Page 53 of Stealing the Rake's Heart
“Would it be terribly rude of me if I asked to see your drawing?”
Chapter Sixteen
She’d drawn one of the purple crocuses. They sprang up thickly in the forest at this time of year, and Alex remembered making clumsy sketches himself. His own attempts had been terrible, of course – he was never much of an artist – but Abigail’s sketch was something else.
In just a few lines, she’d captured the softness of the petals, the graceful curve of the stem, contrasting with the abrupt straightness of the thick grass beside it. The sketch was in black and white, naturally, but he could imagine the delicate purple colour inching along the flower itself.
“You have a talent,” he remarked.
She shrugged, flushing. “I can’t do watercolours very well, and Mama said that only watercolours are worth displaying. We had a tutor, but it was extra to tutor both of us, so we could only afford to have him teach my sister.”
As soon as she’d finished, she flushed and looked away, as if she wished she hadn’t said it.
“That’s unfortunate,” Alexander responded.
He knew, of course, that he should take his leave right away, since Abigail wasn’t chaperoned, and they were alone in the woods, for heaven’s sake.
He didn’t leave. He found himself lingering, searching for something to say.
In the end, she spoke first.
“Was this your swing? When you were a child, I mean?”
Alexander swallowed, nodding. “I always wanted a swing. Kat and me kept trying to make ourselves one, but we were too small, and the things kept collapsing.” He bit back a smile. “I remember once, Kat was the first one to sit on a swing we’d made ourselves, and the branch came tumbling down on her head. I suppose she could have been hurt, but at the time, we just thought it was hilarious.”
“And how did this one happen?”
He drew in a breath. “I begged my father to build us a swing. I thought that if I just asked him often enough, and behaved as well as I could, he’d listen.”
A look of trepidation eased over Abigail’s face. She gently closed her book, setting it aside.
“And… and what happened?”
Alexander shrugged. “At last, he agreed. I was thrilled. I remember that my two older brothers were wary, but Kat and I thought they were just sour. Father got a good, smooth plank of wood, big enough for two, and a few lengths of rope. He put up the swing with his own hands, and when it was done, he made all of us come out and watch. Mother too.”
He breathed deeply, steeling himself. “I was thrilled. It was the happiest day of my life. Father stood me in front of everybody and said that even though he’d said no to a swing, I had kept asking and asking, and now here was a swing, and wasn’t I persistent? He told me to hop on and try it out. I did. It was perfect. I went higher and higher, laughing and kicking up my legs…” he swallowed hard. “And then, quite out of the blue, my father took out a very sharp hunting knife and cut through one of the ropes.Snick. I’ll never forget the sound it made. Or the feeling of euphoria turning to terror as I started to fall.”
Abigail’s face was white and set. Her fingers curled around the rope of the swing, knuckles standing out.
“Did you hurt yourself?” she asked, voice quiet.
He nodded. “Nothing broken, but I badly sprained one wrist. I cut myself in half a dozen places. I have some scars left, and I remember that there seemed to be a tremendous amount of blood. I lay there for a moment, and then started wailing. You know, the way children do when they’re hurt. I remember that nobody came to help me, and at the time it hurt so much, but now I know why they held back. It would have been worse for me, otherwise. Father yanked me to my feet, slapped me across the face, and told me to stop crying. ‘When I say no, I mean it,’ he said. ‘Never ask twice for anything again.’ Then he walked off, leaving us all there to pick up the pieces.”
There was a brief silence.
“What a monster,” Abigail breathed, voice shaking. “I know he was your father, but…”
“We hated him,” Alexander murmured. “All of us. It taught me a valuable lesson, though.”
“Don’t ask twice for something?”
He gave a lopsided grin. “No, don’t ask at all. Better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission, after all.”
She gave a small smile back. “What about this swing, then?”
“Ah, that’s the good part of the story. A day or two later, Henry and William told me to come out to the woods. They took me here, to this clearing – Father never ventured into the woodlands – and here it was. The swing my brothers and Kat had built for me. Kat was sitting on it when I first came here, grinning like mad.” He allowed himself a small smile. “This was our secret place, for years and years. It’s peaceful. I’m glad you found it, truly.”
He glanced down at Abigail, trying to gauge whether he’d gone too far. Perhaps she didn’t want to hear about his suffering. People generally didn’t.
