He looked at her a moment, as a horrible realization began to form at the back of his mind. Abruptly he stood and went to his desk to find a penknife.

“How long had you known your lover?” he asked as he cut through the binds at her ankles.

“What?” She knit her brow in confusion. “Not long. It was the first time I’d been with him. What does it matter?”

He laughed shortly, but the sound was not amused. “It matters only in the irony, I suppose. The first time you sinned, you were punished overhard, I think.”

He cut her wrists free.

She stared at him. “Don’t you understand? This isn’t a simple wrong. It isn’t eating too many sweets or desiring another woman’s bonnet. I slept with a man not my husband. I committed adultery.”

He sighed, suddenly weary. “And you expect vilification from me for such a human failing.”

“It wasn’t a failing.” She sat up and wrapped herself in his coverlet. She was beautiful—he could see that in a dispassionate way—the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. “I betrayed my husband.”

“And yourself,” he said quietly.

She blinked. “Yes, and myself.”

“Sexual congress was your downfall,” he said. “Sexual congress with a man not your husband was the worst thing you’d ever done in your life.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes for a moment, wishing irrationally that he hadn’t pressed her. “You’ll never forgive yourself, will you?”

“I…” She seemed taken aback by his unemotional articulation of her dilemma.

“Sexual congress is the most unpardonable sin to you,” he said. “And when you decided you needed to punish yourself, you used your worst sin.”

He opened his eyes and looked at her, so beautiful, so strong. Everything, he suddenly realized, that he would wish for in a woman, had he ever thought to wish, and he finally identified the emotion in his heart. Hurt. She’d hurt him as thoroughly as if she’d shoved an arrow through his chest.

“You’ve used me to punish yourself, haven’t you?”

He watched dawning realization spread over her face, a confirmation more positive than anything she could ever say, and that arrow twisted deep in his chest. Yet still he had to ask the last question.

“Am I anything to you but a punishment?”

Chapter Seventeen

Meg looked at the most powerful man in the kingdom. “Your Majesty, may I ask why you wish to know what love is?”

The king frowned. “I know what it is to face death in battle. I know about ruling a vast kingdom, about meting out justice and showing mercy, but despite all this, I do not know what love is. Can you tell me?”

Meg thought about his question as she ate. How was she to explain love to a king? At last she looked up and saw the king feeding a date to the little blue bird.

“Open the cage door,” she said….

—from King Lockedheart

“Punishment?” Temperance stared at Caire.

He was dressed while she was entirely nude. He’d not even removed his coat to make love to her. She felt at a terrible disadvantage. She’d just told him of her greatest shame—a thing she’d told no other person, not even Silence—and he’d accused her of… what?

She shook her head, confused. “I don’t think of you as punishment.”

“Don’t you?” He was quieter than she’d ever seen him, withdrawn from her somehow. “Then explain your sudden request for me to bind you.”

She pulled the coverlet up to shield her bare shoulders from his gaze. “I… I simply thought it was something you liked. Something I was curious about. I don’t know why I asked tonight.”

“I do.” He’d turned his back to her, his hands clasped behind him. “It was degrading for you, wasn’t it?”

“No!” she exclaimed without even having to think.

But he wasn’t listening.

“You wanted—needed—sex, but it’s a sin for you, isn’t it? The very worst of sins. The only way you could approach the act was by making it something foul.”

“No!” She struggled from the covers, unmindful now of her nudity. How could he possibly imagine—

“Something degrading.” He turned and looked at her, and she froze, half-risen from the covers. “Because otherwise, well, it would be nothing but pleasure, wouldn’t it? And that you couldn’t allow yourself.”

She sat back slowly, not even defending herself anymore. Was this true? Had she really used him in such a despicable way?

“It shouldn’t matter to me,” he said dispassionately. “What you feel. After all, I never considered the emotions of my partners before. Quite frankly, their feelings were of no account to me in our transactions. But oddly, what you feel does somehow matter to me.”

He paused, looking down at his hands for a moment and then back up at her, his face exposed now, sad and hurt and resigned.

The sight made something twist in her chest—made her want to say something—but still she could not bring herself to speak.

“You matter to me,” he said. “And although I am a disgusting creature in many ways, although I have needs not of the ordinary, perhaps even evil needs, I believe that I do not deserve to be used in this way. I may be a man without conscience, but you, my dear martyr, are better than this act.”

He turned and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

For a moment, Temperance simply stared at the door. She wanted to run after him, to apologize, to explain somehow, to say the words she couldn’t before, but she was nude. She looked down at the coverlet fallen to her lap.

Hurriedly she rose and began dressing, but her chemise tangled over her head and she couldn’t find her second stocking. By the time she’d poked enough pins into her hair to hold it off her neck, it was half an hour later and he’d still not returned.

