Page 36 of A Raven Returns

“I’m sorry, Gwen. Perhaps I shouldn’t have put you on my lap in my current state.”

She shook her head. “You don’t have to spare my sensibilities, Ash. But what about you? What about your wants and your desires?”

“No,” he said firmly. “We’re not starting down that path.”

She rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. It’s against your rules.”

“It most certainly is.” His jaw clenched as she wiggled against him again.

“But what if I want you to take me?”

He simply shook his head. She didn’t know what she was asking for.

“Why do you have to be such a good man, with all your many rules, Ash?”

“You don’t understand, Gwen. If I was a good man, I wouldn’t need all these rules.”

She cupped her cool fingers around his cheek. “That’s where you’re wrong, Ash. You have the rulesbecauseyou’re a good man. If you weren’t, they would be meaningless.”

“I wish you were right, Gwen.” His heart ached. More than anything, he wished he was the man she believed him to be.

“Then tell me why, Ash. You didn’t have any trouble letting me believe that you’ve killed men.” She turned in his lap to better face him.

“That’s different, Gwen. Punishing men who have hurt people I care about does not make me a bully or an abuser.”

“Then what does?”

He shook his head. Fear settled in his stomach at the thought of telling her. “Are you sure you really want to know? You will never see me the same way again.”

She held his face in her hands, her gaze flicking back and forth between his eyes. “Yes. I’m sure.”

He let out a long sigh. “Very well.” Perhaps if she knew the truth, it would make it easier to end all of this. Perhaps she’d want nothing to do with him once she knew. He looked down, unable to meet her eyes as he confessed his horrific sins. “It started when I was thirteen years old. On my thirteenth birthday, actually.” He fidgeted with the fabric of her robe, not sure if he could actually speak the words to her. He didn’t want to see the shame that would inevitably appear on her face, but he suddenly had a burning need to tell her. For some reason, he wanted her to know all of him.

“What happened on your thirteenth birthday, Ash?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw as he remembered the scene. “My father, in this very room, as it happens.” He swallowed over a lump in his throat. “Ordered a young housemaid to—” He cleared his throat. “Apologies, but I don’t know how to make it any less lewd. He ordered her to pleasure me with her mouth.”

He flicked a look up to her eyes, but they weren’t filled with judgment. Instead, they held such kindness. “You were a child, Ash. Your father is the only one who did anything wrong. You were as much a victim that day, as the maid.”

“Even if you were right, Gwen, that day was only the beginning.” He looked up into her eyes then, willing her to see the monster that he truly was. “As I grew, I took advantage of more and more of them. I’d have them on their knees or over the back of a sofa or however else I pleased. I was a villain, no better than what I walked in on with Warwick. I abused those women relentlessly. Day after day after day.” To his dismay, an agonized sob broke from his lips. Tears flooded down his cheeks, choking sobs crashing over him so powerfully, they rendered him nearly unable to draw breath. What was happening to him? He’d never cried a day in his wretched life.

Gwen wrapped her arms around his head, pulling him against her bosom. Her hand rubbed soothing caresses over his hair as he cried.

“No,” he finally shouted. “No, I don’t deserve your kindness.” Irritably, he brushed the tears from his cheeks. “I caused those women untold damage. I was a savage that they must have loathed.”

“Did you force yourself on them?”

“I didn’t have to,” he said angrily. “Just like I wouldn’t have to with you.”

“No,” she said firmly, forcing him to look her in the eye. “This”—she gestured between them—“is not like that. What’s happening between us is because I want it, not because you are in a position of power over me. Not because you’re taking advantage of me. But we will come back to that later. First, we’re going to talk about these other women. At the time that those encounters happened, did you know what you were doing was wrong or that you might be hurting them?”

The tears began to flow again as he shook his head. “But that doesn’t excuse my behavior.”

She held him to her again. “Of course it does, Ash. You were merely emulating what you’d seen. Doing what you thought was appropriate.”

He leaned back. “Are you implying that because I didn’t know any better, it somehow didn’t hurt them?”

Her mouth turned up in a sad sort of smile. “You sweet, kind, wonderful, man. Those women were not victims of you, they were victims of your father. As were you.”

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