The Fighter and the Fallen Woman (10 page)

Chapter Ten

If it wouldn’t have been for the ocean blue of her eyes, a color as unique as she, King would have never guessed the haunted woman on his doorstep was the cool and composed beauty he knew.

The kohl she’d use to line those eyes had bled into tracks down her cheeks, tracks that competed with her tears. Her lips were quivering and the lower one was split, right in the middle of where it was swollen.

She was clasping her cloak shut like a child huddled into a blanket for warmth and King could only see a sliver of her crimson dress beneath. The cloak was rippling from the top down, and King knew she must be shaking something fierce to cause the fabric to shiver like that, but she wasn’t moving other than that, wasn’t saying a word.

Without saying anything himself, King slowly stepped aside and opened the door wide. He didn’t want to frighten her any more than she obviously had been. If it was somebody out there who had done this, she would have burst in, screamed for help. That she was frozen here, now, scared him more than any fight he had ever faced.

She still wasn’t moving. King gently held out his hand to her, palm up, and said softly, “Would you like to come in?”

She glanced at him, then down at his hand. Watching it, but not reaching out for it, she ignored his hand and stepped over the threshold and away from the door. King shut it slowly and threw the lock without looking away from her.

Lady’s shaking was becoming almost violent, and King reached out for her without even thinking. As he touched her arms, she dropped like somebody cut the strings holding her legs to her body. King tightened his grip, but being off-balance, he couldn’t do much more than fall with her and try to keep her from being hurt. As soon as they hit the floor, Lady let her head fall onto King’s shoulder and he felt her chest start convulsing.

She was almost silently crying, gasping for air with each sob. King wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her against his shoulder, her legs crumpled beneath her. He made shushing noises, murmuring how everything was going to be okay and other silly stuff he heard the girls say to each other when one of them had a crying spell. Those silly words did something to break her trance because Lady started crying in earnest, great wailing sobs that came from a deep pain.

As she rocked forward, she grabbed his arm and curled it under her chin. King shifted his other arm so he could gently stroke the back of her head, still making hushing noises. He looked down at her and saw that when she had grabbed his arm, she’d released the hold on her cloak. It split open as did her dress, ripped from neckline to halfway down the skirt, that obscene ruby the only thing she had on from neck to knees. He realized what had happened and did everything he could to not start shaking himself—in anger, in guilt and in the need for action.

King waited until the worst of her crying passed, the loud sobs soon giving way to shattered breaths. He continued to hold her, rocking her softly and crooning nonsense. When she finally stilled and her breathing evened out, King murmured, “I’ll be right back,” and slowly pulled his arms away.

Lady swayed a little but stayed upright, and as soon as King stood up, she looked at him. Where her eyes were dead before, now they looked alive again. Raw and hurt, but alive.

King barred the front door, the one leading to the main house, then emptied the simmering water into the tub and put another on to boil. He pulled the cloth out of the water, wrung it out and laid it over the thick lip of the tub. Then he went around the room and put out every candle, every flame, save the fire.

With those preparations done, he kneeled down in front of Lady and slipped his hands into hers. He watched her face, but she was looking at something not in this room. Slowly, he started to stand, pulling her with him.

She came meekly and as she was rising, King watched her blink slowly. For that second her eyes were closed, she seemed able to shut out everything that had happened, but when she opened them again, it was all there. A little more blurred, the pain a little more manageable, but still there.

Standing face-to-face, King held her hands at waist level and waited until Lady looked at him. The fear in those beautiful blue eyes hit him like a flurry of blows. With his eyes locked on hers, he released her hands. Slowly, gently, he slid his hands up her arms, lifted the cloak off her shoulders and dropped it to the floor. He put his hands back on her elbows and repeated the motion, slowly sliding his hands up until they found the ragged edge of her dress, barely holding on over her shoulders. Touching only the fabric, he started to pull it down, his hands going back the same way they’d come up. He watched for any sign on her face, any flicker in her eyes she didn’t want this, but there was none.