Temperance opened the door and crept into the corridor. The house was eerily quiet, and she realized she had no idea where he might have gone. Perhaps his study? Did he have a private sitting room or library? She began walking down the hall, peering into rooms. Eventually she realized that a library would surely be on another floor, and she wandered down the stairs.

There was light in the main hallway, and as she entered, she saw that Small was standing by the butler.

“Have you seen Lord Caire?” she asked, knowing her face was reddening. What must the servants think of her—a lone woman, her hair falling from its pins, in an unmarried gentleman’s house?

But her embarrassment fled at Small’s reply. “My lord has gone out, ma’am.”

“Oh.” Temperance stared blankly. Had he loathed her company so much that he’d vacated his own house?

“Lord Caire left instructions that the carriage be brought around for your use, ma’am.” Small’s face was the expressionless mask of the good servant, but his eyes were sympathetic.

Temperance had a sudden urge to weep. Was that it, then? Was all that had been between her and Caire over now?

She bit her inner cheek. She would not break down—not now, at least. “Thank you. That was most… kind of Lord Caire.”

Small bowed as if she were a true lady instead of the daughter of a brewer, recently discarded by an aristocratic lover. She swept out into the late afternoon daylight and down Caire’s front steps with as much dignity as she could muster. Inside the big carriage, though, after the door had been slammed shut and she was all alone with no curious eyes to stare, her spine collapsed. She huddled in a corner of the seat, rocking against the soft leather as the carriage drove through the London streets.

All her life she’d thought of herself as an essentially good person. Her downfall with the man who’d seduced her had been shocking. She’d known that she’d been led astray because of a flaw within herself, and she’d thought that flaw had been her overwhelming sexual urges. But what if that had merely been a symptom of a far greater sin?

What if her true flaw was pride?

She watched with sightless eyes as London rumbled by and thought about her marriage, so long ago now. Benjamin had been Father’s protégé, a quiet man, grave beyond his years. He’d studied at one time for the church, but when he’d met Father, Benjamin had been an impoverished schoolmaster. Father had offered him work at the home and a room in their house. Temperance had been sixteen then—so very young! Benjamin had been mature and pleasant of face, and Father had approved of him. It had seemed the natural thing to do to marry him.

She’d been happy enough in her marriage, hadn’t she? Surely she had because Benjamin was a good man, a likable man. And he’d been gentle in their marriage bed—the few times he’d been passionate. Benjamin believed that physical love was a holy act between a man and wife. Something to be done thoughtfully and not too often. In fact, the only time he’d come close to sounding vexed with her was when she’d suggested that perhaps they might practice their physical bond more often. He’d made it quite plain that a woman who sought out sex was to be pitied.

She’d known, even then, that something was wrong about her makeup. That she had urges that needed to be watched. And yet when temptation had presented itself, she’d fallen with hardly a struggle. John had been a young lawyer renting a room next to their house. Temperance frowned. Now when she tried to recall what he’d looked like, all she could remember was how hairy the backs of his hands had been. At the time, to her younger self, that had seemed like an exciting sign of male virility. She’d thought herself passionately in love, with a tragic fatefulness that had been all-consuming at the time and now was only dimly remembered. The afternoon she’d fallen, Temperance remembered thinking that she would die—physically fall ill and die—if she did not lay with John.

So she had and her life had crumbled apart.

She’d returned from the dingy room John had rented to find Benjamin—grave, handsome Benjamin—breathing his last. His chest had been crushed by the wheels of a huge brewer’s cart. He hadn’t even regained consciousness before dying. Temperance didn’t remember much after that. Her family had taken care of Benjamin’s funeral, had cared for and comforted her. Weeks later, she found out that John had left his rented rooms without ever saying good-bye to her.

She hadn’t cared.

Ever since, she’d worked to hide her sin—and the temptation of lust. Had she in the process become a hypocrite? She’d wanted the comfort of Caire’s arms, but she was so wrapped up in her own demons that she hadn’t even thought about his feelings.

Caire was right. She’d used him. The thought made her squirm, made her want to lash out—blame Winter for his collapse, blame John for seducing her so long ago, blame Silence for her foolish bravery, blame Caire for his advances—blame, in fact, anyone but herself. She hated the knowledge that she was so base. He was right. She’d used him for sexual pleasure and hadn’t even the courage to acknowledge the fact to herself.

And somehow in the process of using him, she’d so hurt him that he believed she thought sex with him was degrading.

It was a temptation to make excuses for herself. But she fought down all her prevarication, her lies and evasions. She swore to herself two things: one, that she would save the home. And two, she would find a way somehow to heal the hurt she’d caused Lazarus. She’d find a way to open herself to him, even at the risk of hurting herself, because she owed him that. Because if she didn’t, she would never be able to get him back. Could she admit how she felt to him? She was no longer sure. The mere thought of expressing aloud her feelings made sweat start at the small of her back.

But there was something she knew she could do.