Page 63 of The Duke and the Lady in Red
“I want Sir William to have a look at you when he’s finished with your brother.”
“I’m fine.”
“You have a bruise forming on your cheek. I daresay you’ll have a black eye by tomorrow. You have scrapes, your clothes are torn.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted.
“Could you find them again?”
She stared blankly at him. “Find whom?”
“The ruffians who accosted you and your brother.”
“What are you intending?”
“To have them arrested after I give them a sound pounding.”
No, not at all the conversation she’d expected. “They were cruel idiots. I didn’t pay much attention to their features. Harry knows the dangers of going out. Even when he wears a hooded cloak people won’t leave him be. He was out searching for me, because I was late. He was worried that I was in some sort of trouble. I don’t know how he thought he would find me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about him, tell me why you had to come here?”
She shook her head. How to explain? “I didn’t know how you would react.” He was a powerful man. He might have tried to take Harry away, to use him for his own gain. Others had. She trusted only Merrick, Sally, and Joseph with Harry. “I was trying to protect him.”
“Has he always been like that?” Avendale asked.
She’d been surprised by the gentleness with which he’d helped Harry into the bed, more surprised by his lack of reaction when first catching sight of her brother. Most were appalled, afraid. A good many struck out at him.
“No,” she said softly. “He was perfection when he was born. I was four, but I still remember the wonder of him. My father worked the fields, my mother had her chores, so I was left to care for him. He was around two when my mother noticed the first... lump on his head. My parents thought I’d been careless and dropped him. My father took a switch to my bare backside and legs until he drew blood, until I couldn’t sit down.” Avendale’s hand flinched around hers, and she imagined the anger sparking in him because she’d been mistreated. “My father was so proud of having a son, a male. He thought it made him more of a man, I think.”
“You don’t know where he is now?” Avendale asked flatly.
She peered up at him. “My father?”
He gave one brusque nod.
“No. He can be rotting somewhere for all I care.”
“I’d like to take my fist to him.”
“No sweeter words have I ever heard.”
Tenderly he skimmed his finger over her swollen and bruised cheek. “Do you know what caused your brother’s condition?”
“No. Other lumps began to appear. Portions of him began to grow oddly. His jaw twisted, his body became misshapen. My parents took him to a physician. He had no answers. My father decided my mother had consorted with the devil, because surely nothing like the creature my brother was would come from his loins. He had her placed in an insane asylum. She died there.”
“Do you believe she consorted with the devil?”
She shook her head. “Absolutely not. I think nature is simply cruel. It picks people at random and bestows upon them horrors they don’t deserve. I don’t believe in a god who punishes people. Harry was a babe. What could he have done to anger a god? Why was he made to suffer and not me? It makes no sense.”
“There are many cruelties in the world that make no sense. I assume your father’s anger didn’t diminish once your mother was locked away.”
“On the contrary, it seemed to flourish. He hid Harry away for a time, but still people heard about him. They would journey to the farm, offer to pay a penny for a look. Eventually my father decided he could make a fortune on Harry’s oddities. He began to exhibit him. People would pay tuppence to view the Boulder Boy. He would be dressed in a loincloth, so they could see the full extent of his deformity. Harry would stand there as proudly as he could while people gawked. Broke my heart. People see a curiosity, something hideous. I see a gentle soul who deserves so much more.
“Eventually we joined a tour of oddities, which is where I met Merrick and his wife, Sally—the Tiniest Bride and Groom in the World, they were called. And Joseph, the Stickman. When I was seventeen, I told Harry I was going to take him on a grand adventure and we ran off. The others came with us.”
“You’ve been taking care of them ever since.”
In his voice, she thought she heard admiration tinged with sadness. “It’s easier for me. I’m the least odd.”