“I have a bath ready,” he said softly, wanting her to know what he was doing. She looked down and gave a quick, small nod.

He slid the dress into a bleeding circle on the floor, then kneeled in front of her, his eyes downcast, drawn to the white of her corset in the spill of fabric in front of him. It didn’t take somebody skilled with one to recognize the laces had been cut with a knife. He slid the shoes off her feet. The satin rosette was missing on the left one, another small yet wrenching detail of the evening.

King stood back up, quickly shifting his gaze from his feet straight up to her eyes. He reached up behind her neck and started to unfasten the necklace, but before he could, Lady reached up and ripped it off. Pearls and rubies dropped to the floor like hailstones and King let them fall. Her eyes now held a wash of peace along with the pain and something within him eased. Gently, he laid his hands on her shoulders, his fingers touching the straps of her fancy undergarment. That was also split down the middle, the fabric of each leg torn, exposing her most private part.

Taking the strip of linen between his thumb and two fingers, he slid off the last hint of her protection, the sheer garment falling on her dress like the last shovel of dirt on an open grave. Though he could see small details with his peripheral vision, he never looked anywhere other than her eyes.

Taking a step back and to his left, he held out his hand. She took it and he braced her as she stepped out of the circle of torn clothing. She stood, naked as the day she was born, and looked as royal as a goddess from Mount Olympus.

In one steady motion, King lifted her into his arms and Lady wrapped hers around his shoulders, and rested her head against him. King walked over to the tub and gently laid Lady in it. She made a small whimper and King started to pull away to get some colder water, some warmer water, anything to help, but Lady laid her hand on his arm and shook her head. She slowly let herself lean against the back of the tub, and sickness twisted his guts as he realized it wasn’t the temperature of the water causing her pain.

King rinsed the cloth and by the soft, flickering light of the fire, washed the evening off Lady. He washed her neck, her arms, her legs up to her knee, and counted every bruise, every scrape. He’d come out of fights less marked than this, and he had been able to fight back. Lady hadn’t.

He spread the cloth on the lip of the tub and poured in more simmering water until Lady murmured, “That’s good.” He set the kettle back on the hook and took a step backward.

“Take as long as you need. I’m going to find you something to wear, then wait in the other room until you call,” he said, looking at the bricks forming the hearth. In the small cupboard against the back wall, he pulled out his second-best shirt, the cheap wool a little bit rough, but clean. He spread it over the back of his chair with the towel he’d already had there, both warming in front of the fire, and retreated into his small kitchen to feel helpless.

At the end of the first scenario King played in his mind of what had happened, he heard some soft splashes, like Lady was moving around to some small degree. At the end of the second, he heard a hiss of pain. He’d made it enough to recognize it and it hurt more listening to it now than ever making it himself. At the end of the third and most grisly scenario, Lady called in a soft voice, “King?”

He jumped out of his chair but forced himself to walk calmly into the other room, picking up the shirt on his way. Lady stood in front of the fire, the towel held in front of her.

“I hope you don’t mind.” She held a corner of the cloth covering her with one hand. “It was...”

“I don’t mind.” King gathered the two sides of the shirt into a roll in his hands and lifted it over her head. Trying as hard as he could not to touch her, he unrolled it down her body, stopping when it ended at her knees.

Lady shifted and her left arm found its way through the sleeve. Using that hand to hold the cloth to her through the shirt, she shifted again and her right arm snaked through the other sleeve. She bent over and grabbed the edge of the towel, releasing it from against her body.

“I can take that.” He held out his hand. Lady handed him the towel and he laid it over the back of the chair to dry. He went to his bed and pulled the sheet and blanket back, then returned to Lady, and picked her up again. He carried her to the bed, laid her in the center and pulled the covers over her.

“Rest.” He was unable to make his voice more than a whisper. “I’ll be right here.” He moved his chair so he wasn’t blocking the warmth from the fire, and could also watch Lady from the corner of his eye. After a few minutes, he heard her getting comfortable and took his first full breath since she’d knocked on his door. It didn’t surprise him Lady was coming back after whatever had happened tonight. Like he’d told her yesterday, she was a survivor. But he’d also seen lesser things happen to stronger people and finally take them down. It wasn’t about being tougher or harder, it was about where your breaking point was. Obviously, Lady hadn’t reached hers yet and he’d never been so thankful for anything in his godforsaken life.

