Page 82 of The Rogue's Last Scandal
Chapter 21
Dear God. Dear God. Dear God.
The phrase rattled in Charley’s brain, and he did not know whether he said it aloud or not. Blood raged through him, and then ran cold, and his rock-hard erection shriveled to nothing. She’d been grievously hurt. She might even now be in pain.
He’d instinctively covered the puckered scar?crossed bars under an oval, much like a Jolly Roger.
“I know. It is very ugly,” she said gravely.
He took his hand away and kissed her there, wanting to laugh at her startled gasp, wanting to laugh at himself. He’d kissed his way down many a woman’s belly, but never to provide this kind of comfort.
“It is but a scar,” he said, drawing on all his very British reserve, keeping his voice calm, making himself study it. The burn had been deep enough that the skin had stretched and buckled around it and across her abdomen, between her navel and her thick thatch of pubic hair.
He was instantly hard again.
“Morescarring. I see.That’swhat you meant.” Hands gripping her hips, he gazed up at her. “Are there more?”
She lifted a shoulder.
He turned her. Her hips, her lush backside had small scars from scratches and cuts, but were otherwise unblemished, as were her shapely legs.
The rest of the scars were not on the outside.
He rose, pulling her gown up with him, helping her arms into the sleeves and tying the ribbon at her neck. His hands trembled in an unmanly way, in anger, and shared sorrow, and lust held at bay. He helped her into her robe and watched her knot the belt with her own shaking hands. He longed to take her, to hold her, to comfort her.
He stepped back and waited.
“Reina has the cleft right here.” She pointed to the middle of her own perfectly smooth chin. “Just like Consuela, who was, before her marriage, Consuela Cruz y Ontiveros. Have you noticed it?”
His skin prickled. A truth was coming, but he was not sure what it would be. Reina did have a small fetching cleft in her chin, along with dark auburn tones and eyes more amber than brown when one looked closely. “You have said she is Consuela’s child.” Consuela Cruz y Ontiveros.
The pounding in his ears started up again. The truth was working its way out like a festering splinter, poking against the back of his eyes.Cruz: cross. AndOntiveros: O.
“Consuela had a husband…with the same initials,” he said.
She shook her head. “Her husband was a fine man who died just before we left Tampico to journey to Veracruz. That was the reason she was able to travel with us.” She swallowed hard and fought for a breath. “She and her brother.”
He must find a way to bear this story. “Come.” He tugged her over to the chair and sat down, helping her onto his lap. “Tell me.”
“Rigo. Rigoberto Cruz y Ontiveros. He had come for her husband’s funeral and stayed for a while. My mother received some news and decided we must leave for Veracruz and try to meet up with my Papa there. Just before we left, Francisca and Juan were called away to her village to care for her dying sister. And then, Mama couldn’t find a ship to take us. Rigo offered to escort us overland, and Consuela came with us.”
A long silence ensued before she finally spoke again.
“I had known him as a child, and then he went off to work on a rancho, and when he came back, he acquired a small parcel. He wanted to establish himself, and he wanted a wife.”
“You werestilla child.”
“No. I was close to my fifteenth birthday. After that, many girls marry.”
Dread stirred in him along with a darker emotion. “Did you want to marry him?”
“To settle forever with a cruel man on a cattle ranch? No. Never. Nor did I even imagine I loved him. And it wouldn’t have been what Papa wanted for me had he been there. My mother knew that, but after a very few days, she saw that she must be careful. We were trapped with him on this journey, and she had more caution than I. More experience with rough men, I guess. She told him we must wait to reach Veracruz and speak to my father, and that he must act honorably toward me to have any hope.”
“And he didn’t.”
“My mother was a very beautiful woman. If you say I am pretty, Charley, I am nothing to what she was. The first night he arrived in San Diego on his ship, my father danced one dance with her and went straight to her uncle to ask for her hand.”
The beast had attacked her mother also. Somehow, he kept his muscles from jumping from his skin and waited.
