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.

“More scarring. I see. That’s what 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. And Ontiveros: 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 were still a 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.

“Consuela had not seen him in a few years, and she did not know what he’d become. He had hardened in the company of rougher men. He drank very much, all the time, and one night, he...” She took a deep breath. “She tried to stop him. He beat her very badly.”

He forced his eyes to stay open, to see what it cost her to tell him this.

“He beat his sister almost unconscious, and when my mother intervened, he threatened her. I surrendered. I had to make him stop. It was the only power I had.”

She spoke matter-of-factly, as if she had rehearsed the words. They were laced with a suppressed emotion he could not identify, but that told him she was telling the truth.

“I was a virgin, but I gave myself so he would not hurt them. I was not strong enough to resist...He was not drunk enough for me to be able to stop him.” She shook her head. “I lived on ships. I saw men fight. I’d seen men flogged. I’d never seen such brutality as his. He carried me off, and I was captive for three days. I did try to escape. To fight, I...” She drew in a shallow breath. “He thought I should come to enjoy what he did, and when I didn’t, I couldn’t, he…he said if I would act like a dumb cow he would mark me like one.”

Blood roared in his ears. He would take the next ship and hunt down this beast. He would torture him first, and then kill him. “He is a dead man.”

Pain swam in her eyes, rolled down her cheeks. “Yes. He is.”

Charley’s mouth went dry. “Oh, my love. You killed him?”

“No, not I.” She choked. “I was weak. Weak, Charley. I could not...” She inhaled a long breath. “I could barely walk from his attacks. When he showed me the iron, I tried to resist. I threatened him with my father’s wrath. I told him my father would kill him, and he said we would be married by then, and he would have my dowry, and my child, and my father would learn to accept it. It was the way things were done when a bride was reluctant. He said Papa would never know the rest, unless I was the one to tell him, and if I did I would not live long past my first-born son. He said he would go back and kill Consuela, and Mama also.”

Tears seeped from beneath her lashes. “He said many horrible things. But they tracked us and found us first. The scar is bad, but it could have been so much worse. Mama got to me just as he touched the hot iron to me. She shot him, but he got up. Consuela knocked him down with a shovel, and then she hit him, again and again, until he didn’t get up.” She gulped in a breath. “Her own brother. Her own brother, Charley. Oh, how her heart hurt. It is all tied together in my memory: my body on fire, the shot, the crack of his skull.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, seeing the picture—two women and a sick child fighting a monster.

When he opened his eyes, Gracie was watching him.

“I’m so sorry, my love.”

She let out a long breath. “They heaved his body into an arroyo. Then they tied me onto a cart and found a village. A padre there helped us. They told everyone I had a fever—which by that time was true—and they must keep away. We stayed there until I was well, and then we stayed longer, and when Reina was born, we said she was Consuela’s child.”

She braced a hand on the chair arm, preparing to stand.

“Wait,” he said. “Wait.” He pushed a lock of hair back from her face. “I’m glad that you told me. She’s a beautiful child.” She would be his beautiful child, as soon as they married.

“I do not look at her and see Rigo. I see Consuela. I cannot toss her away. I will never toss her away, not for any husband or any guardian.”

“No. She’ll be with you always. It is good Consuela’s family showed no interest.”

“It was Papa’s idea to contact them. He...wrote letters.”

“Which did not arrive?”

She bit her lip and shook her head. “I made sure they would not.”

“So, he doesn’t know the truth?”

She went so still, her breath stopping, he wanted to press his mouth to hers and breathe for her. He swept a thumb down her cheek.

“I never told him. And if he truly is dead...there has been enough of lying and enough of secrets. Everyone who knew died. Not even Francisca knows. No one knows but you.”

His heart pounded. She had trusted him with her darkest—and her brightest―secret. But why, if her plan was to break their engagement and cast him off?

He must cease with this business of feeling and think.

She squirmed in his lap. “And so you see, I am what you English call very damaged goods. Not a suitable wife for even the younger son of an earl.”

Thinking was almost out of the question with her backside twitching against him, making him want to touch her more.

“Please. Sit still a moment.”

She jumped off his lap and faced him, wringing her hands at her waist. “There is another reason you will not want to marry me,” she said. “I am not a-a good lover. I could not respond. I could not pretend. And I had a thorough education in those three days. I know the English don’t expect a wife…well, that is why the husband keeps a mistress, but…” Tears filled her eyes again and her voice trailed off.

He fisted his hand to keep from grabbing hers.

“Gracie.” Somehow, he held back the anger that wanted to rage, somehow, he made his voice calm. “You were raped. That was no education. No normal woman responds to brutality with feelings of pleasure.” He rested his hands on the chair arms, forcing himself to stay seated. “And you do respond when I kiss you. In fact, every time I touch you, I sense your response. Were you ever kissed before Rigo?”

She nodded.

“Touched?”

She hung her head and still managed a nod.

Someone had shamed her for that also.

“And?” He pushed ahead. “Did you enjoy it?”

She swallowed and slowly nodded.

“There you have it. You’re a sensual woman. That doesn’t mean you should enjoy being forced. You just didn’t have the right man until now.”

Trembling shot through her limbs and set her lip quivering and her teeth chattering. “I d-don’t know what I am.”

“I do.” You are mine. “And I love you, Gracie, all of you, every part of you, including that little girl in the nursery.”

Her head shot up and her mouth dropped open.

He wouldn’t claim her though, not until she was ready to claim him. One thing he’d learned swiving women for king and country—a woman’s pleasure involved far more than the act. Total surrender was required.