“King?” Lady was lying on her side facing him, both hands tucked under the pillow and held together as though in prayer. The firelight caused the fresh tears in her eyes to glitter stronger than what he imagined diamonds to look like.

He went over and sat on the edge of the bed, Lady rolling onto her back as he did. She held out her hand and he loosely clasped it, letting his fingers gently stroke the base of her thumb. After a moment, she grasped it tightly, as though they were ready to arm wrestle, and rolled to her other side, taking his hand with her.

King swung around so he was lying on top of the covers beside her, one arm bent beneath his head, the other in Lady’s grasp. He felt the tension slowly leave her body as the stress of the night finished bleeding into exhaustion.

Hours after the fire died down, King drifted into his own sleep, still holding Lady safe.

* * *

Lady woke up but kept her eyes closed. She was peaceful and warm and didn’t want to look at the outside world, let it intrude on this hazy, in-between state. She pulled her arm out from under the covers where the warm was a little too warm and felt two things: the first was a twinge of pain in her shoulder, and the second was a heavy arm across her waist.

She slowly opened her eyes. King, still sleeping, shared the pillow with her. It wasn’t a nightmare, then. She looked down and saw King’s bare chest, two scars creating a pale swath through the light covering of hair. One, lower and to the side, was three inches long and jagged. The second, just below his collarbone on his right side, was small and straight. She reached out to touch it but was stopped before she could.

“It’s from a knife,” King said, making her jump and pull her hand away. His voice was rough and scratchy from sleep, though when Lady looked back up, his eyes were clear as a full moon. “I was stabbed. The other one’s from a broken bottle.”

“He used a bottle.” She didn’t know what caused her to say it, her intention to never speak of last night, but she found she couldn’t let the horror of what happened stay hidden between them.

He said nothing, only held out his hand—palm up—between them. She took his hand and he laced his fingers with hers. It was the most solid she’d felt for months.

“At first, I thought he was just feeling the mood of the night and all, wanted his usual. Then he ripped my dress down the front and forced me onto a table, held my face down with one hand while he fucked me, said over and over again he’d give me a real man and I should be thankful and I was a worthless whore not good for anything else. When that was over, he tore off the rest of my dress, shoved me facedown on the bed and used a bottle to fuck me. It took me a minute or two to figure that out, but then he told me what he was doing, told me if I wanted my holes filled by something hard, he’d do it.”

The skin around King’s eyes tightened, his mouth doing the same for an instant, then relaxed again. He started stroking the length of her pinkie with his thumb. The dark place inside her started to get a little less so.

“When he was done with that, he pulled me by my hair over to the chair in the corner, where he sat and made me use my mouth, using his grip on my hair to direct me. He kept talking, but I don’t remember much of what he was saying. I just remember being so thankful that after he finished, he threw me to the floor and told me to clean myself up, that I wasn’t dead. By the time I got my dress wrapped around me, he was passed out on the bed. I found a cloak and ran, not knowing where I was going until I got here.”

They stayed like that for several long seconds, face-to-face. She tried to read King’s eyes, but she couldn’t. Eventually, she looked down at their clasped hands.

“How are you feeling?” Lady could tell by his tone that he was trying to be neutral.

She took some time to think about her body. Part by part, she focused on different areas and gauged the pain or lack of it. “I’ve got a funny taste in my mouth, but nothing is too badly hurt. I think I was really lucky.”

King nodded. He glanced down at the faded bruise on her arm she had gone to such trouble to cover up the night before. “It looks like that was touched up some.”

Lady looked at her upper arm, the sickly greens and yellows marked by new, round blue and purple marks. That must have been when Mr. Adams threw her on the bed, grabbing her and spinning her so quickly her arm felt like it was being pulled out of its socket.