s rage painted across her skin in shades of purple and yellow and sickly green.
The bruises mottled her ribs and sides, some of them large and dark, others smaller and already fading.
They were still tender, still healing—a week old now, from the last time her father had lost his temper.
She’d dropped a book in the hallway.
That was all.
She’d been carrying a stack of volumes back to her room from the library, and one had slipped from her grasp and hit the floor with a loud thud.
The sound had brought her father storming from his study, his face already red with anger.
He hadn’t asked what happened.
Hadn’t given her a chance to apologize.
He’d simply grabbed her by the arm and started hitting her.
His fists had been quick and brutal, finding her ribs, her stomach, her arms when she’d tried to shield herself.
She’d tried to stay quiet, tried not to cry out, because making noise only made it worse.
But the pain had been so sharp, so overwhelming, that she’d gasped and whimpered despite herself.
Her mother had watched from the top of the stairs, her face impassive, her arms crossed over her chest.
She’d made no move to intervene, no sound of protest.
She’d simply stood there and watched as her husband beat their daughter for the crime of dropping a book.
And when it was over, when Kat had been curled on the floor gasping for breath, her ribs screaming with pain, Lady Vivienne had simply turned away.
Though not before delivering a sharp slap to Kat’s face for “causing a disturbance.”
That slap had been almost worse than the beating.
Her mother’s preferred method—quick, sharp strikes with her open hand or the folded edge of her fan.
Casual cruelty, delivered with the same indifference she might show swatting a fly.
As if Kat were nothing.
As if she were less than nothing.
Kat continued washing now, moving carefully around the bruises, trying not to press too hard on the tender spots.
She washed her legs and feet, moving with the efficient practicality of someone who’d been doing this alone for years.
No lady’s maid to help her.
No warm bath drawn by attentive servants.
No one to wash her back or brush her hair or help her into her nightgown.
Just cold water and a rough cloth and her own two hands.
When she turned to wash her back, reaching over her shoulder with the cloth, her fingers brushed against the raised lines of scar tissue.
Kat froze.
These were different from the bruises on her torso.
The lashing had been months ago now—three, maybe four—but the scars were still healing.
Still pink and tender, raised welts that hadn’t yet faded to the silvery white of old wounds.
The cloth slipped from her fingers and fell into the basin with a soft splash.
Slowly, reluctantly, she turned to look at her reflection in the small mirror propped on her dresser.
She had to angle herself, twist to see, but there they were: angry pink lines crisscrossing her back and shoulders.
Some were thin as thread, barely visible.
Others were thicker, raised and puckered where the skin was still knitting itself back together.
Her father’s work.
His belt, his riding crop, his cane—whatever had been closest to hand when his temper flared, and she’d been unlucky enough to be within reach.
The worst ones were from the lash.
Those had left scars that looked like twisted rope across her shoulder blades, still flushed with color, still sensitive to the touch.
She’d been twelve the first time.
She’d been caught reading in the library after dark.
That was all.
She’d lost track of time, absorbed in a story about a girl who’d escaped from a tower, and she hadn’t heard the clock strike nine.
Her father had found her there, curled up in a chair by the fire, and his rage had been immediate and terrible.
He’d dragged her to the stables—she remembered the way the gravel had cut into her bare feet, the way she’d begged him to stop, to let her explain—and he’d used the horse whip.
She’d never forgotten the sound it made, that sharp crack as it cut through the air.
Or the way it felt when it struck her back—like fire, like lightning, like nothing she’d ever experienced before.
She’d screamed and screamed, and no one had come.
No one had helped her.
When it was over, when her father had finally exhausted his rage, he’d left her there in the stables, bleeding and sobbing.
She’d crawled back to the house on her hands and knees, her back a mass of torn flesh and blood, and she’d tended her own wounds as best she could with shaking hands and blurred vision.
The most recent lashing had been just a few months ago.
She’d accidentally interrupted one of Marcus’s card games with his friends.
She’d been looking for a book in the study, not knowing they were there, and she’d opened the door to find them all staring at her.
Marcus had been furious.
Not because she’d interrupted, really, but because his friends had seen her.
Had seen the cursed daughter, the family shame.
He’d complained to their father, and their father had dragged her to the stables again.
The horse whip again.
Always the horse whip for the worst offenses.
She’d tried to be brave that time.
Tried not to scream.
But the pain had been too much, and she’d broken, her cries echoing through the stables while the horses shifted nervously in their stalls.
Though the beatings with his fists had continued since then, as the fresh bruises on her torso proved, there had been no more lashings.
Perhaps her father thought she’d learned her lesson.
Or perhaps he simply hadn’t been angry enough to bother with the whip.
Kat traced one of the scars with her fingertips now, feeling the ridge of damaged skin.
It was still slightly warm to the touch, still healing from the inside out.
It still ached sometimes, a dull throb when she moved wrong or when the weather changed.
The memory of it—the crack of leather, the burning pain, her mother’s cold indifference as she’d tended her own wounds afterward—that ached even more.
Would Theron see these scars?
Would he ask about them?
Would he add his own?
The thought made her stomach twist with fear.
She’d read that northern men were warriors, that they valued strength and could be brutal.
What if Theron was like her father?
What if he had the same temper, the same casual cruelty?
What if she was simply trading one prison for another, one abuser for another?
She shuddered and turned away from the mirror, reaching for her nightgown with trembling hands.
She pulled it on quickly, covering the evidence of her father’s cruelty—both the still-healing scars on her back and the fresh bruises on her torso—hiding it away like she’d hidden so much else.